On the repeating of prayers, verses or charms backwards

Note: this text is extracted from Book XII, chapter 74

“... and he was on the point of plunging in, when Gaṅgā appeared to him from the middle of the flood. And pleased with his violent agitation, she said to him then and there: ‘Do not act rashly, my son! your friend is alive, and in a short time you shall be united with him. Now receive from me this charm, called “Forwards and Backwards.” If a man repeats it forwards, he will become invisible to his neighbour, but if he repeats it backwards, he will assume whatever shape he desires. Such is the force of this charm only seven syllables long, and by its help you shall become a king on this earth’”

For European methods of attaining invisibility see Brand’s Popular Antiquities, vol. i, p. 315; Bartsch, Sagen, Märchen und Gebráuche aus Meklenburg, vol. ii, pp. 29, 31; Kuhn, Westfälische Märchen, vol. i, p. 276; ii, p. 177. The virtues of the Tarnkappe are well known. In Europe great results are expected from reciting certain sacred formulae backwards. A somewhat similar belief appears to exist among the Buddhists. Milton’s “backward muttering of disserving charms” is perhaps hardly a case in point.

——This principle was well known in Ancient India from the Ṛgvidhāna, i, 15, 4-6. See also Caland, Altindisches Zauberritual, Amsterdam, 1900, p. 184. Crooke (1 op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 278-279) describes an interesting form of black magic among Mohammedans of Northern India. When the death of an enemy is desired, a doll is made from earth taken from a grave, and various sentences of the Qurān are read backwards over twenty-one small wooden pegs. The officiant is to repeat the spell three times over each peg, and is then to strike them so as to pierce various parts of the body of the image. See, further, Herklots’ Qānūn-i-Islām, p. 222 et seq.

The custom of repeating prayers or verses backwards has been noticed in English folk-lore. See, e.g., Henderson, Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, p. 32, and Gregor, Folk-Lore of North-east Scotland, p. 183. J. F. Bladé, Quatorze superstitions populaires de la Gascogne, Agen, 1883, p. 16 et seq., quotes a curious means of taking revenge among unscrupulous Gascon peasants. They find a wicked priest who will say the Mass of St Sécaire, which has to take place at midnight in an old and deserted church. One of the chief features of the ritual is that the mass has to be said backwards, and after all the rites are duly performed the victim will die gradually of an unexplained and puzzling malady.—n.m.p.