This week I am highlighting my very favourite sort of pretend information story: the sort the place folks suppose a youngsters’s toy is main the wee ones into Devil’s clutches. The toys underneath scrutiny this time are Labubu dolls, these massively well-liked, sort-of-ugly collectible monster figures which have gone world, spreading lately like an opulent typhoid fever.
Why individuals are calling Labubu dolls evil
Individuals on TikTok, Fb, and Instagram are very critical concerning the demonic nature of Labubu dolls and they’re ringing the koo-koo alarm bells. “You could know what you are inviting in your house,” experiences TikToker The Spilled Tee, “[Labubu dolls] may very well be a modern-day vessel for a demon god worshipped 1000’s of years in the past, and I am not simply guessing about that.”
The demon god mentioned to be infecting Labubus is not your run-of-the-mill Beelzebub although. It is Pazuzu, a deity worshipped in Mesopotamia within the first millennium BCE—an actual demonology deep-cut.
“Pazuzu is called the ‘King of demons of the wind,” explains Lindsay Ivan on TikTok. “Demons prey on the younger,” she provides helpfully.
I can not say for certain that an historical Mesopotamian god is not preying on harmless youngsters by means of mass-produced plush-and-vinyl dolls, however the proof is…missing. Labubu dolls are based mostly on a personality from a 2015 storybook collection referred to as The Monsters by Kasing Lung, who says she was impressed by Northern European fairy tales, not Babylonian wind gods. Additionally, Labubu dolls do not really seem like Pazuzu idols—the pictures in posts like this are AI-generated and never based mostly on historical artifacts. Whereas it is true that Pazuzu was worshipped and feared because the king demon of the wind, he wasn’t an evil deity precisely, and he did not prey on youngsters; he protected them.
On the floor, the principle hyperlink between Labubu and Pazuzu appears to be that their names sound sort of comparable, however as a widely known demonology researchers and twelfth stage necromancer, I’ve uncovered one other surprising Labubu/Pazuzu connection that even TikTok’s evil-toy consultants have missed.
Simply who is Pazuzu?
Not like Labubu, Pazuzu was a ferocious trying demon with a dog-like face, bulging eyes, a scaly physique, and a snake-headed penis. Based on Nils P Heeße’s “Evil Towards Evil. The Demon Pazuzu,” Pazuzu figures have been extraordinarily well-liked in historical Mesopotamia, particularly in homes with youngsters. Archaeologists have dug up a ton of of them, and holes drilled by means of some imply they have been in all probability worn as charms. The designs are constant sufficient to counsel they have been mass produced.
So, a mass-produced, collectible, barely disturbing determine that folks with youngsters stored of their properties: Pazuzu dolls have been principally identical to Labubu dolls.
The nuanced morality of Mesopotamian demons
Pazuzu figures in all probability weren’t mere ornament; the demon had a job to do. Again in historical Mesopotamia, Lamashtu was the actual dangerous man. How dangerous? Nicely, the lion-headed goddess survived by ingesting the blood of infants. Right now, we might classify these unlucky youngsters as victims of “crib dying” or SIDS, however the Babylonians blamed it on Lamashtu. Pazuzu’s area was harmful winds, so he wasn’t a good man, however he wasn’t a baby-killer both. Pazuzu’s energy over winds meant that he may blow Lamashtu again to the underworld from whence she got here, so Pazuzu collectible figurines have been in all probability meant to guard the youngsters of the family by scaring off Lamashtu.
What do you suppose up to now?
Historical folks had subtle and nuanced relationships with demons, and there may be some ambiguity concerned of their use of Pazuzu idols. Babylonian folks have been primarily saying, “This dude blew down my home final 12 months, so I do not love the man, however this ugly statue is protecting Lamashtu from ingesting my kid’s blood, so we’re protecting it on the mantle, snake-headed penis and all. Pazuzu could also be an asshole, however he is our asshole.”
What grew to become of Pazuzu, anyway?
Time will get everybody ultimately, even gods. Believers in Pazuzu slowly forgot concerning the wind demon in favor of newer, cooler deities like Jehovah, Jesus, Allah, and Brian Wilson. The newborn-protecting idols, charms, and different ‘zuzu merch moldered in Mesopotamian attics, and Pazuzu slept the dreamless sleep of forgotten gods for 1000’s of years.
However within the early Nineteen Seventies, Pazuzu rose once more. In William Peter Blatty’s novel The Exorcist and the later film adaptation, Pazuzu possesses younger Regan and makes her vomit pea soup throughout that meddling priest. Fashionable Pazuzu is into inflicting human struggling and corrupting youth as a substitute of controlling wind or banishing baby-killers, however both means, what a comeback! Pazuzu got here again to life as a result of he had the one factor gods want: believers. First it was Nineteen Seventies movie-goers, and now it is cranks spreading ominous warnings on TikTok and Instagram.
The extra issues change, the extra they and so forth., and so forth.
In historical Mesopotamia, the demons that killed infants and blew down grain silos weren’t merely symbolic. They have been thought to be very actual, and they’d fuck you up in case you crossed them. They have been to not be trifled with or joked about. I can not assist however see a similarity between these historical pagans and the folks on TikTok making Labubu/Pazuzu movies: Each consider an evil entity referred to as Pazuzu is straight affecting their lives, even when they disagree on his motives (whereas a lot of the people on TikTok in all probability name themselves Christians, believing a god like Pazuzu really exist would possibly technically additionally make them pagans.)
Regardless of Judeo-Christian establishments’ long-running efforts to promote the concept that there is just one God (and that they’ve an unique cope with Him), it appears you simply cannot cease folks from believing in little demons that dwell in dolls. Folks faith simply will not die. I really suppose that is sort of stunning. Somewhat scary and perhaps bizarre, however stunning.
