I am starting a new monthly live meetup during which we can discuss and reconstruct ritual instructions from the Greek and Egyptian magical papyri together. All of the instructions include the use of magic signs.
The instructions I’ll choose have one thing in common: They are enigmatic and include ambigious Greek terms which makes it difficult to interpret the texts clearly and to reconstruct the ritual.
This meetup is for everyone interested in the ancient rituals and in reconstructing their performance. At the beginning of the meetups I will introduce a new translation as well as the tricky Greek terms before we can tackle the texts together and see if we’ll figure out what the ancient author had in mind.
Starting last sunday in June, 7 pm CEST, free for Magic Signs Patrons, Thoth & Maat Patrons and Creator Patrons. Become a patron here: https://www.patreon.com/ancientmagic
The first meetup tackles a ritual instruction preserved in the Eighth Book of Moses which does not belong to the main ritual: PGM XIII, 1001-1054. The translation in Betz is imprecise in several instances and the Greek text is enigmatic concerning what exactly the practitioner does, that the invoked higher power is supposed to do, and how magic signs were understood.
I am utterly fascinated by this instruction because no matter how the individual Greek terms and actions are interpreted, this is a unique source about the creation and use of a single magic sign, which is rarely attested in Graeco-Egyptian magic. Magic signs commonly occur in groups – in ritual instructions as well as on artefacts from the archaeological record. Information concerning the individual power and function of a single magic sign is preserved in only a handful of cases, and PGM XIII, 1001-1054 is one of them. But there are currently a number of open questions and we are going to find out if we can answer them together.
