I’ve been working on a ritual with a goal similar to gaining a divine assistant (a paredros – πάρεδρος in Greek) but instead of a paredros it is a goddess turning into an old serving woman, then turning into a goddess again, but somehow the old woman is still there as well and stays with the practitioner.
The ritual description itself is puzzling and it is the only ritual I am aware of indicating a kind of permanent (in opposite to the common “on call”) physical multi-presence of a higher power out of temple contexts.
The ritual comprises the application of six magic signs which are followed by a single word in the ritual instruction: saberra. This word has been interpreted as a vox magica or as a divine name. But Jan Bergmann published an unusual, unique hypothesis concerning this group of magic signs + saberra. It is one of the very few detailed attempts to interpret magic signs. His paper is written in French and it’s not available for free, so instead I’ll post a short quote from it and share a section of my chapter again with you:
Six magic signs have to be inscribed with the blood of a black dog on the skull of an ass. The skull has to rest on the ground and the practitioner has to place their left foot on top of the skull throughout the rite.
The iconography of the signs is diverse concerning their small number: Two signs display ring endings, two signs have geometrical shapes, and two signs consist of three strokes each. None of the signs resemble Greek letters.
The technical term used for the magic signs is charaktêres.
There has been an unusual attempt to interpret the magic signs by Jan Bergmann, published in 1984. He regards the single word saberra following the magic signs as the key to their decipherment. In his hypothesis he suggests that saberra is a construction based on the names of three Egyptian deities constituting a triad here: Anubis, Horus, and Re. This construction is to be understood as a representation of the idea of „Ra manifesting himself as – or in – Anubis as – or in – Horus“, illustrating a chronological sequence. Bergmann proposes that, based on this interpretation of saberra, the six magic signs here symbolize the six hours between midnight and morning, marking the solar development from Ra-Anubis (at midnight) to Ra-Horus (in the morning):
(…) La manifestation de Rê comme / en Horus laisse s´interpréter facilement comme son lever matinal. Harmachis, „Horus dans l´horizon“, ou Harpocrate, „Horus l`Enfant“, illustrent tous les deux le fait que le dieu Horus peut être compris comme une manifestation de Rê. Dans cette double perspective que nous présente le mot saberra – „Rê se manifeste comme / en Anubis comme / en Horus“ – on trouve une fonction possible aussi pour les caractères énigmatiques. Je propose d´y reconnaître des signes qui symbolisent les six heures qui lient minuit au matin et qui marquent ainsi le développement solaire de Rê-Anubis (à minuit) à Rê-Horus (au matin). (Jan Bergman, Nephthys découverte dans un papyrus magique, in: Mélanges Adolphe Gutbub (1984), 2, 3.)
There are various problems with Bergmanns‘ hypothesis:
a) The interpretation of saberra is far fetched, there are no parallels in the archaeological record, nor in the ritual manuals, and there is also no support for it from ancient literary or religious sources;
b) The performance of the ritual includes just a single, short invocation to call upon a goddess, and the described interaction with this goddess following the invocation is brief as well. The entire ritual would only take a few minutes. This is nowhere near the six hour period supposedly covered by the magic signs;
c) there is no ancient testimony indicating that magic signs were used as symbols for individual hours. The technical term charaktêres is used in the instruction which cleary indicates a divine or supernatural power of the signs.
d) cryptography is attested in multiple occasions in the Egyptian and Greek magical papyri but there is no known parallel to the method suggested by Bergmann.
But: Considering that the signs have to be inscribed on the skull, constituting a protective means for the practitioner during the ritual and the encounter with the goddess, the idea that the magic signs comprise or represent protective powers for each hour – a very Egyptian concept – seems plausible.
Additional research will be necessary to see if there is more evidence for Bergmann‘s hypothesis. This research will be introduced in the „Handbook of Ancient Magic Signs“.
Here is my translation of the parts of the ritual instruction concerning the magic signs:
(The) old serving woman of Apollônios of Tyana. Take a Typhon’s skull and write on it these magic signs with the blood of a black dog: (magic signs) saberra. Go to the place by a river, the sea, or at the fork of a road and at the middle of the night (νυκτός μέσης) place the skull of the ass on the ground, place it under your left foot, and utter the following: (…) The phylactery of the practice: the skull of the ass. (…)
And here is a copy of the magic signs, source: Papyrus London 125 (PGM XIa), British Library, London; Image: F. Kenyon, Greek Papyri in the British Museum. Catalogue with texts, I, London 1893, pl. 70.
