A Baby’s Guide to The Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri

 

By Noah Garcia

 

In late antiquity, after Rome had conquered Egypt and had just decided that Christianity was much more rock-n-roll than their boring old pagan pantheon, anyone who was still stoked on the geezer gods were considered cringe.  Fortunately however, if you had a little bit of money and you knew a guy, you could probably find a priest (pagan or otherwise) cool enough to do magic for you and since culture in that area had become such a huge melting pot of Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc.  Everyone's gods were fair game!  So for a period of about 600-700 years ancient priests and magicians of many religions practiced and wrote down various rites and charms conflating numerous gods and goddesses.  Which were eventually dug up, cobbled together, and named The Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri (or PGM).  This collection of spells is incredibly fascinating for an abundance of reasons but one of the most fascinating to me is its willingness to mash gods together.  There are spells here combining The Roman Moon goddess Diana with the Greco-Roman magic titan Hekate, The Egyptian magic and scribal god Thoth with the Greek messenger and psychopomp Hermes (there is some historical precedent for this one but I digress), and The Egyptian Lord of The Underworld Osiris with straight-up Abrahamic Yahweh.  Eventually various rites from this collection went on to form the foundation of Western Occultism and Esotericism, those of you familiar with Thelema or The Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn may be familiar with The Bornless Ritual or as it was originally known The Headless Rite (or Stele of Jeu).  While incorporating PGM elements into their own system Crowley and Mathers mistranslated “Headless” into “Bornless” and modified it from being a form of self-exorcism to being a means to achieve Knowledge and Conversation with one’s Holy Guardian Angel, but that’s a whole other zany thing for a whole other time.  Scholars are still debating who the “Headless One” talked about in this rite is, but based on a few context clues within the text it seems to be that conflation of Osiris and Yahweh (and maybe the Egyptian god of the essence of magic itself Heka).  All in all, the PGM is some crazy stuff and I highly recommend diving into it’s history and content if you have any interest in occultism or magical practice throughout human history (Esoterica’s videos on the subject are primo as well as anything Jack Grayle has done involving it).  For now though, I leave you with a charm from the PGM calling on Diana/Hekate and The Bear of the North Star Ursa Minor.  The words that aren’t in english are called Barbarous words, they have never been able to be translated and are purported to be the secret names of various spirits and the gods/goddesses addressed, used to prove to them your kinship and familiarity.

 

The Bear Charm:

Face the north star and say:

 

Bear, Bear – You who rule the heavens and the whole world;

You who make the axis turn and control the whole cosmic system

By force and compulsion; I appeal to you, imploring and supplicating

That you may do this: (state what you want), because I call upon you

With your holy names, at which your deity rejoices; 

Names which you are not able to ignore: 

BRIMO 

REXIKHTHON 

CHIEF HUNTRESS 

BAUBO AUMOR AMOR AMOR

SHOOTER OF DEER, AMAMAMAR

UNIVERSAL QUEEN, QUEEN OF WISHES AMAMA

WELL-BEDDED, DARDANIAN, ALL SEEING, NIGHT-RUNNING, 

MAN-ATTACKER, MAN-SUBDUER, MAN-SUMMONER, MAN-CONQUEROR, 

LIKHRISSA, PHAESSA, O AERIAL ONE, O STRONG ONE, O SONG AND DANCE, 

GUARD, SPY, DELIGHT, DELICATE, PROTECTOR, ADAMANT, ADAMANTINE, 

O DAMNAMENIA, BREXERIKANDARA, MOST HIGH, TAURIAN, 

UNUTTERABLE, FIRE-BODIED, LIGHT-GIVING, 

SHARPLY-ARMED!

 

Do this task (state what you want)

 

(pro tip: saying this three times and leaving an offering of an egg with honey is supposed to be very beneficial)