Things I've found interesting about the Greek Magical Papyri
I've been reading the Greek Magical Papyri, an extremely notable text for those interested in high magic without wanting to deal with the baggage associated with Christianized or Jewish high magic. (I am wearing a shirt that says "Ask Me About The Golden Dawn." Do it. I dare you.)
Anyways, here's what's most interesting to me as a beginner high magician:
The sheer amount of domination magic. About a quarter of this thing is true blue love spells. Luring a woman to you, etc.
How much syncratism exists in this grimoire. Now, the Greek Magical Papyri were written over a long period, from the late Hellenic period to late antiquity. You see a lot of Egyptian, Greek, Jewish, and even Roman and early Christian/Gnostic influence in this text. There's even more influence in here, but these are the majors. You flip through a copy of the PGM, and you'll immediately see this.
No seriously, it isn't a compilation of Egyptian spellwork, Greek spellwork, and Jewish spellwork, they all influence each other. Lots of spells show elements from all of the above!
It's not a traditional grimoire. This is more of a compilation, separated into two main parts: the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) and Demotic Magical Papyri (PDM). The PGM was obviously written in Greek, and the PDM was written in Demotic (a pre-Coptic script; Coptic used Greek letters, Demotic did not.) Even just the difference in language makes it obvious that this was not one person's magical text. As you read, it becomes even more obvious that these are by different authors.
The PGM is NOT an initiatory path. I'm not sure if people even care about this sort of thing anymore, but I think a lot of people coming into high magic spaces expect some guidance on where to go. The PGM will not provide you with that. It's basically a spellbook.
Ok, I lied to you, there are initatory rituals in here. But good luck doing them! One requires that you must abstain for 41 days, the completion of the abstinance falling on the new moon, have a house on ground level with a west facing door, with an altar of cypress, ten pinecones, two uninjured white roosters, two lamps filled with an eighth of a pint of oil, and the proper incense for your God.
The openness of translators admitting they aren't exactly sure what was meant in places. Really makes biblical translators feel like con artists even more, huh. There's absolutely some stuff missing from the PGM, but they did a fantastic job annotating!
