SUBLUNAR SPACE - pgm

Restless Liburnian Spirits

2020-08-21T21:00:00+02:00

On the Croatian island of Pag, four years ago today was my serpent dream that I often refer to as my "switch" event that broke my materialist mindset. Retrospectively I have to admit it already had started a bit before that, but nevertheless it is safe to say that this day played a central role in my magical coming of age.

In summary it was a nightmare turned lucid, a dream nested within a dream, with a fuzzy threshold to wake reality, out-of-body elements and most importantly it had a meaningful symbolic climax: I was shown a shield emblazoned with a vivid red serpent on fire, staring at me.

This serpent has haunted me for weeks and inspired many in-depth research rabbit holes into at that point rather unknown fields of occult knowledge. I started practicing kundalini yoga, meditation, got eventually hooked on the western esoteric traditions and especially their Helleno-Kemetic sources.

On this same day a year later I found myself standing on the highest mountain of the island of Pag, reciting my first Headless Rite, Greek hymns to Agathosdaimon and invoking the Four Kings and initiating myself from freshman armchair magician to fully operand sorcerer.

Fast forward yet another year, again on Pag, I obsessively hunted down the remains of an altar in honor of the local pagan serpentine goddess Heia, syncretized with the Roman goddess Bona Dea.

My job at a local electronic music festival reoccurred annually, so last year at the same time I was also on Pag. I celebrated my magical anniversary and revisited some of my favorite places, but most importantly I made real-life contact with a woman who used to work at the local archeological museum. I had already emailed her the year before, asking for help in my research on the altar.

I visited her in her garden and she was happy to give me a lot of hints what other interesting places to visit on the island. Unfortunately it was the second last day of my stay so I only managed to visit one of them: a newly discovered ruin of a church on a nearby hill.

After I had left Pag we stayed in touch and things got a bit weird. She turned out to be a spiritually minded, magically interested and quirky witch type lady with shadow people and ghost encounters and I felt comfortable enough to disclose my whole magical journey that was so intimately connected to this island. She seemed genuinely excited about it and had some very interesting things to say about the house I had had my serpent dream at three years before:

Several years ago the owner of the house, who runs a construction company, took a few fine stone ornaments from a wall next to the smaller church here in town. The entire square was an enormous basilica with water well, inside walls and so on. Behind the church a famous reliqary from the 4th century was found and some other precious and rare findings. On the right of the basilica there was a graveyard. Now, there were some wild building interventions around those walls and this guy took away some tombstones!! I remember wanting those stones here in our museum but he secretly took them away in the dark of the night and under protection of our local sheriff mayor so I couldn't do anything but alert the Conservation institute. But they also didn't do anything.

This blew my mind. The construction tycoon had stolen sacred stone ornaments from a graveyard and used them to decorate the house he rented out to tourists and in which I stayed every year. The same house I woke up in when I had my weird dream!

One of the main features of the local archeological museum is the entrance to an underground Roman acqueduct entirely carved in stone by hand and over 1 kilometer long with an average width of 60 centimeters. The lady had another story to share that stuck with me:

I used to close the museum and go into the aqueduct as far as I could. The air begins to get fouler the deeper you go inside. It was always interesting to go forward but getting back was kind of creepy. It alway felt as if a Roman cohort was breathing down my neck!

It inspired me to think that maybe the football-armored zombies from my dream might actually have been Roman soldiers misinterpreted by my subconscious.

Anyway, Pag is surely haunted. I am sad that due to the Corona restrictions my annually recurring job got cancelled for this year. This is the first in seven years I can't be there. It would have been nice to celebrate my magical anniversary and to catch up with my new friend and listen to some more of her stories. Coincidentally (or not) she wrote me this week inviting me and my family to come visit, but unfortunately that collides with our plans for this year.

So visiting an ancient and enchanted olive grove from antiquity and hearing the story about the local priest with stigmata who could bilocate will have to wait until some other day.

I will be back for sure. Maybe next year? Just the gods know.

Helleno-Kemetic Magic: Theoria

2019-12-09T20:30:00+01:00

Third of a series of articles about my careful attempt to recreate a generic framework of Helleno-Kemetic magic. For an introduction and overview check out this article

Version 1.1 - December 13, 2019

In this part I am recreating a technique of contemplative or ecstatic concentration based on commonalities between Jewish, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, and Sufi methods. On the way we will dive into Kemetic epistemology, vocalizations of baboons, personal experience, and the mysteries of the barbarous names and vowel strings found in Helleno-Kemetic magical papyri. Feel free to skip directly to the praxis part.

Theoria

θεωρῐ́ᾱ • (theōríā) f (genitive θεωρῐ́ᾱς); sight, spectacle, viewing; consideration, theory, speculation, contemplation

Encircling the Heart

Although the Anastasi Handbooks never explicitly mention practices like contemplation, or meditation, there is no doubt about the importance about such techniques in systems of magic, be it for reasons of concentration, getting rid of distracting thoughts and being able to focus the will to modulate the fabric of the cosmos and influence contingency towards a desired intention.

Nowadays meditation practices and mindfulness techniques are readily available, mostly devoid of their "spiritual baggage" and usually appropriated from Buddhist or Tantric traditions of Asia. The theosophical movements of the Victorian era have introduced these schools of meditation into Western traditions of spirituality and heavily influenced magical techniques. The overwhelming discourse about Eastern knowledge about such methods has almost led to an abandonment of similar Western traditions of contemplation and styles of meditation and focus.

Most Eastern forms of meditation popularized in the West are inspired by Buddhist traditions. These are actually deeply connected to their spiritual roots where practicing these techniques are supposed to bring the practicioner closer to realizing that there is no self that is ultimate and immortal, separate and individual¹. This metaphysical concept is in fact quite alien to the idea of an individualized spirit and soul that has been predominant in Europe and the Near East all the way back to the Helleno-Kemetic era.

The fundamental differences in approach of contemplative practice between the East and the West has been nicely described by Mouni Sadhu²:

Nowadays, when we speak about concentration and other occult practices, the Eastern tradition or Yoga often involuntarily comes to mind. [...] in Raja-Yoga the mind and its functions are put before another power in man which is often called 'the heart'. From the start we hear little about feelings and emotions apart from constant admonitions, that both must be dominated and removed from the field of consciousness of a Raja-yogi. This happens because of an assumption, that if the mind, as superior to the emotional counterpart in man, has been subdued, the lower one - also called the 'astral-body' - will automatically be controlled. [...]

As the Eastern occult schools treat concentration as a means of achievement for the highest goal, so the mind takes precedence over the heart. But in the Western spiritual tradition this is reversed. [...] in the Western countries the heart aspect predominates, and the mind's subordination follows later. This means, that it is recognized - not without good reason - that first must come the purification and strengthening of the seat of human emotions, which often creates so many difficulties for aspirants of spirituality. The seat of our moral law must first be balanced, and then order comes to dwell in the pure heart. It is then that the development of the mind's powers cannot be dangerous, either for their owners or for their surroundings.²

In Western mystical traditions altered states of consciousness and mental focus have traditionally been achieved through various prayer techniques that keep the mind busy and the heart pure until the desired exalted state of the soul has been reached.

In "Holy Daimon" Frater Acher stresses the importance of purification of our soul in magical practice when we go into such mind states:

When we go into isolation, we [...] deliberately create emptiness and openness within us. We make of ourselves an untouched space, an empty vessel that attracts the attention of all sorts of spiritual beings who would love to take up residence in it and fill it with their own waters. It offers shelter and food and richness to all the spiritual beings who cannot provide these things for themselves, who prey on carrion. And carrion is exactly what such energy is to them.

[...W]e must guard this empty vessel and ensure that we don’t get tricked and abused by other beings who would prey on our openness. This is why we seal this vacant space with joy.

The type of joy we mean is the most wonderful protective seal. Joy is the shield that shines like the sun. [...]

Once we have experienced real joy, we’ll see how vastly different it is from the other contemplative emotions experienced in seclusion [...]. Melancholia, nostalgia, and daydreaming are red carpets rolled out for beings who would take up residence in the vessel of our mind. For as long as we are attached to these emotional states, our vessel cannot be considered empty.¹⁶

Walking Backwards

Besides Jewish and early Christian spiritual traditions during Helleno-Roman times that transmitted plenty of material on "inhibitory" contemplative and "excitatory" prayer practices, there was also an equally strong Greek tradition of contemplation:

Empedocles who lived around 500 BC already wrote:

You must plunge beneath your crowded thoughts and calmly contemplate the higher realities with pure, focused attention. If you do this, a state of inspired serenity will remain with you throughout your life, shaping your character and benefiting you in so many ways. But if you direct your attention instead to the trivial things most people obsess about, the silly nonsense that dulls their minds, you’ll just acquire more objects which you’ll only lose anyway.

In "Phaidon" Plato mentions:

Without a doubt, then the soul is perfectly meditated when it is not disturbed by anything, neither by hearing, nor by sight, nor by any pain, nor by any delight, but is isolated as much as possible in itself by farewell the body, and when it avoids, as far as possible, every collaboration and every contact with it, it flows in reality. (Phaidon 65c-d)

Pagan traditions probably had different orally transmitted techniques to achieve "henosis" ("one-pointed awareness"), but written accounts only survived through the works of Iamblichus descriptions of "theurgy" and another one by Plotinus based on his "Enneads".

In order to attempt to reconstruct an analog Helleno-Kemetic system of attaining an altered state of "gnosis" let's assume that foundations for all the later developments on the Western traditions of meditation and contemplation have been laid during the syncretic era of Helleno-Roman Egypt.

Based on that assumption let's go back in time and take a look at several traditions that potentially emerged out of Alexandria and then try to find common ground.

Chariot Rides

Already present in Helleno-Kemetic times were ecstatic Jewish prayer techniques. The so-called Hekhalot literature and Merkhaba mysticism from the Talmudic era were centered on visions and prophecies, ascents to heavenly palaces, abilites of man to draw down divine powers to earth through ecstatic techniques of prayer, recital of hymns, as well as the theurgic use of secret names of God. After the Talmudic period these methods and others based around the Sefer Yetzirah, Bahir and Zorah were exclusively known and practiced in secret circles. During the Middle Ages They were rediscovered by kabbalah scholars like Abraham Abulafia, Isaac of Acco or Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla.

Let's take a look at the techniques outlined by Abraham Abulafia who developed a system of practical kabbalah that involved the mantra-like chanting of Hebrew syllables. In his late medieval work "Life of the World to Come" he describes one method as thus:

At the same hour that you prepare yourself to speak with your creator, be careful to empty your thoughts from all the vanities of this world and request Him to proclaim his courageous victories to you. And adorn yourself in a prayer shawl (Tallit) and put phylacteries (Tefillin) upon your head and arms if you can, so that you will be in awe and fear of the Shekhinah (the female aspect of God) who is present with you at that moment. [...] And this will be a witness that you come to work the work of God your Lord in happiness and an innocent heart.

And begin to combine letters, a few with many, and turn and revolve them speedily until your heart is warmed by their revolutions. And put your heart in their movement and what their revolution engenders. And when you feel in yourself that your heart has been warmed very much by the combinations and you understand from them new matters that you did not grasp from human transmission and did not know them from yourself by intellectual effort, then you are ready to receive the abundance (Shefa). [...] And after [...] prepare your mind and heart to understand in your thought the many things that will come to you from within the letters computed in your heart, and study all of them or their parts like a person who is told a parable, a riddle or a dream, or as one perusing a topic in a book of wisdom deeper than he can comprehend.¹⁷

The Hebrew syllables are usually chanted with prolonged vowels and in other methods developed by Abulafia, even with repetitive head movements in the shapes of the "nekudot", the "vowel points" that adorn the Hebrew consonants. The important kabbalist work "Zohar" refers to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet as " the body" and the vowel points as their "animating spirit."

Although this Jewish mantra technique was developed much later it is based on Jewish mysticism contemporary with the Helleno-Kemetic times. We can find some direct parallels to how the Hellenic and Kemetic philosophers conceptualized the seven Greek vowels:

Egyptian priests claimed Greek vowel sounds as the divine inheritance of Thoth, while Greeks turned the same vowel sounds into the visual insignia of cosmic forces.¹⁸

And the tones of the seven spheres, each of which by nature produces a particular sound, arc the sources of the nomenclature of the vowels. These are described as unpronounceable in themselves and in all their combinations by wise men since the tone in this context performs a role analogous to that of the monad in number, the point in geometry, and the letter in grammar. However, when they are combined with the materiality of the consonants just as soul is combined with body and harmony with strings—the one producing a creature, the other notes and melodies—they have potencies which are efficacious and perfective of divine things.¹⁹

Descent Into the Heart

In Eastern Christian Orthodoxy there is a very rich tradition of contemplative practice from the Byzantine Empire to the Middle Ages called "hesychasm" that has been documented mainly in a theological anthology called "Philokalia":

Try to enter your inner treasure-house and you will see the treasure-house of heaven. For both the one and the other are the same, and one and the same entrance reveals them both. The ladder leading to the kingdom is concealed within you, that is, in your soul. Wash yourself from sin and you will see the rungs of the ladder by which you can ascend thither. (St. Isaac of Syria, Philokalia)²⁰

Wisdom moved by the Spirit is, according to theologians, the power of mental, pure, angelic prayer; a sign of this is that during prayer the mind is free from forms, with no image either of itself or of anything else appearing even for an instant, since it is drawn away from the senses by the light acting within. For then the mind is removed from everything material and is like light, being ineffably merged with God into one spirit. (St. Gregory of Sinai, Philokalia)²¹

Let us take a look at a description of a late Byzantine technique of hesychasm:

For Jesus, God and Son of God, if constantly and diligently invoked by us, [...] does not let [the demons] present any kind of image in the mirror of our mind, nor to say a single word to the heart. If no kind of image finds its way into the heart, then, as we have said, it will also be empty of all thought. For it is through thoughts that the demons habitually hold secret converse with the soul and incite it to evil. Thus ceaseless prayer keeps our mental air free from the dark clouds and winds of the spirits of evil. And when the air of the heart is pure, there is nothing to prevent the Divine light of Jesus shining in it, as long as we are not puffed up by pride, vanity, conceit and a boastful showing off, and we do not strive towards the unattainable and are not therefore deprived of Christ's help. For Christ, being the image of humility, hates all those things. (Hesychius of Jerusalem, Philokalia)²²

Ceaseless prayer keeps the air of the heart pure. But what is the "air of the heart?" Another section in the "Philokalia" makes this clear. Here a lesson from Nicephorus:

You know, brother, how we breathe : we breathe the air in and out. On this is based the life of the body and on this depends its warmth. So, sitting down in your cell, collect your mind, lead it into the path of the breath along which the air enters in. Constrain it to enter the heart together with the inhaled air, and keep it there. Keep it there, but do not leave it silent and idle; instead give it the following prayer: "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me." Let this be its constant occupation, never to be abandoned. For this work, by keeping the mind free from dreaming, renders it unassailable to suggestions of the enemy and leads it to Divine desire and love. (Callistus & Ignatius, Philokalia)²³

Focus on breathing and lead the mind into the heart, ceaselessly keeping it busy with prayer to the Lord.

You must descend with your mind into your heart. At present your thoughts of God are in your head. And God Himself is, as it were, outside you, and so your prayer and other spiritual exercises remain exterior. Whilst you are still in your head, thoughts will…always be whirling about like snow in winter, or clouds of mosquitoes in the summer…. All our inner disorder is due to the dislocation of our powers, the mind and the heart each going its own way. The mind must come to an initial concord with the heart, growing eventually into a union of the mind with the heart. (St. Theophan)²⁴

The Coptic Connection

Although the Byzantine monastic traditions of hesychasm can be traced back to the Coptic desert fathers of very early Christianity in Egypt, the ascetic practice of sitting in silence was never part of Coptic tradition and has also not been adapted at later times. Repeating the Jesus Prayer and other short "arrow prayers" was already a developed technique in monastic circles. Another central feature of prayer in the Coptic Church is that the body is continuously involved in various actions during prayer to counter the dualistic separation of the praying soul and body. Besides simply praying while working and being engaged in other common human duties, also more formalized prayer techniques involving the body are essential in Coptic worship. Both mind and body participate in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ.

Standing facing the East is the most frequent prayer position. The person praying usually holds his or her hands outwards in the ‘orans‘ position, which is a common Christian position of prayer, frequently portrayed in ancient Christian art, including in Coptic iconography. [...] The second main position is bowing, of which there are two kinds: a quick bow, and a profound bow. [...] Two sorts of prostration, too, can be observed: one frequent, and the second reserved for adoration. In the frequent kind of prostration, the person begins by crossing himself. The person then holds both fists at a ninety degree angle to the body. Both thumbs are on the top of the fists, making the impression of the cross itself on the hands. The person then prostrates by kneeling down, and then moves the head down to touch the ground, while the knuckles and both thumbs touch the ground. [...] The second kind of prostration is liturgical and the person does not rise up immediately. This prostration is one of adoration. [...] In this way, standing, bowing, and prostrating for prayer transform the body into a medium to express the Lordship of Jesus²⁵.

Other unique aspects of Coptic orthodoxy are the preservation of their late pharaonic Demotic dialect as liturgic language and direct adaptation of ancient Egyptian ritual practices into a Christian framework that has been passed on until today. According to the Alexandrian philosopher Philo (1st century AD), the early Christians had borrowed Ancient Egyptian music and styles of chanting into their practice. Echoing the supplications of the ancients Copts still chant seasonal prayers asking God to bless the annual flood.

The Egyptian musicologist Ragheb Moftah worked to preserve, document and record the ancient ritual and liturgy of the Coptic (Egyptian) Orthodox Church. He said:

It should be remembered that the Copts are the direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians, who possessed a very ancient musical tradition, and from early times worshipped their gods with hymns and music and elaborate rites. [...] Demetrius of Phaleron, the librarian of the Library of Alexandria in 297 B.C., reports that the priests of Egypt used to praise their gods through the seven Greek vowels which they used to sing one after the other; and, in place of the flute or the harp, the utterance of these vowels produced a very agreeable sound. The music of many of the Coptic hymns is still entirely chanted on the one or other of these seven vowels. The text of certain long chants may consist of only one verse, or merely a single word like Alleluia.²⁶

Here is a quote by a Belgian composer and music critic describing the characteristic Coptic vocal extensions, repetitions of vowels and syllables and improvised embellishments:

We could provide many examples of it, but one will suffice; we take it from a Hymniary of the churches of the Orient. Here it is: Aga a a a a a aaté é é é é mara ky y y ri i i i i ou. The musical phrase placed on these words is very long: these repetitions of a a a a a, é é é é, y y i i i, which require for each one an articulation of the throat, produce a ridiculous effect. The Copts exaggerate this kind of monstrosity not only by repeating the vowels, but by repeating the first and second syllable of the word several times, and by starting this word again without having finished it, until at last they end it. It is in this way that they lengthen their chants to the excess: a few words are enough for their interminable sequences of sounds, and one can grasp the meaning only with extreme difficulty.²⁷

Here is a video example of the the Good Friday hymn 'Πεκ'θρονος' which is Coptic for 'Your Throne.' Its words are taken directly from Psalm 45:6: “Your Throne O God, is forever and ever.” In Coptic, this translates into a mere eight words (including a final "Alleluia"); and yet in most churches, the hymn takes more than twenty minutes to chant³. The hymn’s length is a result of way it hangs on each and every vowel. the music of the hymn was chanted by the Ancient Egyptians to express their grief for the dead separating from them, which is evident in the first half of the hymn. With this music also, they rejoiced that the deceased had bordered the Sun-Ship that would take the soul to the god Ra to grant it eternal life. The joyous music is evident in the second half of the hymn⁴.

Imam Tehuti

Let's take a brief look at Islamic mysticism. There is a controversy about the question whether 'Sufism' is a purely Islamic tradition or has been influenced by Christian monastic practices. The latter is quite likely⁵, but the influences might actually even be older.

A Sufi practice that seems very similar to hesychast prayer is that of Dhikr or Zikr (ذِكْر "reminding oneself"), devotional acts, in which short phrases or a variation on the name of god are repeatedly recited silently or aloud. Analysing the similarities and differences of Orthodox Hesychasm and Sufi Dhikr practices scholar Samira Awad Melki concludes:

The basic character of Hesychasm, like the basic identity of Sufism, points to the same way, is hindered by the same obstacles, and leads to the same intentions, regardless of the dogmatic differences. [...] The practice of the Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Christianity and Dhikr in Islam, as two methods of prayer that bring people closer to God, are similar in the method and means and they developed in mutual influence. Much of the language among the Hesychasts as among the Sufis is similar due to the contact between the two groups, and because of the similarity in the religious experience lived bv the Hesychasts and the Sufis.²⁸

An influencial early (9th century) master of Sufism was the Persian Muslim scholar Sahl al-Tustari (سهل شوشتری) who provided an important theoretical foundation for the Sufi exercise of Dhikr. Tustari himself was heavily influenced by ideas of the Sufi saint Dhū'l-Nūn Abū l-Fayḍ al-Miṣrī (ذو النون المصري) who is considered as the originator of the aspects of Sufi discourse concerning sainthood (awliyāʾ), spiritual states (aḥwāl) and the various stages a Sufi's soul must attain in its search for God (maqāmāt).⁶⁷ Al-Miṣrī was born in Upper Egypt in 796 and is said to have made some study of the scholastic disciplines of alchemy, medicine, Greek philosophy and the Kemetic hieroglyphs. It can be assumed that Al-Miṣrī was quite knowledgeable of Hermetic philosophy and older Kemetic traditions which he weaved into the early philosophies of Islamic Sufism.⁷

An especially powerful form of Dhikr is the Hadra (حضرة "presence"), an ecstatic group ritual that involves repetitive chanting and sometimes drumming, music and dance. Like Coptic practices the Hadra is a very embodied form of prayer. It is not practiced among all Sufi orders, but especially popular in North Africa, the Middle-East and Turkey.

It is said by the Sufis that at the beginning of the hadra, we do the dhikr, but in the second part Allah Himself does it and we are spiritually taken over—we are no more, we have been annihilated in Allah. Afterward, in the calm that follows such a vibrant storm, someone recites the Qur’an in the most gorgeously melodic way, which is like cool water from a mountain spring poured over us to flow throughout our limbs and consciousness. A person of some wisdom and experience (everyone usually knows who this is in any gathering) then gives a teaching, again not a scholarly discourse, but one that seems to have come on the wind, from the heart of the speaker as well as from all those present, filled with the wisdom of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his almost palpable presence among us, and all the teachers over the centuries that have proceeded from him.²⁹

Here is an entrancing video of such a performance:

Decolonizing Sophia

We can safely summarize that the methods of chanting or cycling vowels or words of power were paramount in all three, the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystical traditions of contemplative practices and likely influenced by earlier ones. The technical goal of all of the discussed methods was to descend one's mind into the heart.

Although the different techniques of attaining that goal were mostly developed much later, their underlying philosophies are entirely in line with ancient Kemetic concepts of the heart:

It was regarded as the spiritual centre of a person, the place where a person would come closest to his or her ka. [...] For, as the organ in the body most associated with the spiritual self, the heart was essentially pure. It was therefore considered necessary to protect the heart from corrupting influences or tendencies. We thus find admonitions to “conceal” or to “seal” the heart. This idea of the essential purity of the heart is linked to that of the heart as the source of a person’s being. [...] The heart, then, was a part of oneself that ultimately could not be identified with any of the desires, decisions, or actions that were out of tune with maat. The heart was the incorruptible core of a person, and thus detached enough from all that was mundane in them to stand as witness against them. [...] Horus ["mind"], to the ancient Egyptians, was the earthly image of Ra: the radiant source of light physically embodied. And the place where Horus came to reside in the initiate’s psychophysical organism was the heart.³⁰

Spell 30B from the Ancient Kemetic Book of the Dead is a petition to one's own heart:

My heart of my mother, my heart of my mother, my breast of my being, stand not against me as witness, oppose me not in the Council. Outweigh me not before the keeper of the balance. Thou art my spirit that is in my body, Khnum who makes sound my limbs. When thou goest forth to the goodly place prepared for us yonder, make not our name to stink to the courtiers who create mankind in (his) place, that it may be well for us and well for the Hearer and that the judge may be glad. Think not up lies (against me) beside the God in the presence of the great God the lord of the west. Behold, thy distinction as a triumphant one is (involved).³¹

Many of the theological concepts of the three Abrahamic religions seem to be deeply influenced by syncretic Hermetic and even Kemetic ideas. Sometimes the similarities are quite striking. For example the congruity of the Hermetic principle "as above, so below" with Sufi doctrine described by Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad aṣ-Ṣādiq (جَعْفَر ٱبْن مُحَمَّد ٱلصَّادِق):

Man is the microcosm, creation the macrocosm — the unity. All comes from One. By the joining of the power of contemplation all can be attained. This essence must be separated from the body first, then combined with the body. This is the Work. Start with yourself, end with all. Before man, beyond man, transformation.³²

But aside from the influences and similarities and prevalent romantization of alleged "Egyptian roots" of the Western mystical traditions I think it is essential to acknowledge that the Kemetic culture was actually quite alien to the cultures that have colonized Kemet and appropriated their wisdom. I don't mean mere cultural differences, but a radically different epistemology. Generally speaking Kemet was fundamentally Afrikan and it's citizens "worlded" with an Afrikan mindset. So did (and do) the Christianized and later Islamized communities that emerged out of the ancient empire's ruins.

Afrikan studies scholar Vernon J. Dixon termed the epistemology "affect-symbolic imagery" as opposed to the "object-measure cognition" prevalent in European cultures:

Affect refers to the feeling self, the emotive self engaged in experiencing phenomena holistically; in other words, putting one’s self into the experience and not separating one’s self from the totality of the phenomena. Symbolic imagery is the use of phenomena (words, gestures, tones, rhythms, objects, etc.) to convey meaning. In other words, one takes a single phenomenon and formulates alternative ways to conceptualize that phenomenon. As people engage themselves (mentally, physically, and emotionally) into the experience of symbolic imagery, they are personalizing their way of expressing meaning.

In contrast, the epistemological perspective from a Eurocentric cultural orientation is object-measure cognition. That is, European/European Americans know phenomena through counting and measuring. If a phenomenon cannot be counted and measured, then the phenomenon does not exist. The separation of self from the phenomenal world is the method of cognition that enables one to know reality. In sum, the phenomenon must be physically observable, tangible, and manipulable for one to know and experience it. ³³

Kemetic people were much more immersed in a holistically magical perception of reality than the more "left-brained" European and Middle Eastern colonizers. As Schwaller-de-Lubicz has pointed out⁸, they worlded with a suprarational mindset he called "symbolic" in contrast to the European "mentality of complexity."

Every action, no matter how mundane, was in some sense a cosmic corresponding act: plowing, sowing, reaping, brewing, playing games—all were viewed as earthly symbols for divine activities. [...] In Egypt, what we now call religion was so widely acknowledged that it did not even need a name because it is life itself, in all its aspects.³⁴

The endeavour of Hermetic philosophy is a perfect example of an attempt to translate an incompatible Kemetic epistemology into a recognizable way to the Hellenized mentality by systematizing moral teachings.

there are some differences between the Egyptian instructions and philosophical Hermetica. Egyptian wisdom is ethical, social and engaged with current life here and now. The Hermetica are individualistic, theological, reflective and invoke the inner, mystical initiation during life on Earth. They also show an influence from Dionysian and Orphic traditions. Moreover, Hermetism is ascetical and rejects matter and the world.³⁵

In a Hellenized and later Romanized Kemetic society the need for getting oneself into the right mindset for religious or magical practice probably became more and more important as the foreign mindset of "object-measure cognition" became more prevalent. The Helleno-Kemetic sages seemed very aware of the clash of their worldviews and still persisted in trying to find a common ground by not even attempting to translate magical or philosophical concepts from one into the other but entangling or superimposing them. One of these way was probably the use of barbarous words.

Here is a quote by Iamblichus :

For, since the gods have shown that the entire dialect of the sacred peoples such as the Assyrians and the Egyptians is appropriate for religious ceremonies, for this reason we must understand that our communication with the gods should be in an appropriate tongue. Also, such a mode of speech is the ﬁrst and the most ancient. But most importantly, since those who learned the very ﬁrst names of the gods merged them with their own familiar tongue and delivered them to us, as being proper and adapted to these things, forever we preserve here the unshakeable law of tradition.³⁶ (De Mysteriis VII, 4)

The excessive use of "barbarous names" and vowel strings in Helleno-Kemetic magical and theurgical practice almost seems to have been a technique of trying to shift the Hellenized mind to a more "symbolic" perspective, but also an attempt of the Kemetic priests to prevent their sacred language and it's inherent magical powers to be lost.

The Egyptian perception of the superiority of their language is a premise of their magical thought. [...] Translation of original texts was taboo. It was a way to corrupt their true meaning, and by replacing the original Egyptian sound, the effect of the magic would be lost. Translating a sacred text could also mean giving the enemy the efficacy of the ritual word, since the word was not a mere expression but also an act. [...] Egyptian thought had no formal separation between mental and magical operations. Therefore, by talking about the power of the sounds made by Egyptian words, the subject of this criticism is not the Greek language as a symbol of Greek/foreign culture. What is in debate here is the magic and creative power of what one expresses by words versus philosophy. Philosophy was not able to produce any kind of transcendental effect as it was restricted to the use of words for the intellectual interpretation of the meanings and context of what has been written. [...] The major problem in translating Egyptian thought into Greek words is the Greek separation of reason and emotion as two distinct and even antagonist categories.³⁵

To conclude this section, here is a quote illustrating the fated and difficult relationship between the Hellenes who had colonized the land of Kemet centuries after the Kemets had colonized the minds of the Hellenes:

the Egyptians were the first people to establish solemn assemblies, and processions, and services; the Greeks learnt all this from them. I hold this proved, because the Egyptian ceremonies are manifestly very ancient, and the Greek are of late origin³⁷. [...] Further, the Egyptians said they first used the appellations of twelve gods which the Greeks afterwards borrowed from them; and it was they who first assigned to the several gods their altars and images and temples, and first carved figures on stone. (Herodotus, Histories. Book II)³⁸

Weaving the Threads Together

Let's summarize the findings from all the rabbit holes we dove into in the sections above and use the insights for attempting to recover a Helleno-Kemetic system of concentration:

In Western systems of meditation the heart aspect predominates, and the mind's subordination follows.
Reconstructed Jewish techniques centered around syllable mantras that lead to states of "gnosis" and their focus on vowels matches Kemetic esoteric ideas.
Byzantine Hesychasm teaches us the descent into the heart through ceaseless repetitions of mindful prayer. The Eastern Orthodox concept of the heart is very much in line with ancient Kemetic beliefs.
Coptic practices show us ways to counter the dualistic separation of the praying soul and body by rejecting ascetism and embracing a more embodied form of prayer akin to older Kemetic temple traditions. Their chants also show quite probable prayer techniques of more ancient Kemetic origins.
Islamic Sufi practices show many overlaps to Christian techniques and in combination with musical elements also turn it into ecstatic group rituals. Earliest Sufi masters were influenced by Hermetic and Kemetic ideas.
There seem to be fundamentally different epistemologies between Afrikan and European peoples and their encounters and interactions with the divine that are reflected in the different practices.

As Within, So Without

The sensual experiences of actually performing spells from the Anastasi Handbooks raise the question to what extend the purpose of the voces magicae was evoking "external" powers or an "internal" meditative one to focus or entrance the mind - probably both ("as above, so below"). Aside of manifesting magical will in the shape of spells by means of one's voice out into the universe, vibrating barbarous names seems to noticeably open one's gates to an influx of daimōnic powers into the soul.

Putting Helleno-Kemetic spells into praxis, soon one is confronted with the question of how exactly to "vibrate" the barbarous words and vowel sequences. Simply reading them out loud feels a bit awkward at first, but when you start to "chant" them, they start to unfold quite some power - especially the vowels. Closing one's eyes while doing so reveals that the vowel sounds resonate in parts of the body and the sensations range from soothing and calming to entrancing. The seemingly nonsensical nature of the utterances really intensify the sense of a shift from the mundane human world to a more blurry, enchanted, daimōnic reality in which the building-blocks of the universe dissolve into warped fields of vibration and volatility.

Trance can be described as the deconstruction of ordinary perception as well as the habitus of quotidian interactional patterns and customary organization of time, all in order to empower the subject to experience the accustomed life-world in a more vital manner. In more political terms, [...] the ordinary frames of reference can be read as semihypnotic interpolation of social beliefs. In other words, we are speaking of a kind of power struggle between two forms of trance contesting the field of individual consciousness. [...] merging the horizons of religious theory, anthropology, hypnotic theory, and microsociology can provide a flexible yet clear working definition of shamanic experience: movement beyond habitual frames of reference, as a transformative process, culminating in return to these frames in pursuit of revitalization.³⁹

Here is a quote of a blog article by fellow mage Pentamegistos about his own practice of repeating vowel sequences in a mantra-like fashion:

Not only do they impel the mind to transcend any lust of result, they draw the attention of the force invoked, or perhaps, to echo Iamblichus, they elevate our souls such that they mirror the those very powers, allowing for direct communication or even systasis therewith. [...] Now, it goes without saying that mantric vibration is but one component of successful magic, but a cardinal one nonetheless. [...] I can provide countless examples of how this approach has transformed my magical life. The first time I achieved direct communication with a Deity was after vibrating its name continuously for over an hour, after which the veil finally opened so to speak.⁴⁰

Even more perceptible power can be added by intoning simple melodies on the vowel strings. There are various musical theories out there assigning each vowel a certain pitch. Joscelyn Godwin⁹ went into much depth of research and experimentation about the musical mysteries of the vowels, but concluded:

It is certainly an attractive idea, that the vowel-sequences encode a secret song. But if this is so, then it must be said that the Greeks nowhere else chose to notate their music in this clever and convenient way; and that even if this was an exception, it is very unlikely that any modern readings agree with ancient practice.⁹

Instead of the quite technical activity of matching pitches with vowels I found it much more aestetically pleasing and much more practical in a ritual context to improvise a melody. It works especially well with the type of melodies used in Coptic monastic chanting. It feels quite powerful. Let's return to "Holy Daimon" where Frater Acher talks about this forgotten power of singing as a magical practice:

Singing a statement of magical intent can grow to become one of the most powerful and immediate forms of magic open to us. Spirits love (or depending on the song and their nature, fear) listening to the voice of humans. The human voice, if used well, is capable of creating all-vibrating rays of power that can stir, sublimate, or separate spirit and substance. And most importantly, the physical human voice is something entirely out of the reach of spirits. The spoken word is the sword blade of the magician. It forms the bridge between the realm of the spirits and the realm of matter. It is itself a hybrid power, half born from flesh, half born from spirit. Singing—making our voice carry particular melodies and vibrations that express intent not only in the words spoken but also in the meaning of the melody—is a force not many beings or objects in creation can resist.¹⁶

Baboon Beatitude

While it is common magical practice to "vibrate" voces magicae monotonously or chant them in a liturgical sense, in some cases the Anastasi Handbooks are very explicit about the way the magical language is supposed to be uttered. This involves imitating sounds of animals, most prominently falcons or baboons.

In PGM IV, 1002-1006 after a vowel sequence "α εε ηηη ιιιι οοοοο υυυυυυ ωωωωωωω" the scribe noted "speak as a baboon," PGM V. 1-53 says to pronounce the letter Eta "like a baboon," in PGM XIII. 1-343 the name "Abrasax" is described as "baboonic" because his "name is hidden and unspeakable, it cannot be uttered by a human mouth." The same text also says "he who appears on the boat rising together with you is a clever baboon; he greets you in his own language."

The baboon on the boat is of course Tehuti (Thoth) the Kemetic Hermes, scribe of Phre, and most importantly demiurge who created the world from utterance. In "Philebus" Plato goes into detail about this role:

Some god or divine man, who in the Egyptian legend is said to have been Theuth, observing that the human voice was infinite, first distinguished in this infinity a certain number of vowels, and then other letters which had sound, but were not pure vowels; [...]; and observing that none of us could learn any one of them and not learn them all, and in consideration of this common bond which in a manner united them, he assigned to them all a single art, and this he called the art of grammar or letters.⁴¹

In a Ptolemaic liturgical funerary papyrus¹⁰ Tehuti explains himself:

I am Tehuti and I speak to you in the language of Phrē anew, for it was spoken to you even before my words were heard.

I am Tehuti, lord of divine speech, He who sets things in their proper place.

I render divine offerings to the Gods, invocation offerings to the Akhu.

I am Tehuti, He who grants Ma'at to the Ennead and all that comes from my mouth is made manifest, just as what issues from the mouth of Phrē.

I am he whom none can expel from heaven or earth, for I know what is hidden in the heavens, what is inaccessible on earth, hidden in the Nun.

I am the creator of heaven, I am he who formed the mountains, I am he who creates the stream by means of thought, who creates the arms of the river, and when I bring forth the flood, I fertilize the fields, giving life unto Gods and men. Hearken O Gods! Hear my words which are the words of Phrē himself.

Besides the role of manifestations of Tehuti, baboons were highly respected in Kemet. The grunting sounds of baboons sound very similar to human vowel sounds, as even scholars of acoustics have demonstrated¹¹. The shouting of vowels in combination with what appear as singing and dancing with raised forepaws, especially upon sunrise put them in high regard as "ideal and true performers of religion. A human being, even the pharaoh, was at best only an imitator of baboons".¹²

The vowel language of the baboons was considered secret and sacred and the original primordial language, so it makes sense to imitate their utterances as as closely as possible for magical efficacy. In the next sections let's take a closer look to the secret meaning of the "shudderful names" uttered in this original language.

Coefficient of Weirdness

I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name

I am the sign of writing and disclosure of difference⁴²

In "Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie", Franz Dornseiff pinpoints the beginning of the use of vowel variations to the end of the 19th Kemetic dynasty (around 1150 B.C.)¹³. He concludes that a probable reason for the vowel combinations was the magical practice of seeking a deity's "real name" beyond their given name that ususally does not come close to their true essence in a limited human alphabet and language¹⁴.

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 14:2)

Dornseiff also notes that one should not forget that not all magicians were pious idealists, some also made up gibberish on the fly, because they had paying customers¹⁴. While I agree with the notion that practicing magicians who served paying customers probably did add some more than necessary trickery and pomp to their public displays of magic, I don't think they took the effort of noting down long vowel sequences of spontaneously made up gibberish while at the same time noting a mere "do the usual" all over their handbooks. No, it seems more probable that the vowel sequences we can find in the PGM have an underlying logic to them.

Before discussing ideas for a possible logic of the vowel strings it is important to note that even if they would be "mere gibberish" the "nonsense" in their literal wording has potential to carry magical force especially through its weird daimōnic alien-ness. The language of man being twisted and distorted until the borders to the "other" dissolve:

But that written word is an alphabetical fantasia, and it is precisely here that magical language preserves the Platonic conundrum that living language, which cannot be captured by writing, is itself a kind of writing! By writing the name of God, the ultimate form of living discourse, in jumbles of letters that do not make sense, these texts show that it is really ordinary writing that is scrambled and confused, a mere imitation of another kind of inscription. Magical writing takes the form of ordinary writing by using its letters and so is faithful to it, but it betrays that writing by its nonsensical use of those letters and is thus faithful to the writing that is an invisible inscription on the soul. Yet it betrays the invisible inscription as well by writing it in actual letters! Magical language is thus thoroughly paradoxical, betraying and safeguarding with every vowel. It carries forward the Platonic sensibility in a radical way.⁴³

The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski coined the term "coefficient of weirdness" to describe the "nonsense" in magical language. Although he used it for his own research on the magic of the Trobriand islands of Papua-New Guinee, his insights have an immense value also for our area of enquiry:

A spell is believed to be a primeval text which somehow came into being side by side with animals and plants, with winds and waves, with human disease, human courage and human frailty. Why should such words be as the words of common speech? They are not uttered to carry ordinary information from man to man, or to give advice or an order. The natives might naturally expect all such words to be very mysterious and far removed from ordinary speech. And so they are to a large extent, but by no means completely. [... A] great deal of the vocabulary of magic, its grammar and its prosody, falls into line with the deeply ingrained belief that magical speech must be cast in another mould, because it is derived from other sources and produces different effects from ordinary speech [...] [A]ll magical verbiage shows a very considerable coefficient of weirdness, strangeness and unusualness. [...] The wording of magic is correlated with a very complicated dogmatic system, with theories about the primeval mystical power of words, about mythological influences, about the faint co-operation of ancestral spirits, and, much more important, about the sympathetic influence of animals, plants, natural forces and objects. [...] Since meaning is function within the context of situation and the situation of magic is different from that of everyday life, we might prima facie expect to find a magical language corresponding to this difference. Add to this the native belief that magic is prehuman in origin, that it existed underground before it emerged with the first ancestors and we should not be surprised if the magical formulae were composed of mere gibberish or nonsense words, concatenated according to a grammar of their own. If a word is believed to be effective, that is, to have a magical meaning, because it has had a different origin, a different history and a different place in language, then obviously its unusual, quaint character is well correlated with this belief. The mysterious and sacred words which are supposed to have a direct hold over reality need not conform to the rules of the grammar and word formations of ordinary speech.⁴⁴

Various authors of late antiquity argued that normal human language was not appropriate in addressing higher beings or gods:

Homer already knew that there was a specific language of the gods, and despite centuries of human prayer in normal human language, the idea of a special divine language never completely disappeared from human imagination. In later antiquity it was believed that demons or gods understood the sounds of the voces magicae, even if the human producers did not. In other words, now these terms did serve communication but a communication that could only be understood by one of the two partners in the communication.⁴⁵

In a similar fashion Iamblichus gave this statement:

It is essential, therefore, to remove all considerations of logic from the names of the gods, and to set aside the natural representations of the spoken word to the physical things that exist in nature. Thus, the symbolic character of divine similitude, which is intellectual and divine, has to be assumed in the names. And indeed, if it is unknowable to us, this very fact is its most sacred aspect: for it is too excellent to be divided into knowledge.³⁶

Sonorous Sigils

In contrast let's look at some hypotheses about the vowel strings actually representing encoded meaning or intent: In some spells of the PGM we find powerful voces magicae with a notation of the amount of letters they are composed of and at the end of the spell a vowel sequence with a matching amount of letters. For example in the "Stele That Is Useful for All Things" (PGM IV. 1167-1226) of the "Great Magical Papyrus of Paris":

I invoke your hundred-lettered name which extends from the sky to the depth of the earth; save me, for you are always ever rejoicing in saving those who are yours, αθηζε φωι ααα δαιαγθι θηοβις φιαθ θαμβραμι αβραωθ χθολχιλ θοε οελχωθ θιοωημχ χοομχ σαησι ισαχχοη ιερουθρα οοοοο αιωαι (100 letters). (PGM IV. 1210ff)

and further down we find:

ιαω αιη ιωη ωιη ωιη ιη αιωαι αι ουω αωη ηει ιεω ηυω αηι αω αωα αεηι υω ειη αηω ιευ αεη ιαια ιαω ευ αευ ιαη ει ααα ιιι ηηη ιω ιωη ιαω (100 letters), for a blessing (PGM IV. 1222ff)

In the "Eighth Book of Moses" we find multiple references to a great name:

So your name is great and marvellous. I am βιαθιαρ βαρβερβι σχιλατουρ βουφρουντωρμ (36 letters) (PGM XIII. 520ff)

and here too we find a vowel-heavy phrase at the end of the spell:

say to the earth once and to the moon once, to water once and to sky once ωαωη ωω εοηιαω ιιι ααω θη θου θη ααθω αθηρουω (36 letters) (PGM XIII. 644ff)

The vowel sequences seem to explicitly correspond to the barbarous names, like daimōnic synonyms with a higher "coefficient of weirdness", spoken in a more exalted and primordial language of the gods. While the syntax is interchangeable, their meaning remains intact because the number of letters match up.

Another even more powerful method of such magical correspondence was the use of Greek "isopsephy" or "gematria": adding the numerical values of the characters of a string of text and encoding meaning through the numerical total. Words become magically entangled with each other when two or more words have an equal numerical value.

The Anastasi Handbooks are filled with barbarous names whose power derives partially from their numerical total. The most famous example is the name "Abrasax" whom the Kemetic priests identified with their great sun god Phrē. Here is a quote by Saint Jerome about this correspondence:

Basilides called the omnipotent God by the more fantastic name Abrasax (Αβρασαξ), and that name he said contains, according to the Greek letters, the number of the course of the year in the circuit of the sun. The pagans under the same number by other letters call him "Meithras" (Μειθρασ) (In Amos 1.3.9-10)⁴⁶.

In a footnote of the "Stele of Jeu" (PGM V. 96-172) we find reference to "the great name" that totals to 9999: χαβραχ φνεσχηρ φιχρο φνυρω φωχω βωχ and a noted vowel sequence of the same value (αιη αιωι ηωιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευωαι εαι υο ιαω ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω). Additional magical meaning is added by making it 49 letters long, the square root of 7, the number of the divine vowels and of course the planets.

The Anastasi Handbooks contain enough hints pointing to an underlying logic behind the vowel sequences therein. They do not only make up a secret divine language in which the mage can call a daimōnic entity or deity more directly. Magical intent can also be possibly encoded into vowels by means of gematria or a matching number of letters.

This methodology lends itself to encoding magical intent in vowel sequences by means of number-matching and isopsephy, but also could be utilized analog to the famous sigil technique by Austin Osman Spare in which magical intent is encoded in a symbol:

Enshrine your desire in a short sentence; write out the sentence and then put down all the individual letters of which it is composed, omitting any repetition of a letter. When the sentence has been reduced to a minimum number of letters, unite them graphically in one composite glyph which does not suggest the nature of the desire. Then—and this is of great importance—forget the desire and sink the sigil in the subconsciousness.⁴⁷

Grant Morrison popularized a variation of Spare's method where all the vowels are removed before the omission of duplicate characters to just leave a string of consonants as a base for the sigil construction.

By reversing this very method, omitting all consonants and preserving the redundancy of all remaining characters you end up with a string of vowels suitable for being chanted as a kind of sonorous sigil.

Although it is not the same technique, chanting a sigil is loosely related to the method of "Mantric Sigils" described in works of Chaos Magic, especially in Frater V∴D∴'s "High Magic: Theory & Practice."¹⁵ Using the Greek alphabet with this method results in exactly the kind of vowel sequences we find so abundantly in the PGM and other magical texts of the Helleno-Kemetic era.

In Helios Unbound Nick Farrell also supports a similar idea about the nature of vowel sequences:

I suspect that the use of vowels by themselves in the Greek Magical Papyri and other magical texts might represent [a] form of magical reduction to create a chant of power. They could represent divine names or phrases that have been boiled down to their vowel essence to create a more potent magical effect.⁴⁸

Praxis

Drawing from all of the theoretical conclusions of all the sections above, here is my attempt of a reconstructed system of Helleno-Kemetic techniques of contemplation:

Creation of Sacred Space

based on PGM XIII. 822-834

Find a calm place where you feel undisturbed
Optionally put on a phylactery
Make it into a temporary sacred space by circumambulating it four times counterclockwise, saying "Hekas, hekas este bebeloi" while fumigating appropriate incense and/or sprinkling some natron
Enter the circle from the East, walk to the center, turn around facing East
Looking to the East, stretching out your right and left hand to the left, inhale deeply and for a full outbreath vibrate "A"
Turn and face North, while you turn, putting forward only your right fist, inhale deeply and for a full outbreath vibrate "E"
Turn and face West, extending both hands in front of you, inhale deeply and for a full outbreath vibrate "Ē"
Turn and face South, holding both hands on your stomach, inhale deeply and for a full outbreath vibrate "I"
Turn and face East again, bend over to the earth, touching the ends of your toes, inhale deeply and for a full outbreath vibrate "O"
Slowly come back up, look straight, focus on your center, having your hand on your heart, inhale deeply and for a full outbreath vibrate "Ü"
Look up into the sky, having both hands on your head, inhale deeply and for a full outbreath vibrate "Ō"

Instead of mechanically switching between the described postures try to do shift between them in one continuous flow of movement: when you are finished vibrating a vowel, try to smoothly transition to the next posture while turning. Try to let yourself be guided by the rhythm of your breath. (If you practice any form of Tai Chi you know what I mean.)

Grounding

Close your eyes, keep both feet shoulder-width apart and more or less parallel. Keep knees slightly bent and unlocked and try an overall completely relaxed and loose posture while keeping your spine erect. Hands should remain completely relaxed, with fingers slightly curled and palms hollowed. Keep your eyes half-open and unfocused. Breathe calmly.
Visualize yourself radiating peace and harmony into the sacred space around you.
Stay like this for a few minutes until you feel grounded and protected and ready to begin.

I prefer standing while praying, hence the grounding in an upright position. If you have problems standing or prefer to sit instead, you may of course do so. It also works sitting down.

Basic Chanting

Take the "orans" position: raise your hands up and outwards, palms facing up but relaxed, keep the elbows close to the sides of the body.
Breathe slowly, but naturally, without forcing a rhythm.
Collect your mind and observe your thoughts.
With every following inbreath lead your mind into the path of the breath along which the air entering in.
With every following outbreath vibrate the words through your whole body, give each word a full length of exhale.

Variations of Power

Have a sound of around 110Hz playing in the background and try to chant the words in a pitch resonant or in harmony with that sound. Nick Farrell has some sound examples of that techniques on his blog.
Try to sing the words by introducing improvized melodies to your chant, listen to Coptic liturgical chants for inspiration.
Try to make out a rhythm in your chant and start to slightly rock your spine.
Experiment with prostrating. When chanting IAO as an adoration for example, vibrate "I" standing up, then go down on your knees with the next inbreath and then vibrate "A", with the next inbreath bow down until your head touches the ground and vibrate "Ō". With the next inbreath raise your head back up, exhale, with the next inbreath get back up to your feet, exhale, inhale and start over.
Experiment with walking or turning in a counterclockwise circle while chanting. This works especially well with voces magicae that are palindromes.
Repeat the word over and over until it warms your heart. 100 times is better than 10 times.
Try the variant for uttering vowel strings is by imitating the grunting of baboons.

Words of Power

If your goal is a meditation to raise your magical mojo while purifying and descending your mind into your heart, here are some suggestions of mantras to chant using the methods described above.

Besides the Jesus Prayer also many other verses from the Bible could be used for contemplation and have also been popular as spells in magical workings and talismans. In the spells of the Anastasi Handbooks several such examples can also be found. Not only from the Bible but also Kemetic phrases of power or verse from Greek sacred texts. In his forthcoming work "Helios Unbound" Nick Farrell writes:

Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad were not just treated as beautifully written poems but sacred texts which explained how the universe worked. [...] The very sentences were holy and could be taken out of context and used to make a point, in the same way that Bible verses were. [...] Through-out the ancient world, we see these verses from the Iliad or [Odyssey] used for divination or the basis of spells. This use of Homeric verses pre-dates and suggests many of the same uses that modern magicians find for Psalms and Bible verses.⁴⁹

Here are some suggestions of powerful "grammata" for chanting

IAŌ
AEĒIOYO
Abrasax⁵⁰
Achebukrōm⁵¹
Bainchōōōch⁵²
Ablanathanalba⁵³
Aōth Abaōth Basym Isak Sabaōth⁵⁴
Biathiar Barberbi Skhilatour Bouphrountōrm⁵⁵
Aski kataski aasian endasian⁵⁶
Askion kataskion lix tetrax damnameneus aision⁵⁶

Here are the most used Christian Orthodox "arrow prayers":

Iesou⁵⁷
Amen
Maranatha⁵⁸
Kyrie eleison⁵⁹
Christe eleison⁶⁰
Kyrie Iesou Christe, Yie tou Theou, Eleison me ton/tin amartolon.⁶¹
Epshois Esos Pikhrestos, emshiri emifnouti, anok pe pi-ref-ernovi.⁶²

Here are some popular phrases used in Sufi Dhikr:

Allāh⁶³
Allāhu ʾakbar⁶⁴
Alhamdulillah⁶⁵
Lā ʾilāha ʾillā llah⁶⁶
Lā ḥawla wa-lā quwwata ʾillā bi-llāh⁶⁷

Analog to kabbalistic practice you can also experiment with syllables, combining all consonants of the alphabet with the seven Greek vowels:

Ba, Be, Bē, Bi, Bo, Bu, Bō,
Da, De, Dē, Di, Do, Du, Dō,
Fa, Fe, Fē, Fi, Fo, Fu, Fō,
...

Voces Magicae in Existing Spells

If you encounter barbarous names in spells like the ones found in the Anastasi Handbooks, or Coptic or Gnostic papyri, try to analyze the context they are used in.

If they are supposed to be secret names of gods within a longer recitation and the text gives no explicit hint about a melody or any way of speaking them, then the default way of vibrating them monotonously or with simple melodic embellishments is probably the way to go.
If they are listed at the end of a spell and/or are numerically or gematrically connected to some other barbarous words within that spell, they might have a more meditative or ecstatic function and should probably be intoned in a more powerful way than the rest of the spell. Try adding elements of embodiment, movement or singing to them and remain in a quiet and receptive state after you are finished reciting them.
If they are vowel strings, usually in company of other barbarous names, instead of merely vibrating, try to grunt them in a nonhuman baboonic way. It's a lot of fun and very powerful.

In future articles on Helleno-Kemetic Magic in which I will cite spells I will add my own interpretations for ways of reciting the barbarous names and vowel strings therein.

Barbarous Spellcrafting

If you want to create your own Helleno-Kemetic spells or rituals, here are some easy guidelines to make them powerful:

try to find barbarous names in the PGM that suit the deities or spirits you are planning to involve in your working
try to find sacred verses that match your intention or magical goal. Check Bible psalms, Homeric texts, Kemetic spells. Find the original Greek versions. Optionally reduce them to just vowels.
Add vowel strings to the end of the spell, matching them numerically or through gematria to your intent or barbarous names of the deities involved.
Create a sonorous sigil by writing down your magical intent and then crossing out all consonants and use the remaining vowel string as a chant. Optionally translate your intent into Greek first.

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Mikhail, Deacon Albair Gamal, Good Friday. The Heritage of the Coptic Orthodox Church. April 2, 2004 ↩
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Gadalla, Moustafa. Egyptian Mystics: Seekers of the Way. Tehuti Research Foundation, 2003. 25 ↩↩
de Lubicz, R. A. Schwaller. Symbol and the Symbolic: Ancient Egypt, Science, and the Evolution of Consciousness. Aware Journalism, 1981. ↩
Godwin, Joscelyn. The Mystery of the Seven Vowels: in Theory and Practice. Red Wheel/Weiser, 1991. 46 ↩↩
Papyrus New York 35.9.21, col. 28, 9-13 ↩
M.J. Owren et al. The Acoustic Features of Vowel-like Grunt Calls in Chacma Baboons (Papiocyncephalus Ursinus): Implications for Production Processes and Functions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101, 1997 ↩
H. Te Velde, Some Remarks on the Mysterious Language of Baboons. J.H. Kamstra et al. (eds.). Funerary Symbols and Religion. J.H. Kok. Kampen, 1988. 129-137 ↩
Dornseiff, Franz. Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie. BG Teubner, 1925. 52 ↩
Ibid. 54 ↩↩
Frater U∴D∴. High Magic: Theory & Practice. Llewellyn Publications, 2005. 161ff ↩
Frater Acher. Holy Daimon. Scarlet Imprint, 1980. Part 3, Chapter 3: Why Joy Matters ↩↩
Solomon, Avi. The Heart of Jewish Meditation: Abraham Abulafia’s Path of the Divine Names. 2013. 5-6 ↩
Frankfurter, David. The Magic of Writing and the Writing of Magic: the Power of the Word in Egyptian and Greek traditions." Helios 21.2, 1994. 189-221. ↩
Nicomachus of Gerasa, Harmonicum enchiridion. von Jan. Musici Scriptores Graeci. 276, 8ff. Translation: Stephen Gersh, From Iamblichus to Eriugena, 295. ↩
Kadloubovsky, E. & Palmer, G. E. H. Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart. Faber & Faber, London, 1951. 30 ↩
Ibid. 63 ↩
Ibid. 315 ↩
Ibid. 192 ↩
Coniaris, Anthony. Confronting and Controlling Thoughts: According to the Fathers of the Philokalia. Light & Life Publishing Company, 2004. 18 ↩
Dawood, Bishoy. Stand, Bow, Prostrate: The Prayerful Body of Coptic Christianity. The Clarion Review. December 8, 2013 ↩
Moftah, Laurence, & Croom, Philipp. Ragheb Moftah and Coptic Music. 2007 ↩
Fétis, François-Joseph, Chapitre Septième. Le Chant dans les églises de l'Afrique II. Le chant de l'église copte. - Son caractère. In Histoire générale de la Musique depuis les temps les plus anciens jusqu'a nos jours. Paris: Librairie de Firmin-Didot Frères, Fils et Cie, 1874, vol. 4, pp. 96-101. Music Division, Library of Congress. ↩
Melki, Samira. The Jesus Prayer and Dhikr: A Potential Contribution to Christian-Muslim Dialogue. In: Papademetriou, George C. Two Traditions, One Space: Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Dialogue. Somerset Hall Press, 2011. 194-199 ↩
Cornell, Vincent J. Voices of Islam: Voices of the spirit. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. 59 ↩
Naydler, Jeremy. Temple of the Cosmos: The ancient Egyptian Experience of the Sacred. Inner Traditions/Bear & Co, 1996. ↩
Allen, Thomas George. The Book of the Dead or Going Forth by Day. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization no. 37, 1974. 40 ↩
Shah, Idries. The Sufis. Octagon Press Ltd, 1999. 198 ↩
Moore, T. Owens. Revisited affect-symbolic imagery. Journal of Black psychology 22.4, 1996. 443-452; also see Carroll, Karanja K. Africana Studies and Research Methodology: Revisiting the Centrality of the Afrikan Worldview. Department of Black StudiesState University of New York, 2008 ↩
Gadalla, Moustafa. Egyptian Mystics: Seekers of the Way. Tehuti Research Foundation, 2003. 21 ↩
Gurgel Pereira, Ronaldo Guilherme. The Hermetic Logos: Reading the Corpus Hermeticum as a Reflection of Graeco-Egyptian Mentality. Diss. University of Basel, 2010 ↩↩
Clarke, Emma C., John Dillon, Jackson P. Hershbell (eds. and trans.). Iamblichus: De Mysteriis. Society of Biblical Lit. Atlanta, 2003. 297 ↩↩
Godley, Alfred Denis. Herodotus: with an English translation by AD Godley... in four volumes. William Heinemann, 1920. 279 ↩
Ibid. 345 ↩
Garb, Jonathan. Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah. University of Chicago Press, 2011. 23 ↩
Pentamegistus. Transcending Lust of Result: a Tested Method . October 03, 2018 ↩
Jowett, Benjamin. Plato. Philebus. Oxford University Press, American branch, 1892. ↩
Taussig H., Calaway J., Kotrosits M., Lillie C., Lasser J. (2010) The Thunder: Perfect Mind, Annotated Coptic Text and English Translation. In: The Thunder: Perfect Mind. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. 5 ↩
Miller, Patricia Cox. In Praise of Nonsense. Classical Mediterranean Spirituality, 1986. 490 ↩
Malinowski, Bronislaw. Coral Gardens and Their Magic: A Study of the Methods of Tilling the Soil and of Agricultural Rites in the Trobriand Islands. The language of magic and gardening. II. Psychology Press, 2001. 218 ↩
Mirecki, Paul, et al. Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World. Brill, 2001. 116 ↩
Ferguson, Everett. The Early Church at Work and Worship-Volume 2: Catechesis, Baptism, Eschatology, and Martyrdom. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014. 247 ↩
Grant, Kenneth. Austin Osman Spare: An Introduction to His Psycho-magical Philosophy. Carfax Monographs, Vol. IV, 1961 ↩
Farrell, Nick. Helios Unbound (Limited Edition). Self published on lulu.com. Forthcoming by Immanion Press, 2020 ↩
Farrell, Nick. Helios Unbound (Limited Edition). Self published on lulu.com, 2019. Forthcoming by Immanion Press, 2020; see also: Collins, D. (2008). The Magic of Homeric Verses. Classical Philology, 103(3), 211–236. ↩
sun god of the year, gematria value 365 ↩
secret name of Helios ↩
Egyptian "b3 n kkw" or "Ba of Darkness", an epithet of the primordial god ↩
popular palindrome, from Aramaic, meaning "Thou art our father" (אב לן את) ↩
taken from the Stele of Jeu, from Aramaic, meaning "Host, heavenly host, in the name of Isaac, heavenly host!" ↩
secret name from the 8th Book of Moses (36 letters) ↩
Ancient Greek magical formula ↩↩
Greek for "Jesus" ↩
from Aramaic, "our Lord comes" (מרנא תא) ↩
Greek for "Lord have mercy" ↩
Greek for "Christ have mercy" ↩
The mostly used "Jesus Prayer" in Hesychasm in Greek: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Use "ton" if you are male, "tin" if you are female. ↩
The Jesus Prayer ↩
الله is the Arabic word for God ↩
الله أَكْبَر means "God is greater" or "God is the greatest" ↩
الحمد لله means "All praise is due to God" ↩
لا إله إلا الله means "There is no god but Allah" ↩
لا حول ولاقوة إلا بالله means "There is no power or strength except with God." ↩

Helleno-Kemetic Magic: Phylakterion

2019-09-06T20:00:00+02:00

Second of a series of articles about my careful attempt to recreate a generic framework of Helleno-Kemetic magic. For an introduction and overview check out this article

Phylakterion

φῠλᾰκτήρῐον • (phulaktḗrion) n (genitive φῠλᾰκτηρῐ́ου); fortified, guarded outpost, garrison; safeguard, protection, amulet; phylactery

Coming Full Circle

Despite widespread claims that the circle of protection - a fundamental element of post-medieval Western Magic - has its origins in ancient Kemet, there is not really much evidence for it. In "Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic" Dr. Stephen Skinner hypothesized that the earliest form of the circle in ancient Kemet may have been inscribed upon the ground in the form of the ouroboros, the snake biting its own tail. To be honest, this claim seems nothing more than a poke in the dark. Instead, the roots of drawn protective circles are more likely to be found in ancient Mesopotamia (Zisurrû).

The sages of Kemet did not draw circles on the temple floors, but used the practice of ceremonial circumambulation for all kinds of purposes throughout the millennia. The Kemetic word pẖr means encircling but also enchanting or controlling.

Egyptian calls a particular type of circumambulation as 'search for Osiris' in which at the time of winter Solstice the image of a cow was carried seven times round the temple, giving the reason that the Sun in the winter arrives at the winter Solstice only after seven months and by observing this type of circumambulation they make the Sun favourable to them. [1]

In "The mechanics of ancient Egyptian magical practice" Robert Ritner writes:

Comparable rituals of circumambulation comprise both public, cultic ceremonies and private, "magical" ones. In particular, the royal coronation ritual included such a "procession about the desert" and a "circumambulation of the walls" to delimit the "sacred space" of the kingdom, [...] Cultic encirclement appears as well in the Ptolemaic ritual of "Protecting the House" of the sacred falcon venerated in Edfu, involving the surrounding of the temple by torches and the "bedchamber" of the god by tamarisk twigs. Nuances of encircling are elaborated within the accompanying recitation to include allusions to the coronation "encirclement as boundary," to the ouroboros "encirclement as protection," and to the simple "going around" as an enactment of free, unhindered movement. [2]

Magical Armor

What the data does show in abundance is the importance of protective phylactery in Helleno-Kemetic magic: wearable charms and amulets to ward off daimōnic influences. These usually involve the inscription of barbarous names of deities, various configurations of vowel sequences or palindromes, as well as magical symbols usually written with a bronze stylus onto hieratic papyrus or precious metals, such as gold, silver, tin, or lead - usually corresponding with the purpose of the phylactery and the daimōnes involved.

When creating papyrus phylacteries, I like to experiment. I fold them into little objects, enclose them in containers, even considered baking them into clay. One of my favourite protective amulets that has served me well is the hundred-lettered name of god (see below) inscribed onto a strip of tin foil, sprinkled with holy water, rolled up and stuck into a tiny glass bottle together with some Mugwort flowers.

Here is a selection of a few phylacteries that work well for the general purpose of protection:

The Greatest Name of God

I am he who has presented myself to you, and you have given me as a gift the knowledge of your most great name, of which the number is 9999 (PGM II. 127f)

There are two "great names" that according to Greek isopsephy add up to the value of 9999. [3] According to philologist Reinhold Merkelbach they were probably "greatest" in a practical mathematical sense: in a system of memorizing and calculating numbers well known throughout the 4th century Roman empire by means of finger counting: Computus digitorum. The three left fingers of the left hand were used for the units, the other two for the decimals. Thumb and index finger of the right hand for the hundreds and the three rightmost fingers for the thousands. So the largest number to be displayed with this method was 9999. [4]

The most commonly known of the two "great names" that is also present on numerous gems and in various misspelled variations in papyri of the Anastasi Handbooks is:

χαβραχ φνεσχηρ φιχρο φνυρω φωχω βωχ

The other one appears in PGM IV. 2430 and is attributed to a sage named Epaphroditus:

φρη ανωι φωρχω φυυυυ ρορψις οροχωωι

Write the formula on a new sheet of papyrus.

The Hundred-Lettered Name of God

Inscribe on a gold leaf:

αθηζε φωι ααα δαιαγθι θηοβις φιαθ θαμβραμι αβραωθ χθολχιλ θοε οελχωθ θιοωημχ χοομχ σαησι ισαχχοη ιερουθρα οοοοο αιωαι (PGM IV. 1214ff)

The Chief Name of Typhon

Onto a silver leaf inscribe this name of 100 letters with a bronze stylus, and wear it strung on a thong from the hide of an ass.

αχχωρ αχχωρ αχαχαχ πτουμι χαχχω χαραχωχ χαπτουμη χωραχαραχωχ απτουμι μηχωχαπτου χαραχπτου χαχχω χαραχω πτεναχωχευ (PGM IV. 239ff)

For a detailed discussion on this amulet, check Leonardo Drakon's archived post.

(phylactery by Leonardo Drakon)

Chnoumis Amulet

The scribe's artistic skills are questionable, but from the context it becomes clear that his squiggles are supposed to be a lion-headed ouroboros. Also the magical characteres he uses in the text do not match the drawing. According to philologist Raquel Martín Hernández the formula to be written into it is also flawed [5], because he apparently got confused with the two ιαεω bits and messed up the palindrome he intended to write:

κμηφις χφυρις ιαεω ιαω αεη ιαω οω αιων ιαεω βαφρενε μουνοθιλαρικριφι αευ εαιφιρκιρα λιθανυομενεερφαβωεαι. [5]

The formula to be written around the ouroboros has quite a lot of lacunae and is unfortunately lost. I freehandedly fixed it and it seems to work. It is important though that the words are to be written in a counter-clockwise manner.

Here is my artistic interpretation of the phylactery including the whole palindrome and all characteres and a photo of the latest version I drew on papyrus. It has served me well! Replace the first NN with your name and the second NN with the name of your mother.

Coptic Magic Squares

A 6th or 7th century Coptic phylactery that synchronicity threw into my lap has the cryptic name P.CyYBR inv. 1792. For a discussion of the original content of the papyrus, check this great article.

Use the SATOR and ALPHA-LEŌN magic square on papyrus. Optionally add the Coptic names of the Three Magi and/or the psalms below.

Σ Α Τ Ο Ρ
Α Ρ Ε Π Ο
Τ Ε Ν Ε Τ
Ο Π Ε Ρ Α
Ρ Ο Τ Α Σ

Α Λ Φ Α
Λ Ε Ω Ν
Φ Ω Ν Η
Α Ν Η Ρ

Μελχιωρ, Θαδδιας, Βαθηζωρα

(Melchiōr, Thaddias, Bathēzōra)

Λύχνος τοῖς ποσί μου ὁ νόμος σου καὶ φῶς ταῖς τρίβοις μου

(Psalm 118-105: Your word is the lamp of my feet, oh Lord, and the light of my way)

ἐπὶ ἀσπίδα καὶ βασιλίσκον ἐπιβήσῃ καὶ καταπατήσεις λέοντα καὶ δράκοντα

(Psalm 90-13Thou shalt tread on the asp and basilisk: and thou shalt trample on the lion and dragon)

Consecration

My go-to consecration ritual for all kinds of charms and phylactery is a shortened version of PGM XII. 201-69.

It first calls upon a multitude of fate related gods. The translation of this spell in the Betz anthology [8] is incomplete, Preisendanz interpreted them as the three stations of the sun [6], because of the transcription as ´γ ηλιοι ανοχ μανε βαυχυχ meaning "three suns" and three assumed voces magicae "Anoch, Mane, Baychych" being their magical names. Merkelbach & Totti follow this interpretation [7]. I don't think they are right though.

First of all, the word ανοχ is an often used voce magica and in Coptic means "I am" derived from Egyptian ink, the word μανε could be a Greek transcription from Egyptian mnw mostly meaning "monument" or "image of", and βαυχυχ like the more commonly used βαινχωωωχ equals the Egyptian phrase b3 n kkw or "Ba of Darkness", an epithet of the primordial god. So the whole string of voces magicae could simply mean "I am an image of the Ba of Darkness".

Second, the wording of the invocation of the gods rather suits the Decans than the solar stations. They are called as assistants for the consecration.

In the next step the mage self-identifies as a number of divine Kemetic forces to compell the Decans to help and then calls upon the great god to consecrate the object.

Preparing the Altar

Making a pit in a holy place open to the sky, or if you have none in a clean, sanctified tomb looking toward the east, and making over the pit an altar of wood from fruit trees, [...] burn all sorts of incense. Then, standing by the pit, look to the east and, pouring on a libation of wine, honey, milk, and saffron, and holding over the smoke, while you pray, the [object to be consecrated], say:

Calling the Decans

I invoke and beseech the consecration
O gods of the heavens,
O gods under the earth,
O gods in the middle place, circling the three suns,
Anoch Mane Baykhukh,
who come forth from the womb day by day.
O masters of all the living and the dead,
O heedful in many necessities of gods and men.
O concealers of things now seen,
O directors of the Nemeseis who spend every hour with you,
O senders of Fate who travels around the whole world,
O commanders of the rulers,
O exalters of the abased,
O revealers of the hidden,
O guides of the winds,
O arousers of the waves,
O bringers of fire,
O creators and benefactors of every race,
O nourishers of every race,
O lords and controllers of kings, come, benevolent, for the purpose which I call you for, as benevolent assistants in this rite for my benefit.

I am a plant named Baïs;
I am an outflow of blood from the tomb of the great One between the palm trees;
I am the Pistis found in men, and am he who declares the holy names, who is always alike, who came forth from the abyss.
I am Sokrates who came forth from the eye of the sun.
I am the god whom no one sees or rashly names.
I am the sacred bird, Phoinix.
I am Krates the holy, called Marmarauōth.
I am Helios who showed forth light.
I am Aphrodite called Typhi.
I am the holy sender of winds.
I am Kronos who showed forth light.
I am Mother of gods, called Heaven.
I am Osiris, called water.
I am Isis, called dew.
I am Ēsenephys, called spring.
I am the image resembling the true images.
I am Souchos who appears as a crocodile.
Therefore, I beseech you, come as my helpers, for I am about to call on the hidden and ineffable name, the forefather of gods, overseer and lord of all.

Calling the Lord

Come to me, you from the four winds, god, ruler of all, who have breathed spirits into men for life, master of the good things in the world. Hear me, lord, whose hidden name is ineffable. The daimōnes, hearing it, are terrified — the name Barbareich Arsemphemphrōth — and from hearing it the sun, the earth, roll over; Hades, hearing it, is shaken; rivers, sea, lakes, springs, hearing it, are frozen; rocks, hearing it, are split. Heaven is your head; ether, body; earth, feet; and the water around you, ocean, O Agathos Daimōn. You are lord, the begetter and nourisher and increaser of all. [...]

By your power the elements exist and all things come into being, the route of sun and moon, of night and dawn—all things in air and earth and water and the breath of fire. Yours is the eternal processional way of heaven, in which your seven-lettered name is established for the harmony of the seven sounds of the planets which utter their voices according to the 28 forms of the moon. Yours are the beneficent effluxes of the stars, daimōnes and fortunes and fates. [...] Hear me and complete for me this operation so that I may wear this power in every place, in every time, without being smitten or afflicted, so as to be preserved intact from every danger while I wear this power. Yea, lord, for to you, the god in heaven, all things are subject, and none of the daimōnes or spirits will oppose me because I have called on your great name for the consecration.

And again I call upon you,
according to Egyptians, Phnōeai Iabōk;
according to Jews, Adōnaie Sabaōth;
according to Greeks, Pantōn Mōnarchos Basileus;
according to the high priests, "hidden, invisible, overseer of all";
according to Parthians, Ouertō, master of all.
Consecrate and empower this object for me, for the entire and glorious time of my life.

(based on the PGM XII. 201-69 translation by Morton Smith [8] edited with information found in [7] and [9] and consultations with Λαζαρίδης from the foot of mount Olympos)

Sources

Sudhi, Padma. "An Encyclopaedic Study on Circumambulation." Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 65.1/4 (1984): 205-226.
Ritner, Robert Kriech. The mechanics of ancient Egyptian magical practice. Chicago: Oriental institute of the University of Chicago, 1993.
Fideler, David. Jesus Christ, sun of God: ancient cosmology and early Christian symbolism. Quest Books, 1993.
Merkelbach, Reinhold "Die Zahl 9999 in der Magie und der Computus digitorum." Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (1986): 305-308.
Hernández, Raquel Martìn. Reading magical drawings in the Greek Magical Papyri. na, 2010.
Preisendanz, Karl, and Albert Henrichs, eds. Papyri graecae magicae. Die griechischen Zauberpapyri. Vol. 2. Walter de Gruyter, 2001.
Merkelbach, Reinhold. Abrasax: Ausgewählte Papyri Religiösen und Magischen Inhalts: Gebete. Springer-Verlag, 2013.
Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. The Greek magical papyri in translation, including the Demotic spells. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Daniel, Robert W. Daniel Robert W. Two Greek Magical Papyri in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden: A Photographic Edition of J 384 and 395 (= PGM XII and XIII). Vol. 19. Springer-Verlag, 2013.

Helleno-Kemetic Magic: Katharsis

2019-08-13T19:19:00+02:00

First of a series of articles about my careful attempt to recreate a generic framework of Helleno-Kemetic magic. For an introduction and overview check out this article

Katharsis

κᾰ́θᾰρσῐς • (kátharsis) f (genitive κᾰθᾰ́ρσεως); cleansing, purification (in a moral/spiritual sense)

These you are going to make completely [near] the lamp, robed and refraining from all unclean things and from all eating of fish and from all sexual intercourse, so that you may bring the god into the greatest desire toward you. (PGM I. 289-292)

It's Mages who do the "Science and Art of influencing change to occur in conformity with Will" [1] as opposed to everyday people, right? The first step out of the profane starts with purification. This achievement obviously has different qualitative levels that one can unlock and they involve:

physical hygiene
ritual baths
perfumes
anointing oils
abstinence from sex
abstinence from consumption of meat or other types of "unclean" food
white and purified ritual attire

The rule of thumb is: The more you can add the better. My absolute minimum of purification is doing a ritualized quick wash and using anointing oil.

This is required to set yourself apart from the other humans in order for yourself to feel sufficiently "privileged" to do the sorcerous work and for daimōnes to pay attention to you. If your operation involves an attempt to make a daimōn manifest physically, according to magically operand scholars who have successfully achieved this type of work this is even more important than for other operations.

But let's be realistic: life always gets in the way! Not only for us but probably also for Mediterranean mages living the exciting urban life in the hip metropolises. So when celibacy is a challenge or showers are not always spontaneously available it's best to have methods handy that do work even in acute needs of magic: spells!

Purification does not primarily involve the physical body, but more importantly the soul. Traditions of outer and inner purification were present in Kemetic, Hellenic, and Jewish cultures.

Although he lived much later than the era of magic discussed here, I want to quote the medieval Moroccan kabbalist Avraham ben Eli'ezer Ha-Levi, because he described beautifully what I am talking about in a work called "Maʾamar Ha-Yihud":

If a person merits aligning all his limbs with the supernal world and purifying and sanctifying them, and making every joint of his limbs a chair and dwelling place for the joints of the supreme Chariot, he will draw the light from the joints of the supernal Chariot to the lower Chariot and the human body will be a holy Temple [...] the person becomes sapphiric as his organs, internal, and external, are a chair and dwelling place for the supernal entities ... and then the influx and lights will descend and he will move in them ... such a person is called a holy man of God. [2]

Imagine your goal to "become sapphiric" and you will intuitively know what to do. When I do magical operations I usually follow my intuition about what level of katharsis to aim for in relation to the operation and its goal. So let's get to praxis:

Apotheosis of the Elemental Body

A famous and widely discussed text from the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris is PGM IV.475-834, mostly known under the misnomer "Mithras Liturgy". Academy has interpreted it as an initiatory ritual to gain "immortality", the permanent transformation of the status of the ritualist, whether into the formal status of a priest or as an initiate of some kind of mystery cult. Yet the text specifically mentions "immortalization" procedures that last only a day and that can be undertaken up to three times a year. Doesn't sound like a permanent initiation, does it? Thankfully, a scholar named Radcliffe G. Edmonds III came to the same conclusion and debunked the common misconception of this ritual [2]. He writes:

This text is better understood, not as an initiation ritual that brings the performer to a new status, but rather as a ritual that temporarily purifies him for a brief meeting with a god. [...] Such rituals of purification or sanctification are common in the religions of the Graeco-Roman world, and they range in complexity from simple lustrations to elaborate practices of abstinence and purification. The greater the sanctity and the more significant the contact between mortal worshipper and the divine, the more complex the ritual must be, but scholars have often failed to see some of these most elaborate rituals of sanctification as part of the same spectrum of purification rituals, classifying them instead with initiation rituals. [3]

The ritual is quite lengthy and for most magical purposes we don't really need to shake hands with Mithras-Helios and gain immortality. It is sufficient enough to purify our meatsuit by means of invocation in a way the Neteru and daimōnes we want to interact with won't be too appalled by our appearance. Alchemically our body is made up of the four elements fire, air, water, and earth. How these elements and our physical body are interconnected with our soul is beautifully explained in a conversation between Horus and his mother Isis in one of the Hermetic Stobaeus fragments:

"What is our body's composition, mother?" Horus asked. Isis: "It is the assembly and blend of the four elements. From this blend and assembly, a vapor is exuded. This vapor wraps itself round the soul and runs through the body. To both – I mean body and soul – it bestows its own quality. In this way, arise the different variations that occur in souls and bodies. [4]

For the purpose of purifying our body on an alchemical level, the first part of the Mithras Liturgy suffices:

The magician must first replace all of the mortal elements of his (or her) body, leaving behind the perishable nature of mortals in the corruptible mortal realm. The magician invokes the archai, the primal elements or originary nature, of his being, going through air (pneuma), fire, water, and earth. [...] Each of these mortal elements must be replaced with immortal elements – immortal water, immortal fire, immortal spirit. [3]

There are various translations of the "Mithras Liturgy" out there. I prefer the version by the controversial "UR Group" around Julius Evola, because it puts an emphasis on practical application rather than precise translation:

First origin of my origin, AEĒIOYO; Beginning of my beginning, PPP OOO PhR; Spirit of the spirit, of the first breath in me, M M M;

Fire, that God has given in the mixture of the mixtures in me, first fire in the fire of me ĒYĒIAEĒ; Water of the water in me, first Water of the water in me, O O O A A A E E E;

First earthly essence of the earthly essence in me, YĒYŌĒ; Perfect Body of me—born of N. (name) of N. (mother)—that the honored Arm and incorruptible Right Hand have formed in the dark and transparent world, inanimate body that was animated, YĒI AYI EYŌIE!

If you deem it right, though I am still held back by my inferior nature, allow me to attain the Immortal Birth, so that, having overcome the incessant need that holds me in its terrible grip, I may contemplate the immortal Principle

through the immortal Breath ANChREPhrēNESYPhIRINCh, through immortal Water ERONOYIPARAKOYNETh, through the Earth and the Air EIOAĒPSENABŌTh;

so that I may be reborn to the intelligence KRAOCHAXRO; so that I may give to myself a new beginning and breathe in me the Holy Breath, NECHTHEN APO TOY NECHTHINARPIĒTH; so that I may contemplate the abyss of the East, the horrible Water, NYŌ THEGŌ ECHŌ OYOCHIECHŌA and the vivifying Ether spread all around me may hear me, ARNOMÈTHPH,

[...]

This is what I, N. (name), born of N. (mother), want according to the unshakable order of God, EYĒYIAEĒIAŌEIANIYAIIEŌ.

[S]ince it would not be possible for me, a mere mortal, to rise together with the golden effulgence of immortal splendor, I command to you ŌĒY AEŌ ĒYA EŌĒ YAE ŌIAE. Be still, O mortal nature destined to perish, and allow me to go beyond the inexorable, hard-pressing need. For I am the Son, I breathe MOYOPROCHŌ PRŌA, I am MOY PRŌPSYCHON PRŌE, I am! [5]

Exorcism of Restraining Daimōnes

An additional method of purification that also exorcises spirits attached to your subtle body that restrain you and hold you back from your full potential (sounds almost like a Scientology ad, right?) is the good old "Stele of Jeu" aka. "The Headless Rite" and in particular the exorcism part that comes before the divine ascent. Here is a shortened version suited for our needs of purification:

I summon you, Headless One, who created earth and heaven, who created night and day, you who created light and darkness. You are OSOR-ONNŌPHRIS whom none has ever seen. You are IABAS! You are IAPŌS! You have distinguished the just and the unjust. You have made female and male. You have revealed seed and fruits. You have made men love each other and hate each other. I am Moses your prophet to whom you have transmitted your mysteries celebrated by Israel. You have revealed the moist and the dry and all nourishment. Hear me!

I am the messenger of Pharaoh OSOR-ONNŌPHRIS. This is your true name which has been handed down to the prophets of Israel. Hear me! ARBATHIAŌ REIBET ATHELEBERSĒTH ARA BLATHA ALBEU EBENPHCHI CHITASGOĒ IB AŌTH IAŌ Hearken to me and turn back this daimōn!

I call upon you, terrible and unseen god, dwelling in empty space: AROGOGOROBRAŌ SOCHU MODORIŌ PHALARCHAŌ OOO

Holy Headless One! Deliver me, NN., from the daimōnes that restrain me: RUBRIAŌ MARI ŌDAM BAABNA BAŌTH ASS ADŌNAI APHNIAŌ ITHŌLĒTH ABRASAX AĒOŌY

Strong Headless One! Deliver me, NN., from the daimōnes that restrain me: MA BARRAIŌ IOĒL KOTHA ATHORĒBALŌ ABRAŌTH

Deliver me, NN.: AŌTH ABAŌTH BASYM ISAK SABAŌTH IAŌ

For more commentary and interpretation of this specific spell check out my other posts on the topic.

I will get into the topic of pronunciation and usage of the barbarous names and vowel sequences in a later post. Stay tuned.

Bibliography

Jason Miller's modification of Aleister Crowley's famous definition of magic. Published in his book "Elements of Spellcrafting"
"Ma'amar Ha-Yihud" in Amnon Gross (ed.), "Nevuʾat Ha-Yeled" (Tel Aviv, 2005), pg.162, found in Garb, Jonathan. Shamanic trance in modern Kabbalah. University of Chicago Press, 2011. pg. 37f
Edmonds III, Radcliffe. "There and Back Again: Temporary Immortality in the Mithras Liturgy." (2014): 185.
Stobaeus 26:13 in Litwa, M. David. Hermetica II: The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in an English Translation with Notes and Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Evola, Julius, and Ur Group. Introduction to Magic: Rituals and Practical Techniques for the Magus. Simon and Schuster, 2018.

A Path of Helleno-Kemetic Magic

2019-08-12T15:00:00+02:00

This article introduces a series of articles about my own default methods of magic based on spells and ritual outlines found in Graeco-Egyptian and Coptic magical papyri. I carefully attempt a recreation of a generic framework to apply to various magical operations for fun, efficacy and doing the Great Work.

Thebes Calling

Throughout the last years I have dipped my toes into different systems of ceremonial magic in search for some tried and tested protocol I could use for getting myself into the right headspace for the Great Work, as well as to boost my practical enchantments for better results. I tried very casual formulas for simple sigil magic or divination, boiled down grimoire protocols (e.g. Seven Spheres). I experienced failures with ceremonial frameworks which I half-assed because of the lack of tools (Harleianus MS 5596 / Hygromanteia) and found ones that I didn't even attempt to try because of the same reason (Key of Solomon derivatives).

Most of the post-medieval grimoire systems feel too elaborate for the magic I am doing, which is mainly sigil-work, divination, uncrossing-, way-opening- or binding-spells, ancestor-work and such. Due to safety concerns and the lack of tools and time I am not interested in working with Goetic entities or bullying spirits into physical manifestation. I am quite allergic against overly structured Victorian lodge magic like the Golden Dawn systems or their Thelemic spin-offs because of their fetish of shoe-horning everything into never-ending tables of correspondences. I totally acknowledge their importance in "Western Magic" - it just ain't my cup of tea.

On the other hand some of the more casual systems (Seven Spheres, various chaos magic frameworks) did not seem to get me into a satisfying headspace that made me feel sufficiently sorcerous. I guess I am less of a "technical magician" and more in search of a general ritual experiences that bristles with sparks of mysticism and weirdness. The only flavor of Western Magic that has been able to consistently fulfill this craving for me while also delivering satisfying results is the "Helleno-Kemetic" (or "Graeco-Egyptian" for a more Roman imperialist term) approach preserved in the papyrus collection often referred to as the "Anastasi Handbooks", "Thebes Cache" or more popularly "Papyri Graeco Magicae" (PGM).

I very much resonate with mashing up hoi polloi "folk magic" and unemployed temple priest thaumaturgy from the dusty back-alleys of Thebes with an unabashed syncretism of various branches of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian esoteric systems that even makes post-modern Chaos Magic look orthodox and I very much like the mind-bending use of barbarous names and vowel chants that was en vogue back then.

The body of work that documents this flavor of magic is a mess of torn papyrus scrolls written in Greek, Demotic, and Coptic found in a hidden cache in Thebes. On the majority of papyri unfortunately there is no detailed information about the requirements and protocols of the ritual framework the mages used to make their spells work - besides occasional footnotes to "do the usual". On the upside, this style of magic seems to not have required complicated tools - not even a circle. I like! But then there are of course animal sacrifices...

Retrofitted Rites

In the last decades several attempts have been made to reconstruct working ritual frameworks for Helleno-Kemetic magic. Noteworthy books on the topic are Stephen E. Flowers' "Hermetic Magic" and Tony Mierzwicki's "Graeco Egyptian Magick", as well as "The Book of Abrasax" by Michael Cecchetelli. Flowers' book is great for learning more about the cosmology behind the magic (at least as assumed by the author) and it has an extensive praxis part which is mainly a collection of PGM spells thrown together as if they were a grimore. Cecchetelli did a much better job at curating and modifying useful spells from the Anastasi Handbooks. Mierzwicki's book is a ritual framework for self-initiation into the planetary spheres based on prayers found in the PGM but with extensive commentary. Another work mentioning - although lacking praxis, containing some wild assumptions and focusing more on the Anastasi Handbooks' content, history and their place in the timeline of Western Magic is Stephen Skinner's "Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic". A great new book that I haven't finished reading yet but is the most scholarly satisfying one for cultural context and an overview of techniques of Helleno-Kemetic magic is "Drawing Down the Moon" by Radcliffe G. G. Edmonds III.

The in my opinion best attempt of re-creating a practical Helleno-Kemetic ritual framework I came across has been brought to us by the great Polyphanes aka. Sam Block, who published it for free on his blog Digital Ambler with the usual galore of commentary.

While all of these works are helpful and worth checking out, it bothers me a bit that most authors seem to suppose the existence of ritual frameworks in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt akin to post-medieval grimoire or quote-unquote "Hermetic" frameworks, like in Golden Dawn magic. What I mean by that is an elaborate protocol of ritual attire and tools, a circle of the art, delineation of temple space, opening and closing formulae, consecration of implement, banishing, invocation and evocation, and so on. There is no doubt that all of these have important functions in established Western systems of magic and I also understand that initiated or learned magicians default to looking for such methods because they work in the systems they have studied and mastered - yet to my knowledge there is no evidence in the source material or historic record that really justifes a need of retrofitting such protocols into the syncretic Helleno-Kemetic-Roman era forms of magic.

Brick by Brick

Having no affiliation with any magical order and not having followed any established magical path or school, I did not have a default ritual structure to work with when approaching the glorious mess of the Greek Magical Papyri. I jumped right in and did many experiments in which either nothing happened or my mind got fucked and I ended up physically destroyed and sick in bed.

Trial and error that was more painful than expected in my experimental naivety. In retrospect it was a mistake and a blessing at the same time. On one hand I could have avoided getting hurt by forces I did not comprehend, but on the other hand I learned important lessons in the most natural way I have taught my stubborn self almost everything else in my life so far: by experience of making mistakes and trying to avoid them in the future. Step by step, I find myself building a ritual framework from scratch that works for me for most operations.

I was asked a few times to share what I actually do, so I decided to write a few articles about it which I will publish here in the next weeks.

I tried to divide and structure the content into five topics, that - from my own experience - are absolutely crucial for Helleno-Kemetic magic, at least from my own personal viewpoint at the time of publication. I gave them catchy Greek titles, because why not? Not all of the listed parts are needed for every operation, but help staying safe and getting predictable results. This article is the introduction to a series of upcoming posts where I will outline each topic in detail, share techniques and spells with commentary and provide plenty of quotes from sources I base my assumptions on. Since all of my practical magic is and will always be work-in-progress the contents will change and be updated regularly. Here is the list of topics that will also serve as a Table of Content once the articles will be released.

Elements of Helleno-Kemetic Magic

κάθαρσις (Katharsis) - Purification
φυλακτήριον (Phylakterion) - Protection
θεωρία (Theoria) - Altered States of Consciousness
κροῦμα (Krouma) - Knocking on Heaven's Door
συστάσεις (Systaseis) - Daimōnic Teamwork

Interrogating the Ibis

2018-10-30T22:30:00+01:00

This article is about my preferred Tarot deck and reading method and the consecration ritual I constructed for it based on Egyptian hymns and Demotic spells to Tehuti (Thoth).

Épiphanie

In May of last year I was on holidays in a remote town in the Provence with my extended family for a few days. Before that my wife, daughter and I spent three days in the beautiful city of Marseille. Besides visiting the black madonna called Notre Dame de Confession in the ancient Abbaye St. Victor the other occult sightseeing spot I wanted to visit was the old Camoin House. It is the building where in 1760 Nicolas Conver established his cardmaking factory and engraved his famous Tarot de Marseille, the mother of most modern Tarot decks.

The winter before, I had been obsessing about the question which Tarot deck to use for divination. I had no experience with Tarot and after some research I had bought the beautiful Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck which I really loved for aesthetic reasons and because Smith-Waite decks are apparently recommended for beginners. Unfortunately it did not really resonate so much with me after trying giving it a try for a few months. The detailed imagery of the minor arcana seemed sometimes a bit too detailed and confusing to me and results were too ambiguous. So I was looking for alternatives. I did not like any of the Smith-Waite derivatives and I also found Crowley's deck very unappealing. The final contestants were the Camoin Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille deck, the Sola Busca from Scarlet Imprint, and the Hermetic Tarot and I could not really decide on one.

My question was answered in an uncanny way on the day we walked through the lovely district of Noailles in Marseille, a lively area with a lot of North African expats. We strolled through the Rue d'Aubagne, a lively small street with a lot of cafés and small shops, mostly selling goods and delicacies from the Maghreb. We approached a small intersection and suddenly I was overwhelmed by a strange "epiphanic" feeling of clarity. It was as if the time stood still for a moment and everything went quiet, just to continue normally after a short glimpse. It was uplifting and strange at the same time.

I checked the map to see where we were, because I knew that the old Camoin House was supposed to be in this very street. I discovered that we were standing right in front of it: Number 8! I was excited! Today it looks like a normal residential house and hosts a (delicious) Tunisian restaurant on the ground floor. Nothing points to the history of this building. I immediately knew that this strange moment was a clear hint which direction to take in my Tarot deck quest.

The Open Reading

After I had jumped down the Tarot de Marseille rabbit-hole and read Jodorowsky's excellent book, I soon realized that Camoin and Jodo had altered the original Conver design and had added more little occult details into it. I did not like that approach and wanted something more genuine.

Luckily, during my research I stumbled over a great little Tarot book that resonated a lot with me. It was the work of Israeli physicist and philosopher Yoav Ben-Dov who had studied Tarot and psychomagic with Jodorowsky in Paris and subsequently created his own method of reading the Tarot which ironically seems to be the complete opposite of Jodorowsky's very esoteric system:

The open reading is my way of reading the Tarot. In a nutshell, it is based on the three following points. First, a Tarot card does not have a fixed meaning which can be learned in advance. Rather, the meaning emerges from what we can see in the card. Second, the function of each position in a spread is also not fixed. Rather, it depends on the card combination. Third, we don't start by interpreting each card separately. Instead, we first try to see the whole picture.

This concept resonated very much with my idea of how divination is meant to work. He had also created a very clear and clean reproduction of the original Conver Tarot deck that looked gorgeous and immediately became my top-pick. I bought Ben-Dov's ebook on Amazon, but had to wait a couple of months until the deck became available again after having been sold out. In the meantime I downloaded the free digital version and could already enjoy the design.

Although the minor arcana cards can be a bit difficult to interpret, I resonated much more with the CBD Tarot de Marseille than with the Smith-Waite deck. Because my past attempts of reading the cards had been so ambiguous I decided that before using this new deck I would need to properly consecrate it, hoping to improve the clarity of the message.

The Beaked Scribe

An Egyptian god I have wanted to connect with for quite some time was Tehuti, most commonly known as Thoth. If you don't know much about him here is some basic information about Tehuti from the excellent Henadology website:

[Tehuti] is the God of learning and of wisdom, depicted as an ibis-headed man, as an ibis, or, less often, as a baboon (in this form generally with a lunar crescent on his head), and frequently holding the brush and palette of a scribe, since the wisdom of which he is the master is in particular that contained in sacred texts. [Tehuti] has also strong lunar associations, to the extent of being often identified with the moon itself [...], but more systematically [Tehuti] is the God responsible for healing the wedjat, the Eye of Horus, after it was injured by Seth, and since the wedjat‘s regeneration is embodied in the waxing lunar cycle, [Tehuti] is the God who restores the light of the moon. [...] [Tehuti]'s identification with the moon probably also involves an idea known to many cultures, namely that the moon, as the nocturnal sun, symbolizes the powers of the human intelligence to supplement that which nature provides and as an intermediary between the divine and mortal realms. [Tehuti] is not only the embodiment of wisdom, but also its advocate in the world: [...] [Tehuti] is also a peacemaker who reconciles Horus and Seth and who pacifies the wrathful Goddesses, especially Sekhmet. [...]

[Tehuti] facilitates the exchange across the border between the human and divine realms in his function as lord of sacred texts. [...] Re empowers [Tehuti] by a series of formulae linked to [Tehuti]'s diverse forms—the ibis, the moon, and the baboon. First, Re grants him the authority to send forth the other Gods through spells and invocations and to check their actions in turn, this power corresponding to the ibis. Next Re bids him to “encompass the two heavens with thy beauty and thy light,” this corresponding to the moon. Finally, Re charges him with traversing the lands of the Ha-nebu, the ‘Northern Lords', a vague term for the islands of the Aegean [...], perhaps implying a circuit around the Mediterranean and thus through many foreign lands—a hymn to [Tehuti] states that he “made different the tongue of one country from another,” (Bleeker 1973, 140); this last power corresponds to the baboon.

Besides being the founder of the words of speech including magical words, he also was the demiurge who created the world through utterance. He has knowledge of true names of all creation, he has the power to heal and he's a god of justice. As a lunar god he presides over the passing of time and length of every human's life. He doesn't necessarily rule over, but at least has knowledge of all fate. Therefore he also presides over divination and prophecy.

I thought it would be a great way to start a relationship with Tehuti by dedicating my new deck to him and consecrating it by his name in a proper ritual.

Invoking the Ibis

The Greeks identified Tehuti with the divine messenger and trickster god Hermes, ruler over trade, heraldry, merchants, commerce, roads, sports, and travel. The god of boundaries and the transgression of boundaries, patron of herdsmen, thieves, graves, and heralds. Like Tehuti Hermes is described as moving freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, and was the conductor of souls into the afterlife.

Hermes is also the son of Zeus and Zeus is the only god who knows the affairs of men, all that the Moirai (Fates) give them, and all that is not destined for them. Zeus is also the only god not affected by the decisions of the Moirai, but obeyed by them.

So a suitable planetary timing for the consecration would be the hour of Mercury on a Wednesday or Thursday. I was especially paranoid about negative spiritual residue on the cards due the production process they went through. So my choice of day was Saturday because I've had some good experiences working with Kronos/Saturn to wipe and purify items.

Also it seems very fitting to Tehuti that the hour of Mercury is followed by the hour of Luna, I imagine him dwelling right on the edge of the two. I timed the consecration in a way so it would start at the end of Mercury's hour and be done in the beginning of Luna's.

I start all of my rituals with the acknowledgement of the planetary rulers by reciting a planetary prayer from the Hygromanteia and the matching Orphic Hymn. When the rite is heavily Egyptian, like this one, I put more weight to that paradigm by acknowledging the ruling Decan.

In more complex workings I also usually banish or add the Stele of Jeu as a preliminary rite, I align myself with the Axis Mundi, and so on, but this ritual is just a consecration of a deck of Tarot cards and already polyphanic enough... You could probably skip the whole beginning and just do the hymn to Tehuti and the actual consecration, but this is what I did, so I am faithfully laying it out here:

Acknowledge the Planetary Rulers

Planetary prayer of the day.
Orphic hymn to the planet of the day.
Planetary prayer of the hour.
Orphic hymn to the planet of the hour.

Use whatever set of planetary prayers you like. I took the ones from the Hygromanteia but you might as well apply the ones from the Book of Oberon, Munich Manual, whatever you prefer to work with...

You can find different versions of the Orphic Hymns. The very recent translation by Patrick Dunn flow very well in English. Or use the free ones you can find here.

Acknowledge the Decans

The Egyptians venerated and feared the baktiu (Decans), gods ruling over time and fate, signified by stars near the ecliptic that were observed to measure slices of time and to determine which decan ruled over them. I will get deeper into this topic in a series of future posts.

For now, let's acknowledge them in this working with this hymn to the Decans found at the temple of Esna, combined with an Egyptian offering formula. To find the appropriate name of the current Decan, find out the sidereal Zodiac degree you are currently in and use the table below.

(If this whole section raises too many questions and doubts, skip it. I am just adding it here, because that's what I use for "doing the usual".)

Sign	Degree	Decan
Cancer	0° - 9.9°	Wart
Cancer	10° - 19.9°	Pehwi Heri
Cancer	20° - 29.9°	Kenmet
Leo	0° - 9.9°	Khery Kheped Kenmet
Leo	10° - 19.9°	Hat Djat
Leo	20° - 29.9°	Djat
Virgo	0° - 9.9°	Pechwi Djat
Virgo	10° - 19.9°	Djmat Heret Kheret
Virgo	20° - 29.9°	Wushahti
Libra	0° - 9.9°	Bekahti
Libra	10° - 19.9°	Ipdjes
Libra	20° - 29.9°	Sebshessen
Scorpio	0° - 9.9°	Tepi-Ah Hentet
Scorpio	10° - 19.9°	Heriyib Wiah
Scorpio	20° - 29.9°	Septi Henwi
Sagittarius	0° - 9.9°	Seshmu
Sagittarius	10° - 19.9°	Sah Seshmu
Sagittarius	20° - 29.9°	Kenmu
Capricorn	0° - 9.9°	Tepi-Ah Semed
Capricorn	10° - 19.9°	Pa-Sebah Whati
Capricorn	20° - 29.9°	Semed
Aquarius	0° - 9.9°	Seret
Aquarius	10° - 19.9°	Sah Seret
Aquarius	20° - 29.9°	Tepi-Ah Akhwi
Pisces	0° - 9.9°	Akhwi
Pisces	10° - 19.9°	Tepi-Ah Bahwi
Pisces	20° - 29.9°	Bahwi
Aries	0° - 9.9°	Khentu Heru
Aries	10° - 19.9°	Khentu Kheru
Aries	20° - 29.9°	Ked
Taurus	0° - 9.9°	Sah Ked
Taurus	10° - 19.9°	Khau
Taurus	20° - 29.9°	Aret
Gemini	0° - 9.9°	Remen Heri
Gemini	10° - 19.9°	Tjes Ark
Gemini	20° - 29.9°	Remen Kheri

Hymn to the Decans

Reverence to you, living gods, workers in the necropolis, who shine next to the disk in the evening, who recognize the hours when you come forth from the east, who announce what happens, who keep alive and kill the rebels at their wish, who shine in the sky and shoot the two countries with flames, everybody trembles when you come forth, who the star-watchers observe in your times! Greetings, children of Re, who appear at his setting, Ennead of the primeval, when you circulate daily in your orbit, living souls of the gods, daily, when you come out of the eye of Re, Messengers in the cities and districts, who shoot arrows from your mouths at the one they see from afar, the six stars and shining ones, daily, who save their Lord from every evil thing, from the shooting of the Star Gods on this day, this month, this year, in each of your hours to this day, [come, benevolent, for which I call you, as benevolent assistants in this rite for my benefit.] (1)

I call you, ruling Decan of this decade in the sign of [CURRENT ZODIAC SIGN], the one who shines on the whole inhabited and uninhabited world. I call upon you, by your name of [DECAN NAME], glorious one, of kind heart and power supreme, to bless this operation. As you cross the skies, look down to me favourably and accept my offering for your appeasing (2): Peret kheru ta, heneket, khau kau apedu, khut nebet noferet wabet ankhet netjer im. (3)

Hymn to Tehuti

Hail to you, Moon, [Tehuti],
Bull in Khmun, dweller in Hesret,
Who makes way for the gods!
Who knows the secrets,
Who records their expression,
Who distinguishes one speech from another,
Who is judge of everyone.
Keen-faced in the Ship-of-millions,
Courier of mankind,
Who knows a man by his utterance,
Who makes the deed rise against the doer.
Who contents Re,
Advises the Sole Lord,
Lets him know whatever happens;
At dawn he summons in heaven,
And forgets not yesterday's report.

Who makes safe the night-bark
Makes tranquil the day-bark,
With arms outstretched in the bow of the ship.
Pure-faced when he takes the stern-rope,
As the day-bark rejoices in the night-bark's joy,
At the feast of crossing the sky.
Who fells the fiend,
Sunders western lightland.
The Ennead in the night-bark worships [Tehuti],
They say to him: “Hail, [Son of] Re,
Praised of Re whom the gods applaud!”
They repeat what your ka wishes,
As you make way for the place of the bark,
As you act against the fiend:
You cut off his head, you break his ba,
You cast his corpse into the fire,
You are the god who slaughters him.

Nothing is done without your knowing,
Great one, son of a Great one, who came from her limbs,
Champion of Harakhti,
Wise friend in On,
Who makes the place of the gods,
Who knows the secrets,
Expounds their words.

Let us give praise to [Tehuti],
Straight plummet in the scales,
Who repulses evil,
Who accepts him who leans not on crime.
The vizier who settles cases,
Who changes turmoil to peace;
The scribe of the mat who keeps the book,
Who punishes crime,
Who accepts the submissive.
Who is sound of arm,
Wise among the ennead,
Who relates what was forgotten.
Counselor to him who errs,
Who remembers the fleeting moment,
Who reports the hour of the night,
Whose words endure forever,
Who enters duat, knows those in it, (4)

Hermes, lord of the world, who're in the heart,
O circle of Selene, spherical
And square, the founder of the words of speech,
Pleader of justice's cause, garbed in a mantle,
With winged sandals, turning airy course
Beneath earth's depths, who hold the spirit's reins,
O eye of Helios, O mighty one,
Founder of full-voiced speech, who with your lamps
Give joy to those beneath earth's depths, to mortals
Who've finished life. The prophet of events
And Dream divine you're said to be, who send
Forth oracles by day and night; you cure
All pains of mortals with your healing cares. (5)

Consecration

Light some suitable incense for cleansing, like Styrax Benzoin, Frankincense or Sage. Open the deck of cards and shuffle them in the incense smoke. Let the smoke purify the cards thoroughly while reciting the following:

Hither, O blessed one, O mighty son
Of Memory, who brings full mental powers,
In your own form both graciously appear
And graciously [consecrate these cards for me],
A pious man, [NAME], son of [YOUR MOTHER'S NAME]
That I may comprehend you by your skills
Of prophecy, by your own wond'rous deeds.
I ask you, lord, be gracious to me and [cleanse
These cards from all past influences,
([With the purifying powers of Kronos,])
And graciously consecrate these cards for me.] (5)
When I call to you, O [Tehuti], the hearing-ear,
Who listens to everything,
In your names which are great, which are divine,
ALIPS, THABLIPS, STSILIPS,
GAGARPAOTHAR, THANASIMA, QHAH,
ORTHOMENKHROÔN, BALSA, ALABAKHABEL,
HEFKAE, HEPKA, HEBIKE, NEKHEPKAI
Without deceit prophesy to me [through these cards,
At any place and any time come to me and tell me,
An answer to everything, truly, without falsehood therein]. (6)

Sources

(1) Inscription from the temple of Esna translated by me into English from the German translation I found in Alexandra von Lieven's "Der Himmel über Esna: eine Fallstudie zur religiösen Astronomie in Ägypten am Beispiel der kosmologischen Decken-und Architravinschriften im Tempel von Esna" in Vol. 64. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000. Page 43.
(2) borrowed bits from Julio Ody's essay on his attempt to work Paul Huson's Mastering Witchcraft Vassago operation
(3) Common Egyptian offering formula. It translates to: "A voice offering of bread, beer, a thousand of beef and fowl, and every good and pure thing on which a god lives"
(4) Adoration of Thoth, inscribed on a statue of Haremhab, a royal scribe and general of the army under Tutankhamun.
(5) from PGM V. 370-446 in Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. The Greek magical papyri in translation, including the Demotic spells. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1996. pg. 108.
(6) translation from demotic spells with secret names of Tehuti from Louvre E 3229 papyrus (Betz PDM lxi. 63-78 and PDM Suppl. 149—62) found in (5) pg. 288 and 328.

Consulting the Book of Tehuti

Everytime I have a need to consult with Tehuti through the Tarot, I take the deck out of its box and shuffle the cards. While I am doing that I envision the Ibis-headed god shuffling the cards through me and I speak the following invocation:

I call to you, O Tehuti, In your names which are great, which are divine, ALIPS, THABLIPS, STSILIPS, GAGARPAOTHAR, THANASIMA, QHAH, ORTHOMENKHROÔN, BALSA, ALABAKHABEL, HEFKAE, HEPKA, HEBIKE, NEKHEPKAI, Show me the truth by these cards.

Then I speak out the desired way of consulting with him: the number of cards to be used and if they are more than one I define what their positions represent. For example:

"Using one card, answer my following question..."
"Using two cards, representing the two choices I have concerning ... tell me what to expect"
"Using three cards, representing from left to right: the past, the present, and the future, answer me concerning..."

After, I shuffle a bit more until I have the feeling that I need to stop and lay the agreed number of cards down in front of me. I interpret them intuitively using Ben-Dov's Open Reading method.

In addition I check the common interpretations found in the usually frowned upon little white book that comes with the deck and treat it like a "second layer" on top of my initial intuitive interpretation to see the bigger picture.

Skype with the Scribe

After the ambiguous experiences I had had before, using the Smith-Waite deck, consulting this Tehuti consecrated CBD Tarot feels like a crystal-clear, Dolby Surround, Full-HD, video-conference uplink directly to the Ibis-headed god. So far I've always had mind-blowing readings with very straight-forward answers. But I have to admit that I only read for myself and not for others. I will still have to try that out. After initial doubts I know fully trust my Tarot and almost treat it like an intimate companion. It travels with me most of the time. Sounds cheesy? Yeah it does! I didn't expect such a strong link to happen at all, it just did.

Tehuti rules over prophecy in general, so you can use the above ritual also to consecrate other divination tools. I am looking forward to apply an adapted version of the ritual to a set of four Japanese 100¥ coins I recently found and use them in the way Sam Block laid out his Four Coin Divination of Hermes.

Flogging a Dead God

2018-10-23T13:41:00+02:00

Version 1.2 (29/10/2018)

In my last article on the Headless Rite I drew some conclusions about its function according to my understanding after several months of practice. I mentioned that I stopped believing in the Headless One being a specific deity or spirit, but that it is the headlessness itself as a symbol that seems to matter as a core aspect of the ritual.

In this article I would like to elaborate on what I meant by that. In addition I want to attempt a deep dive into the powerful symbols found in the ritual and polyphanize the meanings of headlessness, having sight in one's feet and the name of a heart entwined by a serpent.

The Stele of Jeu was written by an Egyptian mage who lived in Roman ruled Thebes that had already witnessed centuries of assimilation and intertwining influences from Greek, Jewish, Persian and other cultures and religions. He lived in a different era and cultural background than us. Obviously he had a different set of symbols than I would intuitively understand as a German occultist from 21st century post-modern Europe. So how can we attempt to unlock the symbols in the PGM?

The other day I had an insight. It was about the Egyptian myth in which Set and Horus were fighting for the throne after Set had killed Osiris. Set gouged out Horus's left eye, which is said to represent the moon, while his right eye is the sun. In one variant of the story the eye was then restored by Thoth. My vision was this: Horus is our mind and his right eye represents clear and rational solar perception and his left eye irrational and intuitive lunar perception. Set took this sense from us. But who is he? Our confusing desires that want full control over our soul? Our fears? In any case, he blinded us in a way where we are forced to rely on the logical analysis of things to not lose control. Here comes Thoth, symbolizing both, intelligence and reason, but also magical enlightenment. With these powers he heals the broken left eye of lunar intuition! It means we can actually regain what we have lost in order to perceive fully.

Let's intelligently apply reasoning and magic to patch over the flawed intuition and to understand the symbols that lie in front of us. But at the same time we need to be cautiously aware of what Schwaller de Lubicz called "mentality of complexity":

Our exoteric evolution, through the Greek metaphysical phases, leading currently to an exclusive rationalism, has given us, owing to the necessity for analysis, a "mentality of complexity" which today prevents us from seeing simply. (1)

How does that work? I found it helpful to rationally analyze the information in front of me while keeping my intuitive faculties open and active and allowing my mind to have free associations, detect patterns and correspondences, evoke emotional reactions and spontaneous ideas.

Let's apply that method to jailbreak the meaning of the Stele of Jeu aka. The Headless Rite. By "reasoning" and "analysis" I mean applying methods of careful comparison of details and learning about the cultural background of the symbols' origin.

Let's start simple and intuitively: just from mere hunch, the symbol of "being without a head" immediately evokes different ideas. In a frightening way it reminds us of the loss of the "ego" or "sense of self", or of losing "control". On the other hand - as known from different methods of meditation and from the Buddhist tradition it can also be something to strive for, to "calm the mind" or "transcend the ego". In magical practice one of the fundamental skills is to overcome the ever analytical mind and reach an altered state of consciousness or mode of trance in order to tap into the powers that lie beyond. Whatever the goal may be called: ayin, samadhi, gnosis, there seems to be a symbol that fits all of them: to become headless.

Headless Rites

Let's compare! This image is such a strong symbol that it can be found everywhere. Throughout human history, spiritual decapitation or full dismemberment have been central to shaman-like initiations around the world. To offered one's head or body to the spirits to be replaced or upgraded to a new divine one with more magical powers. Following are a few examples found in Mircea Eliade's tome on "Shamanism".

(Note: I am using the term 'shaman' in this article, fully aware of the controversy around it. I am not claiming that Siberian shamans are the same as 'medicine men' from Borneo or Tibetan Buddhist monks. I use it to describe the conceptualization of trance-like states of consciousness as means of initiation among differenct cultural practices that can be described as "shaman-like".)

According to North Siberian Yakut shamanhood, spirits carry the initiate's soul to the underworld and imprison it in a house for three years. They behead him, and set aside the head, so the initiate is forced to watch his dismemberment with his own eyes. Them they cut him into small pieces, which are then distributed to the spirits of the various diseases to empower him with the ability to cure. (2)

The blacksmith then [...] forged his head and taught him how to read the letters that are inside it. He changed his eyes; and that is why, when he shamanizes, he does not see with his bodily eyes but with these mystical eyes. He pierced his ears, making him able to understand the language of plants. Then the candidate found himself on the summit of a mountain, and finally he woke in the yurt, among his family. Now he can sing and shamanize indefinitely, without ever growing tired. (2)

Among the Dyak of Borneo shaman-like initiation requires three different ceremonies. In the second one, the initiated elders take the neophyte to a room shut off by curtains...

And there, as they assert, they cut his head open, take out his brains, wash and restore them, to give him a clear mind to penetrate into the mysteries of evil spirits, and the intricacies of disease; they insert gold dust into his eyes to give him keenness and strength of sight powerful enough to see the soul wherever it may have wandered; they plant barbed hooks on the tips of his fingers to enable him to seize the soul and hold it fast; and lastly they pierce his heart with an arrow to make him tender-hearted, and full of sympathy with the sick and suffering. (3)

About the Tibetan Tantric chöd rite ethnologist R. Bleichsteiner wrote in his book "The Yellow Church":

To the sound of the drum made of human skulls and of the thighbone trumpet, the dance is begun and the spirits are invited to come and feast. The power of meditation evokes a goddess brandishing a naked sword; she springs at the head of the sacrificer, decapitates him, and hacks him to pieces; then the demons and wild beasts rush on the still quivering fragments, eat the flesh, and drink the blood. (4)

Also in the initiatory cult of Mithraism, the symbolic headlessness played an important role:

The degree of solider (Miles) was given to those who taken up the spiritual battle against the ego (nafs), the struggle with lower self. During the rite the neophyte is crowned while in bondage of the material world, he is given the kingdom of this world, but he rejects the crown and once his binds were cut, he removes the crown saying: "Mithra is my only crown". The removing of crown also symbolises an attempt to remove the head (intellect) itself, allowing Mithra to be the guide [...] (5)

Becoming Osiris

So, how does all relate to our "Headless One"? Do ancient forms of "shamanhood" have anything to do with the complex metaphysical universe of Ancient Egypt or the spiritual melting pot of Alexandria that birthed the type of ritual practice described in the PGM? To me it does, and apparently some people that - unlike me - are scholarly educated in these topics have also drawn parallels between "shamanic" initiation and Ancient Egyptian religious practice or at least pointed to traces of the former in the latter.

German Egyptologist Sabine Neureiter published a paper with the thesis that "shamanic" practices from Neolithic times must have survived into the collective memory of Pharaonic Egypt. Clear traces can be found in the Egyptian cosmology of a threefold world (heavens/earth/netherworld), the prominent death cult (mummification and resurrection), and many of the texts on magic and medicine.

The philosopher Jeremy Naydler, who specializes in the religious life of ancient cultures, wrote several books on the "shamanic" mysteries that can be found in the pyramid- and the coffin-texts. His works predate Neureiter's paper so they obviously don't feature her research but his conclusions are the same.

Since he features as a main character in our ritual, let's take a look at Osiris. He was the primeval fertility god, killed and dismembered by his brother Set, resurrected by his sister and consort, Isis, and became father of the eternal god-king Horus. He symbolized death and rebirth - of the land and its inhabitants, on a material and spiritual level. His myth is the core of all of Egypt's metaphysics. Egyptian gods were not inconceivable and distant deities that required to be worshipped and appeased. They rather represented archetype-like divine principles - "states of soul" - that humans pass through.

Perhaps the classic example of human identification with divinity in ancient Egypt is the way in which people became united with the god Osiris. This was a pious wish in New Kingdom Egypt, for all who passed over to the otherworld. Osiris was the god who died in this life to be born anew in the otherworld. It was a pious wish, but it was also a necessity if one was to undergo the transformational experiences involved. And so we often see people portrayed as Osiris, and we read their names in The Book of the Dead conjoined to that of Osiris. This same Osiris, it should be said, governed the cycles of death and regeneration throughout the natural world. (6)

[Osiris] presides over and facilitates this rite of passage from one mode of existence or awareness to another. As "an Osiris", a person is able to enter into and come out of the otherworld. Their consciousness is liberated from the limitations that normally restrict it in this life. (6)

The framework of the Stele of Jeu ritual is built around the Osiris myth. He is invoke by his name as "Osor-Onnophris" and in his role of an ancient creator god, but he is also called "headless one", thus invoked in his dismembered, magical, "shamanic" state.

It was part of the fate of Osiris to be dismembered, and this included his decapitation. Decapitation should be understood as an essential phase in the Osirian process that led to the revirilization and "solar resurrection" of both the god and the king. (7)

[...] the condition of headlessness and the restoration of the head were important initiatory experiences within the Egyptian Sed festival "secret rites". This is not to suggest that Niuserre was literally undergoing a shamanic initiation, but rather that the initiatory experiences he was undergoing have clear shamanic parallels. The text describing Niuserre’s “secret rites” indicates that the restoration of his head corresponds to his rebirth as a god, that is to his rebirth as one who—like a shaman—is as much at home in the spirit world as in the world of the living. (8)

Dismemberment of the Symbolic Body

The symbolic attitude of ancient knowledge cultivated the intellect to the extent of perceiving all of the phenomena of nature itself as a symbolic writing revealing the forces and laws governing the energetic and even spiritual aspects of our universe. (9)

To the symbolic mindset of the Egyptians, every single subject and object had a meaning but was also made up of smaller things that had meaning by themselves. This was especially the case with the human body:

Just as the gods were present in the landscape — in desert, river, plant, and animal — so they could become present in the members of the human psychophysical organism, in hair, face, eyes, and hands. By drawing the gods in, in this way, a greater sense of self-integration was achieved. The degree to which people could claim their inner experiences as their own was necessarily compromised, and this meant that the overall experience of unitary self-consciousness was far more attenuated and fragile than it is today. In the process of initiation it was broken down altogether in order to rebuild it more strongly. The important initiatory idea of physical dismemberment becomes comprehensible when it is seen as the only way of describing the experience of catastrophic psychic fragmentation. To a consciousness for which the parts of the body were all psychically charged, the mutilation of the body undergone by Osiris was the prototype of psychic fragmentation that must have been experienced by the initiate in a psychophysical way. This psychic fragmentation was precipitated as a prelude to the initiates reidentifying with a new psychic centre that transcended the “distributed psyche.” The reintegration of the body must have involved coming to a new relationship with one’s “members,” a relationship in which “possession” of the parts by the person was frequently emphasized:

You have your heart, O Osiris;
You have your legs, O Osiris;
You have your arms, O Osiris;
So too my heart is my own;
My legs are my own;
My arms are my own.
A stairway to the sky is set up for me
That I may ascend on it to the sky;
I ascend on the smoke of the great censing. (10)

What is the Head?

Besides its importance in "shamanic" and Egyptian initiation, we need to dive a bit deeper into what "the head" actually meant symbolically to the Egyptians in order to fully unlock the symbol of headlessness:

Of all the parts of the body, it was the head that seems to have corresponded most to the whole person as an individualized being. Hieroglyphically the head shown on its own could represent the whole person (or equally the whole god or animal). The legend that the head of Osiris was buried at Abydos was one and the same with the claim of Abydos to be the burial place of the whole god. Since the head bears our individual facial features, it most naturally symbolized the whole person and was—of all parts of the body—least prone to being invested with the kind of psychic autonomy that we find attributed to other members or organs. It is significant that the ancient Egyptians represented the ba (the soul of a person freed from the body) as a bird with a human head. The head would have the individualized features of the person to whom the ba belongs. (11)

In the Greek original the headless one was called Akephalos. It has been argued whether the Greek word for head κεφαλή (kephalé) might also mean "source" or "origin" in certain contexts, especially in the translation of parts of the New Testament from Greek sources. Regarding the "Stele of Jeu" this also must have been a question, because we are left with the famous "Bornless One" Mathers and Crowley had used in their versions of the ritual ("Liber Samekh"). I am quite certain that κεφαλή means "head" in this context, first because that's the literal meaning and second, because we are talking about a god and a demon - a person - so it just seems way more obvious that akephalos refers to person without head, not a person without origin. But nevertheless, I know it's Greek but the Egyptians loved puns and double meanings in magical formulas, so keep this other meaning in mind as well - it may help to fully grasp the ritual.

Egyptian and Jewish Gods

What does a headless god represent outside the context of the meaning-heavy myth of Osiris? What is left of Osiris without his individualized features, without his ba? The simplest way to understand this is actually part of the text: "you are Osor-onnophris whom none has ever seen". The Egyptian God-king Osiris is turned into an "invisible god" and given more names: Iabas and Iapôs, which are allegedly Samaritian enunciations of "the One" god the Jews called YHVH.

I have read claims that the author(s) of the PGM wanted to "spice up" their spells with some foreign sounding voces magicae and concepts from new and "exotic" esoteric sources and appropriated Jewish magic and religious ideas into their spells. But to be honest, that sounds like a quite lazy explanation and I am sure there is much more to it.

In "Future of the Ancient World" Jeremy Naydler wrote an excellent chapter on the fundamental difference between Jewish and Greco-Egyptian metaphysics:

in ancient Egyptian spiritual life there existed two levels of self-consciousness. On the more “mundane” level, people experienced their psychological processes as originating from, and as tied up with, the activity of the gods. They would thus identify their psychological processes less as their own and more as arising from the gods, with whom they felt the necessity to relate themselves. Beyond this, at a higher level, there existed the possibility of mastering the gods and achieving an experience of union with the divine creative source from whom all the gods derived their power. But in order to achieve such a union with Ra, or Atum-Ra—“to look upon his face” as the Book of the Dead expresses it—a person had to come to experience the polycentric consciousness as involving an inner fragmentation or dismemberment of the soul. This “Osiris” experience was the necessary prelude to the reconstitution of the soul about a single divine center. (12)

For the Israelite, by contrast, at the level of ordinary awareness, the activity of the gods was constantly negated in the psyche. The soul was no longer an arena in which the gods were seen as actively giving rise to psychic events. Whatever occurred therein was ultimately to be claimed by a person as belonging to him or herself alone. At the same time, the “liberated” personality referred more and more to moral and legal exhortations and prohibitions as a way of maintaining a relationship to the divine, now conceived as the One God Yahweh. But unlike Ra, Yahweh was not a god that any human being could become identified with, in the sense that the ancient Egyptian initiate might identify with Ra. Yahweh was a god unlike any other god in that it was not possible to become united with him. Except for the prophets through whom Yahweh spoke, no Israelite would dare to say “I am Yahweh” as an ancient Egyptian—in an exalted state of consciousness—might say, “I am Ra.” And yet Yahweh’s absence was curiously and uniquely present in the still depths of the human soul, demanding an allegiance, which was to be forged in a specifically moral way.
[...] It is a new voice that can be heard coming out of Israel. It is as if the god of the Israelites had in some uncertain way made common ground with what was noblest in the human spirit. And this god, despite his forbidding persona, was at the same time felt to be a “personal God.” He was both far away yet also strangely close to hand. And it is this closeness, this intimacy of Yahw*eh and the human spirit, that distinguishes the Israelite from the ancient Egyptian (or Mesopotamian or Canaanite) relationship to the divine. (12)

Judaism did not reject the possibility of "union with God," so much as it feared and cautioned against the potentially devastating consequences of such an encounter on the functioning ego.

Then God spoke all these words [and] . . . all the people shook with fear at the peals of thunder and the lightening flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the smoking mountain [i.e., their face-to-face encounter with Yahweh]; and they kept their distance. 'Speak to us yourself,' they said to Moses, 'and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we shall die' . . . So the people kept their distance while Moses approached the dark cloud where God was.
-- (Exodus 20:18-21)

Applied Systasis

Besides the Jews who saw such an idea as a strictly forbidden heresy and the (Neo-)Platonists who strived for experience of union with "the One" through an ecstatic ascent from the physical realm, there was also another strange sect in town whose followers had been secretly obsessing about this exact topic: the Gnostics!

In "Abrasax II" Merkelbach and Totti already acknowledged that it was probably no coincidence the ritual was called "Stele of Jeu" - in analogy to a contemporary work of magical technology among Gnostic initiates called the "Books of Jeu" (13). These were a complex and very technical collection of chapters in which Jesus teaches the apostles how to "crucify the world", which saves from the archons of this aeon, and about bringing the word of the Father down to earth and raising the minds of men to heaven. This is accompanied by endless numbers of magical launch code sequences, secret names, sigils and diagrams of the path up through god's emanations to the godhead.

Keeping all of these discussed points in mind, it seems to me that the Stele of Jeu tries to attempt no less than applying the well practiced Pagan magical technology of "Systasis" (union and identification with a god) to the distant and ineffable, yet personal Jewish god-form of YHVH!

In the beginning of the ritual he is addressed as Osiris, but headless: As an incomprehensible god without individualized features, as a creator god who from an Egyptian point of view exists in the magical state beyond inner fragmentation or dismemberment, reconstituted with a single, divine soul. Here the other meaning of "head" as "source" also fits: a god without a source, a self begotten, primordial one. In the following step it becomes more clear as one identifies as Moses in his role as an initiated prophet who has experienced direct contact with Yahweh, who had been chosen to mediate between human and divine. This role is associated to being a "messenger of the Pharaoh Osor-onnophis". It seems like Osiris serves as proxy gateway to reach the godhead.

As I have already laid out in "Towards the Godhead" in my Akephalos Redux article, what follows next in the ladder of ascent are potent calls to the supreme god using magical barbarous names, and a process of cleansing and purification through self-exorcism of restraining demons. Eventually one reaches the highest level of abstraction where words are transcended beyond vibrations of the seven divine vowels to the level of pure resonance, the unified field of consciousness.

See? The Headless One is actually a quite approachable archetypical symbol if we allow our immediate intuitive ideas to roam freely and try to match them with historical and anthropological data!

More Symbols

The central part of the Stele of Jeu ritual comes after the adoration of the headless god and purification of the self. The ritualist identifies with being a "a headless daimon" with sight in his feet and a flaming mouth and bearing the name of "a heart girt with a serpent". In the same way we looked at the meaning of "head" through the lens of Egyptian symbolism to unlock the meaning of "headlessness", let's do the same about the other quite powerful images in the ritual:

Sight in the Feet

Much has been speculated about the peculiar phrase "I am a headless daimon with sight in my feet". As already mentioned in my article Preisendanz' Headless God Armand L. Delatte identified the headless demon with the god Bes and referred to some depictions of that deity with serpent- or jackal-heads, but Karl Preisendanz found this insufficient and argued that instead it could refer to a practice that could be found on images of beheaded captives in Egypt who had their heads between their feet. He backed his argument by referring to the Egyptian custom of Akroteriasmos, the dismemberment of a body before embalmment and mummification where the head is usually put between the feet to make it impossible for the dead to wake up and pick it up again. In his Typhonian interpretation of the "Headless One" Jake Stratton Kent sees in this expression a reference to a form of priestly foot-wear bearing an Anubis head on the upper part of the foot.

The data is already contradicting enough, so why not throw in another interesting information to make it even more complicated: the Greek word for "sight", ὄρασιν (horasis) also seems to be the name of a bird appearing in a Hellenistic Greek version of a legend about the Egyptian goddess Tefnut's quarrel with her father, the sun god Re, which led to her departing from Egypt to Ethiopia in the form of a cat. Horasis here is probably the Greek form of the name of an Egyptian deity who, portrayed as a bird, symbolised good sight. (pBritMus 274, fr. 9a, col VI, l. 7). (14) So, there could also be the possibility that "Horasis next to my feet" refers to Isis or Nephthys who in their form of two birds guard the dead Osiris.

Besides speculation there is no way to find the answer from the data we have, so let's look at the original text and try a more direct and simple way:

The whole phrase "headless god with sight in the feet" and some of the following lines of this divine self-description in the Stele of Jeu appears as a much longer, second person address with minor variations in three other Magical Papyri. In PGM VII 222ff and PGM VIII 64ff, as well as pOxy XXXVI 2753, fr. E, D, C (aka. Betz PGM CII 1ff):

I call upon you, the headless god, having your face beside your feet, the one who hurls lightning and thunders; you are the one whose mouth is continually full of fire, the one placed over Necessity. I call upon you, the god placed over Necessity, Iaeō Sabaōth Adōnai Zabarbathiaō; you are the one lying on a coffin of myrrh, having resin and asphalt as an elbow cushion. You arc not a daimon, but the blood of the two falcons by the head of Osiris, chattering and keeping watch.
(PGM VIII 64ff) (15)

I suspect that "headless daimon with sight in the feet" might just have been a commonly used epithet of Osiris in magical spells and the reason to use it in the Stele of Jeu was because of the obviously corresponding symbolic connection of headless Osiris with the invisible god. It is interesting that in the Stele of Jeu many parts of the invocation are omitted. Especially because the omitted parts are the ones that identify the invoked god more clearly as Osiris than the parts that were adopted. To me this is another hint that in the Stele of Jeu Osiris serves as a proxy god deprived of all his individualized features to represent the invisible god of the Jews.

Nevertheless I looked into the symbolic meaning of "feet" to the Egyptians. Unfortunately I could not find anything specifically Egypt related, but I dug up an interesting text on the symbolic meaning of hands and feet from rock art to the Quran in North Africa and Arabia that proved to be quite useful.

Associated with the ancient stone cult of Arabia and North Africa, the foot and the hand became the mark of the Creator. Feet and sandals engraved on rocks, said Cervicek (1986, 96), represented the “striding of the deity” and marked the sacredness of the place. Nowhere is the spirituality of rocks and footprints as dramatically illustrated as in the recently-excavated temple of Ain Dara, Syria. There, two giant footprints, each three feet long, were delicately carved in the limestone slabs covering the temple portico. A single left footprint is carved on an adjoining slab at the threshold of the antechamber, while a single right footprint is carved on the threshold from the antechamber to the main hall. A prototype of a Canaanite temple, with feet proceeding through its three sections towards the “holy of holy,” (16)

The text also reveals that sandals signified sovereign power and regal potency in Egypt and that for example in Egyptian wedding ceremonies sandals were exchanged: the father gave the groom his daughter's sandal to indicate that she was now under the groom's care. Also sandals were used as offerings to the dead. In all these cases the sandals are symbols themselves: of the feet of the owner.

Besides transmitted knowledge through rock art and lore from the past, the language itself has some great hints about the underlying symbolism as we can see here:

Thanks to the generous pliancy of the Arabic language, with a small phonemic shift, a lowly word such as qdm ("foot") is transmuted through the semantic canopies of this language into Muqaddam, one of the ninetynine Most Beautiful Names of Allah. [...] Another small phonetic shift and qidam "eternity" is born. And what an awesome word! So significant is this kindred term of the foot that it forms the ontological core of the Divine transcendence in Islam. (17)

If we carefully put the puzzle pieces together we can conclude that feet probably symbolize the manifestation of influence and authority on earth ("footprint"). Feet of a deity manifest the divine will and power on earth. What has been "imprinted" is established for eternity.

From the feet let's go to the eyes to unlock the meaning of "sight":

Intuitively I can think of a few meanings of "eyes": they are often used synonymous to "the soul" or windows to and from the soul. In Alchemy, the eye is a commonly used symbol. It usually represents a desire to hold to a vision for the future. The eye is also commonly a symbol of 'keeping an eye' on that which is important.

In Ancient Egypt the eye was probably one of the most complicated symbols. There are several myths featuring storylines around eyes (Wadjet, Eye of Re, Eye of Horus, etc.) and to cover all of them would probably easily fill a whole book. Fortunately Wim van den Dungen from Sofiatopia already did all the work for us about the meaning of Eyes in Egyptian mythology, so I will quote from his page:

To grasp the meaning of the Eye, two registers can be invoked. However, in Egyptian pre-rational thought, these levels are often confused, whereas there is a semantic bridge between both registers:

the Eye is a cosmogonic goddess, symbol of reunification and divine kingship : this is the Single Eye of the Supreme, Self-created High God of before creation, namely Atum. This Eye is also called the "Eye of Re" and the "Eye of Horus" (the Elder), associated with the right hand side, the summer and the Sun. Its mythical activity (like that of the autocreation of Atum and the family drama of Osiris) took place in the "first time", the so-called "zep tepy" ("zp tpy") or "Urzeit".

the Eye is an anthropological symbol of restoration and popular wellness : this is the Restored Eye of Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, the "Wedjat" ("wDAt" : hale or uninjured), associated with the left hand side, the winter and the Moon. Because Thoth played an important role in its myth, it is also called the "Eye of Thoth".

I also found some paragraphs in Jeremy Naydler's books that are even a bit more on point:

The eye, as source of vision, was also source of inner strength. It was here that a person’s courage, or lack of it, resided. [...] For the ancient Egyptians, the eye had both psychic and magical properties, which meant that reference to the eye was reference to specific attributes that the eye intrinsically possessed. The fact that human beings have eyes meant that the properties attributed to the eye could then be utilized by human beings. But the eye was regarded as an entity in its own right, existing virtually as an independent spiritual archetype. As such, it was personified as the sacred wedjat eye, a potent symbol or divine creative and destructive power that was often employed in a protective capacity in ancient Egyptian religious art. It is sometimes depicted winged or, with an arm so as to emphasize its independent status. (18)

mythologically the Eye of Horus is torn out by Seth in their battle for supremacy over Egypt. This act plunges the night sky into darkness, for the Eye of Horus, cosmically understood, is the moon—the heavenly body that illumines the night. It is Thoth who finds the eye shattered into fragments and, having reassembled them, causes the moon to reappear after its short period of invisibility. In so doing, Thoth restores harmony and wholeness both macrocosmically and microcosmically.21 On the microcosmic level the restoration of the eye signifies the consolidation of spiritual power in the king. (19)

So, boiling them all down to a generalized definition: to the Egyptians the eye symbolized a focused spiritual vision and a divine power that unifies and heals whatever it sees divided and injured.

Given that the Greek term Horasis in the original text means "sight" or "vision" and does not refer to a bird, if we combine the meaning of the eyes and the feet, having "sight in ones feet" could be symbolically jailbroken to mean: manifesting the divine will with a clear and healing spiritual vision on earth and establishing it for eternity.

Bam!!

The Heart Girt With a Serpent

At the end of the Stele of Jeu the ritualist proclaims that his name is a "heart girt with a serpent" - a very powerful image! Let's break it down.

My spontaneous ideas about the heart are: unconditional love and affection, intuition and emotions, the sacred, irrational but fundamental knowledge...

How did the Egyptians conceptualize the heart?

Physically higher than the belly, the heart was also psychologically higher. It was regarded as the spiritual centre of a person, the place where a person would come closest to his or her ka (or vital spirit). (20)

But the heart was also a place of reflection, of contemplation, of memory, and of intention, a "listening place" where one might come to a deeper level of understanding of, and harmony with, life (maat). The true wishes of the heart are mediated by reflection and attuned to maat, unlike the impulses stemming from the belly. (20)

For, as the organ in the body most associated with the spiritual self, the heart was essentially pure. It was therefore considered necessary to protect the heart from corrupting influences or tendencies. We thus find admonitions to “conceal” or to “seal” the heart. This idea of the essential purity of the heart is linked to that of the heart as the source of a person’s being. [...] The heart, then, was a part of oneself that ultimately could not be identified with any of the desires, decisions, or actions that were out of tune with maat. The heart was the incorruptible core of a person, and thus detached enough from all that was mundane in them to stand as witness against them. (20)

So, in contrast to the head symbolizing the individualized ego of a person, the heart symbolized the incorruptible spiritual core and links the human back to the celestial gods.

For the condition of soul that Horus represents is that of Osiris reborn, and equally of Ra grounded - in other words the celestial self that has become incarnate. Horus, to the ancient Egyptians, was the earthly image of Ra: the radiant source of light physically embodied. And the place where Horus came to reside in the initiate’s psychophysical organism was the heart. (21)

As below, so above - so what is the incorruptible spiritual core of a god? In his role as the creator-god, Ptah Tatenen, it is said that he is the father of the gods:

Tatenen, the oldest of them all.
He gave birth to himself by himself
before any becoming became.
And when his becoming became,
he made the world
from the thoughts in his heart (22)

We can conclude that in the context of our ritual the heart might represent the incorruptible core of creative power and love of the godhead. But why is it entwined by a serpent?

My immediate associations with serpents are "dragons", "primeval kingship" and "unpredictable danger", as well as ideas that come from my Christian cultural background: sin and deception. In contrast, there are serpents aplenty in Egyptian symbolism, as they were also part of everyday life in the area. So, of course my own associations are useless for analysis.

In order to understand what the core symbolic meaning of serpents in Egypt were, is it helps to take a look at one of the Egyptian myths of cosmogenesis: the birth of the primeval god Atum:

In the Beginning, there exists only Nun, the dark and abyssal waters that stretch everywhere to infinity. There is no distinction of any one form from another within this primordial ocean; there is only a pervasive formlessness that amounts to nothingness, as all things merge together in this great sea of Nun. One has to imagine a quality of existence that is prior to space and time, up and down, before and after. Nothing lies outside anything else, for everything is intrinsic to every other thing; hence, there are no separate things. Here there is a primordial unity, of which it is impossible to speak save in terms of negatives. And yet the image of water conveys the positive notion of Nun as the source of life. Nun, though nothing in itself, nevertheless contains everything that is to be. Nun is the whole diverse and varied universe existing in a state of potentiality.
This primordial condition to which the name of Nun is given was sometimes pictured as a great serpent. But already, the image of the serpent of many coils must be seen as a first manifestation of something from out of the ocean of potentiality. This serpent is called Nehebkau, which means “Provider of Life-Energies.” In the Pyramid Texts, Nehebkau says:
I am the Outflow of the Primeval Flood [Nun],
the one who emerges from the waters.
I am Nehebkau, the serpent of many coils.
Nehebkau has a similar ambivalence to Nun, in that the snake’s coils both entrap the life energies of all existence in a state of unrealized potentiality, and at the same time provide a secure home, a protective embrace from which these life energies can flow forth. Within the coils of the serpent, and also swimming within the waters of Nun, resides a creative principle that is the spark of life; it alone can release the life-energies held in potential within Nun. (23)

The serpent was thought of as having the most primeval of forms, and hence was the creature closest to the conditions that prevailed in the beginning of time. The eight famous ancient Egyptian primeval gods - or "Ogdoad" - were named after the different qualities of the unmanifest: formlessness, or chaos, darkness, or obscurity, unendingness, or limitlessness, and the hidden, or unmanifest. They were depicted as four serpents and four frogs.

Also the Egyptian Decans, deities residing in asterisms that rule over fate (like our Zodiac signs) were often depicted as serpents, sometimes winged or with arms and legs. They were considered unpredictable, potentially dangerous or benevolent.

I think we can make a quite safe statement that the coiled up serpent symbolized "ultimate potentiality".

The "heart girt with a serpent" also bears a striking analogy to the Orphic "cosmic egg", a powerful alchemical symbol that Frater Acher analyzed quite well in his latest book "Holy Daimon":

Phanes, the Orphic primeval deity of new life hatched from an egg with a serpent wound about it, has been called the ‘Revealer’; and indeed new wisdom awaits us by learning more about this mystical image. [...] let’s take a moment to meditate on the body of the serpent. Can you see the polarity here? The painful and deeply personal dilemma of the snake? At every moment the serpent has to make a decision. Should it continue to incubate the egg with the warmth of its coiled body, or should it tighten its muscles just a little more and break its fragile shell? The snake’s immediate desire is to break it: serpents love devouring fresh eggs. Yet it can choose to resist this desire, even though this means resisting its every instinct. Instead of breaking the egg, it can choose to turn its body into a tool of generation and creation. (24)

Having unlocked the meaning of "heart" and "serpent" the god-name in the Stele of Jeu is a very powerful one: the incorruptible core of creative power of the godhead in a state of ultimate potentiality.

Although we should to be very careful with comparisons between fundamentally different cultures, I can't stop seeing the striking similarities of the symbology we unlocked with the Kundalini serpent from Tantric Hinduism:

the Shakti coiled round Shiva, making one point (Bindu) with it, is Kundalini Shakti. This word comes from the word Kundala or "a coil", "a bangle". She is spoken of as coiled, because She is likened to a serpent (Bhujangi), which, when resting and sleeping, lies coiled; and because the nature of Her power is spiraline, manifesting itself as such in the worlds — the spheroids or "eggs of Brahma" (Brahmanda), and in their circular or revolving orbits and in other ways. [...] In other words, this Kundali Shakti is that which, when it moves to manifest itself, appears at the universe. To say that it is "coiled" is to say that it is at rest—that is, in the form of static potential energy. This Shakti coiled round the Supreme Shiva is called Mahakundall ("The great coiled power"), to distinguish it from the same power which exists in individual bodies, and which is called Kundalini.
Kundali Shakti in individual bodies is power at rest, or the static centre round which every from of existence as moving power revolves. In the universe there is always in and behind every form of activity a static background. The one Consciousness is polarized into static (Shiva) and kinetic (Shakti) aspects for the purpose of "creation". This Yoga is the resolution of this duality into unity again. (25)

Resurrection

Gluing all the dismembered and thoroughly studied pieces back together we end up with this potent meaning of the ritual's core lines:

I am an unperceivable daimon with a single, divine soul. From my incorruptible divine core and with unpredictable potentiality I manifest my will with a clear spiritual vision with every single step securing it for eternity.

It's quite deep, but far from the poetic formulation of the original symbols, right? That's the magic of symbolic language.

Conclusion

The Stele of Jeu is a quite universal spell and the involved headlessness enables boundless possibilities: stripping away the individual features from the god puts him in the magical state of unlimited potentiality: If you want the Headless One to be Osiris/Typhon/Bes/YHVH/Ketu/..., he becomes Osiris/Typhon/Bes/YHVH/Ketu/... A headless god stripped of individualization seems to become whatever head is being put upon him through the intent of the performer. In my experimental performance of the rite to conquer Shai-Hulud I became the Headless Serpent Wrangler.

If you made it all the way to down here, congratulations and thank you! This post may have been a bit confusing as it is actually three articles crammed together into one, covering the topics of a technique for intuitive analysis of symbols, sam-blocking the meaning of The Headless One, and analyzing other powerful symbols in this spell. I decided to keep them all together because in this way it reflects my flow of consciousness while researching. I know of at least one regular reader who told me a main reason they like my blog is that it reflects my thought process, so I'll keep it that way.

What? I forgot something? Ah you mean the symbolic meaning of "having a flaming mouth"? Well, consider that homework! ;)

Thanks to Ricardo for valuable feedback and to Aaron for motivation and to the spirits of Düsseldorf for reassurance and inspiration.

on the terms of "sam-blocking" and "polyphanizing":

(1) De Lubicz, RA Schwaller. Symbol and the Symbolic: Ancient Egypt, Science, and the Evolution of Consciousness. Aware Journalism, 1981. p.82.
(2) Doniger, Wendy, Eliade Mircea, and Willard R. Trask. "With a Foreword by Wendy Doniger; Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy." (2004). p. 42.
(3) H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, I, 280-81 (found in (2)).
(4) Bleichsteiner, Robert. L'eglise jaune. Payot, 1937. pg. 222 (found in (2)).
(5) The Cult of Mithras - An Ancient Rite
(6) Naydler, Jeremy. The future of the ancient world: Essays on the history of consciousness. Simon and Schuster, 2009. Chapter 6: Gods and Humans.
(7) Naydler, Jeremy. Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt. Inner Traditions Bear & Company. Kindle Edition. The West Wall (Utts. 254–60). Utt. 254.
(8) see (7). The Fifteen West-to-South-Wall Texts (Utts. 254–58, 260–63, 267–72).
(9) see (1). pg. 9.
(10) Naydler, Jeremy. Temple of the cosmos: The ancient Egyptian experience of the sacred. Inner Traditions/Bear & Co, 1996. Chapter 8: The Soul Incarnate. Transcending the Distributed Psyche.
(11) see (10). Chapter 8: The Soul Incarnate. Body and Soul.
(12) see (6). Chapter 11: The Judaic Path to Monotheism.
(13) Merkelbach R., Totti M. (1991) Eine Selbstoffenbarung des Obersten Gottes. In: Merkelbach R., Totti M. (eds) Abrasax. Papyrologica Coloniensia, vol 17/2. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden
(14) Arnott, W. Geoffrey. Birds in the Ancient World from A to Z. Routledge, 2007.
(15) Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. The Greek magical papyri in translation, including the Demotic spells. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press, 1996. pg. 147.
(16) Achrati, Ahmed. "Hand and foot symbolisms: From rock art to the Qur'ān." Arabica 50.4 (2003): 464-500. pg. 487.
(17) see (15). pg. 494.
(18) see (11).
(19) see (8). Part 4: Anointing with the Seven Holy Oils (Utts. 72–78, 79, 81).
(20) see (11).
(21) see (6). Chapter 11: Christ and the Gods. The Gods and the Psyche.
(22) see (6). Chapter 6: On the Divinity of the Gods. God and the Gods.
(23) see (10). Chapter 3: Myths of Cosmogenesis. Heliopolis.
(24) Frater Acher. Holy Daimon. Scarlet Imprint. 2018.
(25) Avalon, Arthur. The Serpent Power. Ganesh & Co. Madras. 1950. p.35-36

Sphere of Horus

2018-05-06T18:00:00+02:00

(Version 1.1 - 07/05/2018)

Horus the Saviour

Ever since he knocked on my door I have wanted to integrate Horus more into my ritual practice than the adorations he already receives on an irregular basis. I am currently involved in a year long exploration of the Egyptian Decans (not the Rune Soup Decan Walk), specifically in their final Egyptian forms during the Ptolemaic era (more details about this will come in a future post). The Decan of a few weeks ago (♓3) was symbolized as Heru-pa-khered / Harpocrates (Horus the Child) in his common depiction as a nude youngster seated on a lotus flower wearing a side-lock and holding a finger to his mouth.

In my research about him I discovered that magical stelae of Horus in this form called "cippi" were erected in public places such as the forecourts of temples. His image is often surmounted by a head of the god Bes, and he is grasping snakes, scorpions, and other dangerous wild animals in his hands to signify his dominance over these symbols of mortal danger. They appear to have been used typically by pouring water over them which was collected at the bottom and drunk for protection and healing.

An ancient Egyptian spell to be spoken over such a cippus can be found in Borghout's spell collection (1):

An adoration of Horus, to glorify him, To say on the water and on the land. Words spoken by Thoth, the saviour of this god:
Hail to you. God, son of a god! Hail to you, heir, son of an heir! Hail to you, bull, son of a bull, whom the divine cow bore.
Hail to you, Horuss, who came forth from Osiris, whom the goddess Isis bore. I have spoken in your name, I have recited with your magic, I have spoken with your spells, I have conjured with your conjurations, which your heart has devised — they are your sorcery — which have come forth from your mouth, which your father Geb has entrusted to you, which your mother Nut has given to you, which you have been taught by the Majesty of the Foremost One of Letopolis in order to ensure your protection, to renew your safeguarding, to close the mouth of any reptile which is in heaven, which is in the earth, which is in the water, to keep the people alive, to propitiate the gods, to glorify Re with your hymns.
Come quickly to me on this day like the one did for you who handles the steering oar of the divine bark. May you drive away for me all lions on the desert plateau, all crocodiles in the river, all biting snakes in their holes! May you render them for me like pebbles on the desert hills, like potsherds of a jar along the street. May you exorcize for me the pulsating poison that is in all the limbs of this man who is suffering. Take care not to be negligent when you speak about it!
See, it will come for you when you are coming for it, with your words directed against it. See, your name is involved therein on this day! I have created the awe for you through your magic — and you have grown in prestige through your magic spells — to keep alive those who suffer from an oppressed throat.
Praise is given to you by mankind; righteousness is adored in your appearance. All the gods are invoked in your likeness.
See, your name is invoked on this day: 'I am Horus the Saviour who ensures protection for you'.
(J. F. Borghouts, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts, Brill - Leiden, 1978, Spell 123)

Having such protective and healing properties, wouldn't Harpocrates be predestined for protective magic such as banishing? Yes! So, let's do it...

The Sphere of Horus

Most of my spellwork is PGM influenced, so naturally I don't do much elaborate ritualized banishing and use mainly phylactery talismans for protection. But since some nasty experiences in my recent past that I attribute to negative spiritual influence, I have become more paranoid about better protection. The LBRP or it's thelemic derivatives don't really feel fitting in my workings.

My favourite banishing rite has always been Jason Miller's excellent “Sphere of Heka” from his poweful book "Protection and Reversal Magic" (2).

Inspired by Harpocrates the Saviour I took the opportunity and modified Jason's ritual to make it even more Greco-Egyptian than it already was. I dubbed it Sphere of Horus.

This version uses Greek instead of Latin and invokes different guardians of the cardinal directions.

Many thanks to my Facebook buddy and fellow mage Lazaridés at the foot of mount Olympos for the invaluable translation work!

Part 1: Conjuring the Column

Begin by standing and facing east. Imagine that you are at the very center of the universe. Take a deep inhalation and imagine that above you, emanating from the highest heavens descends a column on pure white light. This light enters the crown of your head and passes through you, down into the ground. This white light has the qualities of purification and centering. Exhale and intone the following:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Iέρακος Κάθοδος	Ierakos Kathodos	The descent of the falcon

Take another deep inhalation and imagine that a reddish colored light from beneath you rises through the column and passes through you upwards. Whereas the white light was purifying, this light is vitalizing. Exhale and intone the following:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Οφεως 'Ανοδος	Opheōs Anodos	The ascent of the serpent

Inhale again and feel the two energies entering into you from above and below. Exhale and feel the two energies flow throughout your body, impregnating every cell of your being with their power. Feel your connection between earth and sky, underworld and heavens.

With your right hand. point at your third eye and intone: I (eeh).
Move your right hand over your heart and open your hand so that your palm faces your chest and intone: A (ah).
Most your hand lower over your genitals and turn the palm upwards, connecting the thumb and forefinger. Intone: Ω (oh).

This portion of the rite grounds, centers, purifies, and empowers you so that you are in a proper position to exercise authority over the forces that you wish to banish. The Falcon and the Serpent are universal symbols of chthonic and ouranic forces. By conjuring the column you take in the totality of all that is, above and below. After the column, you invoke the divine by the ancient formula of IAΩ.

Part 2: Delineating the Boundaries

Still standing within the column, pronounce to the powers that be:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Eκάς, εκάς εστέ βέβηλοι!	Hekas, hekas este bebeloi	Afar, afar, all the profane!

Make a fist with your left hand and place it against your chest over your heart, cover it with your right hand and apply about five pounds of pressure there and imagine that the force that you summoned forth from the column begins to concentrate at the heart. Imagine that this power, drawn by the physical pressure and force of will, takes the shape of a gray sphere about the size of a baseball. Visualize this until you have it very clear in your mind. Release the pressure, and in one motion step forward with your left foot and throw your arms outward in what is called the Sign of the Enterer. As you make this sign, see the sphere at your heart grow. As it grows and spreads, it pushes back all malefic forces and harmful spirits. It grows past your body and continues until it stops where you wish to make the boundary, forming a wall of grayish astral force. Intone:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Kύκλον Κατάσχω!	Kyklon Katas-chō	I seize the circle!

Take your wand or knife of the art in your hand, and extend your arm straight out. The tip of the tool (or your finger, when working without tools) should touch the edge of the circle that you want to make. If you have extended the circle past the walls of the room that you are in, then you can simply point towards the edge. Pivot, or walk the edge of your circle and intone the following:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Καθιερώ και ευλογώ τούτο τον κύκλο, ότι ασπίς μου έστηκε , φυλλάτειν με και άπαντες εν το κύκλο τιαύτον , απο παντός πονηρού, εις το όνομα της Μεγάλου και Αητήττου Ἥλιου Αρποκράτου! Ψοϊ φνουθι νινθηρ!	Kathierō kai eylogō touto ton kyklo, oti aspis mou estēke, phyllatein me kai apantes en to kyklo tiauton, apo pantos ponērou, eis to onoma tēs Megalou kai Aētēttou Heliou Harpokratou! Psoi Phnouti Ninthēr!	I consecrate and bless this circle, that it may shield and protect me and all inside against all evil in the name of the most powerful and invincible Helios Harpocrates! [Egyptian:] Fate, the god of the gods

Consider that this sphere is an invisible and impenetrable fortress surrounding you, keeping out all harmful forces and spirits of ill-intent.

Part 3: Invoking the Guardians

The last section of the ritual invokes the four winds as guardians to the four comers of our sphere.

Face East and visualize Henkhisesui standing at the eastern edge of the circle facing the center. The Egyptian east wind, Henkhisesui, sometimes occurs in anthropomorphic shape, and has a ram’s head, but he is occasionally figured as a winged beetle with the head of a ram. Make the gesture of conjuring and invoke:

Phonetic	Translation
Orkizo Henkhisesui!	I conjure Henkhisesui!

Face South and visualize Shehbui standing at the southern edge of the circle facing the center. The Egyptian South wind Shehbui, is represented as a man with a lion’s head, and wings. Make the gesture of conjuring and invoke:

Phonetic	Translation
Orkizo Shehbui!	I conjure Shebui!

Face West and visualize Hutjaiwi standing at the western edge of the circle facing the center. The Egyptian West wind, Hutjaiwi, has a serpent's head on the body of a winged man. Make the gesture of conjuring and invoke:

Phonetic	Translation
Orkizo Hutjaiwi!	I conjure Hutjaiwi!

Face North and visualize Qebui standing at the northern edge of the circle facing the center. The Egyptian North wind was called Qebui, and is pictured as a four-headed ram with wings. Make the gesture of conjuring and invoke:

Phonetic	Translation
Orkizo Qebui!	I conjure Qebui!

Face East and imagine all four guardians in their corners protecting the circle. Intone the following:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Προ μου Henkhisesui, οπισω μου Hutjaiwi, επι δεξια Shehbui, επαριστερα Qebui.	Pro mou Henkhisesui, opisō mou Hutjaiwi, epi dexia Shehbui, eparistera Qebui.	Before me Henkhisesui, behind me Hutjaiwi, to my right Shehbui, to my left Qebui.

Of course you may also use the Greek Anemoi wind spirits instead:

Greek	Phonetic	Direction
Ευρο!	Euro	East
Νότο	Noto	South
Ζέφυρο	Zephyro	West
Βορέα	Borea	North

Part 4: Closing

Take a single deep breath and bring your hands together in front of your heart is if you are praying. Intone:

Greek	Phonetic	Translation
Eκάς, εκάς οι βέβηλοι, εις το όνομα του Παντοδυνάμου Φρη Σαβαωθ Αβρασαξ ΙΑΩ!	Hekas, hekas oi bebēloi, eis to onoma tou Pantodynamou Phrē Sabaōth Abrasax IAŌ!	Away, away o profane, in the name of the most powerful Phrē Sabaoth Abrasax IAO!

Confirmation

I wrote Jason Miller and told him about this variant of his banishing ritual and he loved it and encouraged me to publish it!

I have successfully used the Sphere of Horus to remove potentially harmful spiritual residue after having to apply Gordon's Hoodoo Hex to an obnoxious neighbor. First I wasn't completely sure if it worked but then my cat walked into the room, let himself fall on his side, stretching all paws out and gave me his usual blinky look of total relaxation. I fully trust his judgement! He might be a really bad hunter, but he usually seems to be quite aware of things from the other side.

Here is the Sphere of Horus as a Google document for nicer print layout, also including Jason's original descending dove and Hekate

(1) Borghouts, Joris Frans, ed. Ancient Egyptian magical texts. Vol. 9. Brill, 1978.

(2) Miller, Jason, Protection and Reversal Magick. New Page Books; 1 edition, 2006.

Ophiouchos

2018-02-22T18:00:00+01:00

or Conquering Shai-Hulud

(Version 1.2 - 29/10/2018)

Last week's New Moon has been a very special occasion for me.

Having Followed a suggestion by my occultist pen-pal Len W. to perform the Stele of Jeu rite on New Moon every month (the night sky is headless), this last one marked the half-year anniversary since I started on the day of the Great American Eclipse last summer - my self initiation.

This last one was an eclipse too. To me it felt like a turning point or "levelling up". Besides the semi-anniversary aspect, it has been the most powerful performance of this ritual ever, with lasting effects.

Inspired by Spiro' report I have wanted to perform the ritual in demotic Greek for quite some time now, as that's the language it was originally composed in. I finally got around to doing that and I have to say that despite my stumbling over the words and pronounciation of this unfamiliar language it felt very poetic and emotionally gripping.

As if that were not enough of a challenge I also worked up the courage to modify the Headless Rite to give it a darker and potentially more dangerous twist - just to see how it would effect the outcome. I have been fascinated by ancient myths around solar eclipses about the sun being devoured by dragons or serpents like in Egyptian and Slavic skylore.

During a solar eclipse that always occur on New Moon for obvious astronomical reasons, it's not only the night sky that is headless, but also the day sky on the other side of the globe! This occasion seemed auspicious to try to approach the dark and slithering ancient dragon in its attempt to swallow the sun right at its climax and divert some of it's indomitable serpentine energy into myself.

I remembered a very powerful Greek prayer to the old snake from a ritual by the German magical order of Fraternitas Saturni and I incorporated it into the Headless Rite after the part of self-exorcism and divine ascension. This is the Call to the Serpent:

ho ophis, ho archaios
ho drakon, ho megas
ho en kai ho on kai ho zon
eis tous ainonas ton ainonon
meta tou pneumato sou!

It translates roughly to the following:

The primeval serpent
the great dragon
who was and who is
and who lives through the aeons of aeons
He is with your spirit!

I like to start many of my rituals with orphic hymns to the planetary gods of the hour and the day, so for this one I chose the hymn to Phanes, the Protogonos, as it suits the occasion and ritual perfectly.

Here is the full ritual in phonetic Greek, followed by my personal report, which I recommend skipping to avoid spoilers if you want to try it out yourself :)

Akephalos Ophiouchos Ritual

Preparation

Wait until the climax of the eclipse has been reached to catch the moon's waxing energy alongside the serpentine power.

Light Myrrh incense as an offering to Phanes, anoint yourself with some holy oil, wear the papyrus strip with the six names and the auspicious sign as described in the Stele of Jeu. Meditate until you feel ready. Face towards the celestial North and recite the words:

Orphic Hymn to Protogonos

Protogonon kaleo diphyé, megan, aitheroplagkton,
ôiogené, chryseaisin agallomenon pterygessi,
tayroboan, genesin makaron thnetôn t' anthropon,
sperma polymneston, polyorgion, Érikepaion,
arreton, kryphion roizetora, pamphaes ernos,
osson os skotoessan apemayrosas omichlen
pante dinetheis pterygon ripais kata kosmon
lampron agon phaos agnon, aph' ou se Phaneta kiklesko
éde Priepon anakta kai Antaygen elikopon.
alla, makar, polymeti, polyspore, baine gegethôs
es teletén agian polypoikilon orgiophantais.

Stele of Jeu With Call to the Serpent

Se kalō, ton akephalon,
ton ktisanta gēn kai ouranon,
ton ktisanta nykta kai ēmeran,
se ton ktisanta phōs kai skotos.
Sy ei Osoronnōphris, on oudeis eide pōpote.
Sy ei Iabas! Sy ei Iapōs!
Sy diekrinas to dikaion kai to adikon.
Sy epoiēsas thēly kai arren.
Sy edeixas sporan kai kaprous.
Sy epoiēsas tous anthrōpous allēlophilein kai allēlomisein.
Egō eimi Mousēs o prophētēs sou,
ō paredōkas ta mysteria sou ta synteloumena Israēl.

Sy edeixas ygron kai chēron kai pasan trophēn.
Epakouson mou! Egō eimi aggelos tou Phaprō Osoronnōphris.
Touto estin sou to onoma to alēthinon to paradidomenon tois prophētais Israēl.
Epakouson mou.
Arbathiaō reibet athelebersēth ara blatha albeth ebenphchi chitasgoē ibaōth iaō

Eisakouson moth kai apostrepson to daimonion touto.
Epikaloumai se, ton en tō kenō pneymati deinon kai aoraton theon.
Arogogorobraō sochou modoriō phalarchaō ooo

Agie Akephale! Apallaxon ton deina apo tou synechontos ayton daimonos.
Roubriaō mari ōdam baabnabaōth ass adōnai aphniaō ithōlēth abrasach aēōōy
Ischyre Akephale! Apallaxon ton deina apo tou synechontos ayton daimonos.
Mabarraiō ioēl kotha athorēbalō abraōth Apallaxon ton deina.
Aōth abraōth basym isak sabaōth iaō

outos estin o kyrios tōn theōn.
outos estin o kyrios tēs oikoumenēs.
outos estin on oi anemoi phobountai.
outos estin o poiēsas phōnēs prostagmati eaytou panta.
Kyrie! Basiley! Dynasta! Boēthe! Sōson psychēn.
Ieou pyr iou pyr iaōt iaēō ioou abrasach sabriam oo yy ey oo yy adōnaie
Ēdē, ēdē, eyaggelos tou theou.
Anlala lai gaia apa diachanna choryn

(center yourself in the universe, omnipresent in all eons)

(call to the serpent:)

ho ophis, ho archaios
ho drakon, ho megas
ho en kai ho on kai ho zon
eis tous ainonas ton ainonon
meta tou pneumato mou!

(continue Headless Rite:)

Egō eimi o Akephalos Daimōn, en tois posin echōn tēn orasin.
Egō eimi o Ischyros, o echōn to pyr to athanaton.
Egō eimi ē Alētheia, o misōn adikēmata ginesthai en tō kosmō.
Egō eimi o astraptōn kai brontōn.
Egō eimi ou estin o idrōs ombros epipiptōn epi tēn gēn ina ocheyē.
Egō eimi ou to stoma kaietai di’ olou.
Egō eimi gennōn kai apogennōn.
Egō eimi ē Charis tou Aiōnos.
Onoma moi kardia periezōsmenē ophin.
Exelthe kai akolouthēson.

(the divine vowels:)

Aié aiôi éôiaé aé iô ôé aiéoueuôai eai uo iaô iôé oau aeé uôuô

(call to the serpent again:)

ho ophis, ho archaios
ho drakon, ho megas
ho en kai ho on kai ho zon
eis tous ainonas ton ainonon
meta tou pneumato mou!

(the six names, greatest name that adds to 9999:)

Chabrach phneschér phichro phnurô phôchô bôch

(subject to me all daimons...:)

Ypotaxon moi panta ta daimonia, ina moi ē ypekoos pas daimōn ouranios kai aitherios kai epigeios kai ypogeios kai chersaios kai enydros kai pasa epipompē kai mastix ē theou. Kai estai soi ta daiamonia panta ypekoa. Estin de to agathon zōdion·

(meditate until you feel ready to leave)

Personal Report

I usually do most of my rituals outside in a park nearby at my favourite quiet spot.

It was slightly snowing when I left the house walked towards my "temple". I already started breathing deeply and in a slow rhythm to prepare mentally.

After arriving I did the planetary prayer to Zeus and closed my eyes for a brief meditation. Right after that I followed a gut feeling and walked away from my usual spot to a more secluded one as I somehow didn't feel enough "privacy".

Closer to the naked branches of some wintery trees I felt more secure and I lit my Myrrh incense stick and put on the papyrus crown I usually use for the Headless Rite. Facing North, after some minutes of quiet breathing I started reciting the Hymn to Protogonos. It felt strange to not do it in my mother language, but powerful.

I continued with the Stele of Jeu text but couldn't help but feel like there was someone nearby. I read the words slowly, trying to get into a rhythm and to pronounce everything correctly. After the first paragraph I turned around to see if someone was there. Nothing. The usual paranoia. I continued.

I visualized myself growing slowly as I spoke the words. The Earth became smaller and smaller under my feet. As I gazed upwards into the dark sky I had a vision of a black serpentine body moving amorphously like seeing it deep under a surface of water. Although I looked up, it felt like the movement was far below me. It was a sense of loss of orientation.

As I continued to recite the text, I imagined myself floating downwards towards the pile of slithering scales. I myself was gigantic. I could see the entire universe. But I realized the draconian creature under me was much, much bigger. I felt a hint of fear, but pushed it away and I was approaching the part of the barbarous words and self-exorcism, so I put a lot of effort into sounding authoritative.

There it was again, the feeling of being watched! I recited the powerful call to the serpent and saw myself floating towards it again, sinking down - now it did not seem as gigantic as before. I felt courageous and I resisted the urge to turn around again in paranoia and I spontaneously started turning slowly around my own axis, tracing a spiral around myself with the incense stick.

I created a whirling vortex around me, circling around the Northern celestial pole above me, and around the serpent below me. The flux pulled the snake up in a kind of dancing motion. It spiralled around me creating a gigantic tunnel of energy and I was in its center, controlling the rotation. I have never had such strong images during a ritual and such a physical feeling of energy flowing through my body.

When I spoke the "subject to me all daimons..." formula the vortex slowly faded from my mind's vision and I was back in the park. It started snowing more heavily and I felt high like on cocaine. Pumped with energy I had the urge to flex all my muscles at once very strongly up to the point where I felt a strain in my neck. I focussed on my breath to calm down a bit, stuck the incense stick into the ground and stared at its glowing tip for a while.

On the way home I felt very high and I could hear my heart pumping. I envisioned having slit shaped reptilian pupils and it made me smile. I turned my phone back on from flight mode and received a text message.

It was Ricardo, a fellow mage friend who knew that I was out to do the ritual. I expected him to ask how it went, but instead I read:

He wrote me that he had meditated like every evening and because he knew I was out for the rite, he had spontaneously tried to visualise remotely watching me performing it. I was speechless when he continued to tell me that he had a blurry vision of slowly approaching me from behind, seeing me wearing a crown and holding a stick in my hand, being surrounded by a vortex of energy. He came closer and tried to touch my shoulder when suddenly he felt a surge of energy pushing him back, completely losing me out of sight. He even talked about my location, which wasn't exactly where I had been but only around 150 meters away from where I had done the ritual. He did not know beforehand which park I would go to. I was shocked!

I could hardly sleep that night, it felt as if I had had too much coffee. Until today, a whole week later I feel pumped with physical energy and very mindful of my presence in the here and now, almost like when microdosing psychedelics.

One negative outcome of the performance is that my ego seems overly boosted. I lack my usual humbleness and feel almost a bit arrogant from time to time and my patience level is lower than usual. I feel distant waves of aggression lurking under the surface. But I am aware of the differences and it's all under control.

Overall I must say it has been an amazing experience.

The next morning images from the movie "Dune" came into my mind, of the main protagonist Paul Atreides running towards the giant sandworm called Shai-Hulud to climb and ride it. See for yourself :)

Akephalos Redux

2018-02-22T11:00:00+01:00

(Version 2.3 - 28/10/2018)

After half a year of monthly practice of the Stele of Jeu in different variations I have come to a different understanding of it than when I started. Before beginning to practice the routine I spent several months researching every single bit about this ritual and about the Headless One, which proved quite fruitful in terms of grasping and executing the ritual and the deities addressed.

In this post I am briefly revisiting my path with the Headless One, summing up some points of my research and laying out my own conclusions. It will most probably be updated in the future.

Headlessness

In his amazing book about the history of spirits and their interaction with humankind - "Star.Ships" - Gordon White talks about "headlessness" being a very ancient spiritual concept, possibly from as far back as the Paleolithic. In his chapter "Part VIII. The Mirror of Heaven" he writes:

Ritual dismemberment remains a dominant motif in many initiatory traditions to this day and may ultimately date back to the very beginning of the formation of the Laurasian storyline (and perhaps earlier) where the universe is created from the dismembered parts of a giant monster or ancient god. It is quite possibly a very early conceptualisation of the microcosm/ macrocosm connection of the ‘unified human’ with all of Creation. The most potent visual is, of course, the removal and then return of the head, a seat of power recognised in magic and sorcery for tens of millennia, which is – I posit – reflected in the faceless (headless) T- shaped pillars of Göbekli Tepe and, of course, the ‘headless hunter’ that is Orion itself. From an Egyptian ritual perspective, when Osiris is headless, he is in the Underworld. The restoration of his head corresponds with his restoration to the Living world thanks to the magic of Isis/ Sirius. (1)

The Aghori Vimalananda about the symbolism of headlessness in Tantric magic:

When I am finished with the number of offerings I have planned to make, at the very end of my homa, I put a coconut into the fire. The coconut represents the worshipper’s head, with its three eyes. Also, it is full of water, just as the head is full of blood, cerebrospinal fluid and glandular secretions. When I offer the coconut I offer my entire consciousness to the fire with a request that it be transmuted into a divine consciousness. I offer my own head to get a divine head. Then I bow to the fire and request my deity to return to His or Her home, and my homa is completed. Then I sit by the fire for a while, after I am finished, and commune with it.

Akephalos in the Greek Magical Papyri

"Akephalos" seems to be one of the most controversial deities that appears in the Greek Magical Papyri. He has been identified as quite opposite demons and deities by academia and operative magi. Roughly, the interpretations can be broken down to two different directions: one is the "Typhonian" camp, the other one the "Osirian" camp.

In academia the former is represented most prominently by Armand L. Delatte, who claimed to have identified the headless one as being the Egyptian god of the desert, Seth, syncretized with the Greek monstrous demon Typhon (2). The German classical philologist Richard Wünsch follwed this interpretation in his work "Sethian curse tablets of Rome." In magical circles, besides Mathers, The Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley and the OTO, the prominent contemporary occultist and magician Jake Stratton-Kent delivers more diverse arguments in his booklet "The Headless One" (3) than the other mentioned authors, but comes to the same conclusion.

First to challenge this interpretation academically seems to have been Karl Preisendanz, another translator of the PGM, who argued against Delatte and Wünsch in his monograph "Akephalos - The Headless God" (4) (which I summarized here). He argues that the headless god could not be any other than the dismembered and resurrected Egyptian god of the underworld, Osiris. More contemporary scholars of this camp are Reinhold Merkelbach and Maria Totti, who found more supportive evidence of the Osirian character in their "Abrasax" collection of PGM spells (5) through parallels in the phrasing to the Isis Mysteries.

Both camps also introduce the Egyptian protector spirit Bes as a witness of their interpretation. Bes is often depicted as a lion rearing up on his hind legs, or as a hairy demon with his face on his chest, which one could interpret as "having no head" with a lot of imagination if one really wants to. The former camp syncretizes this demon with Typhon, the latter underlines his role as the protector of Osiris.

In my eyes both ways are completely useless attempts that prove nothing. I've seen many depictions of Bes, and in none of them he appeared even close to being "headless". He was one of the most commonly worshipped spirits by royal as well as common families in Egypt and able to help establish relationships with every other spirit, so it is to no surprise that he appears in many occasions in Greco Egyptian spells, but I doubt any close connection to Akephalos.

(Photo: Statues of Bes in the Neues Museum Berlin)

If I had to choose between the two camps, I would lean more towards the Osirian one, simply because their arguments seem more consistent to me. And in relation to the "Headless Rite" it makes more sense to ritually identify with the god of the underworld in order to gain control over the world of spirits. Oh and yes, Osiris is literally called by his name in the ritual.

But to be honest, the more I am practicing the Headless Rite the less I believe the Headless One to be one specific deity or spirit, but an archetype of headlessness itself, with all the symbolism and interpretations it evokes, from loss of orientation to transcendence.

(Update: in a newer article I dive deeper into this topic)

PGM VII and VIII

In PGM VII 222ff I don't believe Bes has anything to do with headlessness. Yes, he is being conjured and even called "headless one", but I agree with Preisendanz that this is probably an erroneous version of the same spell in PGM VIII 64ff, where Bes is conjured, but with the help of Osiris.

The Berlin Papyrus

PGM II aka. the Berlin Papyrus features this famous drawing of a headless person with the seven sacred vowels written over his chest. The Typhonian camp likes to see "snake heads" coming out of his shoulders as a proof of the Typhonian character of this Akephalos. The Osirian Preisendanz claims that the seven vowels and the magic words "Damnameneus" and "Semesilam" that are written next to the drawing, as well as the scarab drawing on the previous column and the spell itself hint towards a solar deity, a syncretized Helios-Osiris.

I think both are over-interpretations of this drawing, because when you read the instructions of the spell this drawing is a part of, it says to "make a lampwick out of a piece of cloth taken from one who has died violently" and the provided image is to be drawn onto this piece of cloth. In the Greek orginal the term "one who has died violently" is "βιαιος". Usually, the spirits of the dead who died violently (βιαιοθανατοι) are considered very powerful. I support Franz Dornseiff in his quite pragmatic explanation that the drawn headless figure is simply a sketch of a decapitated "βιαιος" (6). Also Merkelbach/Totti lean towards this interpretation (5).

Another possible interpretation is that the depicted headless god is the Egyptian Decan deity "Kenmu" who is most commonly pictured as having no head or his head hidden behind a disk shaped object. Kenmu's Greek name is "Komme" and in lines 117 until 124 the spell calls upon "Kommes" several times, the whole ritual might even be an attempt to bind the Decan god and one of the ways to achieve this is by drawing his picture.

(Photo: The Decan Kenmu, image on the ceiling of the Hypostile Hall of Dendera)

Akephalos in the Stele of Jeu

In the "Headless Rite" aka. "Stele of Jeu" it is Osiris who is summoned as "the headless one" and "the beautiful Osiris". He is being identified and syncretised with the Jewish desert demon / creator god YHVH. In his forms as Osiris-Ra, and Osiris-Aion he also hints towards the demon Abrasax and the declaration of his name being a "heart girt by a serpent" clearly points to the primordial god Phanes and his other later synthesized mutations as Aion and Mithras.

The descriptions in the praises of the text clearly point to Osiris who had put the newly created world into an order of harmonious opposites together with Isis. It also fits the creation process in Genesis.

I tried to find the meanings of the barbarous names used in the rite. Some of them are Hebrew (e.g. αρβαθιαω = Arbah Iao = "four of god") voces magicae, some are strings of sacred vowels (e.g. αηωωυ), some sound Egyptiany (e.g. σοχοu) but for most of them I was not able to determine a meaning.

Number Crunching

It is interesting that by adding the isopsephic values of all subsequent words in the strings of barbarous names and then reducing them ("rule of nine") to single digit numbers, most of them result in 1 or 4.

αρβαθιαω ρειβετ αθελεβερσηθ αρα βλαθα αλβεu εβενφχι χιτασγοη ιβαωθ ιαω (5905 reduced to 1)
αρογογοροβραω σοχοu μοδοριω φαλαρχαω οοο (5737 reduced to 4)
ροuβριαω μαρι ωδαμ βααβναβαωθ ασσ αδωναι αφνιαω ιθωληθ αβρασαξ αηωωυ (8887 reduce to 4)
μαβαρριαω ιεηλ κοθα αθορηβαλω αβραωθ (3142 reduce to 1, also when adding up the ordial values gematrically, they reduce from 289 to 1)
αωθ αβαωθ βασυμ ισακ σαβαωθ ιαω (4321 reduce to 1)
ιεοu πυρ ιοu πυρ ιαωτ ιαηω ιοοu αβρασαξ σαβριαμ οο υυ ευ οο υυ αδωναιε (7490 reduce to 2)
ανλαλα λαι γαια απα διαχαννα χορυν (2188 reduce to 1)

For completion here the revived vowels and six names too:

αιη αιωι ηωιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευωαι εαι υο ιαω ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω (9999 reduce to 9)
χαβραχ φνεσχηρ φιχρο φνυρω φωχω βωχ (9999 reduce to 9, also when adding up the ordial values gematrically, they reduce from 486 to 9)

Towards the Godhead

After regular practice, my own understanding of the Stele of Jeu ritual is that it follows a quite transcendental logic and seems to describe an almost Gnostic ascension of the own self towards the Godhead through stages of self-identification with different spiritual forms up to the highest being of the universe.

One begins as a human being humbly praying to Osiris, praising his divine achievements and immediately syncretizing him with the Jewish god YHVH as Iabas and Iapôs in the usual pagan way of accepting the gods as gods beyond belief-systems.
On the second step the practitioner identifies as an enlightened human, having achieved Gnosis, having become a prophet: Moses as well as a Messenger of Pharaoh Osiris.
The third step is a more potent address to the supreme god by using a row of secret barbarous names, to really get his attention. Embedded in more similar subsequent calls is a request to exorcise restraining demons, which is applied to oneself. It's a process of cleansing and purification embedded in magic language of the ancient gods.
After being cleared of all demons, in step four one identifies as being an angel of god, taking the form of an invincible, eternal, headless daimon.
The velocity of the ascent now increases rapidly, as in step five one becomes the truth itself, with clear moral views, one becomes the thundering and lightning wielding Zeus as well as the terrifying and unpredictable god of creation and destruction - raging with a flaming mouth, Yahweh!
In the next step the image becomes blurrier and more abstract. No more identifications with anthropomorphic deities, but a rise up to the level of the symbolic, the Favor of the Aion, your own name having become ineffable and only to be understood as an image: a heart encircled by a serpent.
The seventh and final level of ascension to the godhead becomes completely inexpressible and can only be attempted to be described beyond human imagination, by the largest possible magical number of 9,999 expressed in voces magicae and the vibrations of the divine sounds of the seven vowels. Images are transcended to the level of pure resonance, the unified field of consciousness.

The ascent is completed and one demands the subjugation of all daimons. From such a perspective that literally includes everything, even gods.

(Update: in a newer article I dive deeper into this topic)

(Photo: Phanes Protogonos, surrounded by the Zodiac)

Aligning the Temple

In the beginning I used to draw a circle, do a banishing routine and face the direction of Orion while doing this ritual. In his book Chaos Protocols Gordon White suggested this direction and he elaborates on it connecting to the millennia old tradition of honouring the Headless Hunter in the sky in Star.Ships:

Straddling the modern and supremely ancient world, the Headless Rite is an invocation of an asterism that led tribes across the globe for tens of millennia, that had ‘headless’ star temples raised in honour of it and its consort where hunters would feast, take drugs and learn the skills of grain cultivation, that became associated with stellar immortality (and still grain) to such an extent that great stone maps of it were built upon the earth. In a transparently shamanic survival, alignment with this asterism conferred kingship over the realm of the spirits. So potent was the initiatory power of headlessness – to have one’s head in another realm – that it has survived into two of the three great religions of the Near East in the form of John the Baptist, who ‘initiates’ Christ and thus brings that same promise of victory over death back down to earth. (1)

After several executions I found myself more drawn to the Egyptian parts in it and faced the consort and sister of Orion, Isis, in her form as Sothis or the star Sirius.

But once I had worked out the six names to be used according to the PGM, I started following the orientation in the original text towards North. The difference in power to this ritual was very much noticable and I continued facing this direction until today.

As I understand the ritual today I assert that North is the only logical direction on your ascent up. And it's not the magnetic North, it's the celestial North. The visible turning point of the axis mundi, the heart girt by a serpent (the constellation Draco revolves around the polar star).

Having experienced the potency of this proceeding I also completely stopped drawing a circle and banishing. It just doesn't fit. I visualize myself and my changing divine position in the universe during each of the seven steps and as the universe revolves around me while I rise up it becomes the magic circle. As I grow in divine potency after my self-exorcism, there's nothing left to banish.

I am certain that it is quite a risky ritual that needs to be followed through until the end once started. I think there might be unpredictable consequences if one doesn't complete it or skips parts in it. Sometimes it happens that I stumble pronouncing the barbarous names correctly and to be on the safe side, I usually repeat the whole sentence until it feels right.

(Continued in a newer article)

(1) White, Gordon, "Star.Ships: A Prehistory of the Spirits", Scarlet Imprint (VIII. The Mirror of Heaven, X. Children of the Mother of Heaven)

(2) Delatte, Armand L., ""Études sur la magie grecque. V. Akephalos Theos", Bulletin de correspondance hellénique Année 1914 Volume 38 Numéro 1 pp. 189-249

(3) Stratton-Kent, Jake, "The Headless One. A Guide to the Underworld.", Hadean Press, Published in June, 2012. 28 pages.

(4) Preisendanz, Karl, "Akephalos. Der kopflose Gott", Beihefte zum Alten Orient 8 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1926)

(5) Reinhold Merkelbach, Maria Totti, "Abrasax: Ausgewählte Papyri religiösen und magischen Inhalts", Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia, 1991)

(6) Dornseiff, Franz, "Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie"

(7) Robert E. Svoboda, AghoraII: Kundalini, Brotherhood of Life Publishing, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Shudderful Names

2017-09-12T19:30:00+02:00

(Version 1.0, 12/09/2017)

Every since my discovery of the missing formula in the Stele of Jeu papyrus and its torn edge with the vowel annotation, I've been obsessing over the seven vowels and their use in the PGM (1) and excessively diving into heaps of articles and books about the topic.

My left brain keeps insisting "There's gotta be a system or pattern!" while my right brain keeps smiling, saying "it's all just about the harmonic sounds, dude!".

Anyways, this post serves as a (growing) public collection of my notes about "the shudderful names" and to some extend also the "barbarous words" and how and if they are related to the single spells they are part of.

The Alphabet in Mystic and Magic

The best attempt of an academic analysis of the seven vowels I have found so far is in a German book from 1925 called "Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie" by Franz Dornseiff.

In Chapter II §3 the author lists examples of the vowels and in which context they were used in different papyri and gnostic texts. He states that the prayers that contain vowel variations are addressed to the following Egyptian deities: Isis, Osiris, Thoth-Hermes, Sarapis, Harpocrates-Chnuphis. More than to the Egyptian gods they are used in prayers to the Jewish/Christian god JHVH/IAÔ and in a few cases to the Archangels. Other deities are Helios, Aion, Abrasax, but mostly Apollon and Hekate.

He talks about the directionality of the vowels and the way they are supposed to be pronounced according to the PGM. Ne also notes, that the vowels are used more at the end of invocations than at the beginning, as most powerful magical words. Dornseiff points out that the source of these vowels is most probably to be found in Egyptian theurgy. He presents the two often used quotes by Demetrios and Nicomanchus (see below) and pinpoints the beginning of the use of vowel variations to the end of the 19th dynasty (around 1150 B.C.).

One probable reason for the vowel combinations is the magical practice of seeking a deity's "real name" beyond their given name that ususally does not come close to their true essence in a limited human alphabet. He also notes that one should not forget that not all magicians were pious idealists, some also made up gibberish on the fly, because they had paying customers.

He refers to a paper by his colleague A. Harnack who alleged that the rows of vowels could be a "dialect" of the "convulsive languages" ("speaking in tongues") and that they need to be ecstatically vibrated.

What follows is a list of use cases of different vowel variations, that they are written in triangle shapes, or cycling through them forwards, backwards, and so on and so forth. He does not offer any conclusion about the vowel use at the end of his chapter about this topic, but in general Dornseiff notes that evidence against a randomly used gibberish and for a system is the fact that a lot of the voces magicae including the vowels are often accompanied by an explicit comment about how many letters long they are. Often these numbers refer to the stars: 7 (planets), 12 (zodiac), 28 (mansions of the moon), 36 (decans) or kabbalistic numbers 12, 42, 72. Sometimes they are palindromes, in other cases written in triangle or other shapes (wings, grapes, heart).

Books & Documents

Correspondences

Google Spreadsheet with correspondences found for the seven vowels

Quotes

The Seven Vowels

The Seven Greek Vowels symbolised the seven heavens, or Planets, whose harmony keeps the Universe in existence, each vowel having seven different methods of expression corresponding with a certain Force, the correct utterance of these letters and comprehension of the forces typified being believed to confer supreme power, bringing success in all enterprises and giving complete control over all the powers of darkness.

(William T. Pavitt & Kate Pavitt, 1922, The Book of Talismans, Amulets and Zodiacal Gems, 2nd edn., Rider & Son, London, p.65.)

Greek letters became hieroglyphs, [...] while Egyptian hieroglyphs could be ‘spoken’ in Greek; Egyptian priests claimed Greek vowel sounds as the divine inheritance of Thoth, while Greeks turned the same vowel sounds into the visual insignia of cosmic forces.

(Frankfurter, 1994, “The Magic of Writing and the Writing of Magic.” From p.211)

The Greek initiates also recognized a fundamental relationship between the individual heavens or spheres of the seven planets, and the seven sacred vowels. The first heaven uttered the sound of the sacred vowel Α (Alpha); the second heaven, the sacred vowel Ε (Epsilon); the third, Η (Eta); the fourth, Ι (Iota); the fifth, Ο (Omicron); the sixth, Υ (Upsilon); and the seventh heaven, the sacred vowel Ω (Omega). When these seven heavens sing together they produce a perfect harmony which ascends as an everlasting praise to the throne of the Creator.

(Manly P. Hall. Secret Teachings of All Ages (New York, NE:Tarcher/Penguin, 2003[1928]))

Sound and Harmony

[...] if all existing things were tunes, they would have been a number, but a number of quarter-tones, and their essence would not have been number; and the one would have been something whose substance was not to be one but to be the quarter-tone. And similarly if all existent things had been articulate sounds, they would have been a number of letters, and the one would have been a vowel. And if all existent things were rectilinear figures, they would have been a number of figures, and the one would have been the triangle. And the same argument applies to all other classes.

(Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book X, Part 2)

There are seven vowels, seven strings to the scale, seven Pleiades. . . and seven heroes who attacked Thebes . . . [The Pythagoreans] also assert that xi, psi and zeta are concords . . . because there are only three double consonants, and . . . there are three concords. . . . And they point out that the interval from alpha to omega in the alphabet is equal to that from the lowest note of a flute to the highest, whose number [twentyfour] is equal to that of the whole system of the universe.

(Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book N, 1093a-b, in H. Treddenick (trans.), (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 300-301)

And the tones of the seven spheres, each of which by nature produces a particular sound, arc the sources of the nomenclature of the vowels. These are described as unpronounceable in themselves and in all their combinations by wise men since the tone in this context performs a role analogous to that of the monad in number, the point in geometry, and the letter in grammar. However, when they are combined with the materiality of the consonants just as soul is combined with body and harmony with strings—the one producing a creature, the other notes and melodies—they have potencies which are efficacious and perfective of divine things. Thus whenever the theurgists are conducting such acts of worship they make invocation symbolically with hissing, clucking, and inarticulate and discordant sounds.

(Nicomanchus of Gerasa, "Manual of Harmony")

The seven strings of the magic lyre gave out, as they sounded, vibratory numbers corresponding to the astral waves of the seven planets. The Hierophant applied, for his musical purposes, the mechanism of the cosmic vibrations, and it was thus that at the propitious moment, he proceeded to the animation of the transvitalized phantasm of the Pharaoh. To capture the astral influx of planetary life, and to transfuse it into the mummy, the Hierophant made the seven notes resonate magically: A, G, F, E, D, C, B; according to a slurred ternary rhythm which repeated like a charmed circle.

Then the atmosphere of the tomb was animated by lines of subtle energies, and the prodigy of an extraordinary condensation of cosmic life manifested by the rhythmic palpitations of the supervitalized air.

The astral waves became more and more condensed, so as to form a wondrous fluidic spiral, the shape of the magic vortex of protection and animation whose center was the mummy itself. At that instant, the Hierophant intoned the incantation of astral life and fixed it, following the law of magical correspondences, in the breast of the mummy, whose phantasm was animated by an inextinguishable flame: and the miraculous existence of the Pharaoh's double would last as long as the land of Egypt.

(Fidèle Amy-Sage, "Le secret de la sépulture d'un Pharaon")

Sound is a form of energy. Different vibrations of sound cause varying energy levels. Your state of consciousness can be changed by your own vibrational rate. You can also obtain visions of the gods and shape-shift [...]. When sound is used as a mantra, your concentration, visualization, and power during magic can be accelerated. The rate of vibration in your pronunciation of words and names changes energy molecules. Every cell of a thought, emotion, plant, animal, person, and all that is visible and invisible, vibrates, because every atom of every molecule within a cell is energy. All that is animate and inanimate consists of energy. The human voice produces two different sound qualities: consonants and vowels. Each quality releases and enhances the energy of your consciousness and therefore empowers your divination or magic work.

(Eleanor L. Harris and Normandi Ellis "Ancient Egyptian Magic")

Gematria and Isopsephy

For the monad, therefore, as being beneficent, they assert that there are consequently names ascending, and beneficent, and masculine, and carefully observed, terminating in an uneven number; whereas that those terminating in the even number have been supposed to be both descending, and feminine and malicious. For they affirm that nature is made up of contraries, namely bad and good, as right and left, light and darkness, night and day, life and death. And moreover they make this assertion, that they have calculated the word Deity, (and found that it reverts into a pentad with an ennead subtracted). Now this name is an even number, and when it is written down (on some material) they attach it to the body, and accomplish cures by it. In this manner, likewise, a certain herb, terminating in this number, being similarly fastened around (the frame), operates by reason of a similar calculation of the number. Nay, even a doctor cures sickly people by a similar calculation. If, however, the calculation is contrary, it does not heal with facility. Persons attending to these numbers reckon as many as are homogeneous according to this principle; some, however, according to vowels alone; whereas others according to the entire number. Such also is the wisdom of the Egyptians, by which, as they boast, they suppose that they cognise the divine nature.

(Egyptian Theory of Nature; Their Amulets, Refutation of All Heresies (Book IV), Chapter 44, Hippolytus)

the inhabitants give attention to every branch of learning and especially to astrology; and they use letters which, according to the value of the sounds they represent, are twenty-eight in number, but the characters are only seven, each one of which can be formed in four different ways

(Iambulos Island, Diodorus Siculus, Book II, pg. 37)

Gnostics

"There is no mystery which is more excellent than these mysteries on which ye question, in that it will lead your souls into the Light of the lights, into the regions of Truth and Goodness, into the region of the Holy of all holies, into the region in which there is neither female nor male, nor are there forms in that region, but a perpetual indescribable Light. Nothing more excellent is there, therefore, than these mysteries on which ye question, save only the mystery of the seven Voices and their nine-and-forty powers and their ciphers. And there is no name which is more excellent than them all, the name in which are all names and all lights and all powers.

"Who then knoweth that name, if he cometh out of the body of matter, nor smoke nor darkness nor authority nor ruler of the Fate-sphere nor angel nor archangel nor power can hold down the soul which knoweth that name; but if it cometh out of the world and sayeth that name to the fire, it is quenched and the darkness withdraweth.

"And if it sayeth it to the demons and to the receivers of the outer darkness and their rulers and their authorities and their powers, they will all sink down and their flame will burn and they will cry out: 'Holy, holy art thou, most holy of all holies.'

"And if one sayeth that name to the receivers of the wicked chastisements and their authorities and all their powers and also to Barbēlō and the invisible god and the three triple-powered gods, straightway if one will say this name in those regions, they will all fall one on another, will be undone and destroyed and cry out: 'O Light of all lights, which is in the boundless lights, remember us and purify us.'"

(Of the highest mysteries and of the great name, Pistis Sophia, Book V, Ch. 143)

Iota, the Universe came out; Alpha, they will turn them; Omega, will become the completion of all completions.

(Jesus quote, G . Horner (trans.), "Pistis Sophia" ( London : Macmillan, 1924), p. 180.)

But these are the names which I shall give from the Boundless One downwards. Write them with a sign, that the sons of God should be manifested from this place onwards. This is the name of the Deathless One AAA ΩΩΩ . And this is the name of the sound by which the Perfect Man was moved III. But these are the interpretations of the names of these Mysteries. The first is AAA. Its interpretation is ΦΦΦ . The second is MMM or ΩΩΩ . Its interpretation is AAA. The third is ΨΨΨ . Its interpretation is OOO. The fourth is ΦΦΦ . Its interpretation is NNN. The fifth is AAA. Its interpretation is AAA. He who is upon the throne is AAA. This is the interpretation of the second AAAA AAAA AAAA. This is the interpretation of the whole name.

(G. Horner (trans.), Pistis Sophia, p. 62)

Yea, yea, for I adjure you in the name of the 7 letters that are tattooed on the chest of the father, namely, A 7 (times), E 7 (times), E 7 (times), I 7 (times), O 7 (times), U 7 (times), O 7 (times), yea, yea, that you obey my mouth, at this moment, before it passes and another one comes in its place, and you appear to me in a vision that is not frightening, through the power of the holy father.

(Spell to obtain a good singing voice, London Oriental Manuscript 6794)

(1) Betz, ed. by Hans Dieter (1992). "The Greek magical papyri in translation including the Demotic spells" (2nd ed.). Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

(2) Kieren Barry, "The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetical Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World", 1999 by Red Wheel Weiser

Preisendanz' Headless God

2017-09-02T20:30:00+02:00

For my research about the headless one that got way beyond my initial goal of simply translating the text for personal praxis I stumbled upon a publication by Karl Preisendanz, the first translator of the PGM into German in the 1920s, called "Akephalos - The Headless God" The book is a monograph Preisendanz published as a reaction to several publications by other researchers who had misinterpreted the identity of the headless one in his opinion. It is a very interesting book that cleared up a lot of questions and confusions for me and in my opinion has very concise lines of arguments that convinced me more than similar ones by other authors who wrote about the same topic.

It seems to me that there is no English translation of this book, so here is a brief summary of the contents, in case you are interested.

Akephalos - der kopflose Gott

In the preface Preisendanz explains that he had read the work "Akephalos Theos" by A. Delatte and felt the need to publish a paper in order to point out errors and misconceptions in Delatte's work, although he found this work very helpful and inspiring for his own research. Additionally he wanted to argue against R. Wünsch's idea of following Delatte's conclusion of a Seth-Typhonian character of the headless one.

In the first chapter Preisendanz gives a general overview of headlessness in folk magic and mythology around the world. He talks about decapitated ghosts in Germanic lore, the headless Molos and Triton in Greek folklore, general lore of veneration of heads of gods and martyrs, the stoic round god of Varro, the Thracian and Phrygian god Korybas, the Pepelekismenoi of Kypros, headless ghosts of decapitated criminals, animal ghosts without head, some history of separate head burials in pagan Germanic cultures to prevent a return from the underworld, the black headless men on ships in Byzantium, the burning of fallen travelling warriors in Italy and separate burial of their heads for mere practicality, the dismemberment of corpses in ancient Egypt with subsequent reassembly and embalment related to the Osiris cult, the legend of the papyrus head ship from Egypt to Byblos, the importance of headless godliness in Egypt in general.

Preisendanz continues with a rant against Delatte's connection of the headless demon Phonos from the Testament of Solomon with the Graeco-Egyptian god Seth-Typhon and arguments that already the description in the Testament of Solomon states that Phonos has his face on his chest, thus he is "stethokephal" and not "akephal" while the real headless one has no mouth or eyes but looks like a decapitated man.

(Egyptian drawing of the headless one holding a sun disk)

In "The Headless God on Gems" Preisendanz again rants against Delatte's interpretation of gem no. 615 of the numismatic museum of Athens which shows a human figure with the head of a horse or donkey in which Delatte saw the solar god Seth-Typhon and a about Delatte's interpretation of a second Athenian gem of the Roskowitz collection that shows a similar but decapitated figure and an ourobos where D. had claimed that it depicted an act of self-decapitation. Preisendanz doubts these interpretations and concludes that it was probably a depiction of the jackal headed Anubis and the beheaded Osiris like on the gnostic gem of C.W. King that Delatte had correctly pointed out.

What follows is a chapter about Seth in the PGM. Here Preisendanz objects to the syncretism of Osiris, Horos, Apollon, Seth-Typhon and Bes by A. Delatte who sees them all as solar gods who could all be depicted as headless. He deconstructs every single claim by Delatte of Seth being a solar deity: Just because Seth had helped Ra with the removal of Apophis doesn't make him a solar deity. He goes through PGM IV 155-285 proving that there is no proof of Seth-Typhon being a solar god, but a powerful and dreadful spirit, despite ritual details about facing the sun. In PGM VII 961-970, Seth is conjured as a powerful creator god and fire demon, but that does not make him a solar deity either, the same goes for PGM XII 11, 15ff, PGM IV, VII 366.

"The Roman Curse Tablets" is a quite lengthy chapter where Preisendanz deconstructs the identifications of headless or donkey-headed figures with Typhon-Seth by his fellow researchers Richard Wünsch, M. Matters and others. I skipped over this chapter quite a lot, because it is quite boring when not knowing the works Preisendanz referred to.

Preisendanz points out inconsistencies in Wünsch's interpretations because sometimes he sees Osiris as "god of the waters" and on other occasions he connectes Seth to being a water deity. He condemns Wünsch's way too speculative interpretation of the beginning part of conjurations on the roman tablets that says "dee Phrygia, dee Nymphee, Aidonea" as merely misspellings of "dee Ephydrias, dee Nymphaios, Adonai". Apparently Wünsch created a god "Ephydrias", who sits on a water vessel whom he equates with Osiris and a god "Nymphaios", allegedly just another name of the former (god of the water nymphs and Adonai as the Jewish god syncretised with the Greek Aidoneus. WÜnsch describes Osiris as god of the water and the underworld. Preisendanz corrects that instead the names refer to a female demon "Phrygia" and "Nymphee" to be either the plural form of the female water nymphs or as is written in PGM IV 2614 the alias "Nymphê" of the goddess Hekate, which also explains the last name "Adoneia", another name for Hekate as of PGM IV 2564, 2855, 2726. So it's actually all about Hekate. Preisendanz goes on and on about other errors Wünsch apparently made, so I skipped to the end of the chapter where Preisendanz concludes that the Headless God can not definetly be identified within the Roman Curse Tablets, neither by Delatte, nor by Wünsch.

The next chapter, "The Headless God in the PGM", was obviously by far the most interesting one for me.

Preisendanz presents the "Stele of Jeu" text but without all the barbarous names. He explains the mixing of Graeco-Egyptian deities with Jewish elements and claims that the scribe "Jeu" was probably a jewish magician and added his own elements to Graeco-Egyptian magic tech.

Preisendanz states that the headless one is no other than Osiris. One evidence for this is that Osiris has been depicted as headless on a sarcophargus in Kairo. Delatte's claim that Seth is literally also part of the spell is wrong, because "Reibetatheleberseth" is one word, so just taking "seth" out of context is simply false. He acknowledges that "awesome and invisible god" is usually a term for Typhon, but argues that description could also be used for other deities.

(The headless Osiris on a Sarcophargus in Cairo, guarded by Nephtys and Isis)

Preisendanz criticizes the equalization of the headless god with Bes that Delatte concluded about PGM VII 222ff and PGM VIII 64ff. He argues that the former is probably a corrupted and fragmented version of a spell that was written down in a more detailed and correct version as the latter. In the latter version it is clearly Osiris who is being called as "the headless one." The other reason is the sketch that comes with PGM VIII of how to draw Bes. He is not depicted as headless and also not like he is usually depicted - as an ugly and hairy demon with a deformed face on his chest, but as a normal male figure wearing a crown and a sword. About the quite obvious connection of the "headless god, the face on his feet, etc." with Besas in PGM VIII 234, 244 P. argues that Besas in his classic depiction has his face on his chest, so he can't have his "face on his feet" at the same time. The rest of the conjuration also rather hints towards Osiris, the two birds next to the head representing Nephtys and Isis who took the form of two falcons. Preisendanz explains his interpretation of the term having the "face on his feet": Delatte's explanation of the serpent or jackal heads on the feet of some depictions of Bes is not sufficient.

(Drawing of Bes in PGM VIII)

Preisendanz presents images of beheaded captives in Egypt who had their heads between their feet but admits that he could not find any image like that that clearly depicted Osiris. He explains the Egyptian custom of Akroteriasmos, the dismemberment of a body before embalment where the head is usually put between the feet to make it impossible for the dead to wake up and pick it up again. As Osiris is the prototype of the concept of a dead god, so he probably also has had his head between his feet.

(Drawing of beheaded prisoners)

Preisendanz concludes about PGM VIII that instead of a syncreticism of Besas with the Headless One the real explanation is a simple magical practicality: Besas is correctly conjured as a protective spirit, partially by using the provided drawing, but in order to successfully conjure Besas there is a need for a higher authoritative spirit, so obviously Osiris is being called as the headless god, to kick Besas' ass. Preisendanz says Besas is a well known minor folk magic spirit and never depicted as headless, so the only possible identity of the headless one is Osiris.

He lists more evidence of Osiris as headless god, e.g. PGM XII 2, 1ff talks about a beheaded scarab, a symbol closely connected to Osiris, he also refers to the "Book of the Dead" and Budge's work "The Gods". Also the bas relief of Philae apparently shows a beheaded Osiris

In his chapter "The Headless God of the Berlin Papyrus" P. explains in great detail what PGM II is about, that some text seems to be missing and that it is a hymn to a syncretised Helios-Apollon, and that the magic image is a headless deity but it is not 100% clear who. The magic words "Damnameneus" and "Semesilam" hint towards a solar god, also the planetary vowels are usually used in a solar context. The scarab image described in the text and shown as a drawing hints towards that conclusion too.

What follows is a short chapter about two images of the Oslo papyrus where P. explains two headless depictions, of which one could be interpreted as Osiris, but the "questionable artist" drew the image so badly that it's too difficult to clearly interpret.

(one of the headless ones from the Oslo P.)

A very interesting chapter is "Akephalos in the Sky". Here P. describes that on the Dendera Zodiac some of the decan depictions show headless figures. He talks about every single one of them and that it is unfortunately unclear who is being depicted. He regrets that it cannot be proven but that it would be a beautiful connection between the headless one in the decans and the PGM. He refers to the book "Sphaera" by Franz Boll who talks about the decans in detail and that K. Dieterich even connected the drawings of PGM II with zodiac signs in one of his works.

In the last chapter Preisendanz lists examples of talismans showing Osiris as headless one or scarab headed one.

Tail of the Dragon

2017-09-01T19:30:00+02:00

I returned to the Croatian island of Pag for a job - exactly one year after my serpent dream that sent me on this journey of enchantment. I was very excited, because I had decided to celebrate this anniversary with a series of self initiation rituals during the New Moon that was also a solar eclipse. In the weeks prior to this trip I had researched, translated and practiced a number of magical texts and constructed two rituals to be done. One in the waning phase of the New Moon, the other one in the waxing phase.

Monday

I chose the hour of Mercury on the day of the Moon as the beginning of the ritual and it's end in the following hour of the Moon. The location was to be the highest elevation point on the island, a hill called Sveti Vid (Saint Vitus) with a small church ruin on the top and a cement pillar next to it, marking the summit.

After approximately 20 hours of fasting and a short ritual shower at home I took a rented scooter to Kolan, the village next to the hill, and hiked for around an hour ascending across rocky desert and under burning hot August sun until I reached the summit. I encountered a large group of German teenagers and several tourists up there and I patiently waited until they finally left and had descended far enough for me to have enough privacy for my ritual.

First I drew the seals of the Four Kings to the corresponding sides of the pillar, lit a stick of frankincense in front of the wooden virgin Mary statue inside the abandoned chapel and then I circled the whole summit area clockwise, drawing an "astral" circle around it while simply banishing by repeatedly chanting "Hekas, Hekas, Este Bebeloi!"

Then I did a consecration spell for this created circular temple and to the spirit of fire (incense) and opened the ritual with planetary prayers to the Moon and to Mercury and then followed up by reciting the Orphic hymns to Selene (moon), Helios (sun) and Protogonos (connects to the Headless One quite nicely).

Now came the main part: the Headless Rite (Gordon White's Chaos Protocols version). I lit another stick of incense and as the six names to be spoken towards North I used the Ephesia Grammata, as they seemed more powerful to me than the classic choice of names and due to their meaning that seemed fitting to this day of the solar eclipse. I transitioned directly into the invocation of the Four Kings with offerings of rum and pieces of my burek lunch to the corresponding directions.

At this point I took a break and wandered around in silence and contemplation. I felt the sun burning from above and wind in my hair and was filled with a feeling of excitement and empowerment. There was a small bird of prey circling around the summit. I like to think it was a swift.

I closed with praises and thanks ("license of departure") addressed to each of the Four Kings and to whatever spirits present and sat down in the shade on the northern side of the chapel to enjoy my lunch.

The descend was more difficult than expected, because the sun was shining directly into my face and I was overwhelmed by a feeling of exhaustion. When I arrived back home I noticed my face and especially nose were quite sunburnt.

Tuesday

This time I did another hike into a small valley that I had already discovered the year before. Today I was a bit smarter than yesterday and wore a linen shirt as a kufiya over my head to have better protection from the sun. In the beautiful valley I chose a distinguished rock formation as my temple, climbed it, lit a stick of frankincense and did a very simple consecration and banishing spell. As this ritual was meant to take place in honour of Mars, the ruler of my zodiac sun sign as well as of the day and hour of my birth I chose also the hour of Mars on this Martian day.

I opened with the planetary prayer to Mars and two Orphic hymns to Ares and then proceeded with the lengthy but very powerful instruction for recitation of the heptagram (PGM XIII, 762ff), followed up by the Headless Rite, again using the Ephesia Grammata as the six names formula. After some moments of meditation I left the temple space without any closure and hiked back to the road where my scooter was waiting.

Thursday

I have this job on Pag every year, so I've had the chance in the past to explore the island thoroughly. My favorite spot is a very rocky desert area in the northeast and I went hiking there a few times. Last year I wanted to find out more about this area and I researched a bit online. I was utterly terrified to find out that this exact spot used to be the site of a concentration camp during the time Croatia was a Nazi puppet state ruled by the fascist revolutionary organisation "Ustaše". A couple of thousand Jews, Serbs and antifascists have been murdered there and thrown into the sea or buried under the rocks. The most appaling part about this is that there is not a single sign or piece of information about this on the island itself, nobody wants to talk about it or simply denies it has ever happened. This has caused me several sleepless nights throughout the last year and I wanted to visit the dead on this visit to spend some time with them in contemplation and remembrance.

To reach the area where the "Slana" camp used to be you have to take a boat across Pag bay or hike for one to two hours from the village of Metajna across undeveloped rocky wasteland. I did the latter and in the August heat this was a quite demanding task. When I had eventually made it to Slana bay, I walked by a handful of tourists on the beach who had arrived by boat, enjoying themselves while giving me a strange look, obviously surprised to see me arrive on foot covered in my kufiya. I continued uphill to the valley where the camps used to be.

Someone had erected a wooden cross near the site, without any sign. I don't remember having seen it last year. I walked up to it and lit an incense stick, poured a bit of the spring water I had brought as an offering near the base of the cross and spontaneously recited the Lord's Prayer (something I haven't uttered since my confirmation in early teenage years) in honour of the Serbs and antifascists who had been murdered here.

A bit downhill from the cross, I could see a little thorny tree sticking out of the dry rocks. I walked towards it and it was some kind of thistle, maybe half a meter high. It made me smile - such a rugged and courageous plant. It seemed very appropriate as a symbol of life in all this barren rocky wasteland with it's hidden history of torture and death, so I decided to sit down next to it. I said a prayer for the ancestors and mighty dead and added some impromptu things I wanted to say. I emptied the remaining spring water at the base of the bush, as an offering to all the Jews who had suffered and been killed here and I put one of those "eternal" candles used on cemeteries next to it in memory of all the victims of this valley.

Usually there is a lot of wind blowing through the valley carrying all kinds of sounds with it, of jet-skis and the techno party-boats, bird- and sheep-sounds. But the moment after I prayed next to the thorny bush, the whole valley suddenly seemed to have become dead silent for a couple of endless seconds. It gave me shivers and I had the strange feeling of being "watched".

The hike back to Metajna went faster than expected and I drove back home, completely exhausted.

UPG Notes:

Besides feeling "empowered" and "magicky" during the rituals on Monday and Tuesday I didn't have any direct "results" from doing them. Actually, I didn't even expect any, since my work in Croatia was in the context of a multiday electronic music event each night from 11 until 6 followed by short and not too good stretches of almost dreamless sleep, which is not really the best mental or "spiritual" condition to be in. In addition I didn't feel fully comfortable doing the ritual on top of Sveti Vid mountain, because I was constantly paranoid that tourists might pop up any second.

One thing I noticed though, already from Monday evening on throughout the whole week was that people suddenly seemed way more "courteous" towards me than usual. I consider myself a relatively shy person that likes to be more in the background of things, so I noticed it quite immediately that my "popularity" was higher than usual. Not sure if that's just a psychological side-effect of feeling more "empowered" or of the rituals themselves.

The most spiritually intense moment of this trip was that very quiet and dense moment at Slana bay after my offerings and prayer.

I will patiently wait and see if there will be any events or experiences that I can trace back to these rituals. Solar eclipses are supposed to have an astrological "afterglow" of around 6 months, so I am not in a hurry.

The Six Names

2017-08-19T21:00:00+02:00

Updated version 4.0

During my work on a functional version of the Stele of Jeu for ritual use based on the German translation by Preisendanz¹ and his monograph Akephalos - The Headless God² I hit a massive roadblock.

The ritual requires a formula of 6 names to be written on a parchment and recited facing north. But it surprised me to find no actual mention of these names in the text.

Isaac's Sabaoth

According to what I have seen in books, articles, and online discussions, all modern practitioners use the following voces magicae as the required formula:

AŌTH ABRAŌTH BASYM ISAK SABAŌTH IAŌ

This seems to work well enough for modern chaos magicians. But in the original PGM text there is no indication whatsoever that above words are the formula to be used. These six words are merely the only row of six subsequent voces magicae to be found in this spell³.

On top of that, above transliteration has a typo. It's supposed to be ABAOTH and not ABRAOTH. An observant reader has pointed out in the comments that both, this typo and this choice of six names, are most likely traceable to the book Hermetic Magic: The Postmodern Papyrus of Abaris by S. E. Flowers⁴.

I checked the sources and found that when the spell was first published⁵ in 1852 by Charles Goodwin it did not contain any transliterations of barbarous names. And as preliminary invocation in The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King⁶ by Aleister Crowley the spell neither had this typo, nor any special meaning attributed to these six words. But then again, Crowley was also quite liberal in his translation and adaptation of the spell.

So back to the original source. If you'd want to be persnickety like Preisendanz, who interpreted BASYM⁷ not as a name but as the Aramaic word "ba'shem" or "in the name of", it would only leave five names, wouldn't it?

According to the work "Abrasax" by Reinhold Merkelbach and Maria Totti⁸ from 1991 which includes a number of PGM spells with commentary, AOTH and likely also ABAOTH are shorter forms of SABAOTH. This means that the string of "barbarous names" reads as:

(SAB)AŌTH, (S)ABAŌTH, in the name of ISAAC('s) SABAŌTH-IAŌ

The Orphic Formula

In Betz' Greek Magical Papyri in Translation⁹ you can find a footnote regarding the six names:

The term ὄνομα apparently refers to a formula containing a number of magical words.

At this point in my research, I considered the possibility that the original author of the papyrus was referring to a formula so obvious and well known to magi at the time that simply mentioning "the six names" would have been enough for the reader to understand what was meant. What supports this idea is the fact that throughout the PGM, some voces magicae that are commonly used are just noted down as "do the usual" or as abbreviations, e.g. "ABERAMEN (formula)" in PGM IV, 182 actually refers to the palindrome:

ABERAMENThŌOULERThEXANAXEThRELUOŌThNEMAREBA

(See also Leonardo Drakon's awesome post on this)

But what could be the well known "six names"? One of the most famous magical hexagrammata of the time that can be found on numerous talismans and in other protective magical contexts in dozens of places between Egypt and Sicily are the Ephesia Grammata, also called Orphic formula. This terminology can also be found in PGM VII, 452:

But if you cause [the plate] to be buried or [sunk in] river or land or sea or stream or coffin or in a well, write the Orphic formula, saying, "ASKEI KAI TASKEI" and, taking a black thread, make 365 knots, ...

The six names of the "Ephesia Grammata" are:

ASKION KATASKION LIX TETRAX DAMNAMENEUS AISION

I highly recommend the awesome paper The Ephesia Grammata: Logos Orphaikos or Apolline Alexima pharmaka? by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III. and this great post over at the Hekate Covenant on a different version of the Ephesa Grammata that is being used in the PGM.

While the orphic formula is indeed a powerful choice that would make much more sense to use instead of the widespread Isaac Sabaoth one discussed above, this is not the end of the story...

Scarab Hunt

The German Preisendanz translation¹ has a very interesting footnote regarding the "6 names". It claims that the original papyrus contains an annotation about the missing formula! Betz had merely hinted at this. The Preisendanz footnote says:

"On the upper edge of the column is written the (damaged) name ...AIE AIŌI EYIAE AEI ŌŌE AIEOYEYŌ... [and that] the formula is 49 letters long and has a value of 9999 ... reference to a different spell about resurrection of a scarab that has the same name with 49 letters."

(damaged note on the edge of the London Papyrus 46 aka. PGM V)

I also asked my friend Spiro who knows Greek to take a look at it and he interprets the annotation as something along the line of :

αιη αιωι ηυιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευω ... ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω. And this is what the revived words of the scarab call for.

I found some spells in the same papyrus that involve a scarab: PGM V 213-303 which is neither about a resurrection of the beetle, nor does it have any voces magicae in it. Another one is PGM VII, 505-28 which features the 48 letter long magical name "AŌ SATHREN ABRASAX IAŌAI AEŌ ĒŌA ŌAĒ IAO IĒO EY AĒ EY IE IAŌAI", but isn't about resurrecting the bug. The only spell about actually reviving a scarab in the PGM is number IV, 475-829 but it only contains very short barbarous names.

But eventually I found something:

PGM II. 64-183 features a drawing of a scarab at the bottom edge. The described ritual is an "alternative procedure" of a conjuration of Apollon-Helios for wisdom and blessing. Especially when you look at the original papyrus (Berlin P. 5026) you will find it in the third column on the bottom.

And guess what image is drawn right next to this column? A HEADLESS figure! The same one that Jake Stratton-Kent used on his little "Headless One" chapbook.

In the middle of the column above the scarab (PGM II. 127) it is written:

I am he, NN, who have presented myself to you, and you have given me as a gift the knowledge of your most great name, of which the number is 9999: IĒ IE IA IAĒ IAE IEY IĒA IŌA IEY IĒI ĒIA EA EĒ ĒE ŌĒ ĒŌ EĒE EEĒ ĒEE AAŌ ŌEA EAŌ ŌI ŌE ĒŌ EĒ EAE III OOO YYY ŌŌŌ IY EY OY ĒEA IĒEA EAE EIA IAIE IĒA IOY IŌE IOY IĒ IĒ IĒ IĒIE;

Sounds familiar? Of course it does! Vowels!

Is this the formula the author was referring to in the scribbled note regarding the scarab?

Perhaps the annotation on the Stele of Jeu papyrus was done hastily. The author might have remembered that the name to be used was "on that scarab whatever page", that it enumerates to 9999 and consists of something along the line of "...AIE AIŌI EYIAE AEI ŌŌE AIEOYEYO...".

I threw the Greek letters from Preisendanz transcript into an isopsephy (Greek gematria) calculator but they add up to 15446. Weird...did I miss something?

When I cross-checked Kieren Barry's "Greek Qabalah"¹⁰ for the correct isophsephic values I stumbled upon the solution by coincidence.

There it was! I found it on page 96:

A talisman that features an image of Harpocrates (Horus) seated on a lotus flower surrounded by triads of adoring animals; on its reverse, the formula:

χαβραχ φνεσχηρ φιχρο φνυρω φωχω βωχ

A magical formula apparently known as "The Great Name" which gematrically adds up to 9999!

And it was there all the time!

This exact formula is written shortly AFTER the above mentioned vowels in the middle of the column with the scarab on it! It is mis-spelled and the whitespace is off, and due to the typo it actually doesn't add to 9999 but only 8139

χαβραχ φλιεσ κηρφι νυρω φωχω βωχ

According to footnote 39 in Betz⁹:

The spacing of this formula has been changed to conform to the spacing of the same formula found elsewhere in the PGM (see I. 141—42; III. 77—78, 151-52 , etc.)

the editor also erroneously "fixed" it to:

CHABRACH PHLIESKĒR PHIKRO PHINYRŌ PHŌCHŌBŌCH

Instead, the correct formula of the six names that add up to 9999 that the scribe hastily (or purposefully?) mis-spelled are actually supposed to be written like this:

χαβραχ φνεσχηρ φιχρο φνυρω φωχω βωχ

CHABRACH PHNESCHĒR PHICHRO PHNYRŌ PHŌCHŌ BŌCH

BINGO!

Chimeric Splicing

Now, the perfectionist in me wondered: what about the vowels from the annotation?

I remembered that in Merkelbach/Totti's Abrasax⁸ the authors offer a slightly different take on the annotation:

On the upper edge an annotation; First a series of vowels, then: These are (in total) 49 letters; the sum of the calculation is 9999.

No mention of a scarab here. According to the authors, it's the vowels that are supposed to add up to 9999.

Sure...let's do this...

Minus whatever vowels got lost from the torn corner of the papyrus we still have 39 vowels that add up to a gematric value of 8291. That leaves us with ten missing vowels that need to add up to 1708 to reach the required 9999.

I spent over an hour trying to splice the missing vowels into the ones we already have - and I failed!

It was just impossible to create an isopsephy value of 1708 with just 10 vowels and possible values of 1, 5, 8, 10, 70, 400, 800 without deleting any of the letters that we already have. Aaarrgh!

So I went full OCD and looked back at the original papyrus and deciphered the handwritten letters myself. I noticed that the first ypsilon (in ĒYIAĒ) seems to have been actually quite a guess by Preisendanz. More than half of the letter is missing at the top. It could totally also be another letter the scribe does not necessarily write in the full line height, for example a miniscule omega.

So I tried again with ĒŌIAĒ in the series of vowels instead of ĒYIAĒ:

αιη αιωι ηωιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευω ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω

This leaves us with a value of 8691 and 1308 missing. Back to the splicing table. Eventually I got it!

If we add 1 omega, 1 ypsilon, 1 omicron, 3 iotas, 1 epsilon, and 3 alphas to get from 39 letters to the required 49 we reach an isopsephy sum of 9999!

To put these new letters into a meaningful combination I tried for quite a while to make them adhere to the following rules:

they need to sound nicely and in tune with the existing vowels when vibrating the whole series
be made up of realistic vowel combinations that already exist in the PGM, and
hypothetically fit into the empty space of the missing papyrus corner.

I eventually succeeded! Here is the chimerically spliced vowel series of the annotation:

αιη αιωι ηωιαη αη ιω ωη αιηουευωαι εαι υο ιαω ιωη οαυ αεη υωυω (9999)

and a photoshopped version of the papyrus itself:

Conclusion

Unfortunately the London Papyrus 46 with the annotation is torn on the edge, so we will never know what it really said but the reference to the scarab papyrus makes sense. Dfinitely more so than repeating the completely randomly chosen "AŌTH ABAŌTH BASYM ISAK SABAŌTH IAŌ" formula.

So, why not use the magically resurrected 49 vowels of the annotation in addition to the famous greatest name that both enumerate to 9999:

AIĒ AIŌI ĒŌIAĒ AĒ IŌ ŌĒ AIĒOYEYŌAI EAI YO IAŌ IŌĒ OAY AEĒ YŌYŌ

CHABRACH PHNESCHĒR PHICHRO PHNYRŌ PHŌCHŌ BŌCH

I guess the only solution to the missing formula is the magic solution: take it, use it, experiment with it, and see where it will take you!

Preisendanz, Karl, "Papyri graecae magicae", Band 1 (Leipzig, 1928) ↩↩
Preisendanz, Karl, "Akephalos. Der kopflose Gott", Beihefte zum Alten Orient 8 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1926) ↩
Someone on /r/occult had an interesting dissection of the 6 word name AŌTH ABRAŌTH BASYM ISAK SABAŌTH IAŌ. ↩
Flowers, Stephen E. "Hermetic Magic: The Postmodern Papyrus of Abaris." Maine: Red Wheel/Weiser, 1995. Archive Copy ↩
Goodwin, Charles Wycliffe, ed. Fragment of a Græco-Egyptian Work Upon Magic: From a Papyrus in the British Museum. No. 2. Deighton, 1852. Archive Copy ↩
Crowley, Aleister, and Solomon (King of Israel.). Goetia. First Impressions, 1904. Archive Copy ↩
בְּשֵׁם, [b'shem] derived from בְּ־ in; by and שֵׁם name. ↩
Reinhold Merkelbach, Maria Totti, "Abrasax: Ausgewählte Papyri religiösen und magischen Inhalts", Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia, 1991 ↩↩
Betz, ed. by Hans Dieter (1992). "The Greek magical papyri in translation including the Demotic spells" (2nd ed.). Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. ↩↩
Kieren Barry, "The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetical Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World", 1999 by Red Wheel Weiser ↩