The encounter of Odysseus with the Titan Circe November 4, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: act, ancient, beautiful, books, companions, components, control, culture, dangerous, definition, description, distance, divine, fact, figure, form, greek, herb, history, island, literature, magical, operation, practice, secret, secretive, story, wand, woman
add a comment
As a web analyst, who completed many types of research on ancient history, I think that the earliest description of a magical operation in Greek literature was on The Odyssey. This is one of my favorite books. In the Odyssey we meet a definition of magic as a practice aimed at trying to locate and control the secret forces of the world. The Odyssey describes the encounter of Odysseus with the Titan Circe. In the story Circe’s magic consists in the use of a wand against Odysseus and his men while Odysseus’ magic consists of the use of a secret herb called moly to defend himself from her attack. All three necessary components are present: the magic wand, the use of a magical herb and Hermes, the divine figure that reveals the secret of the magical act.
In the story Circe is presented as being in the form of a beautiful woman when Odysseus meets her on an island. In this encounter Circe uses her wand to change Odysseus’ companions into swine. This suggests that magic is often associated with practices that go against the natural order, or against wise and good forces. Circe too is representative of a power that had been conquered by Zeus, Poseidon and Hades.
Furthermore she had been banished to the island after having murdered her husband. She is thus quite dangerous: secretive, opposed to the gods, a semi-divine power left over from the older god culture of the Titans. However the internal fact that Odysseus has first to visit her before she becomes a threat suggests that she has a relatively harmless power if one keeps to a distance.
Read more …
Traveling hero meets a beautiful female November 4, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: ancient, ceremony, complex, conflict, dangerous, dealing, epic, hate, hero, literature, love, magic, magical, myths, poet, powers, pyre, ritual, roman, sacrifice, underworlds, wishes
add a comment
Much of ancient Roman literature dealing with magic are, basically, retellings of Greek myths. Roman poet Virgils’s Aeneid for example describes an interestng magical ceremony. The hero of the epic, Aeneas, who has landed on the coast of North Africa after fleeing from Troy, meets Queen Dido. She has just begun to build the city of Carthage. Dido falls in love with Aeneas, and wishes him to stay as her prince consort. The rest of what happens is easy to imagine. As usual, a traveling hero meets a beautiful female who is potentially dangerous, although kind and hospitable as long as her love for the hero lasts.
Thus the future conflict is set when goddess Fate decrees that Aeneas leave Dido to found a city of his own. Inevitably Dido’s love turns to hate. Enraged queen seeks to use a complex magical ritual to bring her former lover back to her. She builds a gigantic pyre in the main courtyard of her palace and prepares an elaborate sacrifice to the powers of the underworld.
Read more …
Magical papyri October 24, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: antiquity, books, concepts, cults, effects, formulas, fraction, gestures, ingredients, interest, literature, magic, magical, manuscripts, mystery, papyri, poetry, points, practitioners, prose, recipes, ritual, rituals, talent, terms, texts
add a comment
It seems, that a huge interest in magic was on the rise in the Hellenistic period, especially around 3d century b.c. Piles of texts, both literary and some from actual practitioners, in Greek and in Latin came to us from this time. Truly speaking, a lot of existing magical papyri was written in the first centuries after Christ, but the manuscripts’ concepts, formulas and rituals reflect the earlier Hellenistic period. These magical papyri are no doubt only a fraction of the magical literature available in antiquity. The ascendancy of orthodox Christianity by the 5th century CE had much to do with this. This is reflected by the book of Acts where the Apostle Paul convinces many Ephesians to bring out their magical books and burn them.
The language of the magical texts reflects various levels of literary skill. Generally they are standard Greek, and may well be closer to the spoken language of the time than to poetry or artistic prose left to us in literary texts. Many terms are borrowed from the mystery cults. The texts are often written as we might write a recipe. In other words the magic requires certain ingredients. Of course it is not just as simple as knowing how to put a recipe together. Appropriate gestures, at certain points in the magical ritual, are required to accompany the ingredients, different gestures it would seem produce various effects. A magical ritual done in the right way can guarantee the revealing of dreams and of course the rather useful talent of interpreting them correctly.
Read more …
