Some Thoughts on Stephen Skinner’s Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic (Golden Hoard Press, 2014)
Firstly, despite what might be inferred from the title, this is not a practical handbook of magic in its own right, and certainly not a replacement for the Papyri Graecae Magicae – indeed, how much you get out of this book will be in direct relation to your familiarity with the source material, and you really will need to read it side-by-side with a copy of Hans Dieter Betz’s The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation for maximum benefit and effect. We are told in the Acknowledgments at the start of the book that Techniques of GraecoEgyptian Magic derives from one-third of the University of Newcastle thesis for which Dr. Skinner received his PhD. This – and the fact that the book is not in a limited edition of six hundred and sixty six copies, printed with bat’s blood and bound in toad-skin, or suchlike – should immediately alert us to the fact that this is not another one of those copy-paste wouldbe ‘grimoires’ but is, in fact, a serious piece of academic work. It is, nonetheless, also a fine volume: a large format hardback of getting on for nearly 400 pages, with a sewn-in red ribbon bookmark, stitched binding, and a handsome dust-jacket [see illustration] – and for the real book fetishists, there was a leather-bound edition of 100 copies, but it is no great surprise to read that this has already Sold Out. So, what of the contents of the book? In Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic, Stephen Skinner brings a great deal of clarity to the mysteries of the PGM, which, at first glance – even in the English translation of Betz & co – can appear confused and confusing. Skinner begins by offering some definitions of just what he means by magic and magician, his assertion being bold and original enough to warrant quoting in full: By using the term ‘magician’ there is no implied or overt claim for special powers on the part of the practitioner, simply an assertion that the people so designated were practitioners of magical techniques. Just as the terms ‘carpenter’ or ‘priest’ define a trade or a profession, rather than a claim to special skill or special sanctity. (p.14)
He then argues for the consistency and transmission of specific identifiable techniques, nomina magica, and implements – and that the PGM, not some unknown Hebrew antecedents, are the true source of the Solomonic magical tradition, medieval grimoires, and later European magic in general. Also, that despite the corpus being more commonly known as the Greek Magical Papyri, Dr. Skinner is quite emphatic that the roots of the material are in Dynastic Egypt. What Stephen Skinner puts forward that really helps to open up the PGM is a system of categorisation based on certain key head-words in the original, thereby ordering the material beyond the sometimes haphazard sequencing of the physical texts. Here he does an excellent job of trying to restore the precision and discrimination of the Greek and Demotic, showing that much of the confusion has arisen via the generalities of previous translations: for example, where numerous different and often quite wide-ranging terms for phylacteries or even magical procedures have been simply glossed as “amulet” or “spell.” Instead, Skinner categorises the texts according to common approaches or elements: gods invoked, materials and methods employed, words of power used. There has been a painstaking examination of such names, terms, and words, resulting in numerous tables throughout the book that present indexing and cross-referencing of the material in a clear, easy-to-follow, form. In addition to a careful examination of the various aspects and constituents of the magic of the Papyri – from angels, daimons and demons, to gods and spirits, incense and inks, perfume, rings and robes, to wands, weapons, and words of power – Dr. Skinner raises numerous points of interest: -
Within the PGM, there is hardly any mention of or allusion to the use of a protective circle, with one or two notable exceptions – phylacteries are more often specified – but we should not conclude from this that the Magician did not habitually use such a powerful and effective protection. Skinner argues that the circle was so well-known that its use was implicit, and gives a close examination of an example (PGM VII. 84661) – which he says “has a strong Egyptian flavour with no admixture of Greek words or gods, suggesting an early usage” – in support of this.
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The acquisition of a paredros or magical assistant, a modus operandi which has long been part of the professional magician’s repertoire, perhaps comparable to the “witch’s familiar” in the popular imagination. The paredros can range from the angelic to the demonic, and when ‘tamed’, serves as a helper and mediator between
the magician and the spirit-world. Skinner inspects its origins and workings, and cites some fascinating examples. -
Judeo-Christianity viewed magic as a genuine threat, so its prohibition prevented the development of an adequate dialogue between magic and religion. There has been a serious misapprehension of the relationship between the two. They are not oppositional, there is no dichotomy between them, and the controversy that has long simmered among scholars (even to the point of being judged ‘unsolvable’) has been caused by a ‘missing third’: the Mystery religions, of which we no longer have the experience. As Skinner says: “they do not exist anymore in any form in any Western culture.” And even historical accounts are very hard to find: by the very private, and largely secret, nature of the rites, initiates would not reveal proceedings, and to have any testimony at all is rare indeed.
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Skinner excavates and then examines three self-contained texts which belong to neither magic nor religion, and supports his conclusion that they are a Mystery rite, or part thereof. They were once separate books, before they were copied into the papyri by the magician who owned them. It is probable that such magicians, particularly if they were Neoplatonically inclined, would themselves have been initiated into the Mysteries. They would have considered their work theurgia, “divine work.” They concerned themselves with “purifying and raising the consciousness of the individual practitioner to the point where they could have direct communion with the gods.” A case in point: the so-called Mithras Liturgy, which Skinner asserts is neither a liturgy nor particularly Mithraic. Instead, he proposes that it is, in fact, part of a Mystery rite, and puts forward some crucial criteria that it answers to be so: for instance, the language indicates it is not meant to be performed in public, but that the occasion is a private one; the range of entities addressed is limited; and, rather than some worldly desire, the primary benefit is immortality requested by a father for his only daughter.
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A straightforward explanation of the code-of-concealment is given that clarifies the true nature of many of the more obscure ingredients and “magic materials” that recur throughout the PGM, with handy tables revealing, for example, that the blood and semen of various gods called for are, in fact, the juice or sap of plants such as dill, house leek, or wild lettuce, or that the testicles of a dog or a fox are actually types of orchid (but apparently “semen of a lion” is actually human semen.)
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We should not be misled by the presence of apparently Jewish and even Christian material: the magicians of the PGM would appeal to any power or include any technique that they thought might work, including calling on the names of foreign gods or even foreign wise men if they were famous for having commanded gods or demons, or worked miracles. Even the relative newcomer, Jesus, was called upon in some of the later material – but this is really just a reflection of the increasing cultural diversity of the world and client-base that the magicians both drew on and sought to serve. Unlike so much of the material that has come down to us on Gnosticism, which is largely pejorative because it was written by orthodox critics condemning the Gnostics as heretics, the material of the PGM was written by practitioners, for practitioners.
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In the world of the PGM, the magician does not cower before the spiritual beings he conjures, but stands before them with dignity, even if sometimes this amounts to little more than a kind of “dressing to impress” with the magician putting on the trappings of power and authority. The notion of coercing the gods – or even threatening them – is no doubt the origin of the practice of “constraining the spirits” in the later grimoires.
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The chapter on Necromancy (Dealing with the Dead or Divination by the Dead) provides some absorbing insights into its long-standing fascination, surviving from Dynastic Egypt through Classical Greek and Hellenic times, to the Present Day. As Hans Dieter Betz wrote, with the exception of the Mystery Rites, most of what is in the PGM deals with “negotiations in the antechamber of death and the world of the dead. The underworld deities, the demons and the spirits of the dead, are constantly and unscrupulously invoked and exploited as the most important means for achieving the goals of human life on earth.”
Stephen Skinner makes it abundantly clear that the material contained in the Graeco-Egyptian Magical Papyri is not for beginners, that there is little here for the dabbler or dilettante. Likewise, Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic is not a book for the casual reader or the armchair occultist, but for the serious student who is prepared to really engage, get to grips with the material, and work it. In The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Hans Dieter Betz relates how the German Classical philologist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff remarked “I once heard a well-
known scholar complain that these papyri were found because they deprived antiquity of the noble splendor of classicism.” Ironically, Betz neglected to report that WilamowitzMoellendorff went on to add: “That they did so is unquestionable, but I am glad for that. I do not want to admire my Greeks but understand them, so that I can judge them fairly.” We would have to agree with him, and insist that time has proved his unnamed colleague wrong. If anything, the spells, hymns and formulae of the PGM, with all their strange and sometimes barbaric beauty, their splendid and unsettling power, provide an invaluable adjunct to our understanding – adding the shade to complement the light, if you like – and furnishing us with a more fully rounded, more truly three-dimensional understanding of the lives and loves, hopes and fears, of the peoples of Antiquity. In Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic, Stephen Skinner has provided an equally invaluable key to unlock the magic of that world.
Emma Doeve & Matthew Levi Stevens, November 2014.
Stephen Skinner’s Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic is Available Now from The Golden Hoard Press. For more details, please see their website: http://www.goldenhoard.net/
