Dear all,

I'm very interested to read your thoughts on the magical papyri - I'm 
currently writing a paper based around a subset of these texts.

I could be wrong, but in my understanding, the "internationalism" 
evident in the magical tradition (and I think that's absolutely the 
right word to use) articulated in the Hellenic, Coptic and Demotic 
papyri is the result of a number of historical factors: the cultural 
syncretism resulting from the Alexandrian expansion and the cultural 
Hellenisation of Egypt; the diaspora of the Jews after the Maccabean 
revolts; the rise into power of Rome and her allies, which not only 
provided a wide-scale cultural and religious process of dissemination 
and appropriation, but also resulted in the reactive "Hellenistic" 
culture of Greek-speakers, whose homeland was now merely a province; the 
growing popularity of mystery cults; the influence of Egyptian magic on 
Hellenistic religion... etc. Cultural syncretism that massive, explosive 
and enduring is not unique, but I don't think it's sufficient to prove 
an "essential" internationalism to magic in general.

You refer to "Egyptian magicians" below, but so many of them wrote in 
Greek that it's unsurprising they contain a certain amount of 
Hellenistic cultural values, symbols and mythology - the language 
doesn't account for all of it, but it's definitely a factor.

Helen


Mogg Morgan wrote:

> Dear Dan et al
> interesting -
>
> Well 'internationalism' in the sense that according to Dielemann, 
> there seems to be a common pool of terminology, concepts and 
> techniques, mainly from medicine and magick - used by magi of Egypt, 
> Greece, Rome, Palestine etc perhaps even India. As a modern 
> practitioner of magick i have, coincidentally always felt that way and 
> was intrigued to find that it was a feature of beginnings of the 
> hermetic tradition too.
>
> I think this is more than defusion of ideas - dielemann is arguing for 
> a specific audience to whom the bilingual magical papyri are aimed - 
> seems to me that the papyri do indeed imply the existence of a 
> 'tradition' . The texts are not random collections but are various 
> unified magical handbooks - the whole comprising one magician's 
> library. All this seems to me to be in line with what other editors of 
> these texts have said - notable H D Betz, who says that the magic of 
> the papyri is tantamount to a new religion.
>
> love and do what you will
>
> mogg
>
>     I’m not sure I’d call internationalism a “characteristic” of
>     magic, but that’s probably more quibbling over the terminology
>     than anything else.
>
>     My unfounded speculation has been that magic is probably one of
>     the first pieces of intellectual culture to diffuse from one
>     setting into another. In general terms, material culture (e.g.
>     steel axes) has a potential to diffuse more quickly than
>     intellectual culture (e.g. religion), because people can more
>     immediately see its worth. Based on that, it’s likely that
>     specific magical incantations have a similar potential to material
>     culture, in that they do something that is of immediate and clear
>     worth for people. Sure, there’s the linguistic barrier, but as
>     it’s magic, not knowing what you’re saying isn’t a barrier to
>     transmission the way it might be for literature or philosophy.
>
>     It’s also important to note, however, that the magical papyri are
>     not in themselves a “tradition.” I’d be curious to know how the
>     diffusion of individual units of magic into a culture relates to a
>     tradition itself…
>
>     Dan Harms
>
>     Coordinator of Instruction Librarian
>
>     SUNY Cortland Memorial Library
>
>     P.O. Box 2000
>     Cortland NY, 13045
>
>     (607) 753-4042
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     *From:* Society for The Academic Study of Magic
>     [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *Mogg
>     Morgan
>     *Sent:* Monday, December 05, 2005 4:07 AM
>     *To:* [log in to unmask]
>     *Subject:* Re: local customs, was Vajrayana and magic
>
>     Dear All
>
>     Well i wonder if internationalism might be one of the defining
>     characteristics of magick?
>
>     I'm reading Jacco Dielemann's 'Priests, Tongues & Rites' at the
>     moment - and he talks about how the priestly practioners who wrote
>     the classical magical papyri, are quite willing to incorporate
>     material from the greek tradition - where it has proven value. One
>     might expect them to be much more purist and indeed to avoid the
>     greek stuff , who are afterall their colonial masters. But the
>     egyptian magicians seem to be borrowing from and contributing to,
>     the international jargon of the magi.
>
>     As to buddhism & magick - i thought it was maybe a reflection of
>     the way buddhism had moved away from its archaic roots to
>
>     become amongst other things a cult of personality - if you look at
>     the oldest surviving buddhist manuscripts (eg The Bower Mss) - you
>     will find several magical spells created by the Buddha.
>
>     love and do what you will
>
>     mogg
>
>     ps: personally, as a practitioner, i've always hated that 'racial
>     dharma' stuff - or 'blood & soil' paganism -
>
>     most of it just looks like people dressing up their cultural
>     prejudice in some sort of geographical hokum -
>