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At 07:17 AM 6/12/2005 +0000, you wrote: >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. I also think the process of 'translating' a tradition from one culture/context to another must be read in light of Kingsley's notion of re-etymology (which he articulates precisely in the context of Hermeticsm and the Egyptian background of the name Poimandres). I think the PGM is undoubtedly a conscious reformulation of Egyptian temple practice for new socio-political, linguistic (and perhaps even 'aionic') contexts. I think it is very instructive for the dynamics of how changes in a tradition can preserve the essence of a tradition while simultaneously assimilating 'new' or foreign elements into its expression. It's not such a new thing, obviously, but I do think that the process is much deeper and infinitely more subtle in the contexts of the magical papyri and hermetica than in modern laissez faire syncretism. The modern practitioner has much to learn from the older process, I feel. Haven't read the Dieleman book, but I have read a (co-authored) article of his dealing with the continuance of the Egyptian mouth-opening ritual in the PGM. My own research deals with this particular trajectory in some detail, and I am quite interested in the priestly milieu which composed the papyri, so I'm very pleased to hear about this new book. ~ A