This interdisciplinary study investigates the divine personas in the so-called magical hymns of the Greek magical papyri which, in a corpus usually seen as a significant expression of religious syncretism with strong Egyptian influence, were long considered to be the 'most authentically Greek' contribution. Fifteen hymns receive a line-by-line commentary focusing on religious concepts, ritual practice, language and style. The overarching aim is to categorise the nature of divinity according to its Greek or Egyptian elements, examining earlier Greek and Egyptian sources and religious-magical traditions in order to find textual or conceptual parallels. Are the gods of the magical hymns Greek or Egyptian in nature? Did the magical hymns originate in a Greek or Egyptian cultural background? The book tries to answer these questions and to shed light on the religious plurality and/or fusion of the two cultures in the treatment of divinity in the Greek magical papyri.

In Greco-Roman Egypt, recipes for magical undertaking, called magical formularies, commonly existed for love potions, curses, attempts to best business rivals—many of the same challenges that modern people might face. In The Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies: Libraries, Books, and Individual Recipes, volume editors Christopher Faraone and Sofia Torallas Tovar present a series of essays by scholars involved in a multiyear project to reedit and translate the various magical handbooks that were inscribed in the Roman period in the Greek or Egyptian languages. For the first time, the material remains of these papyrus rolls and codices are closely examined, revealing important information about the production of books in Egypt, the scribal culture in which they were produced, and the traffic in single recipes copied from them. Especially important for historians of the book and the Christian Bible are new insights in the historical shift from roll to codex, complicated methods of inscribing the bilingual papyri (in which the Greek script is written left to right and the demotic script right to left), and the new realization that several of the longest extant handbooks are clearly compilations of two or more shorter handbooks, which may have come from different places. The essays also reexamine and rethink the idea that these handbooks came from the personal libraries of practicing magicians or temple scriptoria, in one case going so far as to suggest that two of the handbooks had literary pretensions of a sort and were designed to be read for pleasure rather than for quotidian use in making magical recipes.

In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. The three major sections of this volume address (1) indigenous terminologies for ambiguous or illicit ritual in antiquity; (2) the ancient texts, manuals, and artifacts commonly designated “magical” or used to represent ancient magic; and (3) a series of contexts, from the written word to materiality itself, to which the term “magic” might usefully pertain. The individual essays in this volume cover most of Mediterranean and Near Eastern antiquity, with essays by both established and emergent scholars of ancient religions. In a burgeoning field of “magic studies” trying both to preserve and to justify critically the category itself, this volume brings new clarity and provocative insights. This will be an indispensable resource to all interested in magic in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, ancient Greece and Rome, Early Christianity and Judaism, Egypt through the Christian period, and also comparative and critical theory. Contributors are: Magali Bailliot, Gideon Bohak, Véronique Dasen, Albert de Jong, Jacco Dieleman, Esther Eidinow, David Frankfurter, Fritz Graf, Yuval Harari, Naomi Janowitz, Sarah Iles Johnston, Roy D. Kotansky, Arpad M. Nagy, Daniel Schwemer, Joseph E. Sanzo, Jacques van der Vliet, Andrew Wilburn.

In The Sacred Magic of Ancient Egypt, Rosemary Clark presents a comprehensive guide to a modern practice of ancient Egyptian theurgy. Included are daily rituals, annual ceremonies, and the founding of a temple tradition for either the sole practitioner or a gathering of celebrants. The dimensions of Sacred Science-esoteric architecture, cosmic resonance, and magical practice-are outlined in detail and demonstrated in a program for practical, everyday use. Authentic and richly detailed, this guidebook also: - Presents beautiful rituals patterned on ancient Egyptian texts for modern initiates - Serves as an excellent reference on many aspects of the Egyptian mysteries that have not been accessible elsewhere - Contains a complete repertoire of ancient hymns, litanies, spells, and ceremonies that allows for reading in the ancient tongue Enter the timeless realm of Egyptian sacred ritual. Experience for yourself the ultimate realization of ancient Egyptian spirituality-the assumption of divine knowledge and grace.

This volume explores aspects of ancient magic and religion in the ancient Mediterranean, specifically ways in which religious and mythical ideas, including the knowledge and practice of magic, were transmitted and adapted through time and across Greco-Roman, Near Eastern, and Egyptian cultures. Offering an original and innovative combination of case studies on the material aspects and cross-cultural transfers of magic and religion, this book brings together a range of contributions that cross and connect sub-fields with a pan-Mediterranean, comparative scope. Section I investigates the material aspects of magical practices, including first editions and original studies on papyri, gems, lamellae containing binding curses and protective texts, and other textual media in ancient book culture. Several chapters feature the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri, the compilation of magical recipes in the formularies, and the role of physical book-forms in the transmission of magical knowledge. Section II explores magic and religion as nodes of cultural exchange in the ancient Mediterranean. Case studies range from Egypt to Anatolia and from Syria-Phoenicia to Sicily, with Greco-Roman religion and myth integrated in a diverse and interconnected Mediterranean landscape. Readers encounter studies featuring charismatic figures of Magi and itinerant begging priests, the multiple understandings of deities such as Hekate, Herakles, or Aphrodite, or the perceived exotic origin of cult statues, mummies, amulets, and cursing formulae, which bring to light the rich intercultural networks of the ancient Mediterranean, and the crucial role of magic and religion in the process of cross-cultural adaptation and innovation. Magic and Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World appeals to both specialized and non-specialized audiences, with expert contributions written in an accessible way. This is a fascinating resource for students and scholars working on magic, religion, and mythology in the ancient Mediterranean.

Parting company with the trend in recent scholarship to treat the subject in abstract, highly theoretical terms, Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome proposes that the magic-working of antiquity was in reality a highly pragmatic business, with very clearly formulated aims - often of an exceedingly malignant kind. In seven chapters, each addressed to an important arm of Greco-Roman magic, the volume discusses the history of the rediscovery and publication of the so-called Greek Magical Papyri, a key source for our understanding of ancient magic; the startling violence of ancient erotic spells and the use of these by women as well as men; the alteration in the landscape of defixio (curse tablet) studies by major new finds and the confirmation these provide that the frequently lethal intent of such tablets must not be downplayed; the use of herbs in magic, considered from numerous perspectives but with an especial focus on the bizarre-seeming rituals and protocols attendant upon their collection; the employment of animals in magic, the factors determining the choice of animal, the uses to which they were put, and the procuring and storage of animal parts, conceivably in a sorcerer's workshop; the witch as a literary construct, the clear homologies between the magical procedures of fictional witches and those documented for real spells, the gendering of the witch-figure and the reductive presentation of sorceresses as old, risible and ineffectual; the issue of whether ancient magicians practised human sacrifice and the illuminating parallels between such accusations and late 20th century accounts of child-murder in the context of perverted Satanic rituals. By challenging a number of orthodoxies and opening up some underexamined aspects of the subject, this wide-ranging study stakes out important new territory in the field of magical studies.

The earliest written references to the Osirian myth-complex appeared already in the Pyramid Text spells (c. 2400–2300 BCE). The most complete exposition of this ancient Egyptian myth is, however, found in the Greek treatise On Isis and Osiris, in which the 2nd-century CE Platonist Plutarch utilises Egyptian mythology to advocate his philosophical ideas concerning the divine and the nature of the cosmos. This book aims at “decoding” Plutarch’s narrative of the Osirian myth, linking his claims to the existing Egyptian and Greek parallels. It thus analyses a multitude of mythic and religious traditions from a transcultural perspective, exploring the relation of the Pharaonic features of the Osirian divinities to the features they had acquired in Ptolemaic and Roman times, interpreting the Egyptian myth within the overall framework of parallel mythologies from other cultures, and examining whether the brief mythic stories (historiolae) recited in Late Egyptian ritual texts can be deployed to enrich the context of certain obscure episodes in Plutarch’s account of the myth. The book will be of great interest not only to scholars and students of Plutarch and later Middle Platonism, but also to Egyptologists. Due to its thematic variety and scope, this publication will also appeal to a wider array of readers (specialists and non-specialists alike) interested in religious syncretism, interreligious connections, and the challenge of multiculturalism from Hellenistic times until Late Antiquity.