John William Waterhouse, Pandora, 1896.
Sections of the Greek Magical Papyri that exemplify attitudes, practices, and
symbols pertaining to elements of the mystery cults come along with Greek
deities, fragments of hymns and invocations, rituals, and myths. According to Hans Dieter Betz, “Obviously, in the eyes of the magicians who wrote and transmitted these
texts, the mystery cult language and ritual provided religious legitimacy and
cultural approval for all the other magical materials” (Betz, 1991, 250). This phenomenon of the imposition of mystery cult ideas, rituals, and tradition
indicates and testifies how the Greek mysteries expanded their influence, along
with the expansion of other religious fields of discourse into mystical cults
enriched with magical rites and spells. Apart from the ‘Spell of Pnouthis, the sacred scribe, for acquiring an assistant’,
the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ (PGM IV. 479-829) also attests to this with verses such
as “mysteries handed down not for gain but for instruction” and “O lord, while being born again, I am passing away; while grown and having
grown, I am dying; while being born from a life-generating birth, I am passing
on, released to death – as you have founded, as you have decreed, and have
established the mystery.” Other rites that reveal mystery cult terminology with some Hebrew influences
are the ‘Stele of Jeu the hieroglyphist in
his letter’, which includes a verse summoning the Headless One by declaring,
“I am Moses, your prophet to whom you have transmitted your mysteries” (PGM V. 108-111) and the ‘Eighth Book of Moses’ which
states “Now begin to recite the stele and the mystery of the god” (PGM XIII. 685). These
verses testify to the influence that mystery cult terminologies and practices
had on the Greek Magical Papyri. According
to Betz, under this impact:
Earlier Egyptian magic was transformed, enriched, brought up to date, and thus legitimated. By presenting themselves as mystagogues, the magicians doubtless added to their prestige… The mystagogue-magician of the Greek mystery cults transformed the older magic into a new and higher “religion.” For the mystagogue-magician, the syncretistic amalgam was indeed “religion” ((Betz, 1991, 250).
However, one must not discredit the fact
that there were differences between magic and religion in the Greek Magical Papyri, which were
determined by theological issues inherent within the structures of the mystery
cults and the fashion in which they were adopted within the realm of magic. To
an extent, it appears logical that most of magicians were not fully aware of
the entirety of the inner dimensions of the mystery cults whose material they
appropriated. For they believed that their ‘art’ was indeed a fully operational
religion, which they referred to as ‘magic’, and themselves as the operators of
it as ‘magicians’, reflecting yet again the natural receptiveness, fluidity,
and impressive power of the magician’s worldview. To conclude, I shall quote a
passage from Butler’s exceptional tome, Ritual
Magic, which so eloquently invokes and encaptures the diachronic
fascination we have up until this day with ritual conjuring the natural
receptiveness, fluidity, and impressive power of the magical worldview:
For the inventors and practitioners of the rites, however deeply versed in the lore of their subject and however obedient to its rules, often gave proof of the artistic temperament, to the advantage of the literature which has survived. The aim, like that of astrology, alchemy and applied science as a whole, was strictly practical; the means show evidence of creative instincts, poetical imagination and feeling for beauty and drama… this is what makes the study of ritual magic still interesting to-day (Butler, 2002, 4).
References:
Hans Dieter Betz, ‘Magic and Mystery in the Greek Magical Papyri’, in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, edited by Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink, 1991.
Elizabeth M. Butler, Ritual Magic, 2002.
