#ancient magic

[chthonic-sorcery]

Ancient Egyptian Books on Religion and Magic from Antiquity

People have a hard time finding reliable sources, so here are some recommendations from the ancient world including both religious texts and magical:

[dunmeshistash]

Dungeon Meshi - Resurrection and Healing

Some more information about Resurrection and Healing Magic from several chapters under the cut

Chapter 19

Chapter 22

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 34

There might have been other mentions after this chapter but this was all the major points I could remember.

[book-of-forbidden-knowledge]

Magic in Ancient Greece: An Introduction

I have seen some people claim that magic or witchcraft did not exist in Ancient Greece. This is not the case. So, I thought I'd take the opportunity to introduce you all to the strange and wonderful world of Ancient Greek magic!

First, what do we mean by "magic"? Radcliffe Edmonds, one of the leading scholars on Ancient Greek magic, defines "magic" as "non-normative ritual behavior." In short, what makes something magic, and not just normal religion, is that people in a given culture think it's weird. The word "magic" itself refers to the magi, Zoroastrian priests — the Ancient Greeks thought they did magic because to them, Zoroastrianism was foreign and weird. They also thought that Ancient Egyptians could do magic for the same reason — what the Greeks thought was spooky magic was just normal religion in Egypt. Within their own culture, magic was basically heteropraxic religion. Magic was not considered hubristic, at least not inherently.

There are multiple Ancient Greek words that refer to magic. The word μάγος, magos, itself means "magician" or "charlatan." There's also γοητεία, goetia, usually translated as "sorcery." The word most often translated as "witchcraft" is φαρμακεία, pharmakeia, the use of drugs or herbs to transform or influence people. This is what Medea and Circe do.

One of our best sources on Ancient Greek magic is the Greek Magical Papyri, or PGM, a set of magical texts from Hellenistic Egypt. When I first learned about it, I thought it was too good to be true, but here it is: uncorrupted ancient pagan magic! Essentially, the PGM is one of the oldest known grimoires, and the ancestor of the entire Western magical tradition. The papyri contain spells and rituals for almost every purpose: curses, love spells, divination, dream oracles, summoning daimones, necromancy, even full mystical rites. Most of them include invocations to various gods, which are heavily syncretic. Helios/Apollo (treated interchangeably) is invoked the most often. Aphrodite appears pretty often, too. Hekate-Artemis-Selene-Persephone (conflated with a whole bunch of other chthonic goddesses, including Ereshkigal) has her own set of spells. You'll even find the names of Egyptian gods and Hebrew angels in there.

One of the most common features in PGM spells is voces magicae or barbarous names, nonsense words that are supposed to be the secret names of the gods, which give you the authority to call them up. They act almost like a written form of glossolalia. Most are supposed to be spoken or chanted aloud. Some sound like actual names, or are well-known magical epithets like ABRASAX. Some are just strings of Greek vowels. Some of them are palindromic; there's lots of spells that use the "abracadabra" disappearing-letter-triangle format. There's also charakteres, apparently-meaningless magical symbols, the distant ancestor of modern sigils.

Another major source for Ancient Greek magic are defixiones or katadesmoi, curse tablets. They're little lead leafs called lamellae, which are inscribed with curses and then deposited in wells, graves, and other chthonic places. Thousands of them have been found.

Here's the text of a curse tablet that invokes Hekate and Hermes Kthonios (copied from Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World by John G. Gager):

Hermes Khthonios and Hekate Khthonia Let Pherenikos be bound before Hermes Khthonios and Hekate Khthonia. I bind Pherenikos’ [girl] Galene to Hermes Khthonios and to Hekate Khthonia I bind [her]. And just as this lead is worthless and cold, so let that man and his property be worthless and cold, and those who are with him who have spoken and counseled concerning me. Let Thersilochos, Oinophilos, Philotios, and any other supporter of Pherenikos be bound before Hermes Khthonios and Hekate Khthonia. Also Pherenikos’ soul and mind and tongue and plans and the things that he is doing and the things that he is planning concerning me. May everything be contrary for him and for those counseling and acting with…

Another curse tablet, which invokes Hekate to punish thieves, includes a drawing of her and charakteres. This is how she's depicted:

From Curse Tablets and Binding Spells in the Ancient World by John G. Gager

It's supposed to be a woman with three heads and six raised arms, but to me it looks like Cthulhu, which is honestly appropriate.

There was a very fine line between love spells and curses in Ancient Greece. Some love spells in the PGM call upon the spirits of the dead and chthonic gods to torture a poor girl until she submits to the magician. Just as many defixiones attempt to forcefully bind a lover. But there's another, gentler kind of love spell described by Theocritus in Idylls, in which a witch named Simaetha invokes the Moon and Hekate and uses an iynx wheel to make a man love her.

If you want to know how to apply all of this in modern practice, I'm still working that one out. I've found the PGM very hard to adapt, because a lot of its requirements are dangerous or impractical. Many of its spells require gross ingredients worthy of the Scottish play, or plants that scholars can't identify, or procedures that I don't plan on attempting. And if you haven't noticed by now, most of them fly in the face of modern magical ethics. (Don't let anyone tell you that the gods will punish you for doing baneful magic, because that's clearly bullshit.) On the other hand, Crowley adapted his Bornless Ritual almost word-for-word from PGM V. 96—172. So far, the best resource I've found on modernizing Ancient Greek magic is The Hekataeon by Jack Grayle. Its material is clearly historically-inspired, but still doable, and spiritually relevant. I really recommend getting it if you have the means, especially if you have an interest in Hekate specifically. I'm happy to have it as a model for how to adapt ancient magic for myself in the future. To me, it strikes the perfect balance between historically-informed and witchy, which is right where I want to be.

If you can't access that one, here's some other books I recommend:

Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III: An introduction to Ancient Greek magic, both scholarly and accessible. It covers the definitions and contexts of magic, curses, love spells, divination, theurgy, philosophy, basically everything you need to know.

The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation by Hans Dieter Betz: The definitive English edition of the PGM. A must if you plan to study ancient magic in-depth, especially as a practitioner.

Curse Tablets and Binding Spells in the Ancient World by John G. Gager: An English edition of the texts of many curse tablets.

Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds by Daniel Ogden: a sourcebook of ancient literature concerning magic.

The Golden Ass by Apuleius: A Roman novel about a man who is turned into a donkey by a witch. A very entertaining story, also our source for "Cupid and Psyche" and one of the best sources on the Mysteries of Isis that we have.

Ancient Magic: A Practitioners Guide to the Supernatural in Ancient Greece and Rome by Philip Matyszak: A simple and straightforward introduction to Ancient Greek magic, less scholarly but very easy to follow and directed at practitioners.

[adogsoup]

Sebastian: Sorry i told you about my trauma. Do you think i’m still hot?

M/C: Yes.

[deadghosy]

Platonic slytherin boys with a keeper friend🐍

Ft: Tom Riddle, Mattheo Riddle, Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott, Lorenzo Berkshire

Warning: it may be bad cause I only wrote this for fun and I don’t know "much" about the Slytherin boys 😭 but I only did this cause I’m getting Hogwarts legacy soon for my birthday!

Tom Riddle

You hold ancient magic? He’s using you like the evil bastard he is until he actually feels a connection with you. Maybe protectiveness. He might just still use you though.

Waking you up in the middle of the night in his uniform, towering over you with a dark look as he just kicks your bed. Vibrating it. Making you jolt up disoriented from your woke.

“Get up. I require your presence and help for something. And don’t ask for anything.”

“What the fuck?”

He absolutely loves it when you do your magic spells, he finds them unique and intriguing. You easily doing your blue lightning.

Especially he finds it very easing how you can one shot your enemies and make them disappear into thin air. He’s surely gonna make you his right hand.

Mattheo Riddle

“I want you to strike that bitch right over there.”

“Mattheo no.”

I feel like mattheo would try to make you blast a person he hates to dust just for fun. He is definitely a Kendrick type of hater and he knows it.

He found it secretly hot when you did struck down an enemy that tried to harm you. Mattheo would be that mf that would joke about wanting you to smite him. He also wanted you lift him up and down as if he was flying. He was high when he asked.

“Smite me. Just once.”

“Get the fuck out my room riddle.”

But honestly he likes how powerful you are, and with Mattheo being the son of the dark lord. He deems the two of you a powerful duo and he’s living for it.

Theodore Nott

Idk how to write about this one…but stick with me.

This beautiful Italian man honestly wouldn’t ask a lot of questions and just roll with the fact that you are a keeper of ancient magic. He only would ask one question a month, probably overthinking that he might annoy you with a lot of questions.

“Do you ever wish to have normal magic?” He asked you as he leans against your lap.

You look down, combing his hair with your fingers as you hum. “Eh I guess so. But I was chosen to be a keeper. To have this responsibility to harvest ancient magic.”

He only hummed and closed his eyes. And just like that another question would pop up another month.

Draco Malfoy

“Wait until my bestie hears about this!” “Wait until L/N destroys you!” Is all people hear when they have "crossed" the malfoy boy.

Harry was a victim to this of course, he was slightly scared because of the rumors went around that you held ancient magic. He knew you were practically unstoppable.

So when Harry first met you, he was shocked that you were kind and told him that you weren’t gonna fight him. It was funny to see Draco scold you and drag you away with your arm.

His father might consider you worthy of “courting” his son, but really Draco sees you other than a spouse. And more like a good friend he can count on when times are rough.

Lorenzo Berkshire

Immediately wants you to teach him some of your ancient magic skills if you can.

When he watches you dual with others, he’s taking notes with a smile. Happy to have you as a friend but mostly he has something to do.

He would asks you questions, like random in the night type stuff. The stuff where you’re asleep until he’s shaking you in the crack of dawn just to ask you a simple question.

“When you feel a burst of magic, do you just throw it at enemies like that muggle show called dbz?”

“What?” Straight up you turned to him shocked as you didn’t even expect that from him.

Honestly he just wants to learn more about you, he loves to listen to you. So why not educate him on your magic.

[killsworthss]

Can’t stop and won’t stop my delulu

You can do it with vidu studio or lumalabs

Have fun loves 🤭🤍

[thornsunicorn]

What would You like to know? 👈 ask here

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Masterlist / Chronology:

• Introduction Part 1 • Part 2

• Chump hits on both Anne and Sebastian and doesn’t bat an eye (silly)

• The Scarf™️ (silly)

• Rejected by a horned honse… (Silly)

• Tallest leviosa

• Family matters

• First kiss

• Chump and Ominis at the library

• Sharp’s egg incident (silly)

• The Baby (silly)

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No chronological order:

• Chump Bonita (silly)

• Understand my ship in 5 minutes (meme)

• Ask game - 15 - 9 - 5 - 6 - 4 - 12 - 14

• Friends (Early concept)

• Genderbend?

• Can you take this seriously??

• Animagi

• Flower crown Ask

• Sally’s poor toys :(

• Tims has had enough

• Antistress bosom… Gulp

• Something something Rookwood and Harlow toxic yaoi

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Bonus - The Owl House verse

• Timber and Chump ref

[masqueradereveler21]

🥀 Must be the season of the witch 🥀

• Thank you to the incredible @evyltalks for bringing my idea to life 🤍 I can’t express how much this piece means to me 🥹 •

[maxdibert]

The average Snater always comes up with the whole “Snape is horrible, he only wanted to save Lily’s life, he didn’t care if her husband and a child died” and all that.

Let’s take a different perspective on this.

If Severus hadn’t pleaded solely for Lily’s life, Voldy wouldn’t have given Lily the option to save herself if she left her child. Therefore, she wouldn’t have been able to refuse and, consequently, wouldn’t have activated the ancient protection magic that actually saved Harry. For that sacrifice to activate the magic, it was necessary for the person being sacrificed to have the option to save themselves and refuse. Without that option, Harry would have been dead. Furthermore, as a consequence of that sacrifice, Dumbledore was able to seal the blood charm that kept Harry protected for 17 whole years.

In conclusion: If Severus hadn’t wanted to save only Lily, Harry would have died on October 31, 1981.

[flaroh]

Classicstober Day 6: Medea 🐉🪄

[thetaxicabber]

Chapter 6 art for Voyagers of Time and Shadow! This is one of my favorites so far! Two worlds colliding with the golden trio meeting our two main characters.

Here’s an excerpt from the chapter 📚

“Hey Potter!” Sebastian calls to the trio of Gryffindor’s as they exit the Great Hall after breakfast. They were only a few steps ahead of them, the crimson shining on their robes colored ties in the sunlight from the windows. Evelyn watches Hermione glance over her shoulder at them before she stops walking.

Harry tenses but relaxes when he turns around and sees that it’s them. “Hello Sebastian,” he greets with a small smile.

This is the first time Evie is getting a good look at the famous boy who lived. They’ve shared a few classes but he’s kept his head down in every class other than Defense Against the Dark Arts that first day. He has untidy black hair and round glasses over his green eyes. He’s not as tall as Sebastian but he’s not short either. Evelyn can spy the edge of the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead but she doesn’t stare at it.

She knows what its like to be the odd one at school. Everyone knew she stopped Ranrok and treated her differently because of it. Not many had known about her ancient magic but she could not hide her injuries after the final battle and Headmaster Black then announced that she was a hero at the celebration. Evie wishes he wouldn't have so she could have pretended to be normal. She wishes she could have kept it all a secret.

“I wanted to introduce you to my girlfriend,” Sebastian slides his hand onto her shoulder and squeezes it lightly. “This is Evie.”

“Hi Evie, nice to meet you,” Harry greets her with a hesitant nod. He looks a bit like he’s expecting her to say something foul.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” she smiles at him, folding her hands in front of her politely. This boy has been through hell, something they both have in common. “I hope you don’t think Sebastian and I are like the others in our house…we can think for ourselves.”

This amazing art by @giselsann-opencommissions I'm so excited to continue getting art for this series! If you've read it let me know which scenes you'd like to see! :)

[cesqdarque]

I've got the magick 

[chapelofmyheart]

Casting Lots

Let's talk about the ancient Hebrew divination practice.

What were they, and what purpose did the hold?

Casting lots (a more formal term being cleromancy) was a form of divination that was popular among the Israelite tribes but before Yahwism/Judaism became a formal religion, lots were used in many societies. These societies believed in multiple gods, so they used lots to contact their lesser deities and ancestors. Back to the Israelites, though, the main purpose of casting lots was to make decisions without bias, divide property, and to determine the will of God. This practice is mentioned many times throughout the Bible.

Old Testament:

Leviticus 16:8

Numbers 26:55

Joshua 18:10

1 Samuel 14:41-42

Esther 3:7

Proverbs 16:33

Jonah 1:7

New Testament:

Matthew 27:35

Luke 23:34

Mark 15:24

John 19:23-24

Acts 1:26

How were lots made, and how were they used?

Historically, lots were usually made from things like wood, bones, stones, pottery shards, and even glass (I'd suggest using glass craft pebbles to be on the safe side if you choose to make glass ones). Originally, lots depicted symbols on each, which eventually became the Hebrew alphabet. Despite being an alphabet, each letter contains a symbolic meaning, so there is no need to learn Hebrew in order to cast lots.

Lots are quite simple to make. After picking your medium of choice, draw one of the 22 Hebrew letters on each lot. You can use the modern version or one of the traditional versions of the alphabet. If you would like to use lots for yes or no questions, you can simply use mediums of different colors, symbols, or words to differentiate the two to make it easier to read. Lots can either be drawn or tossed, depending on how you want to use them and what you are asking God.

Here are the meanings:

(I would suggest writing down the meanings of the alphabet so you have something to look back on while doing readings.)

Casting lots are very similar to the practice of runes in norse religion and bone throwing. More modern practices that share similarities are tossing a coin, rolling dice, and picking sticks from a cup.

[the-magiarcheologist]

Reading the Ancient Magic Book Pages

I propose to you today a short analysis of the sections of text on the pages of the Ancient Magic book we find below the restricted section.

High-res images of the book’s pages have been shared by a kind soul. Here they all are:

I was working on a completely different post when I realised that the text on the last 2 pages was easily readable and written in Latin. So I just did a quick search and discovered that these are verses from the Vulgate (4th century translation of the Bible in Latin), more precisely from the Gospel of Luke from the New Testament.

A bit more research and I could find exactly which source they got this text from: the Book of Kells, a Celtic Gospel book written in Latin and illuminated in the Insular style (a combination of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon styles). The precise origins of the Book of Kells are debated but many believe it was created around the year 800 at the monastery founded by St Colum Cille on Iona Island in western Scotland.

Here I put side by side the pages of the Ancient Magic book and the pages from the Books of Kells where the text is from (folio 204r and 275r):

The verses they used are Luke 22:23

Et ipsi coeperunt quaerere inter se quis esset ex eis qui hoc facturus esset.

Which translates to:

And they began to enquire among themselves, which of them it was that should do this thing.

And on the second page, Luke 4:8-14

Et respondens Jesus, dixit illi: Scriptum est: Dominum Deum tuum adorabis, et illi soli servies. Et duxit illum in Jerusalem, et statuit eum super pinnam templi, et dixit illi: Si Filius Dei es, mitte te hinc deorsum. Scriptum est enim quod angelis suis mandavit de te, ut conservent te: et quia in manibus tollent te, ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum. Et respondens Jesus, ait illi: Dictum est: Non tentabis Dominum Deum tuum. Et consummata omni tentatione, diabolus recessit ab illo, usque ad tempus. Et regressus est Jesus in virtute Spiritus in Galilaeam, et fama exiit per universam regionem de illo.

Which translates to:

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

I’m not christian and don’t know much about the Bible so I have no idea why they chose these particular verses. Maybe someone more educated than me will be able to chime in. My hunch is that these verses were just chosen at random from old manuscripts that the artists for the game were using as reference for the art style.

Now, since I was on a roll, I also looked at the text on the other pages. Pages 1 and 3 have some text written in some old form of Icelandic (figured that out from the few words I could sort of read on those pages). So I started looking into old Icelandic manuscripts but it took me a ridiculously long time to find the exact source the text is from! I was starting to go mad but here it is! It’s from an illustration of the Prose Edda found in the Icelandic manuscript ÍB 299 4to., in particular the illustration of the god Týr presented as Mars (folio 60r).

They took the short text in the little box and copy/pasted it mosaic style to give the illusion of the full page of text but you can see it’s just short sections that repeat over and over on both pages.

(To note: this manuscript is from 1764 so it’s sort of anachronistic for them to use this source for an Ancient Magic book that already existed in the Keepers time, meaning the Ancient Magic book is from the 15th century or older.)

Týr is one of the principal war gods in Norse mythology (alongside Odin and Thor) but he also presides over justice and the law. Latin texts often identified him as Mars (hence the subject of the illustration).

I could not find any transcription or translation of the text on the image, I could only decipher some words here and there such as «sigir hielldu» which google translate tells me could mean «victories held» in Icelandic. A bit further down there is «orrustu guð» which could mean «god of war». So it seems to be a short description of the god Týr and at the end there are roman numerals that identify the section in the Prose Edda where the story of Týr can be found.

Again, I can’t really see how this text makes particular sense in the context of the Ancient Magic book, probably just placeholder text from some of the sources they were studying as inspiration.

There is one last book page, but the text on this one is so blurred I didn’t even try to decipher it. Although I do note that the artist has traced over some letters which are: W S M I(?) I(?) I(?) Z N R(?) P(?) G W Q O U(?) H W R(?)

Don’t know… some of them are hard to read or could be not from the Latin alphabet. Again, I just can’t make sense of that. There are not enough vowels for it to be an anagram of an English or Latin phrase so… what else? I leave this mystery to others with more powerful brains than mine!

Anyway, this is it! Not really much to say about this but I think other people are also planning on looking into these book pages so maybe these findings can help them out!

[the-aussie-puffle]

HOGWARTS LEGACY SPOILERS AHEAD.

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME YET. IF YOU CONTINUE READING, I DO NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT.

Topic of discussion ~ Do you believe that both Isidora and Sebastian had good intentions, they just chose the wrong paths, or do you think they deserve the endings (if you send Sebastian to Azkaban) they deserved.

During my second playthrough of Hogwarts's legacy, I noticed her and Sebastian's story quite similar. Never mind the facts that they both come from Feldcroft, both have a sibling that they were very close to and people that don't understand what they are trying to do. So this is what I noticed about these two characters~ 1.She wanted to take away pain of her brother's death and heal her father. 2.Sebastian wanted to help his cure his sister to take away the curse that was causing her a great deal of pain.

Neither one could stay by and let this affect the ones they love.

3.The Keepers didn't like the use of ancient magic to take aways one pain, not knowing the long-term side effects of it.

4.Uncle Solomon doesn't like that Sebastian is trying to cure his sister's curse. 6.Isidora saw the use of ancient magic as a way to heal the world 7.Sebastian asks you to try and use it on Anne, despite not understanding and getting mad when you try to explain you can't fully understand it yourself.

8. Despite being told that magic wasn't the cure for her father's grief, she refused to listen. 9. Solomon believes that there is no cure for Anne and wants Sebastian to stop looking for one, which fuels Sebastian to try harder. 10. Isidora uses repositories to store the ancient magic as she "cures" the students. 11. Sebastian goes to find Relic he thinks will help with his quest to heal his twin.

They story just changes when Isidora is taken down by Avada Kadava in the end but for Sebastian, he uses it to take down his uncle, but at the cost of losing Anne forever.

So what are your thoughts about it? Do you think they were right or wrong? I feel like its a double ended blade that no matter what they do they going to get cut. If Isidora never used the ancient magic to heal her father, he would have never spoken another word to her, leaving her alone until he passed naturally, it is clear she did this out of love at first but also if the professors had not been so quick to see the negative, then we may have gotten the answer to if it was dangerous in the long run and also it might have cured Anne (If there were no negative outcomes from the others.)

The same goes for Uncle Solomon and Sebastian, it is clear from the time you meet him that he is a man who is stuck in his mindset, he gets angry so easily of Sebastian bringing her a single plant and destroys it, yelling at him that there is no cure and telling him to stop, if Solomon had been a little nicer, I would like to think that Sebastian wouldn't have gone down the path he did.