Path: news.bjt.net!not-for-mail From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan.magick,alt.magick,alt.mythology,alt.pagan,alt.magick.folk,talk.religion.misc,talk.religion.newage Subject: TMaroney: Greco-centric rites Date: 27 Aug 1997 12:58:08 -0700 Organization: Bay Junction Technology, Inc. Lines: 58 Sender: tyagi@news.bjt.net Message-ID: <5u20sg$7dj@bay1.bjt.net> Reply-To: maroney@apple.com NNTP-Posting-Host: bay1.bjt.net X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 (NOV) Xref: news.bjt.net alt.magick.tyagi:981 alt.pagan.magick:1131 alt.magick:6518 alt.mythology:2134 alt.pagan:12938 alt.magick.folk:130 [from thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org: Tim Maroney ] >Are there other good sources for Greco-centric rites/etc.? One question is whether you want to practice ordinary cult worship or magic, which to the Greeks as it is to us today is a term denoting "otherness." The various theurgical and Neo-Platonic approaches have this quality of being apart from the ordinary cultus, a marginalization or liminality that gives them an air of danger and forbidden power. Three of the best sources in print on theurgy and thaumaturgy in this cultural context are Sarah Iles Johnston's "Hekate Soteira" from Scholar's Press in Atlanta, which explains in detail the cosmology and magical practice of Hecatean theurgists employing the Chaldean oracles; the collection "Ancient Magic and Ritual Power" from Brill in Leiden is an invaluable approach to the theory of the subject and mentions many primary sources from ancient literature which can profitably be followed up; and despite the condescending introduction (which a number of the authors in the Brill collection are eager to refute), Hans Dieter Betz's "The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation" contains a vast store of practical spells and rituals which can be adapted to present-day work. -- Tim Maroney tim@maroney.org http://www.maroney.org ----------------------------------------------------------- >Can you tell me more please about this book, 'Hecate Soteira'? I would >really like to learn what kind of content it has, as I am on a working >with the Goddess. Thanks! It's too rich to summarize adequately. In brief, it deals with the Chadean Oracles as a Hecatean theurgical text, explaining the worldview expressed there (in which ideas emanating from the paternal intellect are ensouled or given form as they descend through the cislunar space that was identified with Hecate by the Neo-Platonists), the dual interpretation of Hecate as the higher cosmic goddess and the lower Hell goddess, various spirits and mythic characters populating this striated world, the goals of theurgical practice in understanding and initiation, the tools employed by theurgists to accomplish these goals, the role of symbols in evoking unusual mental states, and details of particular symbols, forms and instruments that were so used. There is material of particular interest to practitioners of the Golden Dawn system, which used the Chaldean Oracles extensively, as well as Crowley's Star Ruby, which alludes to buy does not explain some classical spirits that are detailed here. All this in a tight, well-written, well-supported academic volume of under two hundred pages. I really can't recommend it too highly to anyone wanting to understand and practice Western magic. These are its roots. -- Tim Maroney tim@maroney.org http://www.maroney.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- [plus: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/b/bmcr/bmcr-v2n06-defilippo-hekate.txt ] -- (emailed replies may be posted);join the AMT syncretism!!;call: 408/2-666-SLUG! see http://www.abyss.com/tokus; "Clement of Rome taught that God rules the world with a right and a left hand, the right being Christ, the left Satan." - CGJung