Seeking Recommendation Curious About PGM

[adlz666]

I'm very new to the occult and am wondering how to get into PGM and Greek Magic. I worship Aphrodite and practice some basic forms of Witchcraft but I'm interested in PGM. I want something that's comprehensive and can be understood by an absolute beginner like me.

 

[Wintruz]

You will want Betz's translation of the PGM itself. You will also want Stephen Skinner's Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic which gives an overview of the traditional techne involved. Flower's Hermetic Magic is a less formal/traditional take on the same source material so perhaps better if you are a total beginner who wants to dabble here.

You describe yourself as worshipping Aphrodite. You should know that the PGM is rarely concerned with honouring the gods. There are spells where the gods are threatened into fulfilling the sorcerer's desires. That, along with it's horrendous abuse of animals (including drowning cats, putting live, caged eagles into vats of boiling oil and a demand for rare animal parts extracted by torture which actually created a market in animal cruelty in late antiquity), led to the PGM being scorned and rejected as loathsome by pious Hellenic pagans, including Porphyry. Even Iamblichus, who proposed pious magic in a serious way,

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.

If you want something that is less morally troubling while still being powerful, Patrick Dunn's The Practical Art of Divine Magic is a beautiful, demanding but accessible revitalisation of theurgy and magic worked with the Divine (including Aphrodite) rather than against the Divine. Kupperman's Living Theurgy is also excellent, though more demanding and technical.

 

[weirdbird]

You will want Betz's translation of the PGM itself. You will also want Stephen Skinner's Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic which gives an overview of the traditional techne involved. Flower's Hermetic Magic is a less formal/traditional take on the same source material so perhaps better if you are a total beginner who wants to dabble here.

Flowers has a good catalogue of spells in the second part of his book, it can save you some time on looking for something you might find useful. The book is an interesting read but the theories and techniques presented in it are his own personal inventions, I would generally not recommend it. Skinner on the other hand is amazing but not exactly beginner-friendly.

There's also a German translation freely available here

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Unlike Betz, it includes some of the original Greek text

Religious piety aside, I would say that PGM isn't exactly a beginner-friendly system, but then again, nothing is exactly stopping you from finding a purely verbal spell with little to no material requirements, or one of the simple ones that call for some dates, a lamp, and a bowl of water (if I remember correctly, there was an Aphrodite water divination), and simply performing it on your personal altar with some incense.
I would also recommend taking a look at this thread: https://wizardforums.com/threads/pgm-greco-roman-egyptian-spells.18972/

 

[beardedeldridge]

Echoing what was said by wint & weird (don’t link to other websites

Betz

And add The Greco- Egyptian Magical Formularies - it’s one that’s come out in the last few years.

Skinner

Flowers

Book of Abrasax - MC
And its sequel

Headless One - Kent

Sounds like you may be looking for something more along the lines of the Practical PGM series. I haven’t brought my self to read it yet (cover art makes me throw up a little in my mouth . But that’s the one that color codes the rituals for difficulty.

Betz and Skinner are the ones I read when I was playing some in that sandbox.

All the ones above are pretty readily available. Let me know if they aren’t in the wf library.

-Eld

 

[adlz666]

You will want Betz's translation of the PGM itself. You will also want Stephen Skinner's Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic which gives an overview of the traditional techne involved. Flower's Hermetic Magic is a less formal/traditional take on the same source material so perhaps better if you are a total beginner who wants to dabble here.

You describe yourself as worshipping Aphrodite. You should know that the PGM is rarely concerned with honouring the gods. There are spells where the gods are threatened into fulfilling the sorcerer's desires. That, along with it's horrendous abuse of animals (including drowning cats, putting live, caged eagles into vats of boiling oil and a demand for rare animal parts extracted by torture which actually created a market in animal cruelty in late antiquity), led to the PGM being scorned and rejected as loathsome by pious Hellenic pagans, including Porphyry. Even Iamblichus, who proposed pious magic in a serious way,

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

.

If you want something that is less morally troubling while still being powerful, Patrick Dunn's The Practical Art of Divine Magic is a beautiful, demanding but accessible revitalisation of theurgy and magic worked with the Divine (including Aphrodite) rather than against the Divine. Kupperman's Living Theurgy is also excellent, though more demanding and technical.

Tbh the reason I'm researching the PGM in the first place is because I keep getting told that's the only method of doing Hellenic magic. I don't want to work against the god or hurt animals but I don't really know how else to incorporate my worship into practice.

 

[HoldAll]

Tbh the reason I'm researching the PGM in the first place is because I keep getting told that's the only method of doing Hellenic magic. I don't want to work against the god or hurt animals but I don't really know how else to incorporate my worship into practice.

The PGM are not so much Hellenic as Hellenized. It's a collection written by presumably Egyptian authors influenced by the Greek, Christian, and Jewish religions to varying degrees before anyone came up with the idea of black vs. white magic. It's a mixed bag. Some spells are pretty ruthless, e.g. the rapey love spells, in others you can feel the anger of a conquered people against its opressors, others are respectful and venerating in tone - I might be wrong but as far as I can remember, it's only the Greek gods that get blackmailed or bossed around in some recipes, never the Egyptian ones. Another (for magicians) very conspicuous feature is becoming a god instead of petitioning or envoking him, for example in the popular

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or in PGM VIII. 49–52:

I know you, Hermes, and you me;
I am you, and you are I.
And so, do everything for me,
and may you turn to me with Good Fortunes and Good Daimon,
quickly, quickly, immediately, immediately.
(the last line occurs very frequently in the PGM, also nice to include in modern spells)

There's a scholarly book in the Library called Ritual Embodiment in Modern Western Magic: Becoming the Magician by Damon Zacharias Lycourinos where the author witnessed two PGM rituals (an invocation of Apollo and the so-called Mithras Liturgy) where one theurgist fashioned a horse head out of clay as a replacement for the real thing; some spells leave you no other choice than to substitute - I mean, drowning a falcon in the milk of a black cow and then mummifying it?

However, what's really great about the PGM is the dramatic language of its incantations and the power of its voces magicae/barbarous names, the way they resonate when spoken aloud. There are plenty of books on Greek magic in the Library, and even some scholars have made the PGM their specialty, e.g.

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