Magical Papyri
Presented on: Tuesday, May 6, 1986
Presented by: Roger Weir
Hermetic Tradition: From Egypt to America, From Osiris to Benjamin Franklin
Presentation 18 of 24
Magical Papyri
Presented by Roger Weir
Tuesday, May 6, 1986
Transcript:
The date is May 6, 1986. this is part 18 in the Hermetic tradition, Osiris to Franklin series by Roger Weir. Tonight's lecture will be announced by Mr. Weir himself.
Magical Papyri. Magical Papyri. Wanted to start us on Plotinus but I won't get to do that until next week. We need some positioning. It's like a, it's like a not so much a chess game but a battle. And you don't commit until you've lured the enemy into committing his strategy. And when he has that's when you commit. So, we're still flanking and positioning. Next week we'll come in with Plotinus and you can see not the mastery, the masterfulness of Plotinus. If we had a Plotinus today, we'd be alright.
We are going to look at tonight the way in which Mythology became magic. And mythology as a natural phenomenon. Mythology comes out of nature. But magic is a human phenomenon. It comes out of man. And there is no magic in nature until man puts it there.
And we have two volumes here. One is called Mythological Papyri and the other is called Greek Magical Papyri. And The Mythological Papyri are Egyptian. And The Magical Papyri are Greek. And The Mythological Papyri that we have here from the 21st dynasty. That's about 1000 B.C. And The Greek Magical Papyri here are from the, largely from, the 2nd century A.D.
The Mythological Papyri deal with after death. With the netherworld. The Greek Magical Papyri deal with the demonic world. So that the movement from mythology to magic was at once a movement from the afterlife to the demonic life. So that in nature the concern that one naturally has, what's going to happen to me after I die? Becomes a conscious concern of, what has happened to happening to me while I am alive? And so, the difference that occurs around zero A.D. is this transformation. And it's like an alchemical transformation of human consciousness. And for no other reason than that we have no other candidate for this that seems to operate, Jesus will be the, the alchemist who makes this happen. This is not a change in any one particular mind. Or any one particular consciousness. But in the whole tone of human consciousness. Everywhere at this time we see this happening.
So, we're going to try tonight to understand. And we have to look at magic. and we're going to try to work our way to some of the quotations from Jesus The magician by Wharton Smith. The great professor of ancient history at Columbia. Who discovered the wonderful fragment of The Secret Gospel of Mark. which we have in the library published by Yale University Press. And Wharton Smith's contention here is that traditional Christianity has smeared the effectiveness of Jesus. That Jesus in effect was the greatest magician of all time. And the changes that he brought probably could be summed up in the change from myths to magic. From nature to consciousness.
We need to address ourselves to the New Testament for a moment. let's see what, what, he did. we're going to look at Matthew, Mark and Luke on the same magical procedure. Jesus is going to perform a magical procedure, an exorcism. And let's see how it was reported. In Matthew is in chapter 8 verse 28. It starts and here's how Matthew begins it.
And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gerasenes. There met him two possessed with Devils coming out of the tombs. Exceedingly fierce so that no man might pass by that way. and behold they cried out, say what have we to do with thee Jesus thou son of God. Art, thou come hither to torment us before the time. And there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine feeding. So, the devil's besought him saying if thou canst cast us out suffer us to grow away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them go. And when they were come out and they went into the herd of swine and behold the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea and perished in the waters. And they that kept them fled and went their ways into the city. And told everything and what was befallen to the possessed of the Devils. Behold the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.
They were afraid of him. in the beginning they were afraid of it as one might be unused to that dimension of presence.
In Mark it's in chapter five. Now Matthew, The Gospel of Matthew is a report, five separate reports that are put together. That were held in memory by different individuals. And then put together as the Gospel of Matthew. But The Gospel of Mark is different. The Gospel of Mark is written by a man. By John Mark. And John Mark receives a testimony personally from Peter. And so, his gospel is a little more detailed.
This is how he gives it. "And they came over unto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gerasenes. And when he was come out of the ship immediately there met him out of the tombs a man," One man.
With an unclean spirit. Who had his dwelling among the tombs and no man could bind him. No not with chains. Because that he had been often bound with feather fetters and chains. and the chains had been plucked asunder by him and the feather fetters broke in pieces. Neither could any man tame him as he had demonic strength. But he haunted the cemeteries.
Notice that. the setting is in the cemeteries. This is the nature of a ghoul. Why? Because he's associated with the dead. But the funerary ritual that has not been effective.
And always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying. Cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him. And cried with a loud voice and said, what have I to do with thee Jesus thou son of the Most High God. I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not. For he said unto him. Jesus said unto him, come out of the man thou unclean spirit. And he asked him what is thy name. and he answered saying my name is legion. for we are many.
Notice the syntax here. My name is legion. For we are many.
And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devil's besought him saying, send us into the swine that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine. And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea. There were about two thousand and were choked by the sea. And they that fed the swine fled and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil. And had the Legion sitting enclosed and in his right mind. they were afraid. And they that saw it told them how it befell to him. That he was possessed with the devil and also concerning the swine. they began to pray him to depart out from their coasts.
Finally, excuse my voice I was sweeping the walk and the dust got in my nose. Thank you very much.
And chapter 8, verse 26 is how it begins here in Luke. Luke of course there was a Roman physician of Syrian background. but a Roman physician. He was not an apostle. He was a travelling companion of Paul. And so, this is a Pauline gospel, if you will. And originally Luke was the first part of a larger book. and the second half of the book was The Book of Acts. So, The Gospel of Luke and Acts belong together.
Here is the rendition Luke has,
And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes which is over against Galilee. And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man. Which had Devils long time and wore no clothes. Neither abode in any house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him. With a loud voice said, what have I to do with thee Jesus? Thou son of God Most High I beseech thee torment me not.
He's asking Jesus not to torment him.
For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For often times it had caught him. And he was kept bound with chains and in fetters and he braked the bands. And was driven of the devil into the wilderness. And Jesus asked him saying, What is thy name? And he said Legion because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. And there was there a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain. And when they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them, he suffered them. Then went the devil's out of the man.
With his permission you see.
And entered into the swine. And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and they were choked. When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled and went and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what was done. They came to Jesus and found the man of whom the Devils were departed sitting at the fee of Jesus. Clothed in his right mind and they were afraid. They also which saw it told them by which means he was that he that was possessed of the devils was healed. And then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round-about besought him to depart from them. For they were taken with great fear. And he went up into the ship and returned back again. Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him. But Jesus sent him away saying, return to your own house and show great things. God hath done unto thee.
So, here are three versions from our Gospels. From our New Testament. What are we considering? We're considering the demonic. And distinct from that we're considering the devil. And as a context for the demonic and the devil we're considering evil. And our thesis by which we can look into this is magic. But the original thesis by which this was looked into was not magic but myth. When the demonic, when the devil, when evil, are looked at in the mythic manner there is no fear. When they are looked at in a magical manner there is nothing but fear. So, if the fear is conscious. It has to do with man's mind. And it is the healing of that consciousness that we're concerned with right now.
I guess before we get to this, we have to finish this stack. Josephus. Josephus lives in the 1st century A.D. He's a Jew. A Roman Jew. Very learned. His two great books The Jewish Wars and Antiquities of the Jews are classics. Classic histories.
In The Antiquities of the Jews we have Josephus telling us of the first time that the demonic is confronted by man in a magical mode. And Josephus tells us that this time was about 1000 B.C. was in the time of Solomon. And usually in the Jewish tradition the magical is not talked about. The demonic is not talked about. But Josephus is living in the 1stcentury A.D. and he is going to talk about it. He's going to talk about Solomon in retrospect. So, we're not talking about 1000 B.C. but about 100 A.D.
This is how Josephus then records the first instance of magical confrontation with a demonic. talking about Solomon, "Now the sagacity and wisdom which God had bestowed upon Solomon was so great that he exceeded the ancients." Who are the ancients? The Egyptians. Egyptians. "In so much that he was in no way inferior to the Egyptians. Who are said to have been beyond all men in understanding. May indeed it is evident that their sagacity was very much inferior to that of those Kings." And skipping down here.
God also enabled him to learn that skill which expels demons. which is a science useful incentive to men. he composed such incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms by which they drive away demons so that they never returned. And this method of cure is of great force unto this day.
And then now Josephus is going to give us a digression. He's gonna give his personal testimony from the 1st century A.D. "For I have seen a certain man of my own country." Israel. "Whose name was Eliezer. Releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian." Vespasian, a Roman Emperor. A very special Roman Emperor. He's the Roman Emperor who headed the Flavian clan who felt that he was the chosen Messiah. He was in Israel around 70 A.D. And he's the one that felt that, that he was them the messianic figure of the age. Because of that his son Titus sacked the central temple in Jerusalem. And brought the Great Temple menorah to Rome in his triumph as his major booty. Can in fact the arch of Titus in Rome, which still stands, shares this great triumph of procession of Titus coming in with the menorah of the temple brought into Rome.
"In the presence of Vespasian and his sons and his captains and the whole multitude of his soldiers." In other words, this was a exorcism in front of the Emperor. And his sons and the whole Roman entourage. "The matter of the cure was this." And Josephus was there also.
He put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils of the demoniac. After which he drew out the demon through his nostrils. And when the man fell down immediately, he abjured him to return into him no more. Still making, making still mention of Solomon and resetting the incantations which he composed. And when Eliezer would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power. He said a little way off in a cup or basin full of water. And commanded the demon as he went out of the man to overturn it. And load by to let the spectators know that he had left the man. And when this was done the skill and wisdom of Solomon were shown very manifestly. For which reason it is that all men may know the vastness of Solomon's abilities. And how he was beloved by God. And that the extraordinary virtues of every kind, with which this king was endowed, may not be unknown in people under the Sun. For this reason, I say it is that we have proceeded to speak so largely of these matters.
And then he goes on.
What has this digression of Josephus? What is this being written? And written around 70 A.D. Why? Because around 70 A.D. is the first time that the reports in Matthew and Mark are beginning to have currency. Luke also written by this time. Just around this time. The power of being able to exorcise demons is extraordinary enough. But what was being conveyed here was that there was a archetypal relationship between the demons and Jesus.
And for this we have to understand here the ancient conception of the demonical. We think of it because our heritage has abstracted it for us so that it no longer has living truth but as a caricature. We think of the demonic in a childish way. As if there were the bad guys. That they had the pitchforks and were like Hieronymus Bosch uglies. Who crowd around and take advantage in and do the bidding of the, the devil. But this is childish and a caricature. And not at all in keeping with the, the classical sense of the demons.
We're going to come here to the first volume of Demonology and Devil War by Moncure Conway. Who was a professor of Divinity College Harvard University. This two volumes set written 1879. Conway was professor of divinity at Harvard about the same time that William James was becoming professor of psychology. Conway is learned. Chapter two The Genesis of Demons. the classical scholar. And he writes in here of demons, that demons are always related to divinity.
It is necessary to distinguish clearly between the demon and the devil. Though for some purposes they may be mentioned together. The world was haunted with demons for many ages before there was any embodiment of their spirit in any central form. Much less any conception of a principle of evil in the universe. The early demons had no moral character. Not any more than the man-eating tiger.
They're no, they're not evil they just they simply occur. There is no outburst of moral indignation mingling with the shout of victory when Indra slays Rita. In Apollo's face is serene when his dart pierces the Python. There is no romantic conquest here. It is the balance of mythological nature playing out its pattern to fullness. And that's what it is. Because it is not conscious. But when it becomes conscious then it becomes fraught with Jeopardy and danger. And the romantic heroics occur.
So, it required a much higher development of the moral sentiment to give rise to the conception of a devil. Only that intense light could cast so black a shadow athwart the world as the belief in a truly and purely malign spirit. To such a conception love of evil for its own sake the word devil is limited in this work. Demon is applied to beings whose harmfulness is not gratuitous but incidental to their own satisfactions. Deity and demon, in Greek our forms of the same word. and the latter has simply suffered degradation by the conventional use of it to designate the less beneficial powers and qualities which originally enheared in every deity after they were detached from these and separately then personified. Every bright God had his shadow, so to say. And under the influence of dualism this shadow attained a distinct existence and personality in the popular imagination.
Note the context here, in the popular imagination.
In this vast alchemical change. So vast that Jung used the term that Heraclitus used. Heraclitus the first one in the great tradition to really become conscious of what was happening. Used the term enantiodromia, which we have talked about before. A complete turning over. What is on the bottom comes up to the top. And what seemed to be the top turns and becomes the middle. There's a process then that one sees instead of the pyramid one sees the hourglass. Instead of the static pyramid of eternity, one sees that this is a dynamic of time.
So that Jesus brings in the Lord of history notion. This is a fulcrum. This is a change. And there is now the inverted pyramid. There is now the possibility of being conscious of the fact that the demonic is not just purely natural but is in fact evil. This difference turns out to be the shift from myth to magic.
Now in the in the mythological. And for the mythological we go to the Egyptian. And when we come to the magical will be in the Greek language. Although many of the early magical incantations are written both in Greek and Egyptian at the same time. In fact, some of the developments in the Egyptian, Greco-Egyptian tradition in order to over stop this language problem. For those who used Egyptian they were not so familiar with Greek. For those who use Greek or not some familiar with Egyptian. That as early as the 21st dynasty, as early as 1000 B.C., pictures were used. Abstracted from any kind of text. But by the time the 2nd century came around very often the Egyptian language would be written with Greek characters. and this began to produce the language we know as Coptic. And of course, early Christianity in Egypt has a, a Coptic expressive flowering to it. it has a Greek language based but it's in the Coptic that the expressive flower is.
That is to say if we're going to understand in the Hermetic tradition, the way in which the, the unconscious became conscious, the way in with the...which the Egyptian mythological unconscious became a Greek magical consciousness we have to understand here the, the, the tremendous change that happened. Chemical change.
So, we're going to look at this volume from the Bollingen series Mythological Papyri published I think 1957. Bollingen series.
The documents we present here are almost all of the 21st dynasty of the priests, kings of Upper Egypt. And pertained to the clergy of Amun-RA. king of the Gods of Thebes. For the study of religious symbolism these papyri are of peculiar importance. Created for the use of priests and priestesses in the afterlife they contain symbolic representations of condensed mythological conceptions and magical formula. Many of which are otherwise unknown. In contrast, in contrast to the funeral papyri of The Book of the Dead, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, these documents are largely pictorial. With little or no textual matter. Many of the scenes however illustrates significant chapters of The Book of the Dead.
What are those chapters of The Book of the Dead? If we come to Budge's Book of the Dead. And the chapters we would like to see are chapters 1 2 8 and 9. We open up Budge and we find out that the Book of the Dead has been chopped up here. It is not presented to us in order at all. In fact, if we wish to find chapter 1, we have to make our way through quite a lot of text. We don't come to chapter 1 until page 355 of Budge. And there it is. the chapters of Coming Forth By Day. For that's the real name of this book, The Coming Forth By Day. And chapter 2 exists on page 481. The chapter Of Coming Forth by Day and of Living After Death. And then for chapter 8 we have to go back to page 478.
Should we wait for the cassettes?
The chapter of Making a Way Through Amun Tet by Day. And of course, this is the this is the afterlife.
Fortunately, we don't have to depend on Budge. We have the very rare Egyptian Book of the Dead which was done by Sir LePage Randolph and professor E. Novel. published by the Society of Biblical Archaeology in London 1904. Very rare book. Very difficult to come across. A lot of perseverance to find this. But this has the translations we need. And all of them are there in order. So that we can review here. This is the mythological setting, the Egyptian Hermetic mythological setting, of how one enters into the netherworld and comes back out again. If one can follow that mythological pattern of entering into the nether realm and coming back out again in a natural way, one can make that conscious and can enter into the demonic realm and come back out again in a magical way. So, upon an Egyptian mythological basis, the Greek magical exorcising tradition is made. And the transformation between the two is with Jesus.
Here's how book chapter one of The Egyptian Book of the Dead begins. "These are the beginning of the chapters of Coming Forth by Day of the words which bring about resurrection and glory. And of coming out and of entering into Armenta." This realm. "Set upon the day of burial of the person, the victorious who entered after coming forth." And here is the name of the person, the victorious. He says, "Oh Bullvalene (sp?), is Thoth the everlasting king who is here?" You see right away the identification. It's almost an apposition that's brought in that Thoth and then the everlasting King, the personage. The personage must be become Thoth.
"I am the Great God in the Bark." That's a ship. "I'm the Great God in the ship who have fought for thee. I am one of those Gods the powers who affect the triumph of Osiris over his adversaries on the day of the weighing of the words." Usually this is indicated as the weighing of the soul. the psycho Stasia. The, the balance being between a feather and soul. The feather is an ostrich feather.
Here in the Theban ascension of The Coming Forth by Day it's the ring of the words. Why is this? because the language, the shape, the expressive shape, of the soul in the beginning was the word. So that the magical incantation is going to be the conscious form of the mythological pattern. The mythological pattern is going to be condensed into the magical incantation. And the mythological pattern which was efficacious in the netherworld is in its new conscious form going to be efficacious in the demonical world. Guaranteed.
Why? "I am thy kinsman Osiris." Because of a primal relationality. Kinship.
I am one of those Gods to whom Nut hath given birth. Who slay the adversaries of Osiris and imprison the Siebel on his behalf. I am thy kinsman Horus. I have fought for thee and have prevailed for thy name. I am Thoth who effect the triumph of Osiris over his adversaries on that day of the weighing of the words in the house of the Prince.
Which is in Heliopolis. It goes on.
We're going to skip over here to chapter 2. The chapter For Coming Forth by Day and Living After Death. "Oh, thou only one who shineth from the moon. Let me come forth amid that train of thine at large. and let me be revealed as one of those in glory. And when the tuat is open to the Gods, let," the name of the person, "Come forth to do his pleasure upon earth amid the living." It's just that. It's very short.
"Oh, thou only one." Only one. The all. The Greek word for all, magically is Aion. Spelled A-i-o-n in Greek. Spelled A-e-o-n in Latin. The Aion is the all. "Thou only one." The all. "Who shineth from the moon." The moon. Remembering the moon is the is the nighttime Sun. Thoth is associated with the moon.
"Let me come forth amid that train of thine at large." In other words, it met me to your entourage. Why? Because you are the moon at night and the Sun by day. And in this completeness the all is able to be the moon and the Sun. The day and the night. The completeness. the all. And if I have admitted to your entourage, I too may join the entourage, the circuit of the all. I am a sure passage through the thresholds. Through the threshold of death and back through the threshold into life again.
Turn your cassette now and we will commence playing on the other side without a break in continuity.
END OF SIDE ONE
Through the thresholds. Through the threshold of death and back through the threshold into life again. Death and resurrection. I am assured of this because I am in that entourage. Compacted this entourage means that then someone consciously having the magic is able to enter into the all in a way that the demonic realms are subject to one's words. Ones commands. ones language. it's
00:50
what these to be called proof positive.
Chapter 8, chapter of Opening the Tuat by Day. I realize it's difficult. Bear with it just a little bit. "The hour discloses what the head of Thoth keeps close. Who gives might to the Eye of Horus." What is the might to the Eye of Horus? It is the, the penetrating vision. To be able to see it. What is that penetrating vision? Consciousness.
But the might mythologically to the Eye of Horus is to be able to see as the God sees. But magically is to be able to see as you see. The, the cosmos, the all in the mythological becomes the individual, becomes contacted. What was the only one becomes one. Becomes the man. Jesus a magical person in space.
"And I call upon that I of Horus which gleams as an ornament upon the brow of Ra, the father of the Gods. I am that Osiris the Lord of Armenta. No Osiris knows his day. And that is his lot that he should end his being and be no more."
And then chapter 9, the chapter For Opening up the Tuat. Opening up this realm so that one may pass through.
Oh, soul most mighty here am I. I am come to thee that I may see thee. I opened the tuat so that I may see my father Osiris and they drive away the darkness. I am he whom he loveth. I have come to see my father Osiris to pierce the heart of Sutu(sp?). And to perform our duties to my father Osiris. I open all the powers in heaven and upon earth. I am the son who loveth his father. And I am come as a mummied one glorious and well-equipped. Oh, all ye Gods and Goddesses the path is made for me.
That's about 1,800 years B.C.
Now when we come to the magical papyri everything is changed. Here's one of the magical papyri. It's the title is Hermes Ring. And it's a formula for a preparation for a scarab. Notice how compacted everything is though. Scarab. The bug that rolls the Sun. its own dung ball. "Taking a scab engraved as described below. Put it on a papyrus table. And put under the table a clean sheet and olive twigs, scattering them about. and in the middle of the table a small sensor, burning myrrh and kyphi." Kyphi was a sacred incense made of about eighteen different ingredients. But myrrh is a single ingredient incense. What they're saying is that ritually they're having the one and the many got together in in the incense. So that the symbolic effervescence of the ritual is going to be balanced.
Have ready a little fans vessel in which they should be salve of lilies or of cinnamon or of myrrh. And taking the ring put it into the salve. Having in advance purified it from everything. And burning on the center of the kyphi and myrrh. Leave the ring three days and taking it from the table put it in a pure place. Have at hand for the consecration pure bread and whatever fruits are in season. When you have made another incense offering on a fire of Grapevine twigs. During the offering take the ring from the salve and put it on. Anoint yourself at dawn with the ointment from it and stand facing the sunrise. And say the spell given below.
And then of course the spell which one would say then to the Sun, to Helios, with this
I am Thoth. deliverer and founder of drugs and letters. Come to me you under the earth. Arouse yourself for me great demon. He of noon the subterranean. I am famous. I am the famous Heron egg of the Ibis. Egg of the Falcon. egg of the arranging Phoenix. Having under my tongue the mud of M. I where the hide of Kep(?) unless I know what is in the minds of everyone. Egyptians, Greeks, Syrians, Ethiopians of every race and people. Unless I know what has been and what shall be. Unless I know their skills and their practices. And their works. And their lives. And the names of them. And of their fathers and mothers. Brothers and friends. Even of those now dead. I will pour the blood of the black dog face as a drink offering into a new faultless jar. And put it on a new base and burn under it the bones of Hesees (sp?). And I will shout in the port of Boocyrus (sp?) that he remained in the river three days and three nights. He sees that he was carried by the current of the river into the sea. And that he was surrounded by the waves of the sea, and by the mist of the air. Your belly is eaten by fish and I will not stop the fish chewing your body with their mouths. Nor will the fish shut their mouths. I will take the fatherless boy away from his mother. The pole of the sky won't be brought down and the two mountains will be one. I will let Anaxis (sp?) loose against you and she will do what she wants. I will not let God or Goddess give Oracles until I know through and through what is in the minds of all men. Egyptians, Syrians, Greeks, Ethiopians of every race and people. Those who question me and come into my sight, whether they speak or silent. So that I can tell them whatever has happened and is happening. It is going to happen to them. And I know their skills and their lives. And their practices and their works. And their names and those of their dead. And of everybody. And I could read a sealed letter and tell them everything in it truly.
This is magic. This is consciousness. this is consciousness striving, in a clumsy expression here. But nevertheless, striving desperately to bring out of the unconscious that mythological pattern that was there. Because it can't stay there naturally anymore. Why? Because the psyche has been turned inside out. And what was inside now is out there. And what was comfortably resting upon that mythological ocean, the ship of the soul, very comfortable, is now being drowned by a tidal wave of the exterior world. Which is smashing it to bits. And the only response comprehensive enough was to seek to try to command this wave of meaning. To abate. And the process by which it was a pattern was the only comprehensible archetypal process available to them. And that was the old Hermetic tradition carried over from the Egyptians.
Now the problem, if you're following this, you're beginning to see that the problem is enormous. Was enormous. Was almost insoluble in fact. The problem is that the solution could neither be Egyptian nor Greek. For the elements, the major elements are Egyptian and are Greek. It's like the numerator and the denominator are Greek. But the only way in which the in enantiodromia where they exchanged could be handled by human experience was to have a third element brought in. and the third element that worked was not Rome but the Jews. The Jewish tradition. The Roman experience, the Roman religious experience, was not sufficient to handle this enantiodromia. The Roman experience was sufficient to be a temporary matrix for it. As in Augustus. But it was unmanageable. It was unstable. It didn't work. But the Jewish religious experience happened to be stable enough and did work. So that in the ratio of the Egyptian and the Greek the line that holds that ratio together is the Jewish religious experience.
And had the old mythological pattern remained as it was Judaism would have worked. But the whole relationship turned upside down. Instead of having a nice comfortable Egyptian mythological nature upon which to float a nice Greek individual. You have the Greek individual crushed by an externalized Egyptian mythological tidal wave. And being smashed like that, the individual could only have recourse to the Jewish religious experience to maintain some kind of articulation. But the Jewish religious experience also got turned inside out. Because of the enantiodromia. And that's when it became Christianity.
And Christianity, the Christian religious experience, became the new arbiter of meaning between the colonized individual and the Egyptianized religious cosmology. But who could be an Egyptian?
So, over the decades all of that clearly was changed and acclimated. And it was easy to displace the Egyptian mythological cosmology with the other cosmology that was near at hand, which was the Roman Empire. And so, the Greek in the sense of the individual is articulated in terms increasingly, not of the Egyptian Hermetic archetype. The Egyptian cosmology. Which would have done natural choice but in terms of the Roman state. And so, the Greek individual became a Christian in religion in a Roman state. And the Roman state changed it became the Holy Roman Empire. And the Greek individual change making the Greek, the Christian individual. And this slow process of change came about from about 200 A.D. to about 480 A.D. by that time it was completed.
This massive change, this massive movement, destroyed the traditional aspect of every recognizable aspect of this expression. Individual human beings were no longer recognizable in terms of the traditions. The cosmologies were no longer recognizable. The Gods were no longer recognizable. The sense of religious matrix was no longer recognizable. So that you had in effect an alien world in terms of the classical tradition. It was the intuition of this alienness in the 2nd century A.D. that began to bother the Gnostics in a archetype of nightmarish fashion. Because they could sense that all of this was somehow wrong. It was in some major way necessary. It was destiny. it was destined. It was in order. But the order itself was wrong. The necessity itself was alien. and in terms of real truth is intolerable and unacceptable.
So that one has increasingly the sense that there is a God who makes this cosmos and then turns it upside down on us to smash us. But that there must be a true God who is unmoving. Who doesn't do this. Outside of this whole hourglass of history. Because this is happening in history, in time. So that outside of this **inaudible word** leader show of time must be the real God. And this intuition of course is what is called the saving grace. Had there not been this intuition, it might have been impossible to have sanity.
The question then is if this is at least tenable and possible was there ever a Jewish Gnosticism? Because if there was a Jewish Gnosticism then we have a real confirmation. And of course, the Jews do not like to talk about this. some Jews do. Gershom Scholem professor of Jewish Mysticism, Hebrew University Jerusalem. Author of Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. Here's his book. Published in 1965. Published by the Jewish Theological Seminary. Title is Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition. Based on the Israel Goldstein lectures delivered at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Delivered in the 1959 I believe. General(?) remarks, "In speaking of Jewish mysticism and the early Talmudic period especially in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. I do not propose," Excuse me.
I do not propose to present a full analysis of all the problems involved in the existence of mystical doctrines of an esoteric character in rabbinic Judaism. As a matter of fact, such an all-inclusive analysis cannot yet be made. For no proper account has been given of all the pertinent facts, all the texts involved and all the ideas to be explored.
No one has ever talked about it. as of 1960. A lot of people have been talking about the last quarter of a century. because it's very important. Why is it very important? Because The Nag Hammadi material shows us the inside structure, the nature of that experience. Not only The Nag Hammadi material but just published this month by the University of Chicago Press, The Greek Magical Papyri in translation. Which were never translated, never collected before.
And so, we have a very interesting tread. we have the Dead Sea Scrolls. We have The Nag Hammadi material. And now we have The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. And all of a sudden, we have all of the parts of a structure of the religious experience of this most arcane archetypal age.
The question of the existence in Jewish circles of a religious movement anlages to what is generally known in the history of the Christian churches, Gnosticism, has acquired a new urgency as a result of the development of research in recent years. Of course, everyone agrees by now that Gnosticism, in the comprehensive sense, in which it is used in the history of religion is a rather loose term. Only a few of the several sects, groups and tendencies now considered Gnostic were known as such in their own time. But this does not preclude the use of this convenient term. For the religious movement that proclaimed a mystical esotericism for the elect based on illumination and the acquisition of a higher knowledge of things, heavenly and divine. And it is this knowledge that the very term gnosis, meaning knowledge. That is to say knowledge of an esoteric and at the same time soteric, redeeming character elutes.
So, the Gnostism is the knowledge of the high God, the true God. not of the cosmos. It is not a knowledge of the mythological. It is not a knowledge of the magical.
But one could never know that there was something other than that until one understood the relationship of the mythic to the magical. Because only when one understands the relationship between the mythic background and the magical foreground does one see that this is incomplete. Or rather it's complete and a kind of a static, dull symmetry that doesn't go anywhere. Then if this is what is real then reality is spinning its wheels. Because it ends up being dead center upon the fulcrum which one is oneself. And one says am I the whole show? Am I the universe? don't think so. Because if one slavishly followed the pattern, mythologically and magically, one would come to that conclusion eventually. I am the all. well that seems to be hubris. So, the Gnostic says, that can't be. There must be something else. We've missed the whole show. We've not missed a point; we've missed the whole show somehow.
How do we find out that? That means that we have to leave this world. We have to leave this world to find out. We cannot stay in this world. We cannot stay in the mythology. We cannot stay in the magic. We cannot stay in ourselves.
Well where are we gonna go? Where are we gonna go? We're gonna try to go to the other realm. We're gonna try to do an end run around the problem. Because now we see that existence is a problem. What is the problem of existence? That it seems to be an equation where conscious and unconscious come into exact static, dull, dead equilibrium. And that can't be. It can be. To put it colloquially, the meaning of the universe can't reside in the fact that I exist as I am.
In the Jewish tradition there are a series of books called The Hakala Books. And The Hakala Books to quote Gershom Scholem, describe at great length the ecstatic ascent of the soul to heaven.
The ascent of the soul to heaven. because the soul is going to climb out through the magical realms, just as it used to climb down through the mythic realms, out to the real. You can either go down through the mythical rounds are up through the magical realms. And by going through them all one knows that one has gone through them all. And that one way or another one is going to get out. well if one accepts the destined syzygy of good and evil, one says if you climb down, you'll go into hell. You better climb up so you can go to heaven. But the deity and the demonic are related. And it may be that they're not so different after all. It may be that the whole idea of difference is an illusion of the cosmic condition. Imposed mythologically upon consciousness in its magical limitations.
In this literature, the theurgic elements of The Lesser Hakala and the Magical Papyri, chapter 10 of Gershon Solon's book.
There is one aspect of the Hakala literature that is very puzzling. The question of the place occupied in these texts by theurgical descriptions and prescriptions and the accompanying ever-increasing number of magical names and aphasia gramatica. All of which give these books a strange resemblance to the magical papyri. Has never been sufficiently explored indeed the speculative religious element in these remains of the Hebrew and Aramaic Hakala books is so closely interwoven with the magical one. That I feel the distinction drawn by many scholars today between Gnostic literature proper and that of the magical papyri is overstated.
Now we don't have time to develop that any further tonight. Now we have the testimony of Gershom Scholem aside from my effrontery, to hold forth The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation saying we need to look at this material in terms of Gnosticism. But that that can't be seen at all until we're able to bring the mythological background into consciousness in a way that was not magical but was, we'll have to use the word transcendental. This would be almost impossible to do. I don't know of any way that it could be done. except for the fact that we have the writings of the man who did it. And his name was Plotinus.
Because we have the writings of Plotinus, we'll go next week and for the next two or three weeks to Plotinus to acquaint ourselves with Plotinus. And then in about a month we'll come back to this issue and we'll see how Plotinus, who was really the culminating genius, honest philosopher king of the Hermetic tradition, discloses to us how this basic syzygy is complemented by another syzygy. And that these two syzygies brought together as the holy quaternary. That's the cross. That's the salvation. And that the, the self which one can obtain brings this into interlock.
Well this is a lot follow. I'm sorry we don't have any **inaudible word**. We've got food thought.
END OF RECORDING