Week Five Poppets
DEFINITION:
•In ancient Greek, such figures, ‘dolls,’ or ‘poppets’ were called kolossos (= kolossoi in the plural)
•Generally, this word can refer to a figure of any kind
•The use of these figures in Greece dates from the 7th Century BC
•Also used in Egypt and Babylon
•The word ‘voodoo’ is connected with the Haitian magical practices involving chanting, singing, drumming, etc that lead to states of trance and spiritual possession
•Faraone uses the following criteria in defining an artefact as a ‘poppet:
•Uses:
•Defensive Uses in the Public Realm è e.g. (a) Egyptian rituals to protect the Egyptian gods, the Pharaoh, the people; (b) Babylonian practices to rid the city of evil witches andmagicians; (c) Greece as part of the exorcism of unfriendly and troublesome ghosts
•Aggressive Uses in the Private Realm èI.e. for protective or defensive reasons – often at a public level OR for more personally-driven and aggressive reasons at a private level
Voodoo Dolls by Mr Lucky
The Wizard is pleased to offer Voodoo Dolls made by the renowned and mysterious Mr. Lucky, alias Rev. Zombie. Mr Lucky is a famous and reclusive New Orleans craftsman and artist, who has supplied Marie Laveau, Rev. Zombie Voodoo Shop, the St Philip St. Witchcraft Shop, Cajun Mart, and the late Chicken Man. His work is seen in many of the finer shops and museums in New Orleans. Mr. Lucky goes into a self induced magical trance and creates world famous Voodoo Dolls made from the earth. Each doll is hand made and carefully crafted from clay, moss, cloth, straw and earth. Believe me they get the job done!
[WEBSITE]
Voodoo dolls can be used to accomplish a varied number of goals. They can be used to acquire love or luck, heal the sick, protection from evil, as well as their more infamous use. Our dolls come in male or female and include instructions. [WEBSITE]
•spells are spoken or written – a spoken or written formula that, “in an act of magic, is intended to cause or influence a particular course of events.” (Guiley 322)
•according to Guiley: “Spells are closely related to prayer, which is a ritual consisting of a petition to a deity or deities for a desired outcome, and which involves visulization of the goal, statement of desire for the goal and ritualized movements or body positions (e.g., bowing of head, folding or clasping of hands, closing of eyes). Spells are also closely related to various methods of mind power such as “creative visulization,” “positive thinking” and “positive imagining,” all of which emphasize mental images, identification with mental images, a clear goal, repetition of one’s intent to achieve this goal, projection of will and invocation of the aid of spirits, deities or the Divine Force.” (322)
•Guiley continues: “Spells may be beneficial or harmful, and they may be worked on man and beast alike. The purposes are limitless and include healing, love, money, success, fertility, longevity, protection from disaster, ill fortune and evil, exorcism of ghosts and spirits, victory in battle, truth in divination, weather control and accomplishment of supernatural feats.” (322)
•according to Hans Dieter Betz: “The Greek magical papyri is a name given by scholars to a body of papyri from Greco-Roman Egypt containing a variety of magical spells and formulae, hymns and rituals. The extant texts are mainly from the second century B.C. to the fifth century A.D.” (xli)
•Betz goes on to write: “To be sure, this body of material represents only a small number of all the magical spells that once existed. Beyond these papyri we possess many other kinds of material: artifacts, symbols and inscriptions found on gemstones, on ostraka [such as the example shown in the slides last week] and clay bowls [also seen last week] , and on tablets of gold, silver, lead, tin and so forth.” (xli)
•Luck adds that “The language of the magical papyri would require a separate study. They reflect various levels of literary skill, but generally they are standard Greek; they are not incorrect, but presumably they are closer to the spoken language than to poetry or artistic prose. Many terms are borrowed, it seems, from the mystery cults; thus magical formulas are sometimes called teletai (literally, “celebrations of mysteries”), or the magician himself is called mystagogos (the priest who leads the candidates for initiation).” (17)
• Luck also notes that “Often the texts are written in the form of a recipe: “Take the eyes of a bat …” [no. 24] . These recipes, along with the appropriate spells and gestures, are supposed to produce a variety of effects: they guarantee revealing dreams and the talent of interpreting them correctly; they send out daemons to plague one’s enemies; they break up someone’s marriage or kill people by insomnia. There is a definite streak of cruelty in some of the ceremonies …” (17)
•Betz: “The history of the discovery of the Greek magical papyri is a fascinating subject. We know from literary sources that a large number of magical books in which spells were collected existed in antiquity. Most of them, however, have disappeared as the result of systematic suppression and destruction. The episode about the burning of the magical books at Ephesus in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 19:19) is well known and typical of many such instances.” (xli)
• Luck writes that “From Acts 19:18-20 we know that Paul made many Ephesians bring out their magical books (which were worth a great deal of money) and burn them; Ephesus was apparently one of the centers of magic …”
•According to Suetonius [Aug. 31.1] , Augustus ordered 2,000 magical scrolls to be burned in the year 13 B.C. Indeed, the first century of the Christian era saw many burnings of books, often of magical books, and not a few burnings that included the magicians themselves.” (xli)
Some Details about the Greek Magical Papyri:
•as already mentioned the material known as the Greek Magical Papyri is from Greco-Roman Egypt – 2nd Century BC – hundreds of years AD
•many Greek deities
•Judaic influences – Jewish magic was famous in antiquity. Problematic. “Did this material actually originate with Jewish magicians? How did it get into the hands of the magicians who wrote the Greek magical papyri? What kind of transformation took place in the material itself?” (Betz xlv)
•also elements of Christianity
•we also see Egyptianising of Greek deities and Hellenicizing of Egyptian deities – mixtures, inter-connections, etc
•Betz mentions a very important role, namely the “phenomenon of the magician as a religious functionary” (xlvi)
•although he warns against generalisation
•“Some of the magicians writing and using spells may have been associated with temples of Egyptian and Greek deities. According to Egyptian practice, the magician was a resident member of the temple priesthood.” (xlvi)
•there are also different types of magicians reflected in the texts: “a type we know … This type of wandering craftsman [who] seems keen to adopt and adapt every religious tradition that appeared useful to him, while the knowledge and understanding of what he adopted was characterized by a certain superficiality. This type of magician no longer understood the old languages, although he used remnants of them in transcription.” (xlvi)
•he meddled with traditional hymns and formulae – inserting his own inclusions and so ruining the original meters
•“In the hands of magicians of this type, the gods from the various cults gradually merged, and as their natures became blurred, they often changed into completely different deities. For these magicians, there was no longer any cultural difference between the Egyptian and the Greek gods, or between them and the Jewish god and the Jewish angels; and even Jesus was occasionally assimilated into this truly “ecumenical” religious syncretism of the Hellenic world culture.” (xlvi)
An Individual Spell from the Collection: PMG 1:83-87:
N.B: Luck has edited out parts of the spell, such as the magical words and other sections, for the sake of ‘space.’ The italicized parts are mine, where I’m commenting on Luck’s editing and on other aspects of the spell
The spell as Luck has edited and translated (pp. 92-93) reads thus:
Take wax or clay from a potter’s wheel and shape it into two figures, one male and one female. Make the male look like Ares in arms. He should hold a sword in his left hand and point it at her right collarbone. Her arms must be tied behind her back, and she must kneel. Attach the magic substance to her head or neck. On the head of the figure representing the woman whom you wish to attract write: here is a list of voces mysticae, which Luck does not include …
Luck then edits out a description of parts of the body that the magical words are to be written on, although he does mention that these parts include the genitals …
Take thirteen iron needles, stick one into her brain and say” I prick your brain, X” [the X stands for the woman’s name that is to be inserted] …
Luck then edits out the next part of the spell, writing: “A list of other parts of the body to be pricked …” he then continues on, writing [on this list of body parts in the spell] : “each time the magician has to say” – and picks up from there …
“I prick this part of the body of X, to make sure that she thinks of no one but me, Y.” [the Y stands for the name of the spell-caster that is to be inserted – i.e. the one who wishes to attract the woman] …
Take a lead plate and write the same formula on it and tie it to the figures in three-hundred and sixty-five knots with thread from a loom and recite the “Abrasax, hold tight” formula, which you know, and deposit this at sunset near the tomb of someone who died before his time or died a violent death, with flowers of the season. The spell that must be written and recited is this:
I deposit this binding spell with you, gods of the underworld [here is a list of voces mysticae, which Luck does not include] and the Kore Persephone Ereschigal and Adonis, the [here is a list of voces mysticae, which Luck does not include] Hermes of the underworld, Touth [here is a list of voces mysticae, which Luck does not include] and powerful Anubis, who holds the key of those in Hades, the gods and daemons of the underworld, those who died before their time, male and female, youths and maidens, year after year, month after month, day after day, hour after hour. I conjure all the daemons at this place to assist this one daemon. Wake up for me, whoever you are, male or female, and go to every place, to every street, into every house, and fetch and bind. Bring me X, the daughter of Z, whose magical substance you have, and make her love me, Y, the son of A. Let her not have intercourse, neither from front nor from behind, and let her not have pleasure with any other man except me, Y. Let her, X, not eat, not drink not love, not be strong, not be healthy, not sleep, except with me, X, because I conjure you in the name of the terrifying one, the horrifying one. When the earth hears his name, it will open up. When the daemons hear his awful name, they will be afraid. When rivers and rocks hear his name, they will burst. I conjure you, daemon of the dead.
… Luck seems to have again edited out part of the spell here and then continues with the words that are to be both written and recited … Yes, drag her by her hair, her entrails, her genitals to me, Y, in every hour of time, day and night, until she comes to me, Y, and remains inseparable from me. Do this, bind her during my whole life to me and force her, X, to be my slave, the slave of Y, and let her not leave me for a single hour of time. If you fulfill this wish, I will let you rest at once.
For I am Adonai [here is a list of voces mysticae, which Luck does not include] who hides the stars, the brightly radiating ruler of the sky, the lord of the world.
… Luck seems to have again edited out part of the spell here and then continues with the words that are to be both written and recited …
Fetch her, tie her, make her love and desire me, Y, because I conjure you, daemon of the dead, by the terrible, the mighty one [here is a list of voces mysticae, which Luck does not include …] , to make you fetch X and make her join head to head, lips to lips, body to body, thighs to thighs, back to back, and do her job of making love with me forever and ever.”
Reading / Work Referred to and Quoted:
Betz, H. D. Ed. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells. 2nd ed. Chicago. 1992.
Guiley, Rosemary E. The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft. New York: Facts on File Publishers, 1989. N.B: page numbers may vary with the 2nd edition.
Luck, G. Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Baltimore. 1985. 3-60.
Ogden, Daniel. Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook. Oxford: 2002.
RE: poppets
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