Modern Greek Goētia: an introduction
Survivals of pagan practice in Greek folk Orthodoxy
The term γόης [goēs] from the root γοῶ originally referred to ‘a sorcerer using calls and incantations’ (Babiniotis, Etymological Dictionary, 315). It acquired negative connotations quite early, in Plato (Soph. 241b):
ἐάν αύτὸν διερευνῶμεν ἐν τῇ τῶν ψευδουργῶν καὶ γοήτων τέχνῃ τιθέντες, ὀρᾷς ὠς εὒποροι καὶ πολλαί
[for you see how easily and repeatedly [the sophist] can raise objections and difficulties, if we conduct our search by putting him in the guild of false-workers and goētes].
alongside the meaning of ‘bewitch, charm’, found in archaic sources transcribed in the medieval period (Babiniotis, ED, 299). Modern usage retains both the meaning of ‘charmer’ and of ‘charlatan,’ while the verb γητεύω has a more positive mystical sense of ‘charm, whisper’ in the sense of animal whispering.
Early prohibitions
The negative sense of ‘low magic’ associated with the term can be partly ascribed to the broader 5th century CE prohibition of necromancy and folk magical practices, as these became distinguished from ‘divine’ practices reserved for the gods and their earthly representatives (D. Collins, Magic in the Ancient Greek World, 27-63).
Forms of goetia included love spells, curses, spells for revenge, necromancy, certain forms of divination, as well as healing spells and a wide variety of incantations and rituals for fertility, protection, and good fortune.
As is well established, folk magic of the sort dubbed goētia was the province of αγύρται [mendicant vagabonds], αλαζόνες [braggarts] and lay seers (ψευδομάντεις, distinguished from professional temple μάντεις), yet its practice was widespread in the ancient world, as evidenced by archaeological artifacts and textual testimonies. The syncretic collections of these practices eventually became what we know as the Greek Magical Papyri that continue to attract both scholarly and practical interest.
In the West
In the medieval and Renaissance West, these among a variety of other manuscripts from further East, including astrological, alchemical, pharmaceutical, and angelological writings transmitted via diverse cultures and periods, became the basis for the medieval grimoires at the heart of Western ceremonial magic. Although these were quickly distanced from ‘dark, demonic goētia’ by their transcribers and practitioners (W.J. Hanegraaff, ‘Magic,’ in G. MacGee ed., The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2016, 393-404), they include elements that would undoubtedly have been dubbed as such in antiquity. Notwithstanding, ceremonial magic became part of the broader cluster of practices that after the Renaissance came to be termed ‘Western Esoteric Traditions’ (a misnomer that has been exhaustively discussed elsewhere), and has had a significant influence on many occult pathways practiced in the present day.
Resting on three core texts: The Greater Key of Solomon, The Lesser Key of Solomon, and The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, alongside several other no less significant ones such as The Picatrix, The Black Pullet among others, ‘modern’ practical goetia was revitalised in the last couple of decades through the work of the recently late Jake Stratton-Kent, which argues that:
The grimoires represent a survival of primarily ancient pagan occult and religious practices over which a thin veneer of Qabalah and Christianity has been added. This veneer, including its talk of demons and angels, can be stripped away to uncover the true pagan occult tradition beneath the surface of the texts… Magic, to put it too simply and bluntly while perhaps overstating the point, is really pagan and was dressed up in monotheist clothing for many reasons including practical political concerns such as avoiding the stake.
Ultimately we find the grimoire practices to consist of a surviving ancient shamanism like that practiced by ancient goetes … frequently applied to non-aristocratic wandering magicians practicing a pre-classical form of ancient paganism).
Stratton-Kent also devotes considerable space to the argument that the ancient goetia represents the echoes of the chthonic, pre-Olympian region of the Helladic peninsula, gradually overtaken by the more organised city-state religion as it advanced and absorbed earlier practices during the pre-classical period. Theurgy became the form of divine, ‘high’ magic controlled by the various Olympian cults, juxtaposed with goetic, ‘low magic,’ hence its quite literal demonisation.
Meanwhile in the East
There is a lingering impression in the English-language bibliography for both scholarly and practitioner readerships that pagan and other pre-Christian practices were entirely eliminated by the time of the enforced closure of the Platonic and Alexandrian academies by Emperor Justinian in 529 CE. Further arguments to this end include the events of the Byzantine iconoclasms (726-787 and 814-842 CE), the subsequent destruction of many ancient manuscripts, and the received wisdom that the people of the Helladic peninsula and “formerly” Hellenic world lost touch with their language, former culture, and philosophy, wholly adopting the new Orthodox faith in all aspects of their lives. This same argument (known as the discontinuity controversy) is still used to suggest that Modern Greece, the language spoken, and the inhabitants of the Modern Greek state, are in no way connected to their ancient forbears.
Nevertheless, this is historically incorrect, a product of old scholarly bias, racism, and in modern times, at best lazy, at worst biased, politically-driven scholarship. A significant part of this journal’s mission is to address a number of such mistaken impressions that are already considered unacceptable when applied to other oppressed cultures, yet when it comes to Greek culture, there seems to be a blind spot. These will be tackled in no particular order in future posts.
For the purposes of the present entry, there are these key points:
The Orthodox faith largely subsumed earlier beliefs and practices in a syncretic fashion, whereby aspects of the Trinity and Panagia (the Madonna), along with the saints, were endowed with attributes and even epithets that had belonged to the ancient gods and heroes, with rituals formerly performed for the latter, now reconsecrated to the new saints. Numerous such examples survive in our time and can be traced to the Byzantine era. Their sociocultural roles and impact on the worldview of the citizens of today should not be underestimated.
Contrary to received wisdom, Greek philosophy never ceased being taught in the Orthodox world, not all manuscripts were lost or destroyed, and unlike the Latin West, the Greek world did not “rediscover” them via their Arab and Persian neighbours. There was certainly intellectual exchange between Greek and Eastern spheres, but there is also an unbroken, documented lineage of education and intellectual progress in relation to Greek learning (θύραθεν παιδεία!) from late antiquity through to modernity that is not limited to Michael Psellus. This has been poorly studied in anglophone regions.
This lineage features all the hallmarks of organic cultural evolution, shaped by sociopolitical and socioreligious context, and as such should be seen (in scholarly terms) as a genuine historical throughline worth studying on its own terms. That neoclassical philhellenism supported political liberty and independence for what had previously been a subjugated nation through their own reimagining of Greece, does not make this any less true.
Where social, political, and religious elites of the Byzantine Empire continued to have access to variations on Greek learning, the populace of the rural provinces did not. Instead, they possessed and transmitted what their direct forebears bequeathed them: folk belief, folk magic, and the vehicles of rich oral tradition, preserved in recorded folktales, incantations, embroidery, song, children’s games, and other forms of surviving folk arts.
Among these artefacts are rare grimoires that remain in publication, in Modern Greek, to this day, and incantations and rituals that are still practised, especially in rural areas, also to this day.
The grimoires show signs of deriving from the same sources as the PGM, with a ‘thicker’ Orthodox Christian veneer.
The Greek ‘Kyprianarion’ is unrelated to the better known Portuguese “Sorcerer’s Treasure” (attributed to St Cyprian of Antioch). It is a collection of folk magical remedies and spells recorded in the late 19th century in Cyprus, and remains a popular collection of Greek folk spells still in use today. A number of elements reflect PGM sources. I am currently working on a critical translation of this work from a Greek manuscript alongside a second unpublished grimoire. Many elements of the cluster of practises listed above are fully embedded within Modern Greek (even urban) culture, in the context of a form of syncretic ‘folk Orthodoxy’ comparable to Santeria or Vodou. Anthropological and ethnographic studies have been conducted on Russian and Serbian iterations of this phenomenon (see for example here and here). There are several excellent modern ethnographical studies in Greek, but few, if any, in English on the Greek iterations of the same. More fully integrated than a ‘dual faith’ combining pagan and Christian customs (such as All Hallow’s Eve/Halloween), folk Orthodoxy incorporates folk medicine, spells, incantations, defixiones, and even evocations and exorcisms to be performed by the laity within everyday life, with elements even found in formal church rituals. They are not defined as ‘magic,’ nor are they occulted; they are woven into the living culture. The existence of ghosts, daimones, fey folk and bogeymen are just as well accepted in many rural areas. Dream interpretation - also deriving from ancient sources (Artemidorus et al) is as widespread.
Clay flywheels used as weaving weights in ancient times were washed out of ancient ceremonies and often ended up collecting at river banks. Found in large numbers in medieval times, they were thought to be made by fairies. Young mothers sought after them to hang above their babies’ cribs to keep fairies away. They could also be used on specific feast days to invoke “The Great Fairy” (possibly an iteration of Hera) who would teach them the Yeragedistika, the secret language of the fairies (whose writing the designs were thought to be), and tell them the healing uses of the flywheels to protect young mothers and infants alike. Source: Christos Th. Oikonomou, International Conference on Folk Medicine, Rethymnon, 2000. These practices are embedded in a persisting pre-modern worldview that is typical of Modern Greek thought, and forms an additional barrier (besides the language barrier) to scholarship that does not include a form of cultural immersion to allow correct ethnographic consideration. The primacy of philological studies within Classics and problematic linguistic approaches have sadly done a disservice in this regard.
19th century bridal dowry chest from Corfu, belonging to my great-grandmother, restored and painted by my grandmother. The cypress trees represent a connection to heaven, prosperity and immortality. The bird (rooster) is an apotropaic symbol to ward off evil, the leaves and flowers (always in threes), are again apotropaic, while the stylised zig-zag lines represent rivers and their use here represents protection (boundaries) against enemies and a visual evocation of powerful river guardians. Similar symbolism is used in the embroidery of all bridal items, across Greece, with stylistic variants but similar in content and meaning. Source: Alexandra Vrella, Bridal folk fabrics in Greece: Motifs, Symbols, and influences on Modern Greek Design, 2017 There are numerous surviving artefacts of material culture, from quotidian items such as fountains, doorways, and utensils, songs and visual art, to bridal and baptismal accoutrements and rituals, that document these as survivals rather than revivals.
In short, alongside the circuitous path of Greco-Egyptian magic into the Latin West, the subsequent Renaissance re-imagining and reinterpretation of Greek learning, neo-Classical inheritance, and modern scholarly interpretations, there exists a direct, if partially obscured lineage of Greek magic - both goetic and theurgic - beneath the veil of Orthodox Christianity.
When the veneer is peeled back, per Stratton-Kent, pre-Christian material is clearly visible, sometimes embedded inadvertently, sometimes deliberately. There is ample evidence and documentation to these ends, with the greatest source of obscurity stemming from the language barrier - let us remember that Greek had largely died out in the West by the 5th century, and was revived nearly a millennium later, yet contrary again to received wisdom, in the Helladic peninsula it never died out and manuscript transcription never ceased; language and intellectual engagement with these sources evolved organically. Modern Greek-language scholarship on these topics exists, but remains inaccessible due to the language barrier.
The significance of maintaining a nuanced perspective on historical and geographical context is paramount, as is the need to consider Greek self-perception and the emic perception of these practices even while applying a scholarly approach. This shall be taken into consideration in following posts.
Future posts will explore each of the above points, providing detailed evidence, sources, visual material, and argumentation. Until next time…
So, so interesting - all these threads running through our belief systems and history. I know a little about this confluence of pre-Christian and Christian beliefs in my own culture, but it's not something I have explored in Greek culture, although I have witnessed shadows of it in the traditions still practised today.
Great post! I am looking forward to learning more about this topic.