Part 3 - Review of Modern Witchcraft with the Greek Gods: History, Insights & Magickal Practice by Jason Mankey & Astrea Taylor

The misuse of sources is troubling and is a red flag that the book will have more of this kind of mishandling of sources.

Part 3

Welcome back to my multi-part series review of Modern Witchcraft with the Greek Gods.  This third installment concludes the review of the introduction portion of the book written by Astrea Taylor, one of the book's co-authors. Part 4 of my review will deal with the next chapter, “A Brief History of the Greek Gods” by Jason Mankey.

I will pick up where I left off in part two of the review. Taylor claims that some people (including Hellenic Reconstructionists) believe there’s no place for magick and Witchcraft with the Greek gods (Page 3). In part two of my review, I address the first part of her rationale for rejecting those claims. Read part two of the review to read my response concerning her incorrect retelling of the myth of Icarus and her misunderstanding of why witches are predominantly not featured in Greek myth.

In this portion of my review, I will address how Taylor employs the Greek Magical Papyri in her argument. Taylor writes:

People have used the gods in their magick for millennia. The Greek Magical Papyri, or Papyri Graecae Magicae (PGM), is a collection of several grimoires with spells, rituals, and curses that date from about 400 BCE to 200 CE. The PGM is still used by many witches and magicians today and is considered an important part of the Western Magickal Tradition that gave birth to the many strains of Modern Witchcraft. One researcher estimated that a whopping 85 percent of the spells in the PGM call upon at least one deity. There isn't evidence of anyone who was punished or struck down by the Greek gods for calling upon them in a spell or ritual. If anything, magick was probably seen as one of the best ways to interact with the gods in order to make one's wishes known.

These days, a multitude of our current magical practices come from ancient Greek magick, or they're very similar to it. (citation) This includes the use of spells, rituals, cleansing, incense, music, an altered state of mind, magick circles, and incantations. (Page 3)

There is a lot to unpack here. Taylor tries to disprove the contemporary idea that Greek Gods and Witchcraft don’t mix. First, attitudes concerning witchcraft vary from one religious tradition to the next. How a Greek, Witch, or Pagan feels about the issue reflects each group’s attitudes and shouldn’t impinge on the other. If a Witch doing Witchcraft works with Greek Gods, then that is what a Witch does. Witches cannot tell a Greek or a Pagan that we are wrong for being apprehensive towards Witchcraft in our religions and vice versa.

Second, citing the PGM does not disprove anyone’s apprehension or rejection of witchcraft today within our religions. The PGM is only useful in Taylor's argument that ancient peoples did magic. However, just like today, where there are people who are against magic, and there are people in favor of it, the same was true in antiquity.  A good example of this is recorded in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Apollonius wanted to be initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, but the Hierophant rejected him:

“…the hierophant did not want to make the rites available, saying he would never induct a fraud, or open Eleusis up to a man who was impure in spiritual matters.” (Book 4)

This episode shows that the Hierophant of Eleusinian mysteries could reject a candidate if they believed the person to be impure. The Hierophant was likely skeptical about Apollonius; his detractors thought of him as a magician, while his supporters thought of him as a philosopher.  

The PGM is a bad example to use if your goal is to disprove Greek rejection of magic and witchcraft since the PGM is not representative of anything strictly Hellenic. The Greek Magical Papyri is called the Greek Magical Papyri because most documents are written in Greek, not because the rituals are Greek. In terms of the ritual content and ideas within it, it is a mix of Greek and Egyptian ideas.

“Egyptian religious influences and, more specifically, the Egyptian framework of the magic spells are absorbed and reflected in the Greek magic texts. Many of the magical papyri were produced, copied, compiled, interpolated, and collected in the first three centuries C.E.” (Pachoumi, E. The concepts of the divine in the Greek magical papyri. Mohr Siebeck, 2017. 4)

The PGM dates between the second century BCE to the fifth century CE. We are looking at documents produced in a heavily syncretic environment, a world vastly different from ours. The PGM is also a bad example to cite if you are looking to justify your modern magicak practices because the magic in the PGM is different from magick today; it's apples and oranges. Read part 1 of my review for the discussion between magick and magic.

Modern magick, as laid out in this book, from the examples I have read so far, differs from the magical operation in the PGM in some ways. The magick in this book lacks a ‘divine assistant’ that is summoned to carry out tasks for you. Because of their Egyptian influence, the magician in the PGM seeks to “control gods and deities, daimons and spirits of the dead.” (Pachoumi 7) Does Modern Witchcraft claim to do this? Does Taylor think she controls gods and deities, daimons, and spirits of the dead?  The magick in this book is, to be frank, arts and crafts with Gods. To somehow equate the magick in this book with the PMG is insulting to the ancient Egyptian magicians who wrote these magical handbooks.

Lastly, Taylor displays her childlike understanding of Greek religion when she writes, “[t]here isn't evidence of anyone who was punished or struck down by the Greek gods for calling upon them in a spell or ritual.” Does Taylor seriously expect everyone to be ‘struck down’ by Gods? Because people are not struck down for something, that is to be taken as evidence that that practice is fully accepted in ancient society and accepted by the Gods? This is very Christian thinking. I guess because Zeus did not strike down all murderers, murder must be ok with the Gods. This reductive reasoning fully displays a lack of understanding concerning ancient cultures. It is more of a reflection of Taylor’s assumptions about how the Gods work than how ancients might have thought themselves.

I had to do another citation check to see if the citation was properly used. Taylor writes, “[t]hese days, a multitude of our current magical practices come from ancient Greek magick, or they're very similar to it. (citation). The citation here is from Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic & Religion, page 250. Because the citation appears after “a multitude of our current magical practices come from ancient Greek magick, or they're very similar to it,” is it not reasonable to assume that the citation backs that up? Does this citation claim that modern magical practices come from ancient Greek magic? Or is Taylor again misusing scholarship to legitimize her thoughts and her ideas about modern magick?

I read page 250; no, it does not say what Taylor says. Why would a book on ancient Greek magic published by Oxford University mention modern magick? The chapter Taylor cites in the book deals with how the magical papyri may relate to the mystery cults. Is Taylor reading something on page 250, specific rituals in the ancient world that are similar to modern practices, and made the citation because of that? She lists certain practices after the citation “spells, rituals, cleansing, incense, music, an altered state of mind, magick circles, and incantations.” Page 250 of Magika Hiera mentions “purifications, processions, sacrifices” when referring to Mystery cults but does not mention things such as altered states of mind and magick circles. I conclude that this citation is being misused to puff up a claim the author makes that is independent of what the citation says.

On page 9- Taylor makes an embarrassing mistake when she calls Herodotus a philosopher; he is a historian.

Final thoughts. Once more, I find it weird that so much effort is being made to argue that witchcraft and magick can be done with Greek Gods by someone who isn’t operating inside a Hellenic context. Taylor is an eclectic pagan witch, and if pagan witches work with Gods in certain ways, then that is all that needs to be said. I feel Taylor is including this in the introduction as an attempt to “own” detractors of witchcraft and to supply arguments to her readers if they encounter detractors. There’s no real education occurring here in this introduction. You will not walk away smarter after reading it.

The misuse of sources is troubling and is a red flag that the book will have more of this kind of mishandling of sources. Does the author think no one is going to check the citations? What does this say about their perception of their readership?

This concludes my review of the Introduction to Modern Witchcraft with the Greek Gods: History, Insights & Magickal Practice by Jason Mankey & Astrea Taylor. Stay tuned to the next portion of my review, which will examine the next chapter written by Jason Mankey.