Greek Magic

[Facial Tentacles]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Pythagorean mysticism is the most distinct thing I can think of from "normal" religious practices, but I can't wrap my head around it enough. A pythagorean trying to work a magical effect would definitely work in significant musical tones or series of musical tones - sung or played or inscribed I have no idea. Music, to the pythagoreans, was heavily about the mystical ratios they were into - so if the numbers have power, ascribing power to this etherial manifestation of the numbers is an easy step.

Musical Composition as the core magic skill for building effects?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Facial Tentacles

Musical Composition as the core magic skill for building effects?

I'm using Mathematics in my current game as the core skill and it seems to working fine.

[Lord Carnifex]

As Bruno noted, Greek magic is mostly centered around the mystery cults, who are called that for a reason. The other problem you'd run into is trying to define exactly what stage of Greek history you're looking at - relgious and magic practices changed over time. The three main periods would be the pre-Dionysian, the Hellenic, and the Hellenistic. Before the cult of Dionysus becomes widespread, "magic" is likely mostly religiously themed: making sacrifices and asking blessings from priests and oracles. Alternately, one would make a sacrifice to the local heroic cult, asking for him to intercede with the Olympians.

It's important to note that the magician as we usually think of him is not strongly established in pre-Dionysian myth. Greek heroes effect change by bravery, strength, and through blessings from the gods. Magic items and direct, divine interventions are more common than magical rituals or spells as we usually think of them. Importantly, most "witches" or "sorcerers" are from outside Greece, and usually antagonists: Medea of the Jason myths and Circe of the Oddessy are the most prominent examples I can think of offhand. Unfortunately, how they do it isn't clearly communicated in the epics.

Priests and oracles play an important role, usually asking for divine intervention or communicating the will of the gods. Animal sacrifice and expensive gifts are pretty important: Adammemnon had to sacrifice his own daughter to appease Artemis, for example, and Herodotus goes on and on about the gifts given the Oracle at Delphi.

During the Hellenic period, one sees the rise of the mystery cults, many of them focusing on Dionysus, who is likely an imported god. It's difficult to say exactly what went on in the rites to Dionysus, although wine and stronger drugs would be important, as is the sacrificial killing of a bull, a goat, or a baby.

During the Hellenic period, there's an admixture of the Greek mystery cults with the Egyptian cults and religions. Dionysus becomes identified with the Egyptian Osiris (both are dead and resurrected gods who intercede for humanity with the other gods). At some point, probably around the 4th or 3rd century BCE, we see the rise of the tragedy (Gr. trag oda => "goat song") as a means of symbolically replaying the death and rebirth of Dionysus, an act that apes the earlier Egyptian Osiris plays. Quite likely, the tragedies of the Hellenic period can be thought as dramaturgy, mystical rites enacted using archtypical forms and characters. Some of these, especially those of Euripedes, center around Dionysus himself.

Central to the practice of the Hellenic cults is the attainment of an ecstatic or frenzied state. Also important is gnosis, a direct understanding of the true nature of things granted directly by the gods, which bypasses human reason and understanding.

Music is central to both Dionysian and Pythagorean mysticism. One could easily follow Nietzsche, and ascribe an intellectual, structured approach to the Pythagoreans, while the Dionysians use a frenzied, unrestrained animalistic mindset. Much more on this can be found in The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music by Nietzsche.

During the Hellenistic period, after Alexander's conquest of both Egypt and Persia, the Eastern Mediterranean saw the rise of a synergistic religious and magical stew, that saw the Greek mystery cults blend with Egyptian and Persian religion, Babylonian magic, Jewish mysticism, and Platonic and neo-Platonic philosophy. This is the boiling cauldron from which Christianity emerged, and which survived in various Christian Gnostic cults, until they were suppressed by the Orthodox church. This Hellenistic syncreticism is also the foundation of the Western Hermetic tradition, about which Ken Hite knows much more than I do, or at least how to find out about it: I recommend the [B[Suppressed Transmission[/B] columns from Pyramid, or GURPS Cabal.

Important gods for magic use will be Dionysus-Osiris, of course, and later Hecate or Ate (who may be an Illyrian import). The Hellenistic period will add various Babylonian/Persian gods such as Cybele and Mithras.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

According to Gene Wolfe, at least, they had professional Necromancers (although there is still a link there to Hecate). At any rate the Latro books (collected in the Omnibus Soldier of the Mists) might be useful to the OP.

They had goetics (curse-workers) and mantises (seers), some of whom claimed to speak with the dead, but they did not have the cultural concept of corporeal undead, or raisers of same. Eurykles' "triumph" in raising the dead woman in the first book is as much a surprise to him as everyone else, only his arrogance and showmanship lead him to carry on as if it was his intention. And of course, she was really animated by

Spoiler:  

the lingering godpower in poor Latro's innocent touch

.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I remember they've found someone's name written on a potsherd, along with a list of horrible things the writer wanted to have happen to them, burned and burried under the floor of a house (IIRC in Pompeii but I'm probably wrong).

If that's not a Path/Book magic ritual to put a doozy of a curse on someone, I don't know what is :)

If it was Pompeii, it'd make a pretty good object lesson for really big curses about watching where you point that thing...

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

They had goetics (curse-workers) and mantises (seers), some of whom claimed to speak with the dead, but they did not have the cultural concept of corporeal undead, or raisers of same.

I didn't mean D&D Necromancer, I meant somebody who claims to speak to the spirits of the dead. Which is what the word meant until FRPGs made it into "zombie-maker".