γοητεία

[atreestump]

This is just a few notes I have made looking at a few texts, it's by no means complete, but I thought I would share it anyway.

This term has a number of interesting meanings. γοητεία (anglicanised: goiteía) is a Greek term for charm and attractiveness. In other expressions that speak of this term in a past tense, instead of as a verb or adjective it can mean a state of beguilment and unbeguilment. A related term in a verbal usage απογοητεύω (apogoitévo) the negation is of a lack of enthrallment and describes the action of dissapointment and letting down.

αγοήτευτος (agoíteftos) is the undoing of a seduction, of a charming and beguilment. But the term for Goetia may derive from γοάω (goao) which means 'moan' with its related term γοήσεται (goisetai) which means 'wail' especially in lamentation for the dead. Also, the term τινά (tiná); (bewail/speak) is related to this term also.

These translations indicate language, especially in the form of speech which is able to charm, beguile and enthrall, along with the negation of such effects as well their affirmations. We also see the term τινά as being an expression of sadness, great regret and dissapointment which is how we can relate it to απογοητεύω.

Goetia of course, is the title of a certain book about low magic by S.L. MacGregor Mathers, Crowley translated the title. Another related book from the Lemegeton, 'Ars Notoria' has a different apporoach to what Michael Psellus called 'Names delivered to Nations by God that have an unspeakable power'.


Of what efficacy words are.

There is so great Vertue, Power and Efficacy in certain Names and Words of God, that when you reade those very Words, it shall immediately increase and help your Eloquence, so that you shall be made eloquent of speech by them, and at length attain to the Effects of the powerful Sacred Names of God


This has placed a reversal of the priority for meaning in language from speech to reading as γοητεία, for 'That these Orations cannot be expounded nor understood by humane sense:' also leads to the implication of beguilement from Written text. But the Ars Notoria is convinced that eidetic memory is possible from its written texts alone. The text places the reader in a creative position, as a star showing a sudden large increase in brightness. Other readers wrote of caution against this text, most notably, John of Morigny


11.

About my errors in the nefarious sciences and especially in the Ars Notoria, which is handed on by the devil.

She told me all these things, the most potent queen of heaven, the glorious and undefiled mother of God, the virgin Mary, my friend and helper, most swift counselor and most sweet and true comforter.  She told me to write for her praise and glory, to celebrate her in present and future times.  But after I had the first vision described above, which is called the thema (to which as I said previ-ously all the subsequent visions are connected mystically), I began to undertake the yoke of religion, setting out to serve as a soldier in the order of the blessed Benedict.

About four years after my entry into the order, a certain book was passed on to me by a certain cleric in which there were contained many nefarious things of the necromantic art.  I took a copy from it of as much as I could get, and after that I returned [it] to the cleric.  I was noticed by the devil, and tempted, and blinded as the temptation prevailed, I began to think how I might be able to attain to the perfec-tion of this nefarious science.  I sought counsel about this from a certain Lombard medical expert named Jacob.


Later he complains 'Notoria, is without doubt a fountainhead of malice, origin of deviation, teacher of error, bag of tricks, river of iniquity, false advocate of grace; in it peace is bound to hatred, faith to falsehood, hope to fear, and madness is mixed with reason.' Although Morigny rejected the Notoria it was used as an influence on one of his own works that promise the same results through a series of fasts and prayers, Liber virginis marie follows from a highly influential Neo-Platonist tradition as Claire Fanger writes:


and since the angelic powers are products of that mind in the realm of spirit, each of the nine angelic orders can be identified with a branch of knowledge


His system was very much a petition for response and often focused on the importance of dreams for gaining specifics in knowledge as opposed to the general accumulation of knowledge the Ars Notoria promises, but in this process of dream interpretation John would only petition the Virgin Mary who would appear to him in the form of a statue among many other forms.

We can't of course, leave out the historical context here. John of Morigny was around when the Inquistion first formed in Europe and as he was a French Bennedictine Monk, he was part of the Monastic intelligensia of the times who would have first encountered these new texts coming from Eastern Europe.

So whereas the Goetia 'howls' and 'wails' in order to charm and beguile, the Ars Notoria recognises the power of a text itself to bring forth divine revelations and increase your knowledge.

Magic is the creation of something out of nothing. This means there is novelty which comes into being from an empty space created by the magician. The Goetia puts an emphasis on speech, the Ars Notoria puts an emphasis on reading. Both of them however, await the arrival of monsters, a monstrous arrivant. Recent philosophers in post-structuralism speak of monsters, by breaking up the incorporated rules of language and the way texts signify, they leave an empty space, ready for the montrous arrivant, a heraldic call for novelty. This 'monster' is not a literal creature however, it is the fear of the future - every reading of a text is anew and scary.

Ars Notoria was disregarded by S.L. Macgregor Mathers on the grounds that he deemed it unnecessary in the Lemegeton series, which indicates a privileging of speech over writing/reading in imporving these faculties of memory, true to the Platonist tradition, as Socrates himself in Phaedrus tells of the story of Thoth from Ancient Egypt who invented writing, Socrates explains he never writes anything down as it affects his memory in a negative way.

[kFoyauextlH]

Thank you so much for sharing!
[hr]
An important word for comparison is glamour as used in reference to magic and magical appearance, masking or transformation.
[hr]
An important Indo-European root is drug or dreg or drag, interestingly enough connected today to the glamour or falsehood masking or transforming a man into a woman. That drg or drj root had associations to magic, illusion, various forms of falsehood, various forms of darkness and death related themes, the undead, sorcerers, and a whole plethora of circulating themes like hallucination and deception.
[hr]
Can you include the transliteration and or the phoenetical pronounciation as well if possible when showing the Greek text for the greater convenience of readers?

[atreestump]

Can you include the transliteration and or the phoenetical pronounciation as well if possible when showing the Greek text for the greater convenience of readers?

Done! Pronounciation is best searched with Google translate.

[kFoyauextlH]

Thank you so much!