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#  Stele of Ieu  

 





July 08, 2026

 

 

 [ Matthew Andrews ](https://medievalstudies.princeton.edu/people/matthew-andrews/) 

The Stele of Ieu (PGM V = P. Lond. 46, ll. 96–172) is an important ritual from the corpus of Greco-Egyptian magical papyri. It gestures toward the kind of transformative experience that was sought after by ancient practitioners of magic. It has also had a rich reception in the modern world. The scribe who compiled PGM V did so around the 4th century CE; the spells themselves may be older.

The first part of the ritual provides the text with which the magician calls upon the god he seeks, the “Headless One.” In the second part of the ritual, the magician recites a series of *nomina barbara*—unintelligible names and strings of letters that practitioners believed held magical power. Apparently successful, we see in the third and final section the magician no longer calling upon the god but instead speaking as though he were the god. The magician has experienced a transformation of identity, and he speaks in the first-person as the god, acting with divine power.

Scholarly understanding of the identity of the practitioners of the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri continues to evolve, but much remains uncertain. They may have been former Egyptian priests who became itinerant as the Roman Empire closed their temples.\[[1](#notes)\] They might equally have been scholar-practitioners, learned collectors of antiquarian lore who dabbled in the occult.\[[2](#notes)\] In either case, they were able to read and write, something which set them apart from most of the Egyptian population.

The first publication of the text was by Charles W. Goodwin in 1852.\[[3](#notes)\] This was the first translation and publication of any of the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri, sparking a series of further publications.\[[4](#notes)\] Contemporary practitioners of occultism and magic picked up Goodwin’s book, including the influential Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It was in that group that Aleister Crowley discovered the ritual.\[[5](#notes)\] Crowley printed a translation of the text, closely following Goodwin’s edition, as a preface to his 1904 publication of *The* *Goetia*, a medieval grimoire.\[[6](#notes)\] He reprinted the ritual again in 1929 as an appendix to his magnum opus, *Magick*, combining the translation of the Greek original with symbols taken from other magical traditions, including John Dee’s angelic visions.\[[7](#notes)\] This second version also included detailed glosses of the numerous *nomina barbara*, explaining the obscure words by reference to his own personal system of magic. He had by this time adopted PGM V.96–172 as a primary method of achieving the apex of his magical system, the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.\[[8](#notes)\] Crowley also included a detailed description of the experience one should have while performing the ritual.\[[9](#notes)\]



 

 

 

##  Source 

The selections below are translated from the Greek text of *PGM* V, printed in Preisendanz, *Papyri Graecae Magicae.*\[[10](#notes)\]

The ritualist has prepared for the ritual by writing magical names on a papyrus and holding it to his head. The spell begins with an invocation:

> I call upon you, the Headless One, the creator of earth and heaven, the creator of night and day, you who are the creator of light and darkness. You are Osoronnophis, whom no one has ever seen; you are Iabas; you are Iapos. You separated the just from the unjust, you made the female and male, you taught men to love one another and to hate one another.\[[11](#notes)\]

The ritualist identifies with Moses, and continues the invocation by reciting a series of magical names:

> Hear me: Arbathiaō Reibet, Athelebersēth, Ara, Blatha, Albeu, Ebenphchi, Chitasgoē, Ibaōth Iaō.\[[12](#notes)\]

As the spell continues, the text switches to the first-person voice—the ritualist now speaks as the god:

> I am the headless daimon, having sight in the feet—mighty—he who has the immortal fire. I am he, the truth, he who hates that injustice occurs in the world. I am he who lightens and thunders. I am he whose sweat is the storm falling upon the earth, so that it procreates. I am he whose mouth burns through all. I am he, the begetter and destroyer. I am he, the glory of the world—my name is the heart girt with a serpent.\[[13](#notes)\]



 

##  Notes 

\[1\] David Frankfurter, *Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance* (Princeton University Press, 2001). For updated views see, Korshi Dosoo and SofíaTorallas Tovar, “Anatomy of the Magical Archice,” in *The Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies: Libraryies, Books, and Individual Recipes*, ed., Christopher Faraone and Sofía Torallas Tovar (University of Michigan Press, 2022), 21–26.

\[2\] Garth Fowden, *The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind*, Mythos (Cambridge University Press, 1986; reprinted by Prineton University Press, 1993), 170. Olivier Dufault, *Early Greek Alchemy, Patronage and Innovation in Late Antiquity*, California Classical Studies 7 (Californial Classical Studies, 2019), has also proposed the idea of occult client-scholars, “learned sorcerers” who relied on scholarly patronage.

\[3\] Charles W. Goodwin, *Fragment of a Greco-Egyptain Work upon Magic: Froma. Payrus in the British Museium, edited for the Cambridge Antiquarian Socity, with a Translation and* Notes, Publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 2 (Deighton, 1852).

\[4\] Hans Dieter Betz, *The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells* (Chicago University Press, 1986), xiii.

\[5\] Henrik Bogdan, “Ars Congressus Cum Daemone: Aleister Crowley and the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel,” *Entangled Religions* 14, no. 3 (2023): 28.

\[6\] Aleister Crowley, *The Goetia* (Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, 1904), vii–ix.

\[7\] Aleister Crowley, “Liber Samekh” in *Magick* (Lecram Press, 1929), For the Dee material, see p. 278, referring to the sigils of the “Four Geat Elemental Kings” printed in in Crowley, *The Equinox: The Official Organ of the A∴A∴*, Vol 1, No. 7, Plate X (Wieland & Co, 1912), after p. 242. For John Dee’s angelic visions in general, see Deborah Harkness, *John Dee’s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature* (Cambridge University Press, 1999)*.*

\[8\] Aleister Crowley, “One Star in Sight,” in *Magick*, 238. For a partial overview of Crowley concept of the Holy Guardian Angel, see Bogdan, “Ars Congressus”; that study should be complicated by Crowley, *The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography*, ed. John Symonds an d Kenneth Grant (Jonathan Cape, 1969), 610; *The Equinox of the Gods* (Privately published by the Ordo Templi Orientis, 1936), 118; *The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley, 1923*, ed. Stephen Skinner (Samuel Weiser, 1979), 136, among others, where Crowley identifies his Holy Guardian Angel with a being called Aiwass. Crowley believed the latter was a supernatural being who had dictated the *Book of the Law*, the central text of Crowley’s religion, Thelema.

\[9\] See, e.g., Crowley, “Liber Samekh,” 286.

\[10\] Karl Preisendanz, ed., *Papyri Graecae Magicae = Die Griechischen Zauberpapyri*, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1928–1931; repr., rev. by Albert Henrichs, Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973–1974; Munich and Leipzig: K. G. Saur, 2001), 184–86.

\[11\] Ibid., PGM V.98–108, ϲὲ καλῶ τὸν ἀκέφαλον, τὸν κτίϲαντα γῆν καὶ οὐρανόν, τὸν κτίϲαντα νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν, ϲὲ τὸν κτίϲαντα φῶς καὶ ϲκότοϲ. ϲὺ εἶ Ὀϲοροννωφριϲ, ὅν οὐδεὶϲ εἶδε πώποτε, ϲὺ εἶ Ἰαβαϲ, ϲὺ εἶ Ἰαπωϲ, ϲὺ διέκριναϲ τὸ δίκαιον καὶ τὸ ἄδικον, ϲὺ ἐποίηϲαϲ θῆλυ καὶ ἄρρεν, ϲὺ ἔδειξαϲ ϲπορὰν καὶ καρπούϲ, ϲὺ ἐποίηϲαϲ τοὺϲ ἀνθρώπουϲ ἀλληλοφιλεῖν καὶ ἀλληλομιϲεῖν.

\[12\] Ibid., PGM V.117–20, ἐπάκουϲόν μου, Αρβ\[α\]θιαω ρειβετ. αθελεβερϲηθ. α\[ρα\], βλαθα, α(λ)βευ· εβενφ(χ)ι· χιταϲ(γ)οη· Ἰβ \[᾽Αὼ\] θ Ἰάω·

\[13\] Ibid., PGM V.145–58, ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἀκέφαλοϲ δαίμων ἐν τοῖϲ ποϲὶν ἔχων τὴν ὅραϲιν, ἰϲχυρός, <ὁ ἔχων> τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἀθάνατον. ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀλήθεια, ὁ μιϲῶν ἀδικήματα γίνεϲθαι ἐν τῷ κόϲμῳ. ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἀϲτράπτων καὶ βροντῶν. ἐγώ εἰμι, οὗ ἐϲτιν ὁ ἱδρὼϲ ὄμβροϲ ἐπιπίπτων ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, ἵνα ὀχεύῃ. ἐγώ εἰμι, οὗ τὸ ϲτόμα καίεται δι᾽ ὅλου. ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ γεννῶν καὶ ἀπογεννῶν. ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ Χάριϲ τοῦ Αἰῶνος, ὄνομά μοι καρδία περιεζωϲμένη ὄφιν.



 

##  Bibliography 

Betz, Hans Dieter. “The Delphic Maxim ‘Know Yourself’ in the Greek Magical Papyri.” *History of Religions* 21, no. 2 (1981): 156–71.

Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. *The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.

Bogdan, Henrik. “Ars Congressus Cum Daemone: Aleister Crowley and the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.” *Entangled Religions* 14, no. 3 (2023): [10.46586/er.14.2023.10265](https://doi.org/10.46586/er.14.2023.10265).

Crowley, Aleister. *The Goetia*. Boleskine, Scotland: Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, 1904.

———. *The* *Equinox: The Official Organ of the A∴A ∴*, Vol. I, No. VII. London: Wieland & Co., 1912.

———. *Magick*. Paris: Lecram Press, 1929.

———. “One Star in Sight.” In *Magick*. Paris: Lecram Press, 1929.

———. *The Equinox of the Gods*. London:Privately published by the Ordo Templi Orientis, 1936.

———. *The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography*. Edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant. London: Jonathan Cape, 1969.

———. *The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley, 1923*. Edited by Stephen Skinner. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1979.

Dosoo, Korshi and Sofía Torallas Tovar. “Anatomy of the Magical Archive.” In *The Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies: Libraries, Books, and Individual Recipes*, edited by Christopher Faraone and Sofía Torallas Tovar, 3–63. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022.

Dufault, Olivier. *Early Greek Alchemy, Patronage and Innovation in Late Antiquity*. California Classical Studies 7. Oakland, CA: California Classical Studies, 2019.

Edmonds, Radcliffe G. *Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World*. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.

Faraone, Christopher A., and Sofía Torallas Tovar, eds. *The Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies: Libraries, Books, and Individual Recipes*. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022.

———. *Greek and Egyptian Magical Formularies: Text and Translation,* Vol. 1. California Classical Studies 9. Oakland, CA: California Classical Studies, 2022.

———. *Greek and Egyptian Magical Formularies: Text and Translation,* Vol. 2. Oakland, CA: California Classical Studies, forthcoming.

Fowden, Garth. *The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind*. Mythos. Cambridge University Press, 1986. Reprinted with new preface. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Frankfurter, David. *Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance*. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Frankfurter, David, ed. “Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic.” In *Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic*. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

Goodwin, Charles W. *Fragment of a Graeco-Egyptian Work upon Magic: From a Papyrus in the British Museum, edited for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, with a Translation and Notes.* Publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 2. Cambridge: Deighton, 1852.

Harkness, Deborah. *John Dee's Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Pachoumi, Eleni. *The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri*. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017.

Preisendanz, Karl, ed. *Papyri Graecae Magicae = Die Griechischen Zauberpapyri*. 2 vols.Teubner, 1928–1931. Reprinted by Albert Henrichs, Teubner, 1973–1974. Munich and Leipzig: K. G. Saur, 2001.



 

Author Biography

### Matthew Andrews 

 

Matthew Andrews is a PhD Candidate in Classics at Princeton University. His interests lie in ancient Mediterranean religion, with a particular focus on magic during the Roman and Late Antique periods. For his dissertation, he examines the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri, exploring the role and status of magicians in Roman Egypt and their lived religious experience. He is a research assistant at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he contributes to the project “Transmission of Magical Knowledge,” dedicated to reediting, translating, and publishing the magical papyri. He received master’s degrees in Classics from both Princeton University and the University of Cambridge.



 



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 See also:- [ Archive of Mystical Experiences ](/topic-tags/archive-mystical-experiences)