The Headless Rite: a deep dive, Pt. 1

PGM V 96- 172

If you’re reading this post, then you will probably be familiar with the PGM (Greek Magical Papyri) and with the Stele of Jeu the Hieroglyphist, aka the Bornless Ritual (in is adapted version, aka The Headless Ritual, as it is commonly addressed through the web).
If you’re not familiar, I suggest to check the text first at this link:

The Headless Rite by Polyphanes

In this article by Sam Block of Digital Ambler, one can see the original text and translation as well as some adapted ways to operate this ritual for different goals.

Once you’ve read it, if you’re not acquainted already, come back here and read my ramblings.

I’ll offer some perspectives on what’s this ritual about and who, imo, is the Headless One, and what does some elements in this text means.

First, a bit of History:

The original text is part of the PGM, a collection of magical texts from the Hellenized Egypt, dating between II century BCE, to the V century CE.
Beside this and some speculation of its area, we don’t know anything, since the collection was acquired through shady operations in the 18th century, were archeology didn’t exist, and the context of the finding is lost. This means that we can’t know, except through various analytical speculations (paleography, linguistics, pollen analysis on the papers, etc.), who owned it, where it was placed, where it came from.

The text had already been circulating since 1852, published by C. W. Goodwin in Fragment of a Graeco-Egyptian Work Upon Magic. Later, it was adapted by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn—though it never became an official ritual—which gave it the title of the "Bornless Ritual." It was Crowley who recovered and incorporated it into his writings. In 1903, he included it as a preliminary invocation in The Goetia - The Lesser Key of King Solomon. In 1920, he inserted it into Liber Samekh.

Crowley’s version, however, contains substantial modifications compared to the original. Firstly, the title arises from Crowley’s allegorical interpretation that the spirit is “Headless” and calls it the “Unborn,” meaning immortal and eternal. Since it was never “born,” it does not belong to the world of generation, the physical realm where things are born and die.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: Despite me saying terms like “adapted” and “original” this doesn’t imply any value. My stance is that when we practice magic from the PGM we are bordering Chaos Magick, so everyone is free to adapt it or stick to the text, and there’s no way to know which is the best way to do it, because, even if we have the text, they could be part of larger lost texts which detailed, perhaps, further instructions, or preparations, or preliminary operations, that are now lost. So, get creative, fill the gaps, let it suit yourself, make it meaningful and have fun.

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In the Egyptian context, spanning thousand of years, there are numerous representations of headless deities: temporal gods, underworld deities, the dismembered Osiris, and the decapitated Set to name some. We do not know exactly who the Headless One represent in this ritual, so every claim to define an identity is entirely my opinion.
This opinion is not truth. I do not know how an “Academic Truth” is formed, maybe by consensus, maybe by stacking enough evidence that the opponents surrender; I’m not strictly an academic, and I consider my opinion simply “Academically Informed”, that is, what you see here is based on the time I’ve spent on books and essay. There is no Personal Gnosis, that is left in my own space and soul, not on written pages.

The Goal of the Ritual:

I was sure, for long time, that the text had exorcistic functions. Today, I’m not 100% on it and prefer a cautious approach.
The reason for the exorcistical label is because, at some point, we find multiple times:

“Deliver [name] from the daemon that is afflicting him.”

The Greek verb ἀπάλλαξον (imperative of ἀπαλλάσσω) generally means "release," "free," "remove," or "rid [someone] of something."

Even if this is pretty clear, we do not know if there was a goal to this release. If it’s literally a magical exorcism formula, or if it was part of a bigger picture. Some scholars have claimed that the text is maimed, and if if were, that could explain some lack of informations we have in it.
And the release of oppressive daimons could be done for multiple functions. A clear comparison can be found in PGM LXXXIX. 1-27:

I, Abrasax, shall deliver. Abrasax am I!
ABRASAX ABRASICHOOU, help little Sophia-Priskilla.
Get hold of and do away with what comes to little Sophia-Priskilla,
whether it is a shivering fit — get hold of it!
Whether a phantom — get hold of it!
Whether a daimon — get hold of it!
I, Abrasax, shall deliver. Abrasax am I!
ABRASAX ABRASICHOOU.
Get hold of, get hold of and do away with . . .
what comes to little Sophia-Priskilla on this very day,
whether it is a shivering fit — do away with it!
Whether a daimon — do away with it!"

In this case the exorcism is clear. We have a linear request of deliverance, emphasized by names and imprecations. Here it is clear that the goal is to heal of some afflictions, probably an illness and its various symptoms: fever, shivers, hallucinations, delirium, etc.

The lack of defining goal in the Headless Rite means that we do not know if this should be understood in a more literal sense, as liberation from general afflictions, or in a theurgical sense, where liberation from daimons represents the purification of the soul, breaking the chains of fate to ascend towards the gods.
Or if those requests of deliverance were, as I mentioned before, part of a bigger ritual, where this part represented the preliminary purification, in order to be lifted by any impurity and perform the next phase in a clean ritual state.

We can yet be sure of one thing: the lack of a clear goal means that we can employ it, as Sam Block did in the link above, as a multipurpose ritual.

That’s why, even if for years I was against its remodeling, today I think Crowley’s modification is interesting, and he worked with finesse. When he included it as a preliminary invocation in Goetia, the ritual assumes the role of a Banishing: the summoned spirit or deity is tasked with both purifying the space and guarding it. Likewise, in Liber Samekh, the ritual is part of a process aimed at establishing communication with the Holy Guardian Angel. The idea, therefore, originates from the purificatory function, with a slight shift from its original purpose, favoring the theurgical aspect.

Regarding the content, Crowley altered the barbarous names, adapting them by phonetic resemblance either to names present in Thelemic mythology or to other esoteric references (numerology, phonetics, etc.), another interesting operation that make complete sense. I can’t say why right now, but know that I plan to deal with Barbarous Names in a later essay.

That’s everything for now, in the next part, or maybe the second of three part

s, I’ll dive into the actual text, commenting each line.