A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power 
 
 (eds.) 
 
 XIV+146 p., 20 colour ill., + CD, 210 x 297 mm, 2013 
 
 ISBN: 978-2-503-53170-0 
 
 Languages: Coptic, English 
 
 Paperback 
 
 The publication is available. 
 
 Retail price: EUR 65,00 excl. tax 
 
 This volume publishes a new Coptic handbook of ritual power, comprising a complete 20 page parchment codex from the second half of the first millennium AD. It consists of an invocation including both Christian and Gnostic elements, ritual instructions, and a list of twenty-seven spells to cure demonic possession, various ailments, the effects of magic, or to bring success in love and business. The codex is not only a substantial new addition to the corpus of magical texts from Egypt, but, in its opening invocation, also provides new evidence for Sethian Gnostic thought in Coptic texts. 
 
 A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power is the first volume in the series The Macquarie Papyri, which will publish the papyri in the collection of the Museum of Ancient Cultures, Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia). ||||| An Egyptian Handbook of Ritual Power (as researchers call it) has been deciphered revealing a series of invocations and spells. It includes love spells, exorcisms and a cure for black jaundice (a potentially fatal infection). Written in Coptic (an Egyptian language) the 20 page illustrated codex dates back around 1,300 years. This image shows part of the text. 
 
 Researchers have deciphered an ancient Egyptian handbook, revealing a series of invocations and spells. 
 
 Among other things, the "Handbook of Ritual Power," as researchers call the book, tells readers how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and treat "black jaundice," a bacterial infection that is still around today and can be fatal. 
 
 The book is about 1,300 years old, and is written in Coptic, an Egyptian language. It is made of bound pages of parchment — a type of book that researchers call a codex. 
 
 "It is a complete 20-page parchment codex, containing the handbook of a ritual practitioner," write Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner, who are professors in Australia at Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, respectively, in their book, "A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power" (Brepols, 2014). 
 
 The ancient book "starts with a lengthy series of invocations that culminate with drawings and words of power," they write. "These are followed by a number of prescriptions or spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business." 
 
 For instance, to subjugate someone, the codex says you have to say a magical formula over two nails, and then "drive them into his doorpost, one on the right side (and) one on the left." 
 
 The Sethians 
 
 Researchers believe that the codex may date to the 7th or 8th century. During this time, many Egyptians were Christian and the codex contains a number of invocations referencing Jesus. 
 
 However, some of the invocations seem more associated with a group that is sometimes called "Sethians." This group flourished in Egypt during the early centuries of Christianity and held Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, in high regard. One invocation in the newly deciphered codex calls "Seth, Seth, the living Christ." [The Holy Land: 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds] 
 
 The opening of the codex refers to a divine figure named "Baktiotha" whose identity is a mystery, researchers say. The lines read, "I give thanks to you and I call upon you, the Baktiotha: The great one, who is very trustworthy; the one who is lord over the forty and the nine kinds of serpents," according to the translation. 
 
 "The Baktiotha is an ambivalent figure. He is a great power and a ruler of forces in the material realm," Choat and Gardner said at a conference, before their book on the codex was published. 
 
 Historical records indicate that church leaders regarded the Sethians as heretics and by the 7th century, the Sethians were either extinct or dying out. 
 
 This codex, with its mix of Sethian and Orthodox Christian invocations, may in fact be a transitional document, written before all Sethian invocations were purged from magical texts, the researchers said. They noted that there are other texts that are similar to the newly deciphered codex, but which contain more Orthodox Christian and fewer Sethian features. 
 
 The researchers believe that the invocations were originally separate from 27 of the spells in the codex, but later, the invocations and these spells were combined, to form a "single instrument of ritual power," Choat told Live Science in an email. 
 
 Who would have used it? 
 
 The identity of the person who used this codex is a mystery. The user of the codex would not necessarily have been a priest or monk. 
 
 "It is my sense that there were ritual practitioners outside the ranks of the clergy and monks, but exactly who they were is shielded from us by the fact that people didn't really want to be labeled as a "magician,'" Choat said. 
 
 Some of the language used in the codex suggests that it was written with a male user in mind, however, that "wouldn't have stopped a female ritual practitioner from using the text, of course," he said. 
 
 Origin 
 
 The origin of the codex is also a mystery. Macquarie University acquired it in late 1981 from Michael Fackelmann, an antiquities dealer based in Vienna. In "the 70s and early 80s, Macquarie University (like many collections around the world) purchased papyri from Michael Fackelmann," Choat said in the email. 
 
 But where Fackelmann got the codex from is unknown. The style of writing suggests that the codex originally came from Upper Egypt. 
 
 "The dialect suggests an origin in Upper Egypt, perhaps in the vicinity of Ashmunein/Hermopolis," which was an ancient city, Choat and Gardner write in their book. 
 
 The codex is now housed in the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Macquarie University in Sydney. 
 
 Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. ||||| Research in Coptic Studies includes the history, culture, religions, and languages of Late Antique, Byzantine, and Early Islamic Egypt. Macquarie University hosts a number of ongoing research projects in these fields. In addition to research projects headed by the Coptic Studies staff, Heike Behlmer and Malcolm Choat, there are projects based within the Ancient History Documentary Resarch Centre on Graeco-Roman Egypt and Early Christianity which have closely allied interests and aims to those of Coptic Studies. 
 
 Research Projects in Coptic Studies at Macquarie include: 
 
 Religious authority and linguistic change in late antique Egypt:An ARC-funded project (2006-2008) led by Malcolm Choat investigating the rise of monasticism in third to fifth century CE Egypt, primarily in Greek and Coptic documentary papyri. 
 
 Communication Networks in Late Byzantine and Early Islamic monastic communities: a collaborative project by Heike Behlmer and Malcolm Choat, which analyses the letters on ostraca sent between monasteries in the Theban region, especially the monastery of Epiphanius, the monastery of Severus (Sheikh Abd el-Qurna) and the Deir el-Bakhit and satellite monastic cells in tombs in the Dra' Abu el-Naga. 
 
 The two foregoing projects form part of 'Language, Script, and Acculturation in Graeco-Roman Egypt', an umbrella research program lead by Drs Malcolm Choat and Trevor Evans (Ancient History, Macquarie University), uniting projects focusing on cultural interaction of the Classical and Egyptian worlds in the Graeco-Roman period. 
 
 As part of the project on 'Communication Networks', Heike Behlmer and Malcolm Choat are editing the Coptic papyri and ostraca found by Macquarie excavations led by Boyo Ockinga at the Dra' Abu el-Naga, and Heike Behlmer is editing texts found by several European excavations in the Theban region. 
 
 Heike Behlmer is part of an international team (led by Stephen Emmel, University of Münster, Germany) preparing a complete edition of the works of the abbot Shenoute. 
 
 A New Edition of the archive of Apa Johannes: Malcolm Choat is preparing a new edition of the most extensive bilingual (Greek and Coptic) fourth century CE monastic archive on papyrus. 
 
 An edition of the Coptic papyri in Macquarie University's Museum of Ancient Cultures by Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner (Studies in Religion, University of Sydney), beginning with a Magical Codex on parchment. 
 
 Heike Behlmer is studying the development of Coptic Studies in the 19th century on the basis of archival material in the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts in Göttingen University Library 
 
 Papyri from the Rise of Christianity in Egypt: A team of Macquarie reserchers including Dr Malcolm Choat is collecting the documents and literary texts on papyrus (including ostraca, parchment etc.) which illustrate the spread of Christiannity in Egypt down to 325 CE 
 
 Postgraduate Research in Coptic Studies. 
 
 The following theses are in progress in Coptic Studies at Macquarie: 
 
 Mathew Almond: Gnostic Technical Vocabulary in the Nag Hammadi Codices 
 
 For opportunities in Post-Graduate Research in Coptic Studies at Macquarie, see the Degrees page
– In 1981, Australia's Macquarie University purchased a book of bound parchment—a codex—from a Viennese antiquities dealer. How far back its origins stretch is less known, but it's believed to be about 1,300 years old and hail from Upper Egypt (it's written in Egypt's Coptic language). Now, two Australian professors have pored over its 20 pages, and describe it as "the handbook of a ritual practitioner." In their own book, A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power, Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner explain just what they deciphered: invocations and 27 spells designed "to cure demonic possession, various ailments, the effects of magic, or to bring success in love and business," per their publisher. LiveScience shares the codex's prescription for controlling someone: utter magic words over two nails, which should then be nailed "into his doorpost, one on the right side (and) one on the left." The codex also offers a treatment for the bacterial infection "black jaundice." As for who would have made use of the book, Choat tells LiveScience that's unclear. "It is my sense that there were ritual practitioners outside the ranks of the clergy and monks, but exactly who they were is shielded from us by the fact that people didn't really want to be labeled as a 'magician,'" he says. He suspects the invocations and spells were joined together sometime after they were written to create a "single instrument of ritual power." (Trying to cast spells in the modern world is probably not wise.)