Dear Supporters:

I am writing today with a full progress report on Interlinear Magic. I have made excellent progress in May, but I have a bit of writing and editing remaining in order to finish everything up. Full details are below.

First, I noticed an error in the previously published chapter 16, “The Egyptian Rite for Gathering Herbs.” Somehow a line had dropped out of the English translation despite being present in the interlinear version. Anyway, it’s fixed now, and a new version has been uploaded to my Academia page: https://independent.academia.edu/AltBrian

I will be launching a new online course, Daimonology of the PGM, on July 1. The full details of that course are available here: https://www.greekmagicalpapyri.com/daimonology

Regarding the book, the 48 “shorter” chapters (13-60) are now finished with three minor exceptions. First, I decided to replace Chapter 17 with a different ritual-text. I was having some issues resolving several textual and interpretive difficulties, and since I am currently unable to view the manuscript (not digitally available), I decided to simply replace it with a longer and more interesting ritual-text that I had already translated. The new text (PGM I.1-42) provides a better example of a ritual to acquire a “parhedros” (daimonic assistant), and it is full of Egyptian symbolism. There remain only a few notes to complete on the new Chapter 17 (whereas the old Chapter 17 will have to await a future volume). Beyond this new chapter, there are two others that need to have footnotes finished.

The 12 “long” chapters (1-12) are now about 70% complete, with only a few commentaries and other notes remaining to be finished up. I will be releasing at least one of these longer chapters as a free sample before the book goes to press.

I have made some progress editing the General Introduction (~60K words), but this will still require a full pass-through once the remaining chapters are complete. This will allow me to second-check all the cross-references, and so on.

Since many of you have asked about it, I’m holding off on releasing the pre-order page until I am certain of the final page count, which may be considerably higher than expected. It’s possible the final price may increase, but of course that will not affect those who participated in the Kickstarter.

Considering everything that’s left, and the fact that I will be travelling for part of June, I am aiming to finish the writing and editing by early to mid-July.

Thanks again for your support and patience.

Sincerely,

Brian P. Alt, PhD