Goes/Goetes (s/pl) is a common Greek term for "magician" that has been around since the start of the Common Era.
- "Goes" literally means "howler" and may have originally referred to someone who howled incantations or wolf shamanism.
- A Greek ritual healer, a charm singer, a medium, and seer, comparable to what is today known as a shaman, was the original go.
- It's possible that goetes had transformational abilities
- Herodotus speculated that the Scythians who claimed to be able to shift into wolves for a short time were goetes.
- The term was later extended to charlatans, fortune-tellers, and mountebanks, as well as professional practitioners of mystery traditions (e.g., Orphic or Dionysiac rituals).
- It was also not necessary for the goes to be Greek; the term was later used to any comparable practitioner.
- The goetes were characterized by Flavius Josephus, a first-century writer of Rome's conflict with Judea, as persons who perform or promise marvels, including "overpowering the Romans."
Jesus Christ was regarded as a goete by several of his contemporaries.
- It wasn't required to be educated to be a goes in this tradition.
- The term acquired lower-class overtones and was almost always used in a derogatory manner, at least according to the documents that have survived.
- And the majority of the people serviced by the gos were illiterate.
- Goetes' reputation become progressively tarnished.
- By Plato's day, goetes were subject to arrest in several towns.
HALL OF FAME: Jesus;
Related to - Magician, Mountebank, and Strix.
You may also want to read more about Paganism here.
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