Paganism & Wicca - Who Is A Goes Or Goetes?

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.


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