The Study of Solomonic Magic in English: Don Karr
The Study of Solomonic Magic in English: Don Karr
The Study of Solomonic Magic in English: Don Karr
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In order to make short work of closing the category of Solomonic magical works, we
shall follow E[liza] M[arian] Butler7 and focus on # 1, the late grimoires. The
Duling’s introduction in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha deals with Solomonic attribution and
legend in the older material. He mentions M. Seligsohn’s article, “Solomon—Apocryphal Works” (in
The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 11, page 447—online at http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13842-
solomon) as listing forty-nine Solomonic “scientific and magical books” in Arabic and Hebrew
literature, and C. C. McCown’s added comment (Testament of Solomon, page 100) that Seligsohn’s list is
by no means exhaustive.
On the Testament’s background and dissemination: Sarah Iles Johnson, “The Testament of Solomon
from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance,” in The Metamorphosis of Magic from Late Antiquity to the Early
Modern Period, edited by Jan N. Bremmer and Jan R. Veenstra (Leuven: Peeters, 2002).
For a critical summary of Testament of Solomon scholarship, refer to Todd E. Klutz, Rewriting the
TESTAMENT OF SOLOMON: Tradition, Conflict and Identity in a Late Antique Pseudepigraphon (London –
New York: T & T Clark International, 2005), and idem, “The Archer and the Cross: Chorographic
Astrology and Literary Design in the Testament of Solomon,” in Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod
of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon, edited by Todd E. Klutz (London – New York: T & T Clark
International, 2003).
Sefer ha-Razim, a third- or fourth-century Hebrew text, claims in its preface to have been “more
precious and more honorable and more difficult” than any other books in the possession of Solomon.
See Michael A. Morgan’s translation, Sepher ha-Razim: The Book of the Mysteries (Chico: Society of
Biblical Literature/Scholars Press, 1983), and Philip S. Alexander’s “Sefer ha-Razim and the Problem of
Black Magic in Early Judaism,” in Magic in the Biblical World… (ed. Klutz, 2003), cited immediately
above. Further, find the list of Sefer ha-Razim references in my “Notes on the Study of Merkabah
Mysticism and Hekhalot Literature,” TRANSLATIONS & REFERENCES, § K, at http://www.digital-
brilliance.com/contributed/Karr/Biblios/mmhie.pdf.
3 Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.
4 Wisdom of Solomon, Odes of Solomon, and the Psalms of Solomon.
5 Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma… (Charleston: [L. H. Jenkins, Inc.], 1871) contains references to
Solomon throughout. See Albert Gallatin Mackey, The History of Freemasonry…, in 7 volumes (New
York – London: The Masonic History Company, 1898), CHAPTER XXIV, “The Temple Legend” (pp. 151-
165); Arthur Edward Waite, A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry…, in 2 volumes (London: Rider &
Co./Philadelphia: The David McKay Co., 1921), “Kabalistic Tradition and Masonry” (vol. 1, pp. 416-
427), and “Solomon” (vol. 2, p. 421); The Bible and King Solomon’s Temple in Masonry by John Wesley
Kelchner, illustrated [also called “The Masonic Bible”] (Philadelphia: A. J. Holman Company, 1924).
6 See Torijano, Solomon the Esoteric King, and Yaacov Shavit, “’He was Thoth in Everything’: Why
and When King Solomon Became Both Magister omnium physicorum and Master of Magic,” in
Envisioning Judaism: Studies in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, edited by
Ra‘anan S. Boustan, Klaus Herrmann, Reimund Leicht, Annette Y. Reed, and Giuseppe Veltri, with
the collaboration of Alex Ramos, Volume 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), pages 587-606.
7 See Butler’s Ritual Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949) and its companion
volumes, The Fortunes of Faust (1946) and The Myth of the Magus (1949), all reprinted in 1979 by
Cambridge University Press. Ritual Magic and The Fortunes of Faust have again been reprinted (1998) as
volumes of Pennsylvania State University’s MAGIC IN HISTORY SERIES, along with these other books
(in chronological order): [Note 7 continues on the next page.]
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3. Honorius
a. The Grimoire of Honorius
b. Liber iuratus, or SWORN BOOK of Honorius
While reference to the contents of some of these works is made, it is not the aim of
this essay to offer summaries or analyses. Instead, the reader is referred to sources in
which these works are translated into or described in English. My initial advice to
10 The Keys to the Gateway of Magic: Summoning the Solomonic Archangels & Demon Princes, by Stephen
Skinner and David Rankine (London: Golden Hoard Press, 2005) offers transcriptions of Janua Magica
Reserata (KEYS TO THE GATEWAY OF M AGIC), Dr Rudd’s Nine Hierarchies of Angels with their Invocations to
Visible Appearance with the Nine Great Celestial Keys, or Angelical Invocations, and The Demon Princes
(from British Library Sloane MSS 3628, 3821, 3824, 3825, Harley MS 6482, and Rawlinson D. 1363). This
material bears great similarity to the items described in this paper, and a case could certainly be made
for wedging these texts into our canon. However, our additions to Butler’s list contain specific internal
references to Solomon, which the texts in The Keys to the Gateway of Magic do not—despite the subtitle
of the book.
Within our additions, we find the following:
• S&S [paragraph 2]: “In the name of the highest, almighty Creator, I, King Solomon, hold to the
interpretation of the name of (God) Semiphoras…”
• Liber Salomonis [2r]: “Dixit Salomon Gloria et laus et cu multo honore &c / Salomon said glory and praysing
wth much honor be to God of all Creatures, he that is singular wch made all things at one tyme.”
The Keys to the Gateway of Magic is volume 2 of the Golden Hoard Press series SOURCEWORKS OF
CEREMONIAL MAGIC:
• Volume 1. Practical Angel Magic of Dr John Dee’s Enochian Tables: Tabularum Bonam Angelorum Invocationes
(Skinner & Rankine, 2004)
• Volume 3. The Goetia of Dr Rudd: Angels and Demons… (Skinner & Rankine, 2007)—discussed below, § 1. b.
Lemegeton
• Volume 4. The Veritable Key of Solomon (Skinner & Rankine, 2008)—discussed below, § 1. a. THE KEY OF
SOLOMON
• Volume 5. The Grimoire of St. Cyprian: Clavis Inferni, Latin [sic] translation by Peter Forshaw (Skinner
and Rankine, 2009)
• Volume 6. Sepher Raziel (Don Karr & Stephen Skinner, 2010)—discussed below, § 5. LIBER SALOMONIS :
CEPHAR RAZIEL
• Volume 7. Liber Lunæ—Book of the Moon—Sepher ha-Levanah (Don Karr, with translations by Calanit
Nachshon, 2011; second edition [paperback], 2017)
• Volume 8. The Magical Treatise of Solomon or Hygromanteia (Ioannis Marathakis, 2011)
The first three volumes of this series feature the works and expansions of one Dr. Rudd, “a
scholar-magician of the early seventeenth century who knew Dr. John Dee.” This Dr. Rudd is also the
supposed compiler of the material in MS Harley 6482, an edition of which was published by Adam
McLean as A Treatise on Angel Magic (Edinburgh: MAGNUM OPUS SOURCEWORKS [# 15], 1982, and
subsequently reprinted; see the bibliography below: “McLean”).
A facsimile of Frederick Hockley’s transcription of Rudd’s MS, Dr. Rudd’s Nine Hierarchies of
Angels—also Clavis Angelica, edited and introduced by Alan Thorogood, has been published by Teitan
Press (York Beach: 2013); it includes translations of John Dee’s angelic keys and invocations for the
angels over the Table of the Earth.
See Egil Asprem, “False, Lying Spirits and Angels of Light: Ambiguous Mediation in Dr Rudd’s
Seventeenth-Century Treatise on Angel Magic,” in Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume 3, Number 1
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Winter 2008), pages 54-80.
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Notice must be given here to Aaron Leitch’s Secrets of the Magical Grimoires: The
Classical Texts of Magick Deciphered (Woodbury: Llewellyn Publications, 2005). Leitch,
a practitioner himself, has made a valiant effort to offer a single-source epitome of the
“classic grimoires” with descriptions, tables, and excerpts clearly and logically
presented through 400+ oversized pages. The book is in two parts: (1) “history and
scholarship,” and (2) “practical work,” including experiments and how-to
instructions.
In Part One [Oculta Philosophia], CHAPTER ONE, Leitch provides an efficient if not
particularly nuanced historical background. He then offers an account of the major
grimoires, describing 22 texts, including the Solomonic texts discussed below, plus
Picatrix, The Sacred Magic of Abramelin, Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia, the pseudo-
Agrippan Fourth Book, Heptameron, John Dee’s diaries, Barrett’s Magus, etc.
Unfortunately, the preamble to these descriptions is marred by some irksome errors.
For example, on page 9, Leitch writes,
The Ethiopian Book of Enoch, the Hebrew Book of Enoch, the Pirkei Heichaloht (sic), and
even such canonical biblical texts such as Ezekiel and the Revelation of St. John are
all centered upon—or connected to—the Merkavah tradition. The Merkavah’s use of
ritual drugs, its focus on talismans and seals, the summoning forth of angelic
gatekeepers, and the gaining of mystical visions are elements that run throughout the
grimoiric spells.
As an example of a work “centered upon…the Merkavah tradition,” the Ethiopian
(more correctly, Ethiopic) Book of Enoch is an odd choice to set next to the Hebrew Book
of Enoch and Pirkei Hekhalot. Yet, with “or connected to” interjected, Leitch allows
enough slosh room for its inclusion as well as that of the Revelation.
More serious is Leitch’s putting drugs and merkavah together, apparently through
reading—but not thoroughly—James R. Davila’s accounts of shamanic techniques. In
the article which Leitch cites (and in Davila’s book Descenders of the Chariot, Leiden:
Brill, 2001), the use of drugs is indeed mentioned as a shamanic technique, and
comparison is made between shamans (generic) and merkavah mystics (specific).
However, Davila states, “Nothing in the Hekhalot literature indicates that the
descenders to the chariot made use of psychoactive drugs to induce their visionary
experiences” (“The Hekhalot Literature and Shamanism”—the article that Leitch
cites—at the web page DIVINE MEDIATOR FIGURES IN THE BIBLICAL WORLD at
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/mediators.html). Leitch does go on to give a
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fairer account of merkavah mysticism, again based on Davila, later in the book
(CHAPTER TWO: “Shamanism, Tribal to Medieval,” pages 54-5), where there is no
mention of drugs, and hekhalot is spelled more conventionally.
Leitch’s approach to the grimoires is best expressed in CHAPTER THREE, “The Art of
Ecstasy: Way of the Prophet-Shaman,” which begins,
The altered mental state is the most essential and critical aspect of magickal practice.
A few pages before (page 71) Leitch states,
Some of the material in the grimoires may be, in fact, outdated. However, my focus is
not upon the content or intent of the spells but on the foundational occult philosophy
upon which the magick itself is based. It is my hope that this book will outline the
processes by which this kind of magic works, and allow the practitioner to experiment
with gaining conversation with various entities.
Part Two [Oculta Practique] mixes Leitch’s prose with tables and extracts from the
grimoires on all the technical matters: times, tools, and talismans; purification and
prayer; angels and spirits.
As a first or stand-alone book, Secrets… has much to recommend it. Leitch has reached
beyond the old stand-bys (Mathers, Waite, Crowley, original and later Golden Dawn
material, E. M. Butler) and utilized some recent scholarship (James R. Davila, Claire
Fanger, Richard Kieckhefer, Robert Mathiesen), though perhaps not enough (Leitch
does not draw on the work of Michael D. Bailey, Charles Burnett, Ioan Couliano,
Valerie Flint, David Halperin, Deborah Harkness, Gösta Hedegård, Naomi Janowitz,
Frank Klaassen, Christopher Lehrich, Rebecca Lesses, Marvin Meyer, or Robert
Turner, to name a few who have dealt directly with the texts and topics in Secrets…;
the “classic” works of Lynn Thorndike and Joshua Trachtenberg are also neglected.
See my bibliography below: WORKS OF RELATED INTEREST.) Nearly all of the texts and
scholarly sources Leitch refers to are readily available (in English), thus, the book has
little new to offer, save Leitch’s synthesis and organization, which sets the
“grimoiric” material out in the form that suggests a unified system—which it
certainly is not.
Despite all of the times I furrowed and bristled while poring over Leitch’s book,
because of its range, readability, and spirit, I recommend Secrets of the Magickal
Grimoires, especially to those who intend to do the stuff. For the practitioner, Secrets…
could serve well as a hard-copy anchor to the mass of texts available on Internet sites,
such as TWILIT GROTTO at www.esotericarchives.com, SACRED TEXTS at www.sacred-
texts.com, and NORTON’S IMPERIUM > “Classics of Magick” at
www.hermetic.com/browe-archive. Academics, however, would do better to go
directly to Leitch’s sources—and well beyond.11
11 For the comments of an experienced “Solomonic magician,” refer to Carroll “Poke” Runyon’s
three-star review of Leitch, “A Good Survey in Need of Some Important Corrections” at Amazon.com
> § REVIEWS WRITTEN BY THABION “THABION”: http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-
reviews/A13AN1BZVI4K02/ref=cm_pdp_about_see_review/104-3689026-2823924. The same review with
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▼ ▼
some minor variations appears in The Seventh Ray, Book III: “The Green Ray,” edited by Runyon
(Silverado: Church of the Hermetic Sciences & the Ordo Templi Astartes, 2011), pages 202-203.
12 Nottingham clearly intends Arborum. However, even if the missing “r” is restored, the title is still
something like “wad of trees of life.” Massa might be better rendered Missa.
13 I. Liber Noctis (2004), II. Ars Solomonis (2009), III. Ars Geomantica (2009), IV. Ars Theurgia Goetia
(2012), V. Otz Chim (2012), VI. Ars Speculum (2012), and VII. Liber Terribilis (2013).
Note the additional volume: Ars Alchemica – Foundations of Practical Alchemy: Being a Prima (sic) in
the Paracelsian Arte of Solve et Coagula (London: Avalonia, 2016). They must mean “primer.”
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Given the present context, that of an essay on the literature of Solomonic magic, our
attention naturally turns to Nottingham’s CHAPTERS/VOLUMES II, IV, and VII (all
page references are to the hardback edition):
II. ARS SALMONIS (pages 177-257) is an extended consideration of S. Liddell
MacGregor Mathers’ version of the Key of Solomon (1888) informed a bit by
more recent editions (e.g., Rankine and Skinner’s Veritable Key of Solomon
[2008]). Mathers’ text is generously paraphrased, and all of the pentacles are
reproduced.
IV. ARS THEURGIA GOETIA (pages 317-476) “is an interpretation of the seals of the
second part of the Solomonic grimoire cycle,” i.e., the Lemegeton, “giving the full
seals of the spirits for the first time.” Nottingham’s introduction to this chapter
concludes,
It will be noted that additional conjurations as laid down in the Steganographia [of
Trithemius] are also included for the use in the conjuration of the spirit. (—page
322)
VII. LIBER TERRIBILIS (pages 635-822) offers instructions on summoning the seventy-
two spirits of the Goetia, the first section of the Lemegeton. Nottingham has
“also given what [he] consider[s] to be missing information that makes the
working more likely to be successful” (—pages 643-644).
LIBER TERRIBILIS opens with an entry on the fruitful “conjuration of the Goetic
spirit Seere” as conducted by the Nottingham and two of his friends, which
shows that
Whilst Goetia conjuration is an effective part of the magical corpus, it will
sometimes have you living on the edge, as it can take you right down to the
wire before it resolves the situation. Although it is a powerful form of magic it
is demanding too and if you can stick the pace you will find it highly effective.
(—pages 640-641)
14 Nottingham repeatedly begins paragraphs with “The Kabbalah considers…,” “The Kabbalah makes
clear…,” “The Kabbalah teaches...,” each followed by a dilute smattering of kabbalistic wisdom. While
Nottingham quotes the Zohar with attribution (page 485), he does not provide the conventional volume
and section numbers (in this case Zohar 2:76a), nor does he cite his source for the quote, namely Israel
Regardie, A Garden of Pomegranates (St. Paul: Llewellyn, 1995), page 93.
This is not the place to reiterate the whole argument against references like “kabbalah says.”
Briefly, kabbalah is not a work, a specific source, or even a unified doctrine. Citing a specific text and, if
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At times, Nottingham goes against the covey. For instance, he says that he doesn’t
believe the Wiccan “law of three-fold return.” In his opinion,
…it was invented by the founders of modern wiccan/witchcraft revival to encourage
society to think that they, modern witches/wiccans, were nice people and those
modern witches, or those who think they are, are a little misunderstood by society,
but kindly folk just the same.” (LIBER NOCTIS, page 125)
This quote is an example of Nottingham’s rather inefficient prose; when making his
more personal points, he tends to be a bit scattered and redundant. (Another example
of this unchecked style is quoted above in the description of LIBER TERRIBILIS.)
Cross references among the chapters/volumes would have been helpful. In ARS
THEURGIA GOETIA (page 461), Nottingham mentions his assumption
that the reader is familiar with various occult practices from the corpus of Western
Magical Traditions, such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual and the Pentagram, the
Middle Pillar, and consecrating of the Magic Circle. This also implies that you have
the various tools of the arte and are familiar with their use.
Nottingham does not note here that all this is covered in CHAPTER/VOLUME I, LIBER
NOCTIS, along with basic information on a wide array of practices: geomancy, sigils,
“kameas,” magical use of the Psalms, candle magic, etc. Whereas the Lesser Banishing
Ritual of the Pentagram is spelled out in its proper place in a working described in
ARS GEOMANTICA (pages 294-296), in the praxis described in ARS THEURGIA GOETIA,
we simply read “Perform LBRP” (—page 462). This could be particularly frustrating to
the reader of ARS THEURGIA GOETIA in the separate paperback edition.
Yet, with these shortcomings, Nottingham writes with a welcome offhand
earnestness. In this, his approach to magic is never far from good common sense.
Case in point: under the banner of the old “To Know, to Dare, to Will and to Keep
Silent,” he bids the practitioner, “Don’t talk about what you’re about” (—page 18). O,
what following this advice would have spared so many magicians—not to mention
the people around them.
All in all, Foundations… supplies an impressive amount of practical information from a
knowledgeable and reasonable fellow. As a stand-alone source or as an anchor to a
collection of grimoires, this book could serve well. For anyone who has confronted a
magical text and thought, “Okay, now what?” Foundations of Practical Sorcery offers a
broad and well-considered inroad providing all of the information needed for a range
of operations.
▼ ▼ ▼
possible, its author seems an obvious minimum requirement. Imagine if someone wrote, “English
literature says….” [Note 14 continues on the next page.]
This issue is taken up in some of my papers:
• “Kabbalah Study: Jewish Mysticism in English,” which is appended (pages 42-49) to “Notes on the Study
of Early Kabbalah in English” at http://www.digital-brilliance.com/contributed/Karr/Biblios/ekie.pdf
• “Which—or Whose—Lurianic Kabbalah?” which constitutes the major portion (essay section: pages 9-21)
of the paper “Notes on the Study of Later Kabbalah in English: The Safed Period and Lurianic Kabbalah”
at http://www.digital-brilliance.com/contributed/Karr/Biblios/lkie.pdf.
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The first, second, and fourth books on this list are volumes in the SOURCEWORKS
series. Mathers’ edition of The Key of Solomon, first published in 1889, is, of course, the
“classic” text. The Lesser Key of Solomon, also known as The Lemegeton, is the other
15 Among Skinner’s many books, note in particular Techniques of High Magic: A Manual of Self-
Initiation, first published in 1976, now in its third revised edition (Singapore: Golden Hoard Press,
2016), and The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, first published in 1978 (London: Askin Publishers Ltd)
and republished in 2005 (Berwick: Ibis Press).
16 See pages 1-2, note 2 above.
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major “proof text” of the Solomonic tradition; the edition recommended here was
most ably prepared by Joseph Peterson (2001).
The value of Techniques of Solomonic Magic goes far beyond Skinner’s conclusions
about where the material in the Key of Solomon came from, for Skinner has presented
his entire scholarly process, complete with charts (vast outlines of text groups and
manuscripts), tables (comparing details of various texts), and illustrations, all for us
to engage. Skinner admits, in so many words, that the book and, for that matter, his
entire dissertation project remain works in progress. Case in point: after delivering
evidence for his suggestion that Apotelesmatikē Pragmateia by Stephanos is “an early
version or forerunner of the Hygromanteia” (page 69), he adds
I would be happy to have this attribution refuted, but only if a better candidate for the
authorship of the Hygromanteia can be discovered.
Skinner often acknowledges that further research may lead to different conclusions
regarding various issues surrounding his primary thesis, but he presents, in
overwhelming detail, his case quite convincingly. To me, of Skinner’s nineteen
conclusions, the following (ii and iii) are by far the most important (page 280):
ii) There is a clear line of transmission from the Hygromanteia to the Clavicula
Salomonis which is identifiable down to the very detailed level of Solomonic
method and specific pieces of equipment. Therefore there can be no doubt that the
Hygromanteia is the forefather of the Clavicula Salomonis.
iii) There are two main exceptions to the above point:
a) The scrying chapters in the Hygromanteia have not been passed on to the
Clavicula Salomonis. These scrying methods are however found almost word-
for-word in an 11th-century Jewish source. Accordingly, the Jewish sources
probably supplied these chapters to the Hygromanteia.
b) The pentacles chapters in the Clavicula Salomonis do not derive from the
Hygromanteia, but probably come from the manuscript Sepher ha-Otot, or from
a related Hebrew source.
Thus, the trend away from supposing that the Solomonic grimoires had Jewish
origins is in part confirmed yet in part reversed through Skinner’s discoveries and
observations.17
17 One small quibble: In his sub-chapter (3.2) on “The Input of Jewish Magic to the Clavicula
Salomonis,” Skinner speculates (page 40, note 5): “Interestingly the angel ambiguously referred to as the
‘Lord God of Israel’ is Zoharariel, which might better be read as ‘Zohar Ariel.’ An angel name possibly
generated from the title of that great classic of the Kabbalah, the Sepher ha-Zohar.”
This doesn’t follow at all given that Zoharariel already appears in texts of the merkavah tradition
(200-800 CE), most importantly Hekhalot Rabbati (§§ 96, 99, 102, 103, 110, 111, 119, 121, 197, 204, 232, and 251),
but also Hekhalot Zutarti (§ 418, as one of the seven angels: Zoharariel, Uriel, Afael, Gabriel, Nuriel,
Panael, and Serafiel), Ma’aseh Merkava (§ 581), and the Geniza Fragments (§ 121). § numbers follow
Peter Schäfer et al., Synopse zur Hekhalot Literatur (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1981).
The Sefer ha-Zohar was not written/redacted/manifest/circulated (take your pick) until around
1300.
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Techniques of Solomonic Magic is not a magic instruction book. The description posted
at the website of Llewellyn Worldwide—the North American distributor for Golden
Hoard publications—accurately identifies the work as
The most detailed analysis of the techniques of Solomonic magic from the seventh to
the nineteenth century ever published. This volume explores the methods of
Solomonic magic in Alexandria, tracing how the tradition passed through Byzantium
(the Hygromanteia) to the Latin Clavicula Salomonis and its English incarnation as the
Key of Solomon.18
We will have to wait to see what Skinner’s sequel on the practice of Solomonic magic
provides. But anyone who has collected grimoires in the Solomonic tradition can here,
in the channels that Skinner has excavated, find an enormous amount of information
about the province and composition of the oft-reproduced texts (The Key of Solomon,
The Lemegeton, Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, etc.) while learning that not
all of the famous grimoires are “Solomonic,” and acquaint themselves with less-
known magic texts from antiquity and medieval times that contributed to Solomonic
literature. Thus, Skinner’s work bears less comparison with the books singled out
above by Aaron Leitch and Gary St. Michael Nottingham than it does to, say, Ritual
Magic by E. M. Butler and the more recent Grimoires by Owen Davies—among all of
which I would surmise that Skinner’s Techniques of Solomonic Magic will prove the
most significant.
18
At http://www.llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9780738748061. Also, see the description at the
Golden Hoard Press website, http://www.goldenhoard.net/index.htm, for a lengthy, albeit “partial,”
list of contents.)
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Readers should note Stephen Skinner’s expansion of Aleister Crowley’s Liber 777,
namely, The Complete Magician’s Tables (Singapore: Golden Hoard Press, 2006/St.
Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 2007). The subtitle elaborates: The most complete set of
Magic, Kabbalistic, Angelic, Astrologic, Alchemic, Demonic, Geomantic, Grimoire, Gematria,
I Ching, Tarot, Pagan Pantheon, Plant, Perfume and Character Correspondence in more than
777 tables. The Crowley editions circulating have something fewer than 200 columns,
whereas Skinner’s 2006 volume has more than 800 columns, and Skinner’s new
expanded fifth edition (2015) has 840.
§ M, “Magic of the Grimoires—Angels, Demons and Spirits,” connects with the topic
at hand. § M offers tables drawn from
• Testament of Solomon
• Liber Juratus, the Sworn Book of Honorius
• Peter de Abano’s Heptameron
• Codex Latinus Monacensis
• Goetia (Lemegeton Book I)
• Theurgia Goetia (Lemegeton Book II)
• Ars Paulina (Lemegeton Book III)
• Ars Almadel (Lemegeton Book IV)
• Key of Solomon – Clavicula Salomonis
• Sacred Magic of Abramelin
• Franz Bardon’s Practice of Magical Evocation
• Grimorium Verum
• Grand Grimoire
The oft-cited but frustratingly scarce works on the Hebrew MS called Sepher
Maphteah Shelomoh (ca. 1700) by Hermann Gollancz have been reprinted in a single
volume by Teitan Press (York Beach: 2008):
• Maphteah Shelomo. Clavicula Salomonis: A Hebrew Manuscript newly discovered and now
described. (London: D. Nutt / Frankfurt a.M: J. Kauffmann, 1903)
• Sepher Maphteah Shelomoh (BOOK OF THE KEY OF SOLOMON). An exact facsimile of an
original book of magic in Hebrew with illustrations now produced for the first time.
(London – New York: Oxford University Press, 1914—of which only 300 copies were
printed)
The Teitan edition adds a seven-page foreword by Stephen Skinner, which states that
“there is no doubt that this manuscript [i.e., Sepher Maphteah Shelomoh] is part of the
Solomonic magical tradition,” and “in a large measure derived from them, which is
quite the reverse of the usual assumption” (—page viii). In a section sub-headed
CONFIRMATION OF THE LATINIZED CONTENTS, Skinner (following Claudia
Rohrbacher-Stricker) presents “proof that this text [i.e., Sepher Maphteah Shelomoh] is
a translation from a Latin/Italian original, by a Hebrew translator” (—page xii).
Alas, the reprint is a limited edition of 358 copies.
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• Butler, E. M. Ritual Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949 and 1979; rpt University
Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1998, as a volume of their MAGIC IN HISTORY SERIES).
• Fanger, Claire (ed.) Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998); hereafter Conjuring Spirits.
• Fanger, Claire (ed.) Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries
(University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012); hereafter Invoking Angels.
• Nottingham, Gary St. Michael. Foundations of Practical Sorcery (London: Avalonia, 2015); hereafter
Nottingham’s Foundations.
• Shah, Idries. Secret Lore of Magic (New York: Citadel Press, 1958; rpt. 1972); hereafter Secret Lore or
simply “Shah.”
• Thompson C. J. S. Mysteries and Secrets of Magic (London: J. Lane the Bodley Head, 1927; rpt. New
York: Causeway Books, 1973); hereafter Thompson’s Mysteries.
• Waite, Arthur Edward. The Book of Ceremonial Magic (London: Rider, 1911; rpt. New York: Bell
Publishing, 1969); hereafter Ceremonial Magic or simply “Waite.” 19
19 Ceremonial Magic is a revision of Waite’s earlier Book of Black Magic and of Pacts (London: Redway,
1898; rpt. New York – York Beach: Samuel Weiser Inc., 1972—and subsequently).
20 Mathers’ version of the KEY is included in the no-frills “pirate” collection, The Clavicula Solomonis
(sic) by Magus Tsirk Susej—Jesus Krist backwards—(n.p.: Embassy of Lucifer, 2005); this edition has
the text of the KEY and the LESSER KEY (see below 1.b, page 9)—with no introduction, notes, or
mention of sources, MSS or printed editions.
21 Additional material from Wellcome MS 4669 has been published as A Collection of Magical Secrets,
Taken from Peter de Abano, Cornelius Agrippa and from other Famous Occult Philosophers & A Treatise of
Mixed Cabalah, Which comprises the Angelic Art Taken from Hebrew Sages, translated from Wellcome MS
4669 by Paul Harry Barron from the original French manuscript dated 1796, with introduction and
commentary by Stephen Skinner & David Rankine (London: Avalonia, 2009).
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22 In “The Key of Solomon: Toward a Typology of the Manuscripts” (in Societas Magica Newsletter,
Issue 17, Spring 2007—online at http://www.societasmagica.org/), Robert Mathiesen “offer[s] some
materials for an eventual typological study of these [Key of Solomon] texts,” starting with an account of
122 MSS written in languages using the Latin alphabet, as opposed to those in Greek or Hebrew, then
offering a provisional division of these into “Western text groups,” e.g., “Oldest (Western) Text
[OT],” “Toz Graecus Text-Group [TG],” “Invocation of Angels Text-Group [IA],” and so on.
Mathiesen adds some comments on “A Hebrew Version of the Key of Solomon,” namely, Mafteach
Shelomoh, and “An Arabic Version…” entitled Al-Miftah al-Azam li-Sulayman al-Hakim, and proffers some
“Tentative Conclusions.”
23 See Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1994): on Sibly, pages 107ff; on Hockley, pages 170ff.
24 http://www.shop.hadeanpress.com/
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25 See also Aleister Crowley’s Illustrated Goetia, by Lon Milo DuQuette and Christopher Hyatt,
illustrated by David P. Wilson (Tempe: New Falcon Publications, 1992). This work presents the list of
spirits “from Crowley’s original Goetia—which also includes many other prerequisites for evocation”
along with material from 777, where Crowley “attributed the Seventy-Two Spirits of the Goetia (in
pairs, Day/Night) to the Decans of the Zodiac.” (page 71) Each spirit is also given a full-page image
drawn by “artist-clairvoyant David P. Wilson, who is also a talented and adept Goetic magician” (page
72). The text is supplemented by nine chapters which expand on Crowley’s version of the Goetia,
offering background, advice, and anecdotes.
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Of the Arte Goetia by Colin Campbell (York Beach: Teitan Press, 2015) offers a
manner of Goetia companion, which has been a long-standing desideratum. After
singling out Joseph Peterson’s “critical edition of the complete Lesser Key of
Solomon”26 (of which Goetia is the first section) as the text-source of record,
Campbell’s first chapter concludes with this statement of intention:
This present work was composed with several aims in mind, the chief of which was
to trace the emergence of Goetia into the English language manuscripts with which it
is now closely identified. By comparing the known sources and influences, it is
possible to observe the subtle and not-so-subtle changes; the errors, omissions, inclu-
sions, and other alterations that together combine to create the text as we now know
it. We can also use these comparisons to aid us in historical research into the origins
of the work, as well as to identify the external influences that affected it (page 22).
At his website, COLIN CAMPBELL’S DE ARTE MAGICA,27 Campbell writes
Many are aware that the listing of spirits that is presented in Goetia is derived almost
in its entirety from the earlier work Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (THE FALSE
MONARCHY OF DEMONS) as given by Johann Wier (Wierus [or Weyer]) in his
publication in protest of the witch hysteria in his native Germany, De Praestigiis
Daemonum (OF THE ILLUSIONS OF SPIRITS)28 [1563; Pseudomonarchia Daemonum was added
as an appendix to De Praestigiis Daemonum in 1577]. …
This work [i.e., Wier’s], specifically with relation to its advocacy against persecution
of suspected witches (typically, impoverished elderly women), was picked up in
England by Reginald Scot, a lawyer, who argued in The Discoverie of Witchcraft
(1584)29, that not only were witches not actually able to do all the things of which they
were accused, but that regardless they should be tried for the crime they were accused
of committing rather than witchcraft itself. …
One of the aims of Of the Arte Goetia was to place these three sources—Wier, Scot,
and the [Goetia] manuscripts—side by side so that one could see the evolution of each
spirit’s description. Once accomplished, it was easy to show where discrepancies
arose.
From among the “manuscripts,” Campbell uses the Goetia as it appears in Sloane
MS. 3825 as his base text.
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30 The Almadel of the Lemegeton should not be confused with Armadel—a completely different work,
available as The Grimoire of Armadel, translated by S. L. MacGregor Mathers (York Beach: Samuel
Weiser, 1980 and 1995); nor should these be confused with the Arbatel of Magick, a collection of forty-
nine magical aphorisms which is the first section of an otherwise lost nine-part tome said to have been
employed by John Dee.
See Joseph H. Peterson’s translation, Arbatel: Concerning the Magic of the Ancients [ORIGINAL
SOURCEBOOK OF ANGEL MAGIC] (Lake Worth: Ibis Press, 2009)—also at Peterson’s TWILIT GROTTO:
www.esotericarchives.com > Classical Grimoires. Arbatel also appears in the collection titled The Fourth
Book of Occult Philosophy, edited… by Stephen Skinner (London: Askin Publishers, 1978; rpt Berwick
[ME]: Ibis Press, 2005—see listing below). Also on the Internet, find Arbatel at The CHAOS MATRIX:
http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/books/lesserkey/lesserkey4.pdf.
31 The Holy Almandal is a practical manual of ritual magic which “may have roots extending back into
Persia and the Far East, but its medieval versions were thoroughly Christianized” [page 192]; however,
Almandal and Almadel are of “diverse traditions.” [page 209] (cited from Veenstra’s “Holy Almandel…”).
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A text entitled Ars Notoria: The Notary Art of Solomon, translated into English in
1657 by Robert Turner of Holshott (not to be confused with Robert Turner, the
32 In Elizabethan Magic, edited by Robert Turner (Longmead: Element Books, 1989), page 140.
33 Ibid., page 141.
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34 Clair Fanger states (in “Plundering the Egyptian Treasure,” Conjuring Spirits, page 219), “There is
no modern edition of the Ars Notoria, and the relation of the seventeenth-century text (found in
Agrippa’s Opera [Omnia] and the Turner translation) to the medieval manuscript tradition remains
unexamined.”
35 An earlier version of Cousins’ essay under the title “Robert Turner of ‘Holshot’ (c. 1620-1665?): The
Astrological Botanist and the Books of the Elizabethan Magi,” was included in Elizabethan Magic, by
Robert Turner [and other contributors] (Longmead: Element Books, 1989), pages 128-150.
“The Philomath” as it appears in Teitan’s Ars Notoria “has been fully revised and updated with
recently discovered material” (—Cousins, Ars Notoria, page xxvii).
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So, what actually is the fifth book of the Lemegeton? While not really contradicting
the White/I.G.O.S. assessment, Benjamin Rowe offers an alternative and more
positive take on the Lemegeton’s fifth book. In the introduction to his Ars Nova—
Book Five of the Lemegeton (June 1999),36 Rowe states that in some manuscripts
(such as the one from which he transcribed, Sloane MS. 2731—the same as the
Whites’ and I.G.O.S.), the fifth book is an addendum containing notes on Goetia.
This book has been mistakenly called Ars Notoria instead of the correct name, Ars
Nova. Rowe suggests quite convincingly that the last couple of pages of the
manuscript are out of order, and, thus, Ars Nova consists of two leaves rather than
one. These final pages of Lemegeton can be seen in the photocopies of the White
and I.G.O.S. editions.37
In apparent agreement with Rowe, Stephen Skinner notes38 that whenever Ars
Nova has been transcribed, it has been read incorrectly as a continuous text rather
than as columns. Thus, according to Skinner, the only printed edition of Ars Nova
which is transcribed in the correct order appears in Skinner & Rankine, The Goetia
of Dr Rudd (London: Golden Hoard, 2007), APPENDIX 9, pages 414-421; more on The
Goetia of Dr Rudd below.
The Lesser Key of Solomon, edited by Joseph H. Peterson (York Beach: Red
Wheel/Weiser, 2001), includes a complete text—all five books, including Ars
Notoria—with other pertinent material, including a preface from one of the MS
editions of the Lesser Key, addenda from two others, and Johann Weyer’s
Pseudomonarchia dæmonum. “I have followed Sloane 3825 for this edition, except for
Ars Notoria. For the latter, the manuscripts are clearly dependent on Robert
Turner’s translation. I have therefore used his 1657 printed edition as my primary
source.” (INTRODUCTION, page xiii) However, Peterson adds (at his website,
ESOTERIC ARCHIVES http://www.esotericarchives.com/notoria/notoria.htm.),
“Unfortunately [Turner’s version] omit[s] the drawings of the notae or mystical
drawings which are the centerpiece of this art. Their omission adds greatly to the
confusion of the text. Unfortunately, Turner further adds to the confusion by
omitting some of the internal references to the missing figures.” Intelligently
prepared, nicely printed, reasonably priced: Peterson’s is by far the best edition
available.
Finally, there is The Goetia of Dr Rudd: The Angels & Demons of Liber Malorum
Spirituum seu Goetia Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis / with study techniques of
evocation in the context of the angel magic tradition of the seventeenth century /
being a transcription of Dr Rudd’s ‘Liber Malorum Spiritum seu Goetia’ from Harley MS
6483, with other pertinent extracts from manuscripts Harley MS 6482, Sloane MS 3824
36 Formerly at Rowe’s site, Norton’s Imperium: Enochian Magick Papers & Links > “Classics of Magic,” at
www.hermetic.com/browe-archive; now, “This topic does not yet exist.” Go to The CHAOS MATRIX:
http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/books/lesserkey/lesserkey5.pdf.
37 The LESSER KEY collection with Ars Nova—not Ars Notoria—is included in The Embassy of
Lucifer’s Clavicula Solomonis—mentioned above in note 20. The Embassy’s Ars Nova is identical to
Rowe’s version, including the footnote numbers in the text—without the footnotes.
38 In an email to me, October 4, 2009.
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2. a. Grimorium Verum
Here again we can turn to Waite (pages 96-100, 159-183, 236-240, with numerous
other references) and Shah (pages 64-68; 75-112).
An attractive edition was put out by Trident Press (Seattle: 1994 & 1997):
Grimoirium Verum: CONTAINING THE MOST APPROVED KEYS OF SOLOMON WHEREIN
THE MOST HIDDEN SECRETS BOTH NATURAL & SUPERNATURAL ARE IMMEDIATELY
EXHIBITED … translated from the Hebrew by Plangiere, Jesuite Dominicaine, in
“library,” cloth, and, in this rare case, paperback editions.
The I.G.O.S. version contains the text in both French and English (Palm Springs:
1996).
The most complete edition available is, not surprisingly, that of Joseph H.
Peterson (Scotts Valley: CreateSpace Publishing, 2007), which offers not only an
English translation but complete French and Italian texts. Peterson’s careful work
accommodates academics and practitioners alike.
Jake Stratton-Kent has “reconstructed a working text from the corrupted French
and Italian versions of this important grimoire” in The True Grimoire:
ENCYCLOPEDIA GOETICA, VOLUME 1, first published as a limited-edition hardcover
(2009) which quickly sold out, subsequently reprinted in a quality paperback,
called the “Rouge Edition” ([UK]: Bibliothèque Rouge/Scarlet Imprint, 2010).
39 For a critical assessment of Rankine and Skinner’s hypothesis of an “alleged secret tradition
emanating from Dee,” see Egil Asprem’s Arguing with Angels: Enochian Magic & Modern Occulture
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012), pages 40-42.
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Research Society, 1995), which gives the text in rather clumsy English adorned
with illustrations from a printed French edition.
There is an “economy” version of The Grand Grimoire edited by Darcy Kuntz
[KABBALISTIC GRIMOIRE SERIES IV] (Edmonds: Holmes Publishing Groups, 2001).
The Authentic Red Dragon (Le Véritable Dragon Rouge) … followed by The Black Hen
(La Poule Noire), published by Teitan Press (York Beach: 2011), reprints an early
nineteenth-century French edition (even though dated 1521) with an English
translation by Joshua A. Wentworth, along with a highly entertaining
introduction by Silens Manus. Manus says of the text, “[I]t is very obviously a
variant of the text known as the Grand Grimoire, and in common with this and
other similar grimoires the Dragon Rouge is not a work of ‘high culture.’ … It is
manifestly also not a work of spirituality or ‘high magic,’ but instead reflects
mundane desires and interests…” (—page xvii).
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The Complete Grimoire of Pope Honorius by David Rankine and Paul Harry Barron
(London: Avalonia, 2013) includes “a partial translation of Wellcome MS 4666
[which is in French], with numerous additions translated from the French
editions of the Grimoire of Pope Honorius dated 1670 [the so-called “Rome
edition”], 1760 [BL42 shelfmark 8632.a.3] & 1800 [BL shelfmark 8630.aa.21], and a
new translation of the German edition of 1845 [from Scheibel’s Das Kloster ]” (—
title page [my brackets—DK]). The Complete Grimoire… presents “the entire corpus
of this grimoire in print for the first time” (—back cover).
A translation of the SWORN BOOK, or Liber sacer sive liber juratus—as distinct from
the Grimoire—was done by Daniel Driscoll: The Sworn Book of Honourius the
Magician, As Composed by Honourius through counsel with the Angel Hocroell
(Berkeley Heights/Gillette: Heptangle Books, 1977 & 1983), using British Museum
(now British Library) MSS Sloane 313 and Royal 17A XLII. Printed as a fancy
collectable, this work is now difficult and expensive to obtain. With all this, it is
incomplete and frequently inaccurate. Further, the entire text is set in a somewhat
distracting font.
I.G.O.S. published a hardbound typescript, variously titled Medieval Grimoire of
Honorius, Grimoire of Honorius, and Handbook of Honorius the Magus, translated by
Robert Blanchard (Palm Springs: 1993). Even though it is called “Grimoire,” this
work is actually a version of the “Liber sacer or Liber juratus,” i.e., SWORN BOOK of
Honorius, as described by Lynn Thorndike in History of Magic and Experimental
Science (New York: Macmillan Company/Columbia University Press, 1923-1958),
volume II, chapter XLIX, “Solomon and the Ars Notoria,” pages 283-285—the
same text as Daniel Driscoll’s.
The best edition of this material is The Sworn Book of Honorius: Liber Iuratus
Honorii by Honorius of Thebes, with text, translation and commentary by Joseph
Peterson (Lake Worth: Ibis Press, 2016), which shows the complete text in Latin
and English on facing pages, along with a well-researched introduction.43
Refer to Liber Iuratus Honorii: A Critical Edition of the Latin Version of the Sworn
Book of Honorius, by Gösta Hedegård [ACTA UNIVERSITATIS STOCKHOLMIENSIS:
Studia Latina Stockholmiensa] (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell International,
2002). The text is in Latin; the 46-page introduction, however, is in English.
Section IV of Hedegård’s reconstructed Latin text, “de composicione sigilli Dei
vivi et veri” (pages 67-71), has been translated into English by Colin D. Campbell
42 BL = British Library
43 Online, refer to Joseph H. Peterson’s “Liber Juratus Honorii or Sworne Booke of Honorius” based
on the English translation of Royal MS 17Axlii (16 th century) with variant readings from British
Library Sloane MSS 3853, 3854 and 3885, at http://www.esotericarchives.com/juratus/juratus.htm.
This version was posted online in 1998. Peterson’s introduction to the online Honorius text reads,
Liber Juratus is one of the oldest and most influential texts of Medieval magic. The prologue says the text was
compiled to help preserve the core teachings of the sacred magic, in the face of intense persecution by church
officials. This may be a reference to the actions of pope John XXII (1316-34).
I believe the almost legendary reputation of this work led to the forgery of the so-called Grimoire of Pope
Honorius, a ridiculous work so despised by Eliphas Levi and A. E. Waite.
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as APPENDIX B of The Magic Seal of Dr. John Dee: The Sigillum Dei Aemeth (York
Beach: Teitan Press, 2009). This Seal of God, sometimes called the Seal of Solomon,
is a prominent feature of the Honorius text.
On the Honorius material, see the following:
• Conjuring Spirits:
- Kieckhefer, Richard. “The Devil’s Contemplatives: The Liber iuratus, The Liber
visionum and Christian Appropriation of Jewish Occultism.”
- Klaassen, Frank THE LIBER SACER OR SWORN BOOK OF HONORIUS within “English
Manuscripts of Magic, 1300-1500: A Preliminary Survey.”
- Mathiesen, Robert. “A Thirteenth-Century Ritual to Attain the Beatific Vision
from the Sworn Book of Honorius of Thebes.”
• Invoking Angels:
- Fanger, Claire. “Covenant and the Divine Name: Revisiting the Liber iuratis and
John of Morigny’s Liber florum.”
- Mesler, Katelyn “The Liber iuratus Honorii and the Christian Reception of Angel
Magic.”
- Veenstra, Jan R. “Honorius and the Sigil of God: The Liber iuratus in Berengario
Ganell’s Summa sacre magice.”
• Klaassen, Frank. RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAGIC:
MANUSCRIPTS OF MAGIC 1300-1600. Ph.D. dissertation (Toronto: University of
Toronto, 1999), pages 129-135.
• ______. “The Ars Notoria and the Sworn Book of Honorius” in The
Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Middle Ages and
Renaissance (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2012).
• Chardonnens, László Sándor. “Necromancing Theurgic Magic: A Reappraisal
of the Liber iuratus Extracts and the Consecration Ritual for the Sigillum Dei in
an Early Modern English Grimoire,” in Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume
10, Number 2 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Winter 2015),
pages 172-198.
44 Other items from Das Kloster (vols. 2 and 5, respectively): Libellus Magicus, transcribed and edited
by Stephen J. Zietz (1999), at http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/grimoire/Libellusjesuitus.pdf, and Praxis
Magica Fausti, at http://athenaeum.asiya.org/Praxis_Magica_Fausti.pdf [DEFUNCT LINK]. Both are
described and quoted by Waite (Black Magic, Weiser edition, pages 102-4/323-326; Ceremonial Magic, Bell
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In 1982, there appeared the profoundly disappointing New Revised Sixth and Seventh
Books of Moses and the Magical Uses of Psalms, edited by Migene Gonzolez-Wippler
(Bronx: Original Publications). The text and especially the introduction are rife
with errors.45
In 2008, Joseph H. Peterson produced a nicely-printed edition of The Sixth and
Seventh Books of Moses (Lake Worth: Ibis Press), which offers serious treatment of
this hybrid collection of translations: clear, correct texts and diagrams, with an
informative foreword, notes, and nine supplemental appendices—surely the best
edition.
Interestingly, “The Seven Semiphoras of Adam” and “The Seven Semiphoras of
Moses” within S&S closely match passages in the seventh book of Liber Salomonis:
Sepher Raziel, discussed below. For the Semiphoras §§ in S&S, see Wehman,
Egyptian, and de Laurence—pages 116-140; Gonzolez-Wippler—pages 125-164;
Peterson, APPENDIX 3, pages 141-168.
edition, pages 110-112/329-333). Libellus Magicus, under the title Verus Jesuitarum Libellus, is presented in
both Latin and English at TWILIT GROTTO: http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/jesuit.htm.
45 My open letter to Original Publications (cc. Llewellyn Publications) dated March 10, 1986, states,
To my dismay, Migene Gonzolez-Wippler’s edition fails to clean up or clarify this book, and, to my shock,
the editor has actually further muddled and mystified the text with misleading information and just plain
bad writing. It took no great scholarship to arrive at the [twelve] points that shall follow, showing the
shoddiness of the editor’s work. This note represents only a few hours of rooting around in my home
library, which is far from extensive.
46 Manuscripts were designated “British Museum” until 1997, when the designation changed to
“British Library.”
47 Volume II, CHAPTER XLIV, “Solomon and the Ars Notoria,” page 281, adding an interesting, albeit
doubtful, speculation in note 2: “Perhaps the same as ‘Sefer ha-Yashar’ mentioned by Haya Gaon in the
eleventh century: Gaster, The Sword of Moses, 1896, p. 16.”
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4. The “Treatise of tymes of the year of the day and of the night … when
anything ought to be done by this booke” (ff 34r-46r)
5. The “Treatise of Cleanesse…of Abstinence” (ff 46r-51r)
6. “Samaim” which “nameth all the heavens and her angels and the operations
or workings of them” (ff 51v-53v)
7. The “booke of Vertues…and miracles…the properties of the ark of magicke
and of his figures and of the ordinance of same” (ff 53v-57v)
For a full transcription of these treatises, see Sepher Raziel also known as Liber
Salomonis, a 1564 English Grimoire from Sloane MS 3826, edited by Don Karr and
Stephen Skinner (Singapore: Golden Hoard Press, 2010). In this edition, Skinner
provides a modern English version of Sefer Raziel and an excellent introduction to
the range of “Raziel” traditions.48
The rest of Sloane MS 3826 consists of
1. Incipit Canon: The rule of the book of consecration… (ff 57r-60r)
2. Orisons (ff 60r-65r)
3. Magical directions (ff 65r-83v)49
4. Liber Lunæ (ff 84r-94r)50
5. Raphael: The Invocation of Oberon Concerning Physick &c (ff 98r-99r)
6. The Call of Bilgal, One of the 7 etc. (fol. 99v)
7. An Experiment for a Fayry (fol. 100r)51
8. Beleemus De imaginibus (ff 100v-101r)
Sloane MS 3826 is in English, except for
(i) the opening lines of paragraphs in Liber Salomonis and Incipit Canon
(ii) the Orisons
(iii) the invocation, constriction, ligation, and license of Raphael
(iv) Beleemus De imaginibus (BELEMUS ON THE IMAGES [of the planets]).
48 A very similar Sefer Raziel appears at ESOTERIC ARCHIVES, “Sepher Raziel (Sl. 3846) Book of the
Angel Raziel” (edited by Joseph H. Peterson … © 1999, 2006), at
http://www.esotericarchives.com/raziel/raziel.htm.
49 Robert Mathiesen (in the article listed below, page 29) lists “Sloane 3826...ff. 58-83?” [Mathiesen’s
question mark] among the manuscript versions of the SWORN BOOK at the British Library, though he
places it with those which “preserve the original Latin text.” Portions of 3826 are in Latin (see above),
but the bulk of the text is in English. Gösta Hedegård refutes the identification with the SWORN BOOK
(Liber Iuratus Honorii, pages 13-14, note 37), quoting Rachel Stockdale that 3826 ff. 58—62 contain “The
rule of the booke of Consecration or the manner of working, with some orisons.” Hedegård then refers
to Waite (Book of Black Magic…, page 35), stating that the treatises of this part of 3826 “extract matter”
from Honorius works; Hedegård allows that this “may possibly be right” (page 14, note 13).
The two paragraphs on fol. 68 begin, “Dixit Thebit Pencorat…” and “Thebit said….” The reference
is to Thabit ben Korra, or Tabit ibn Korrah, or Qurra (c.836-c.901), member of the pagan sect, the
Sabians (mainly of the city Harran, Thabit’s birthplace). A prolific and eclectic writer, philosopher,
and translator (he rendered the Greek philosophers—e.g., Archimedes, Aristotle, Euclid—into Arabic or
Syriac), Thabit was an authority on the occult, particularly on the subject of images. Indeed, he is cited
in Picatrix and the works of Albertus Magnus and Peter de Abano.
50 See Liber Lunæ…, listed below under “Printed notices…,” page 29.
51 See Donald Tyson, “An Experiment for a Fairy,” appended to my transcription of “Liber Lunæ and
other selections” at http://www.digital-brilliance.com/contributed/Karr/Solomon/LibLun.pdf, pages
35-43. Tyson offers an amended text of Sloane fol. 100r with practical commentary.
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52 Cresswell used my original e-transcript version in Esoterica, the on-line journal edited by Arthur
Verslius (Michigan State University, 2003): Liber Salomonis: Sepher Raziel –
Part 1 at http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeV/Raziel1.html;
Part 2 at http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeV/Raziel2.html.
Liber Lunæ and other selections also appears, oddly formatted, at Esoterica:
http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Liber/LiberLunae.html.
Corrected and revised versions of these texts appear in print as Sepher Raziel also known as Liber
Salomonis… and Liber Lunæ, and on-line at Colin Low’s HERMETIC KABBALAH:
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/contributed/Karr/Solomon/index.php.
The 2003 transcription of the MS in its entirety was printed in a very limited comb-bound edition
(six copies) as Liber Salomonis, or Cephar Raziel, and Liber Lunæ and other selections from British Library
Sloane MS 3826 (Ithaca: KoM, 2003).
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Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998): page 145 (Sloane 3826 ff. 58-83 is listed as
a MS of the Sworn Book of Honorius).
• “M. Plessner, article on ‘Balinus’ in Encyclopedia of Islam (new edn. 1959) I, page
995.” This entry appears on the British Library reference form which accompanies
the microfilm version of MS Sloane 3826, from which my transcriptions have been
done.
• Page, Sophie. “Uplifting Souls: The Liber de essential spirituum and the Liber
Razielis,” in Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth
Centuries, edited by Claire Fanger (University Park: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2012).
• Savedow, Steve. “Sepher Raziel Manuscripts” = an appendix to Sepher Rezial
Hemelach: The Book of the Angel Rezial (York Beach: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 2000).53
Also on-line at the Alchemy Web Site, “organised by Adam McLean,” at
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/raziel.html.
• Shah, Idries. Oriental Magic (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1956; rpt 1973): page
191, BIBLIOGRAPHY, Grimoire References, Chaldea: “The following ‘Black Books’ of
the sorcerers have traces of Chaldean magical rituals or processes attributed to
Chaldean origin: Sefer Raziel (The Book of Raziel). B.M. Sloane 3826.”
• Shah, Idries. The Secret Lore of Magic (Secaucus: Citadel Press Inc., 1958): pages 288,
289, 290, and 310; ref. abbreviation (SR).
• Thorndike, Lynn. History of Magic and Experimental Sciences, volume II: THE FIRST
THIRTEEN CENTURIES (New York: Columbia University Press 1923): page 281.
• Waite, Arthur Edward. Book of Black Magic and of Pacts (London: Redway, 1898; rpt.
New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1972): pages 33-4 of the Weiser edition.
• Waite, Arthur Edward. The Book of Ceremonial Magic (London: Rider, 1911; rpt. New
York: Bell Publishing Company, 1969): pages 20-21 and 22 of the Bell edition. (The
Book of Ceremonial Magic is a revised version of Book of Black Magic and of Pacts.)
53 Savedow’s Sepher Rezial Hemelach offers a text from the Jewish folk magic tradition—an entirely
different stream from our Liber Salomonis/Sepher Raziel.
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54 “Conception of Tselem, the Astral Body, in Jewish Mysticism,” A PANARION CONFERENCE, Los
Angeles, 1975 (Los Angeles: C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, 2012)—2 audio CDs.
Note Scholem’s statements in Kabbalah (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House Ltd., 1974):
By the same token, The Book of Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin (London, 1898), which purported to be an
English translation of a Hebrew work written in the 15th century by a certain “Abraham the Jew of
Worms” and was widely regarded in modern European occultist circles as being a classical text of
practical Kabbalah, was not in fact written by a Jew, although its anonymous author has an uncommon
command of Hebrew. The book was originally written in German and the Hebrew manuscript of it
found in Oxford (Neubauer 2051) is simply a bad translation. Indeed, the book circulated in vaious
editions in several languages. It shows the partial influence of Jewish ideas but does not have any strict
parallel in kabbalistic literature. (—Kabbalah, page 186)
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Agrippa, [Henry] Cornelius. The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, edited, with
commentary, by Stephen Skinner (London: Askin Publishers, 1978; rpt Berwick [ME]:
Ibis Press, 2005).
This translation (London: 1655) includes all of the items in Robert Turner’s collection
rather than just The Fourth Book and Heptameron (see below).
• OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY, OR OF MAGICAL CEREMONIES: THE FOURTH BOOK—Agrippa
• HEPTAMERON, OR MAGICAL ELEMENTS—Peter de Abano
• ISOGOGE: AN INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE ON THE NATURE OF SUCH SPIRITS—Georg
Pictorius Villinganus
• ARBATEL OF MAGICK: OF THE MAGICK OF THE ANCIENTS
• OF GEOMANCY—Agrippa
• OF ASTRONOMICAL GEOMANCY—Gerard Cremonensis
_______. The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy: The Companion to the Three Books of Occult
Philosophy, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson (Woodbury: Llewellyn
Publications, 2009).
Again, Robert Turner’s translation of the six-book collection, following Stephen
Skinner’s edition (listed immediately above). Tyson’s edition includes an “analysis” of
each book containing both historical and practical support material.
_______. Of Occult Philosophy, Book Four, edited and translated by Robert Turner.
Originally published, Antwerp: 1531; Turner’s translation, 1655 (Gillette: Heptangle
Books, 1985).
Includes the pseudo-Agrippan Fourth Book and the Heptameron or Magical Elements of Peter
de Abano.
_______. Three Books of Occult Philosophy, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson
(original English translation 1651; Tyson’s edition, St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications,
1993).
The support material which Tyson provides makes this edition a valuable reference
source.
Åkerman, Susanna. “Queen Christina’s Latin Sefer-ha-Raziel Manuscript,” in Judeo-
Christian Intellectual Culture in the Seventeenth Century: A Celebration of the Library of
Narcissus Marsh (1638-1713), [INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES, 163] edited by Allison P.
Coudert, Sarah Hutton, Richard H. Popkin, and Gordon M. Weiner (Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999).
“The Latin copies of Sefer-ha-Raziel in particular shows (sic) a continuation of interest in
Hebrew angelology among Christian readers well after the great blooming of such
concerns among Rosicrucian authors in 1614-1620” (page 13).
“The angelic doctrine of liber Raziel is taken up by a group of texts called Claves Salomonis,
magical texts that in conjunction with al-Magriti’s book of Arabic magic, Picatrix,
influenced Cornelius Agrippa” (page 18).
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(anon.) The Black Pullet: Science of Magical Talisman, translated from the French: La
Poule Noire (New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1972; rpt. edited by Darcy Kuntz
[KABBALISTIC GRIMOIRE SERIES II] Edmonds: Holmes Publishing Group, 1998).
On The Black Pullet, see Waite, Ceremonial Magic, pages 113-132.
(anon.) The History of Dr. John Faustus, Showing How He Sold Himself to the Devil, to
Have Twenty-Four Years to Do Whatsoever He Pleased, edited by Darcy Kuntz
[KABBALISTIC GRIMOIRE SERIES VII] (Edmonds: Holmes Publishing Group, 2001; 2nd
revised edition, Sequim: Holmes Publishing Group, 2008).
Bailey, Michael D. Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy, and Reform in the Late Middle
Ages [MAGIC IN HISTORY SERIES] (University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2003).
Barrett, Francis. The Magus. A Complete System of Occult Philosophy (London: 1801; rpt.
New Hyde Park: University Books, 1967; rpt. York Beach: Samuel Weiser Inc., 2000).
Most of the contents were copied from Agrippa and other sources. See the defense of
Barrett in Alison L. Butler, THE REVIVAL OF THE OCCULT PHILOSOPHY: CABALISTIC MAGIC
AND THE HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN (M.A. thesis, St. John’s: Memorial
University of Newfoundland, 2000): CHAPTER TWO: “Beyond Attribution: The
Importance of Barrett’s Magus.”
Best, Michael; and Brightman, Frank H. (eds) The Book of Secrets of Albertus Magnus.
Of the Virtues of Herbs, Stones, and Certain Beasts, Also of the Marvels of the World (13th
century) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973; rpt. York Beach: Samuel Weiser
Inc., 1999).
The Weiser edition is far preferable to the reprint from Kessinger (Kila, Montana)
entitled Egyptian Secrets or White and Black Art for Man and Beast of Albertus Magnus
(copied from the Egyptian Publishing Co. [Chicago] edition).
Betz, Hans Dieter (ed). The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic
Spells, Volume One: Texts (2nd edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
Black, Laurelei; Black, Natalie; and Birkel, John. The Witches’ Key to the Legion: A
Guide to Solomonic Sorcery ([US]: Asteria Books, 2013).
The “Solomonic Sorcery” addressed here is Goetia.
“I have two main reasons for targeting this book to Witches and not, say, Ceremonial
Magicians. The first is that every other book available on the Goetia is aimed at Ceremonial
Magicians. … I especially recommend Lon Milo DuQuette’s Illustrated Goetia. Our biggest
complaint with these books is that they continue to advocate spirit torture.
“My second reason for marketing this ‘new key’ to Witches specifically is that Natalie and I
both firmly believe that it has been the role of the Witch to summon and stir spirits as allies in
magic since Witches first started practicing the Craft.” (from § “Why Create a Key for
Witches?”)
The book recommended is Aleister Crowley’s Illustrated Goetia, by Lon Milo DuQuette and
Christopher Hyatt, illustrated by David P. Wilson (Tempe: New Falcon Publications,
1992). See above, note 25.
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Black, S. Jason; and Hyatt, Christopher S. Pacts with the Devil. A Chronicle of Sex,
Blasphemy & Liberation (Tempe: New Falcon Publications, 1993 and 1997).
Pacts includes versions of Grimoirum Verum, Grand Grimoire and Honorius, edited and
adapted to render them “doable.” May I suggest “doabolic”?
Bodin, Jean. On the Demon-Mania of Witches, translated by Randy Scott with an
Introduction by Jonathan L. Pearl (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance
Studies, 1995).
A translation of Bodin’s De la démonomanie des sorciers (1580), “a lengthy and complex
discussion of many aspects of magic and witchcraft” (—page 22).
Budge, E. A. Wallis. Amulets and Talismans (originally published Oxford/Cambridge:
1930, as AMULETS AND SUPERSTITIONS; rpt. New York: Collier Books, 1970).
See especially chapter XXIII: “The Kabbalistic Names and Signs, and Magical Figures,
and Squares of the Seven Astrological Stars or Planets.”
Burnett, Charles. Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages. Texts and Techniques in the
Islamic and Christian Worlds [COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES: CS557] (Aldershot:
Variorum/Ashgate Publishing, Brookfield, 1996).
Cauzons, Th. de. Magic and Sorcery in France, I. (French original: LA MAGIE ET LA
SORCERIE EN FRANCE, vol. 1 [of 4], Paris: Dorbon-aine, 1910-12; Palm Springs:
I.G.O.S., 1994).
Christian, Paul. The History and Practice of Magic, translated from the French by James
Kirkup and Julian Shaw; edited and revised by Ross Nichols (French original: 1870;
New York: Citadel Press, Inc., 1963).
A Wicked Pack of Cards (see below under Decker) treats this 18th-century occultist in
CHAPTER 9, “From Ghost Writer to Magus: Paul Christian.”
Copenhaver, Brian (trans.) The Book of Magic from Antiquity to the Enlightenment
(USA|UK, etc.: Penguin Books, 2015).
“A strange blend of mumbo-jumbo, fear, fraud and deeply serious study, magic was at the
heart of the European Renaissance, fascinating many of its greatest leaders.” (quote on the
endpaper) A 643-page compendium, from Deuteronomy to Dee, Moses to Milton,
Ptolemy to Paracelsus.
Cresswell, Julia. The Watkins Dictionary of Angels: Over 2,000 Entries on Angels &
Angelic Beings (London: Watkins Publishing, 2006).
As her “base text,” Cresswell used British Library Sloane 3826, Liber Salomonis: Sepher
Raziel—the original online edition at Esoterica, Volume V, edited by Arthur Versluis (East
Lansing: Michigan State University, 2003) > “Archives” >
(1) http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeV/Raziel1.html
(2) http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeV/Raziel2.html
Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels (New York: The
Free Press [A Division of the Macmillan Company], 1967).
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Davies, Owen. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009).
Davies’ broad summary of magic books through history in the first few chapters is may
be useful, but it is awfully rapid. Grimoires gets most interesting—and original—in its
chapters on more recent times: “Grimoires USA,” “Pulp Magic,” and “Lovecraft, Satan,
and Shadows.”
Decker, Ronald; Depaulis, Thierry; and Dummett, Michael. A Wicked Pack of Cards:
The Origins of the Occult Tarot (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).
Wicked Pack is a well-written and well-researched treatment of how Tarot came to be
positioned at the core of the Western occult, focusing on its assumption by the French
occultists J.-B. Alliette (= Etteilla), Eliphas Levi, Gerard Encausse (= Papus), and,
important in the present context, Paul Christian.
Dee, John. (various titles)
See my references to Dee in Study of Christian Cabala in English, Part 1, pages 35-39, at
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/contributed/Karr/Biblios/ccinea.pdf, and the
reference list at University of St. Andrews, http://www-groups.dcs.st-
and.ac.uk/~history/References/Dee.html
de Givry, Emile Grillot. Picture Museum of Sorcery, Magic, and Alchemy, translated
from the French by J. Courtney Locke (French original, Paris: 1929: LE MUSEE DES
SORCIERS, MAGES ET ALCHEMISTES; New Hyde Park: University Books, 1963).
Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD), editors: Karel van der Toorn, Bob
Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995; second edition,
extensively revised, 1999).
Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, two volumes, edited by Wouter Hanegraaff
in collaboration with Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek, and Jean-Pierre Brach
(Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2005).
This superb collaboration contains entries on AGRIPPA, ALBERTUS MAGNUS, ALCHEMY,
AMULETS, ASTROLOGY, FRANCIS BARRETT, JOHN DEE, INTERMEDIARY BEINGS, MAGIC,
MAGICAL INSTRUMENTS, MICHAEL SCOT, PETER OF ABANO, SATANISM, and many more.
Ennemoser, Joseph. The History of Magic, 2 vols. translated from the German by
William Howitt, “To which is added an appendix… selected by Mary Howitt”
(London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854; rpt. New Hyde Park: University Books, 1970).
Fanger, Claire. “Virgin Territory: Purity and Divine Knowledge in Late Medieval
Catoptromantic Texts,” in Aries, NEW SERIES, vol. 5, no. 2 (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill,
2005).
Flint, Valerie I. J. The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1991).
Frazer, Sir James G. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (one-volume
abridged edition, New York: Macmillan, 1922; rpt. 1942, 1951, and subsequently).
_______. The New Golden Bough. A New Abridgement, revised in the light of recent
scholarship by Theodor H. Gaster (New York: Mentor Books, 1959; rpt. 1964).
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Kabbalah and originates from a Kabbalo-Christian exchange that most probably took
place in Provence in the twelfth century” (—page 12).
Janowitz, Naomi. Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians [RELIGION IN
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CENTURIES] (London/New York: Routledge, 2001).
Kahane, Henry; Kahane, Renee; and Pietrangeli, Angelina. “Picatrix and the
Talismans,” in Romance Philology 19:4 (Berkeley: University of California, 1966), pages
574-593.
Kieckhefer, Richard. Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century
[MAGIC IN HISTORY SERIES] (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1998).
_______. Magic in the Middle Ages [CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL TEXTBOOKS] (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989; rpt. 1995).
Kiesel, William. Magic Circles in the Grimoire Tradition [THREE HANDS PRESS OCCULT
MONOGRAPH 3] (Richmond Vista: Three Hands Press, 2012).
King, Francis. The Rites of Modern Occult Magic [= RITUAL MAGIC IN ENGLAND] (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1970): Appendix B. “Mathers’ Versions of the
Grimoires.”
King, Francis, and Sutherland, Isabel. The Rebirth of Magic (London: Corgi Books,
1982): Chapter 3. “Grimoires and Sorcerers”
Klaassen, Frank. “English Manuscripts of Magic, 1300-1500: A Preliminary Survey,” in
Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic, edited by Claire Fanger
(University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998).
_______. “Medieval Ritual Magic in the Renaissance,” in Aries, NEW SERIES, vol. 3, no.
2 (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2003).
_______. “Subjective Experience and the Practice of Medieval Ritual Magic,” in Magic,
Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume 7, Number 1 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, Summer 2012), pages 19-51.
_______. The Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Middle Ages and
Renaissance [MAGIC IN HISTORY SERIES] (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2012).
Kramer, Heinrich; and Sprenger James. The Malleus Maleficarum (Rome: 1484.
Translated by Montague Summers, London: John Rodker, 1928; rpt. New York: Dover
Publications, Inc., 1971).
Láng, Benedek. Unlocked Books: Manuscripts of Learned Magic in the Medieval Libraries of
Central Europe [MAGIC IN HISTORY SERIES] (University Park: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2008).
Not the libraries of Spain, Italy, or Greece, but rather Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia.
Lisiewsky, Joseph C. Howlings from the Pit: A Practical Handbook of Medieval Magic,
Goetia & Theurgy, introduction and commentary by Mark Stavish, afterword by
David Rankine (Tempe: The Original Falcon Press, 2011).
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Luck, Georg. Arcana Mundi. Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, A
Collection of Texts (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985; SECOND
EDITION 2006).
Malinowski, Bronislaw. MAGIC, SCIENCE AND RELIGION and Other Essays (Garden
City: Doubleday [Anchor Books A23], 1948; rpt. 1954).
Malchus, Marius. The Secret Grimoire of Turiel, Being a System of Magic of the Sixteenth
Century (London: Aquarian Press, 1960; rpt. edition edited by Darcy Kuntz
[KABBALISTIC GRIMOIRE SERIES I] Edmunds: Sure Fire Press, 1994).
See the note on Hockley’s MS of Complete Book of Magic Science, listed above.
Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon, edited by Todd
Klutz JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES, 245]
(London – New York: T&T Clark, 2003).
Of particular interest: Philip S. Alexander, “Sefer ha-Razim and the Problem of Black
Magic in Early Judaism” (pages 170-190), and Todd E. Klutz, “The Archer and the Cross:
Chorographic Astrology and Literary Design in the Testament of Solomon” (pages 219-244).
Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural, edited by Richard
Cavendish (New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 1970).
Though this over-sized set of twenty-four books looks like something one might buy a
volume per week at the supermarket, one has to be impressed with the names which
appear on the list of contributors and the editorial advisory board: Mircea Eliade, R. J.
Zwi Werblowsky, R. C. Zaehner, to name a few.
Topics include ABERDEEN WITCHES, ABRACADABRA, [H.C.] AGRIPPA, ALPHABET, FRANCIS
BARRETT, BLACK MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT, BLACK MASS, MAGIC AND MYSTICISM,
CORRESPONDENCES, JOHN DEE, DIVINATION, EUROPEAN WITCH PERSECUTIONS, EXORCISM,
FAUST, FINDING OF WITCHES, FRENCH WITCHCRAFT, GERMAN WITCHCRAFT, GRIMOIRE,
ITALIAN WITCHCRAFT, LOVE MAGIC, MAGIC, MAGIC PAPYRI, MAGIC SQUARES, MODERN
WITCHCRAFT, NORTH BERWICK WITCHES, OLD AGE AND WITCHCRAFT, PENTAGRAM,
PICATRIX, RITUAL, RITUAL MAGIC, ROOTS OF RITUAL MAGIC, SACRED MAGIC OF ABRA-MELIN,
SALEM WITCHES, SATANISM, SOMERSET WITCHES, THEURGY, THOMAS WEIR, WHITE MAGIC,
and WITCHCRAFT.
Massello, Robert. Raising Hell: A Concise History of the Black Arts—and Those Who
Dared to Practice Them (New York: Perigree Books, 1996).
See especially Chapter 1. “Black Magic and Sorcery,” which includes sections on “The
Great Grimoires” and “Conjurations from the True Grimoire.”
Mastrocinque, Attilio. From Jewish Magic to Gnosticism [STUDIEN UND TEXTE ZU
ANTIKE UND CHRISTENTUM 24] (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005).
McIntosh, Christopher. The Devil’s Bookshelf: A History of the Written Word in Western
Magic from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day (Wellingborough: The Aquarian Press,
1985).
McIntosh has written two of the best “popular” books on their respective subjects: The
Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology, and Rituals of an Esoterica Order (London: Aquarian
Press, 1980; rpt York Beach: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1997) and The Devil’s Bookshelf. These
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treatments are readable and reliable, being distillations of the long and careful research of
a first-rate scholar.
McLean, Adam (ed). A Treatise on Angel Magic, Being a Complete Transcription of MS.
Harley 6482 in the British Library [MAGNUM OPUS HERMETIC SOURCEWORKS #15]
(Edinburgh: Magnum Opus Sourceworks, 1982; rpt Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 1990;
rpt York Beach: Weiser Books, 2006).
The second of six volumes collectively called “The Treatises of Dr. Rudd” (MSS Harley
6181-6486). Angel Magic gathers material from several sources, including Agrippa, Dee,
Reginald Scott, Lemegeton, and Arbatel.
Meyer, Marvin; and Mirecki, Paul (eds). Ancient Magic and Ritual Power [RELIGIONS
IN THE GRÆCO-ROMAN WORLD, volume 129] (Leiden – New York – London: E. J.
Brill, 1995).
Meyer, Marvin; and Smith, Richard (eds). Ancient Christian Magic. Coptic Texts of
Ritual Power (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994).
Monod, Paul Kléber. Solomon’s Secret Arts: The Occult in the Age of Enlightenment
([New Haven]: Yale University Press, 2013).
“The winding, muddy and often submerged paths of occult thinking in the eighteenth
century may not be as familiar to British historians as its more visible public byways in
the late seventeenth century, but they were well travelled nonetheless. Adherents of the
occult kept up a lively interaction with conventional intellectual trends, reconfiguring
Hermeticism and Neoplatonism to suit the age of steam engines and revolutionary
politics. As in the past, they eagerly absorbed heterodox religious ideas and maintained a
keen interest in popular magic.” (Solomon’s Secret Arts—pages 18-19)
Necronomicon. A Sumerian High Magical Grimoire, edited and introduced by Simon
(New York: Avon Books, 1975; 1980).
A search of NECRONOMICON on the Internet yields all kinds of entertaining and curious
stuff, including shreds of the debate over whether the mysterious text ever actually
existed. Adding to the scholarship, confusion, or hoax—as you wish—surrounding this
work are
• The Necronomicon: The Book of Dead Names, edited by George Hay, introduced by Colin
Wilson. London: Neville Spearman Ltd, 1978; rpt. London: Skoob Books, 1992.
• The R’lyeh Text: Hidden Leaves from the Necronomicon, edited by George Hay, researched,
transcribed and annotated by Robert Turner, introduced by Colin Wilson. London: Skoob
Books, 1995.
• Tyson, Donald. Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred. St. Paul: Llewellyn
Publications, 2004.
For a brief account, refer to Owen Davies’ Grimoires: A History of Magic Books (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009), pages 262-8.
Neusner, Jacob; Frerichs, Ernest S; and Flesher, Paul V. Mc. (eds). Religion, Science,
and Magic: In Concert and in Conflict (Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press,
1989).
Page, Sophie. Magic in Medieval Manuscripts (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2004).
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_______. Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests, and Occult Approaches to the
Medieval Universe (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012).
Paracelsus. Archidoxes of Magic: Of Supreme Mysteries of Nature, or the Spirits of the
Plants, of Occult Philosophy, etc., translated by Robert Turner, 1655, introduction by
Stephen Skinner (London: Askin Publishers Ltd, 1975; rpt Berwick: Ibis Press, 2004.
Published as The Archidoxes of Magic, Kila: Kessinger Publishing, n.d.)
Petit Albert: The Marvelous Secrets of Natural & Cabalistic Magic – 1752, translated by
Tarl Warwick, introduced by Willam Kiesel (Emerald City: Ouroboros Press, 2016).
This grimoire used by “rural folk magic practitioners” is perhaps best known for “the
glorious hand” or “hand of glory,” namely the talismanic use of the severed hand of a
hanged man.
Picatrix: The Classic Medieval Handbook of Astrological Magic, translated [from the
Latin] by John Michael Greer and Christopher Warnock (Iowa City: Adocentyn
Press, 2010).
Picatrix OR Ghalat al-Hakim [THE GOAL OF THE WISE – the first English edition].
- VOLUME ONE, translated from the Arabic by Hashem Atallah; edited by William Kiesel
(Seattle: Ouroboros Press, 2002)
- VOLUME TWO, translated by Hashem Atallah and Geylan Holmquest; edited by William
Kiesel (Seattle: Ouroboros Press, 2008).
Published earlier were “Picatrix”: Das Ziel des Weisen von Pseudo-Magriti, translated into
German from the Arabic by Helmut Ritter and Martin Plessner (The Warburg
Institute/University of London, 1962)—a summary in English appears on pages lix-lxxv;
and Picatrix: The Latin Version of the GHAYAT AL-HAKIM, edited by David Pingree (The
Warburg Institute, 1986).
Raphael. Raphael’s Ancient Manuscript of Talismanic Magic (Chicago: The de Laurence
Co., 1916).
“The Art of Talismanic Magic: Being Selections from the Works of Rabbi Solomon,
Agrippa, F. Barrett, etc. by Raphael”—all in hand script.
Redgrove, H. Stanley. Magic and Mysticism: Studies in Bygone Beliefs (London: Rider,
1920; rpt. Secaucus: Citadel Press, 1972).
Rollo, David. Glamorous Sorcery: Magic and Literacy in the High Middle Ages [MEDIEVAL
CULTURES, Volume 25] (Minneapolis – London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
Runyon. Carroll “Poke.” The Book of Solomon’s Magick (Pasadena: Church of the
Hermetic Science, Inc.,1996).
Ryan, W. F. The Bathhouse at Midnight. An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in
Russia [MAGIC IN HISTORY SERIES] (University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1999).
Savedow, Steve (ed/tr). Sepher Rezial Hemelach. The Book of the Angel Rezial (York
Beach: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 2000).
Sepher Reziel Hamelach (≈ Sefer Raziel) is primarily a production of Jewish folk magic. It
is discussed by Joshua Trachtenberg in Jewish Magic and Superstition (New York:
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Behrman’s Jewish Book House, 1939; subsequently reprinted), a rare academic treatment
of Jewish magic, considered something of a classic, though in sore need of updating.
Savedow's work seems to attempt two things: (1) to provide a reliable English edition of
the text, and (2) to provide practicing magicians with yet another grimoire.
An appendix to this book (pages 280-286) gives a list of Sefer Raziel texts in manuscript
compiled by Adam McLean. The first MS listed is British Library MS. Sloane 3826,
which is discussed in the present paper above as Liber Salomonis. McLean’s list is posted on
the Internet at the Alchemy Web Site: “Sepher Raziel Manuscripts,”
www.levity.com/alchemy/raziel.html.
Schäfer, Peter; and Kippenberg, Hans G. (eds). Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Seminar
and Symposium [STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS (Numen BOOK SERIES), vol.
LXXV] (Leiden – New York – Köln: Brill, 1997).
Scot, Reginald. The Discovery of Witchcraft (1584 edition published by John Rodker,
1930; rpt., New York: Dover Publications, Inc.)
Scott, Sir Walter. Demonology and Witchcraft: Letters Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq
(1830; rpt. New York: Bell Publishing Company, 1970).
Seligmann, Kurt. The History of Magic (New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1948).
Shah, Sayed Idries. Oriental Magic (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957).
• Chapter 2. “Jewish Magic”
• Chapter 3. “Solomon: King and Magician”
• Bibliography, “Grimoire References”
Shores, Travis W. THE CONJUROR’S TOOLKIT 1400-1800: CIPHERS, IMAGES, AND
MAGICAL CULTURES OF POWER WITHIN THE SOLOMONIC GRIMOIRES (MA Thesis,
Hanover: Dartmouth College, 2014).
Shumacher, Wayne. Natural Magic and Modern Science: Four Treatises, 1590-1657
[MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE TEXTS & STUDIES, volume 63] (State University of
New York at Binghamton, 1989).
The treatises discussed are
(i) Bruno’s De Magia, Theses de magia, De magia mathematica
(ii) Martin Delrio’s Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex
(iii) Campanella’s De sensu rerum et magia; (iv) Gaspar Schott’s Magia universalis
_______. The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1972; 2nd printing 1973).
Shumaker’s study gives full accounts of astrology, witchcraft, magic, alchemy, hermetic
doctrine.
Skemer, Don C. Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages [MAGIC IN HISTORY
SERIES] (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006).
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Thomas, Keith. Religions and the Decline of Magic (Oxford – New York: Oxford
University Press, 1971; rpt. 1997).
Thompson, R. Campbell. Semitic Magic: Its Origins and Development (London: Luzac &
Company, 1908; rpt New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1971; New York: AMS Press,
1976; York Beach: Red Wheel/Weiser Books, 2000).
Tomlinson, Gary. Music in Renaissance Magic. Toward a Historiography of Others
(Chicago – London: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
Tyson, Donald. The Demonology of King James I: Includes the Original Text of
Daemonologie and News from Scotland (Woodbury: Llewellyn Publications, 2011).
_______. Enochian Magic for Beginners. The Original System of Angel Magic. St. Paul:
Llewellyn Publications, 1997.
_______. Ritual Magic. What It Is and How to Do It (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications,
1992).
Walker, D. P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic. From Ficino to Campanella (London:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1958; rpt. 1975).
_______. Unclean Spirits. Possession and Exorcism in France and England in the Late Sixteenth
and Early Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981).
Weyer, Johann (= Jean Wier, John Wier, Ioannes Wierus). Witches, Devils, and
Doctors in the Renaissance (DE PRÆSTIGIIS DÆMONUM, 1583), introduction and notes by
George Mora; translation by John Shea; preface by John Weber [MEDIEVAL AND
RENAISSANCE TEXTS & STUDIES, volume 73] (Binghamton: State University of New
York at Binghamton, 1991; rpt. Tempe: Arizona State University, 1998).
Of particular interest are two sections of Book Two: Chapter II, “A DESCRIPTION OF
THE INFAMOUS magician and of GOETEIA and THEOURGIA”; and Chapter V,
“CONCERNING CERTAIN books of magic,” which discusses “books passed down by
Raziel and Raphael,” Book Four on Occult Philosophy attributed to Agrippa, but appraised by
Weyer as “falsely ascribed to his hand,” and “the pestilential little book of Pietro d’Abano
entitled Heptameron or Elements of Magic.” Chapter VI goes on to discuss Trithemius and
his book Steganographia.
Unfortunately, this volume excludes the Appendix, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. However,
Joseph Peterson includes Pseudomonarchia Daemonum in both Latin and English as
Appendix 2 in his edition of The Lesser Key of Solomon (York Beach: Weiser Books, 2001),
pages 227-259. Appendix 3 gives a chart comparing the spirits of the Goetia with those of
Weyer.
Whitcomb, Bill. The Magician’s Companion: A Practical and Encyclopedic Guide to
Magical and Religious Symbolism [LLEWELLYN'S SOURCEBOOK] (Woodbury: Llewellyn
Publications: 1993).
Wilkinson, Robert J. “The Tetragrammaton in Private Devotion and Magic in the
Middle Ages,” = CHAPTER 7 of Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew
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Name of God – From the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century [STUDIES IN THE HISTORY
OF CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS, 179] (Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2015), pages 266-279.
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Addendum
SOLOMONIC MAGIC ON THE INTERNET
Some Solomonic texts seem to be everywhere on the Internet, while others are not
represented at all. Anything touched by one of the founders of the Golden Dawn is,
for better or worse, reproduced, pirated, and linked over and over, as, for example, W.
W. Westcott’s ubiquitous Sefer Yezirah or S. L. MacGregor Mathers’ Key of Solomon
and Lemegeton.
Many sites offering magic texts carry viruses and other sorts of e-vermin which can
plague those unfortunate enough to enter. Thus, for safety and, fortunately, a wide
array of reliably presented texts, refer to the following sites:
• ALCHEMY WEBSITE AND VIRTUAL LIBRARY: http://www.alchemywebsite.com/
• INTERNET SACRED TEXTS ARCHIVE: www.sacred-texts.com
• TWILIT GROTTO: www.esotericarchives.com
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