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The Study of Solomonic Magic in English
Don Karr
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to neatly circumscribe a canon of magic texts as being safely of the “Solomonic
cycle.” By arbitrary and rather unscientific means, one might do so by simply including those works
which, by tradition or artifice, bear Solomon’s name or derive from works which do. Even here, we
find at least three classes of material:
1. magical works from late antiquity through the early Middle Ages, such as The Testament of
Solomon and Sepher Razim*
2. Byzantine Greek texts of the Magical Treatise of Solomon and the Hygromanteia**
3. medieval grimoires, such as The Key of Solomon.
__________
* For English translations of The Testament of Solomon, see F. C. Conybeare, “The Testament of Solomon,” in Jewish
Quarterly Review, no. XI, 1899, and at www.esotericarchives.com > CLASSICAL GRIMOIRES; C. C. McCown, The Testament
of Solomon, Leipzig: 1922; Sayed Idries Shah, “The Catalogue of Demons” = CHAPTER 11 of The Secret Lore of Magic
(Secaucus: Citadel Press, 1972); D. C. Duling, “Testament of Solomon,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (= OTP),
edited by J. H. Charlesworth (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983). Duling’s introduction in OTP 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, p. 447—online at http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/index.jsp) as listing forty-nine
Solomonic “scientific and magical books” in Arabic and Hebrew literature, and C. C. McCown’s added comment
(Testament of Solomon, p. 100) that Seligsohn’s list is by no means exhaustive.
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, 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). For a survey of the Testament’s background and dissemination, find also 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).
Sefer ha-Razim, a third- or fourth-century 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).
** Hygromanteia is a Greek astrological/magical text also known as Solomon’s Epistle to Rehoboam. For an English
translation of the Hygromanteia, see APPENDIX 1 of Pablo A. Torijano’s Solomon the Esoteric King: From King to Magus,
Development of a Tradition [SUPPLEMENTS TO THE JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF JUDAISM] (Leiden: Brill, 2002) [=
Ph.D. dissertation, New York: New York University, 2000].
© Don Karr, 1993, 2000-5; revised 2006: updated 2007-2010
email: dk0618@yahoo.com
All rights reserved.
License to Copy
This publication is intended for personal use only. Paper copies may be made for personal use.
With the above exception, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, without permission in writing from the author.
Reviewers may quote brief passages.2009
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Attribution to Solomon already complicates several biblical texts* and apocrypha.** Solomon is the
hero of many ancient tales in the East; still his legend figures into late traditions of the Freemasons.
Rumors which suggest that the wise king left secret books of magic seem never to have died—nor to
have slumbered—since ancient times.
†
In order to make short work of closing the category of Solomonic magical works, we shall follow
E[liza] M[arian] Butler
††
and focus on the late grimoires. The limitations of her work, however, must
be acknowledged: Butler depended primarily on published works of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, including familiar works in English (from Francis Barrett, Montague Summers,
C. J. S. Thompson, Arthur E. Waite—even Aleister Crowley) and other modern languages (the
collections of J. C. Horst and J. Scheible in particular).
The classes and selections of the Solomonic cycle according to Butler are
1. The Clavicles (Keys)
a. THE KEY OF SOLOMON
b. Lemegeton, or LESSER KEY OF SOLOMON
2. The Grimoires
a. Grimorium Verum
b. TRUE BLACK MAGIC
c. THE GRAND GRIMOIRE
3. Honorius
a. The Grimoire of Honorius
b. Liber iuratus
__________
* Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.
** Wisdom of Solomon, Odes of Solomon, and the Psalms of Solomon.
† See Torijano, Solomon the Esoteric King.
†† See Butler’s Ritual Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949;) and its companion volumes, The Myth of the
Magus (1949) and The Fortunes of Faust (1946), 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
• Forbidden Rites by Richard Kieckhefer (1997)
• Conjuring Spirits edited by Claire Fanger (1998)
• The Bathhouse at Midnight: Magic in Russia by W. F. Ryan (1999)
• a reprint of Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella by D. P. Walker (2000, orig. 1958)
• Icons of Power: Ritual Practices in Late Antiquity by Naomi Janowitz (2002)
• Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy, and Reform in the Late Middle Ages by Michael D. Bailey (2003)
• Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World edited by S. Noegel, J. Walker, and B. Wheeler
(2003)
• Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages by Don C. Skemer (2006).
• Strange Revelations: Magic, Poison, and Sacrilege in Louis XIV’s France by Lynn Wood Mollenauer (2006)
• Unlocked Books: Manuscripts of Learned Magic in the Medieval Libraries of Central Europe by Benedek Láng (2008)
Compare the list of Solomonic texts presented here with that appearing in The Black Arts by Richard Cavendish (New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967), Appendix 1: “The Grimoires.” 2009
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To the list above, we might add*
4. Semiphoras and Shemhamphoras Salomonis Regis
5. Liber Salomonis : Cephar Raziel, British Library Sloane MS 3826
While reference to the contents of some of these works is made, it is not the aim of this paper 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 anyone interested in pursuing this material
is to go to TWILIT GROTTO at www.esotericarchives.com where most of the items discussed below,
along with a wealth of other texts, are responsibly and tastefully presented—and can be viewed for
free. (If the omissions at the site frustrate the reader, for the cost of one typical printed grimoire, a
CD can be ordered from TWILIT GROTTO containing “50+ complete books/30 complete
grimoires”—a forgivably mild exaggeration.)
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 and 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.
__________________________
* 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
MAGIC), 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 below. A case could certainly be made for
wedging these texts into our canon. However, our additions, 4 and 5, contain specific internal reference to Solomon,
which the texts in The Keys to the Gateway of Magic do not—despite the subtitle of the book.
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.”
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…”
The Keys to the Gateway of Magic is volume 2 of the series SOURCEWORKS OF CEREMONIAL MAGIC, volume 1 being
Practical Angel Magic of Dr John Dee’s Enochian Tables : Tabularum Bonam Angelorum Invocationes, by Stephen Skinner and David
Rankine (London: Golden Hoard Publishing , 2004); Volume 3, The Goetia of Dr Rudd: Angels and Demons… (Skinner and
Rankine)—discussed below, § 1. b. Lemegeton; Volume 4, The Veritable Key of Solomon (Skinner and Rankine)—discussed
below, § 1. a. THE KEY OF SOLOMON;. Volume 5, The Grimoire of St. Cyprian: Clavis Inferni, Latin translation by Peter
Forshaw (Skinner and Rankine—2009); Volume 6, Sepher Raziel (Don Karr and Stephen Skinner—Singapore: Golden
Hoard Press, 2010).
The first three volumes of this attractively prepared 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 compiler of A
Treatise on Angel Magic (MS Harley 6482), an edition of which was published by Adam McLean (Edinburgh: MAGNUM
OPUS SOURCEWORKS [# 15], 1982, and subsequently reprinted; see the bibliography below: “McLean”). 2009
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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” at the web page DIVINE MEDIATOR FIGURES IN THE
BIBLICAL WORLD at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/mediators.html —the article Leitch
cites). Leitch does go on to give a 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 of 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. 2009
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For the comments of an experienced “Solomonic magician,” refer to Carroll “Poke” Runyon’s threestar 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/mem ... 04-3689026-2823924.
OTHER NOTEWORTHY RECENT PUBLICATIONS:
• Readers should note Stephen Skinner’s expansion of Crowley’s Liber 777: The Complete Magician’s
Tables (Singapore: Golden Hoard Press, 2006, and 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 volume has more than 800 columns.) § M, “Magic of the Grimoires—Angels,
Demons and Spirits,” connects with the topic at hand. § M offers tables drawn from
¾ Testament of Solomon
¾ Liber Juratus, the Sworn Book of Honorius
¾ Peter de Abano’s Heptameron
¾ Codex Latinus Monacensis
¾ Goetia (Lemegeton Book I)
¾ Theurgia Goetia (Lemegeton Book II)
¾ Ars Paulina (Lemegeton Book III)
¾ Ars Almadel (Lemegeton Book IV)
¾ Key of Solomon – Clavicula Salomonis
¾ Sacred Magic of Abramelin
¾ Franz Bardon’s Practice of Magical Evocation
¾ Grimoirium Verum
¾ Grand Grimoire
• The often 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):
¾ Maphteah Shelomo. Clavicula Salomonis: A Hebrew Manuscript newly discovered and now described
(London: D. Nutt / Frankfurt a.M: J. Kauffmann, 1903)
¾ 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 the lead of Claudia Rohrbacher-Sticker) 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 editon of 358 copies. 2009
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1. a. THE KEY OF SOLOMON:
The best-circulated presentation of the KEY OF SOLOMON is S. L. MacGregor Mathers’
Key of Solomon the King (London: Redway, 1888; rpt. New York – York Beach: Samuel Weiser
Inc., 1974 and subsequently). Mathers compiled a text from several MSS found in the British
Library’s Sloane, Harleian, Landsdowne, and King MS collections; he attempted to weave from
these an ideal text.*
The KEY is described in Butler’s Ritual Magic, pp. 47-64, and in C. J. S. Thompson’s
Mysteries and Secrets of Magic, pp. 229-240 (London: J. Lane the Bodley Head, 1927; rpt. New
York: Causeway Books, 1973).
Another fair presentation of the KEY appears in Idries Shah’s Secret Lore of Magic (New
York: Citadel Press, 1958; rpt. 1972; hereafter Secret Lore or simply “Shah”) pp. 9-60. Not quite
so good is Arthur Edward Waite’s treatment in The Book of Ceremonial Magic (London: Rider,
1911; rpt. New York: Bell Publishing, 1969; hereafter Ceremonial Magic or simply “Waite”) pp.
58-64 (Bell edition). (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.)
The most extensive treatment of the KEY to date is Volume IV of Stephen Skinner and
David Rankine’s SOURCEWORKS OF CEREMONIAL MAGIC, The Veritable Key of Solomon (London
– Singapore: Golden Hoard Press / Woodbury: Llewellyn Publications, 2008), which presents
three KEY OF SOLOMON texts translated from the French by Paul Harry Barron: KEY 1. The
Keys of Rabbi Solomon (Wellcome MS 4670 [1796]), KEY 2. La Clavicule ou La Clef de Salomon
(Wellcome MS 4669 Art. 1 [1796]), and KEY 3. Traité Universal des Clavicucles de Salomon
(Wellcome MS 4669 Art. 2),** these being “three different texts from those translated by S. L.
MacGregor Mathers.” The texts are introduced by a 60-page survey of the history and various
“text-groups” of the KEY supplemented by several appendices listing KEY MSS.
†
A composite of material related to the KEY is assembled in Ebenezer Sibley’s (or Sibly)
Clavis or Key to Unlock the Mysteries of Magic of Rabbi Solomon, translated from Hebrew into French and
from French rendered into English with additions (ca. 1800). Two reproduction editions have recently
been published: (1) Ebenezer Sibly, Solomon’s Clavis, or Key to Unlock the Mysteries of Magic
(Leicestershire: Society of Esoteric Endeavor, 2008), which offers Sibly’s manuscript (c. 1800),
English translations primarily from various French magical sources, unadorned, i.e., “no
modern introduction,” with Sibly’s preface; (2) Ebenezer Sibley, The Clavis or Key to the Magic of
Solomon…from a manuscript prepared by Frederick Hockley, with introduction, notes, and
commentary by Joseph Peterson (Lake Worth: Ibis Press, 2009).
††
____________________
* Mathers’ version of the KEY is included in the opportunistic no-frills “pirate” collection, The Clavicula Solomonis (sic) by
Magus Tsirk Susej—Jesus Krist backwards, for heaven’s sake—(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
otherwise.
** 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 date 1796, with introduction and commentary by Stephen Skinner & David Rankine. London: Avalonia,
2009.
† 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 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 TextGroup [IA],” and so on. Mathiesen adds some comments on “A Hebrew Version of the Key of Solomon,” i.e., Mafteach
Shelomoh, and “An Arabic Version…” entitled Al-Miftah al-Azam li-Sulayman al-Hakim, and offers some “Tentative
Conclusions.”
†† See Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994): on Sibly, pages
107ff; on Hockley, pages 170ff. 2009
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1. b. Lemegeton, or LESSER KEY OF SOLOMON:
The Lemegeton consists of five sections:
i. Goetia
ii. Theurgia-Goetia [§§ I and II]
iii. Pauline Art
iv. Almadel
v. Notary Art (or Ars Nova)
Goetia is the best circulated of the sections, having been published numerous times, the
best-known version being the one transcribed by S. L. MacGregor Mathers in 1898, with an
introduction entitled “Preliminary Definition of Magic.” A few years later, Aleister Crowley
published this edition enhanced by his own introduction, preface, preliminary invocation, and
other ornaments (Foyers: S[ociety for the] P[ropagation of] R[eligious] T[ruth] Ltd, 1904). In
1916, the pirating began with an edition bearing the name L. W. de Laurence and the title The
Lesser Key of Solomon—Goetia: The Book of Evil Spirits (Chicago: de Laurence, Scott and Co.),
which is the Mathers/Crowley work unacknowledged; this edition is listed as still in print (!) A
larger version—in size, not in content—bearing Crowley’s name was published in 1970 (New
York: Ram Importer Inc.; subsequent editions from Equinox Ltd in 1976, Magickal Childe in
1989, and First Impressions in 1993) as The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King; this is, for the
most part, a dressed up version of the “SPRT/de Laurence” edition.
Goetia is described and quoted in Butler’s Ritual Magic (pp. 65-80); it is presented in both
Shah (pp. 179-211; 299-304) and Waite (pp. 64-66; 184-235). Waite’s “list of the seventy-two
spirits…along with their sigils” is reproduced in Christopher McIntosh’s Devil’s Bookshelf
(Wellingborough: The Aquarian Press, 1985: pp. 168-189). Shah also gives Almadel in Secret
Lore (pp. 169-178).* Waite includes Pauline Art (pp. 66-72) and [The Art of] Almadel (pp. 72-
77). McIntosh includes the conjuration of Samael from a MS of the Pauline Art “copied out by
Frederick Hockley, the indefatigable nineteenth-century collector of occult documents” (The
Devil’s Bookshelf, pp. 190-1).
A full transcription of The Art of Almadel of Solomon from British Library, MS Sloane 2731
(collated with Sloane 3648 and 3825) appears as an appendix to Jan R. Veenstra’s article “The
Holy Almandal: Angels and the Intellectual Aims of Magic,” 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).**
Some recent efforts have offered complete, or near-complete, editions of Lemegeton. All
parts but Notary Art appear in Kevin Wilby’s Lemegetton: A Medieval Manual of Solomonic Magic
[Sloane MS 3648] (Dyfed: Hermetic Research Series NUMBER 5, 1985). In his article, “The
Lemegetton Revealed,” (in The Hermetic Journal, Issue 29, ed. Adam McLean, 1985), Wilby says
that Notary Art “is fragmentary and nowhere near complete,” referring to it as the “corrupted
__________
* 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)—OR the
Arbatel of Magick—a collection of forty-nine magical aphorisms, 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, page 14). On the INTERNET,
see Benjamin Rowe’s PDF at NORTON’S IMPERIUM, www.hermetic.com/browe-archive > Classics of Magick, AND
Sadena’s 2003 translation at http://www.arbatel.org/index.html.
** 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 Almadel”). 2009
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fifth part.” Wilby is even harsher in his FOREWORD to The Lemegetton, referring to “the fifth
and final book” as “the only blemish I found in this masterly work,” deeming it “literary tripe.”
A so-so photocopy (with some pages missing) of British Library Sloane MS 2731 (which is
in English) and a remarkably poor typescript comprise Nelson and Anne White’s Lemegeton:
Clavicula Salomonis, The Complete Lesser Key of Solomon the King (Fremont: Technology Group,
1979; 2nd
edition, once available at www.techgroupbooks.com—an unfortunately now-defunct
site which proved that one picture is worth a thousand words).
The edition from the International Guild of Occult Sciences (hereafter I.G.O.S.), King
Solomon’s The Lemegeton: Lesser Key (or The Lemegeton: King Solomon’s Lesser Key) (Palm Springs:
I.G.O.S., 1997) contains the Whites’ photocopy slightly enlarged with a transcription which is
neat and readable. Neither the Whites’ nor the I.G.O.S. version includes Notary Art, save for a
few “sample pages,” stating that Notary Art is “quite obviously not a ‘book,’ but rather a
collection of notes and explanations which should have been presented with the first book,
The Goetia” (the Whites’ edition, p. 57); and “a scattered and undeveloped jotting down…at
best supplementary notations” (I.G.O.S. edition, p. 65).
Robin E. Cousins (in Elizabethan Magic, edited by Robert Turner [Longmead: Element
Books, 1989], p. 140) observes that Notary Art is, in fact, omitted from Sloane 2731, the MS
used by the Nelsons and I.G.O.S. According to Cousins (Elizabethan Magic, p. 141), Wilby
based his edition on a manuscript (Sloane MS 3648) which contains the Notary Art, but—as
noted above—he saw fit to exclude it from his “complete” edition.
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 contemporary author/editor, mentioned
above) has been published in a collector’s edition (Seattle: Trident Press, 1987 and 1997) along
with some support material: “An Astrological Catechisme” and “Solomon and the Ars Notoria”
from Lynn Thorndike’s History of Magic and Experimental Science, and “Ars Notoria in
Manuscript” by Adam McLean. A low-cost edition, titled variously Ars Notoria: The Magical Art
of Solomon, Showing the Cabalistical Key of Magical Operations or The Magical Art of Solomon, being the
Ars Notoria: A Grimoire [KABBALISTIC GRIMOIRE SERIES III], without the sundry additions,
edited by Darcy Kuntz, was put out by Holmes Publishing Group [Edmonds] in 1998 and
remains available in a more recent reprint edition.
While not really contradicting the Nelson/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; on the Internet at Rowe’s site, Norton’s Imperium:
Enochian Magick Papers & Links > “Classics of Magic,” at www.hermetic.com/browe-archive),
Rowe says that in some manuscripts (such as the one from which he transcribed, Sloane MS.
2731—the same as the Nelsons’ 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 Nelson and I.G.O.S. editions. For a full
transcription, see Rowe’s site.*
Another recent edition is Lemegeton: The Complete Lesser Key of Solomon, edited by Mitch
Henson, with revised illustrations by Jeff Wellman (Jacksonville: Metatron Books, 1999),
which also omits Notary Art. Henson says in his introduction, “Both the content and the
context of Ars Notoria show no affinity for the listings of spirits that mark the bulk of the
material contained in The Lesser Key of Solomon.” This tidied-up (perhaps a bit too tidy),
inexpensive edition presents “a careful collation of manuscripts from the Sloane collection in
the British Library.”
__________________
* Ars Nova, even when it has been transcribed, has been read incorrectly as a continuous text rather than as columns.
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. 2009
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The LESSER KEY collection with Ars Nova—not Ars Notoria—is included in The Embassy
of Lucifer’s Clavicula Solomonis—noted above in §1.a, first note ; Ars Nova is identical to
Rowe’s version, even including the footnote numbers in the text—without the footnotes.
The Lesser Key of Solomon edited by Joseph H. Peterson (York Beach: Red Wheel/Weiser,
2001) includes a complete text—all five books—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, p. xiii).
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 and Wellcome MS 3203, by Stephen Skinner and David Rankine (London
– Singapore: Golden Hoard Press, 2007). The question, “Why another edition of the
Lemegeton?” is taken up in the introduction (I have condensed):
1. The manuscript contains much material which no other version does. …
2. We wanted to show how the system of magic in the Lemegeton was developed and actually
practiced by working magicians in the seventeenth century. …
3. The seals in this manuscript are beautiful and more carefully drawn than in any other
manuscript …
4. This version explains the preparation and protection of the magician, specifically what
precise angel he should use to compel each individual demon, and the use of the Brass
Vessel. These key practical details are not present in any other edition of the Goetia.
5. We wanted to trace where the Lemegeton material comes from and to demonstrate that its
roots reach back at least to the thirteenth century, and the connections between angel
magicians and those evoking in the grimoire tradition, which in the case of this manuscript
proves to be identical. …
The Goetia of Dr Rudd is Volume III of SOURCEWORKS OF CEREMONIAL MAGIC, all by
Skinner and Rankine. (See note on page 3 above.) It contains Goetia, Theurgia Goetia, The Art
Pauline, and The Art Almadel—but not Ars Notoria because “it is not a workable system as it
appears in these manuscripts,” without the crucial notæ illustrations.
Further, see Michael Camille’s “Visual Art in Two Manuscripts of the Ars Notoria,” in
Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic, edited by Claire Fanger (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998; hereafter Conjuring Spirits); “The Notary Art”
(CHAPTER 4, § 1) in Frank Klaassen’s RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF
MAGIC: MANUSCRIPTS OF MAGIC 1300-1600, Ph.D. dissertation: Toronto: University of
Toronto, 1999 (pp. 109-129); and Klaassen’s § THE ARS NOTORIA within “English Manuscripts
of Magic, 1300-1500: A Preliminary Survey,” in Conjuring Spirits…, (ed. Fanger), pp. 14-19.
2. a. Grimorium Verum:
Again we can turn to Waite (pp. 96-100, 159-183, 236-240, with numerous other
references) and Shah (pp. 64-68; 75-112).
An attractive edition was put out by Trident Press (Seattle: 1994): 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,
paper. The I.G.O.S. version offers the text in both French and English (Palm Springs: 1996). 2009
4
10
The best 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.
2. b. TRUE BLACK MAGIC:
There are conflicting descriptions of this text. Butler describes a MS containing 45
talismans with details of their workings and “all magical characters known unto this day” from
a Hebrew original (Ritual Magic, p. 80). Waite (p. 100) refers to it as “simply an adapted version
of the KEY… [and] like the Grimorium Verum, it is exceedingly confused, and is rendered
almost unmeaning by the omission of the practical part.” Waite does, however, quote and
paraphrase it frequently:
• p. 146 on abstinence
• pp. 147-148 on baths
• p. 149 on inks
• p. 154 on instruments
• p. 166 on pen and ink
• pp. 174-176 on parchment
• pp. 177-179 on cleaning
• pp. 300-302 for love
• pp. 306-307 for invisibility
2. c. THE GRAND GRIMOIRE:
THE GRAND GRIMOIRE, also called the Red Dragon, is described and quoted by Waite (pp.
100-103/pp. 241-264). Shah introduces it and from it offers an operation for conjuring
Lucifuge (pp. 68-74). There is an artful limited edition (500 copies) from Trident/Ars Obscura
(Seattle: 1996) translated by Gretchen Rudy from the 1612 Italian edition; this has been
reprinted by Trident in a $100 “library edition” with an optional $25 slipcase (2006). I.G.O.S.
has its typically pricey edition titled The Red Dragon—The Grand Grimoire (translated by Robert
Blanchard, Palm Springs: 1995), which gives both the French and English. Lastly, there is an
economy version of The Grand Grimoire edited by Darcy Kuntz [KABBALISTIC GRIMOIRE
SERIES IV] (Edmonds: Holmes Publishing Groups, 2001).
3. The Grimoire & SWORN BOOK of Honorius:
Distinction should immediately be made between the SWORN BOOK OF HONORIUS and
the later, derivative—and diabolical—Grimoire, also called the Constitution of Honorius.
Unfortunately, these titles are often interchanged (as with the I.G.O.S. edition discussed
below).
The Grimoire is treated in the books we have already cited: Butler: pp. 89-97, Waite: pp.
103-110, and Shah: pp. 253-280.
The Grimoire of Pope Honorius “from a [German] manuscript from the Infernal Library of a
Schwabian farmer,” translated by Kineta Ch’ien, was published in a limited edition in 1999 by
Trident Books (Seattle); both the English and German are included. The text is somewhat
different from the one treated by Butler, Waite, and Shah, though introduced by The
Constitution of Pope Honorius given in French and English, the English of which is identical to
Shah, pp. 255-6 and quite similar to Waite pp. 107-9. Included in the Trident edition is support
material, such as a “Bibliographic Prolegomenon,” an “Examination of the Editions of the
Grimoire,” and yet another text, Coniurationes Demonum (in English).
A translation of the SWORN BOOK, or Liber sacer sive liber juratus, was done by Daniel
Driscoll: The Sworn Book of Honorius the Magician (Gillette: Heptangle Books, 1977 & Berkeley
Heights: Heptangle Books, 1983). Printed as a fancy collectable, this work is now difficult and
expensive to obtain; alas, it is incomplete and considered somewhat inaccurate. I.G.O.S. 2009
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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 the iuratus or SWORN BOOK of
Honorius mentioned by Lynn Thorndike in History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York:
Macmillan Company, 1923-1958; rpt. Columbia University Press), volume II, chapter XLIX:
“Solomon and the Ars Notoria.”
There is 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. § 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 as APPENDIX B of The Magic Seal of Dr. John Dee: The Sigillum Dei Aemeth (York
Beach: Teitan Press, 2009).
See “A Thirteenth-Century Ritual to Attain the Beatific Vision from the Sworn Book of
Honorius of Thebes” by Robert Mathiesen, and “The Devil’s Contemplatives: The Liber
iuratus, The Liber visionum and Christian Appropriation of Jewish Occultism” by Richard
Kieckhefer—both in Conjuring Spirits. Refer also to Frank Klaassen’s Ph.D. dissertation,
RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAGIC: MANUSCRIPTS OF MAGIC
1300-1600 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1999), pages 129-135, and Klaasen’s § THE LIBER
SACER OR SWORN BOOK OF HONORIUS within “English Manuscripts of Magic, 1300-1500: A
Preliminary Survey,” in Conjuring Spirits…, (ed. Fanger), pp. 19-20.
4. Semiphoras & Shemhamphoras Salomonis Regis (hereafter S&S):
S&S is surrounded by a mish-mash derived from Agrippa, pseudo-Agrippa, Jewish magic
(Shimmush Tehillim), folk magic, and fragments from the Faustian school in a collection titled
The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses (New York: Wehman Brothers, n.d. [1880]; and Carbondale:
Egyptian Publishing Company, n.d.; Chicago: The de Laurence Company, 1919.)
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.
In 2008, Joseph H. Peterson produced a nicely-printed edition (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.
The texts (with seals in Hebrew and magical script) of The Sixth Book of Moses and The
Seventh Book of Moses are English translations from Johann Scheibel’s Das Sechste und Siebente buch
Mosis (Stuttgart: 1849), which is volume six of Scheibel’s Bibliothek der zauber geheimnis—und
offenbarungs-bucher.
The S&S texts also trace their origins back to German collections, namely volumes 3 and
4 of J. C. Horst’s Zauberbiliothek (6 vols., Mainz: 1821-6); and volume 3 of Scheibel’s Das Kloster
(12 vols., Stuttgart and Leipzig: Theodor Thomas, 1846).*
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 : Cephar Raziel,
discussed below. For S&S, see Wehman, Egyptian, and de Laurence—pp. 116-140; GonzolezWippler—pp. 125-164. Peterson, APPENDIX 3—pp. 141-168.
__________
* Other items from Das Kloster (vols. 2 and 5, respectively) are posted at the website of the Cleveland Public Library:
Libellus Magicus: A Nineteenth-Century Manuscript of Conjurations and Praxis Magica Fausti, introduced, annotated, and
transcribed by Stephen J. Zietz (1999); go to www.cpl.org/010012/libellus/LIBELUS2.html (NOT FOUND: December
29, 2008) to bring up the contents page. Both are described by Waite (Black Magic, Weiser edition, pp. 102-4; Ceremonial
Magic, Bell edition, pp. 110-112) and the first text is presented in both Latin and English at TWILIT GROTTO:
www.esotericarchives.com > Black Magic with the title Verus Jesuitarum Libellus. 2009
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5. Liber Salomonis, British Library Sloane MS 3826:
Liber Salomonis is not treated at length in any printed source, though it is described in
Ceremonial Magic (pp. 20-21) and mentioned here and there by Shah and Butler. Thorndike
mentions this MS only once in History of Magic (volume II, p. 281).
The first section of Liber Salomonis refers to itself as “Cephar Raziel,” “Sephar Raziel,”
“booke of Raziel,” and “booke of Razeelus.” Solomon is indicated as the recipient and
redactor—not the author—of the book in the narrative which introduces the text. However,
most instructions begin, “Salomon said….” Others begin, “Hermes said…,” “Adam said…,”
“Nathaniel said…,” “Moyses said…,” and “Raziel said….” Narrative passages refer to Raziel
as the source of the book and to Adam as the original recipient.
Sepher Raziel comprises folio pages 2r
-57r
of British Library Sloane MS 3826; it contains
seven treatises* (as described on its own fo. 3r
):
1. Clavis…“of astronomy and of the starres” (ff 5
v
-11
v
)
2. Ala…“the vertues of some stones of herbes and of beasts” (ff 12
r
-27
r
)
3. Tractatus Thymiamatus…of suffumigations and of allegations of them and divisions” (ff 27
r
-34
r
)
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 34
r
-46
r
)
5. The “Treatise of Cleanesse…of Abstinence” (ff 46
r
-51
r
)
6. “Samaim” which “nameth all the heavens and her angels and the operations or workings of
them” (ff 51
v
-53
v
)
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 53
v
-57
v
)
The rest of Sloane MS 3826 consists of
1. Incipit Canon: The rule of the book of consecration, or the manner of working (ff 57
r
-60
r
)
2. Orisons (ff 60
r
-65
r
)
3. Magical directions (ff 65
r
-83
v
)**
4. Liber Lunæ (ff 84
r
-94
r
) †
5. Raphael: The Invocation of Oberon Concerning Physick &c (ff 98
r
-99
r
)
6. The Call of Bilgal, One of the 7 etc. (fo. 99
v
)
7. An Experiment for a Fayry (fo. 100
r
)
8. Beleemus De imaginibus (ff 100
v
-101
r
)
________________________________
* These sections also appear in Sloane MS 3846, fols. 128r-157v. (refer to Joseph H. Peterson’s transcription at
http://www.esotericarchives.com/raziel/raziel.htm ).
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) for a full transcription of the seven treatises of the Sloane
3826 “Cephar Raziel,” along with a modern English version.
** Robert Mathiesen (in the article listed below, page 13) 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 this identification (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; Hedegard allows that this “may possibly be right” (page 14, note 13).
The two paragraphs on fo. 68 begin, “Dixit Thebit Pencorat…” and “Thebit said….” The reference is almost
certainly 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. (My thanks to Lester Ness who kindly provided information regarding Thebit Pencorat = Tabit ibn Qurra.)
† See Liber Lunæ – The Book of the Moon, edited and introduced by Don Karr (forthcoming). 2009
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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; and (iv) Beleemus De imaginibus (BELEMUS ON THE IMAGES [of the planets]).
Folio pages 58r
-83v
have been identified as material from THE SWORN BOOK of Honorius (see
above, note ** on page 12, and below, “Printed notices of Sloane MS 3826”: Mathiesen).
Printed notices of Sloane MS 3826:
• Alchemy Web Site, “organised by Adam McLean.” “Sepher Raziel Manuscripts,” on-line at
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/raziel.html; also in print as an appendix to Steve Savedow’s
Sepher Rezial Hemelach: The Book of the Angel Rezial, York Beach: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 2000.
• Cresswell, Julia. The Watkins Dictionary of Angels, London: Watkins Publishing, 2006; Cresswell
uses Sloane 3826 as her “base text” in compiling this grand list of “angels and angelic beings.”
• Karr, Don; and Skinner, Stephen. Sepher Raziel also known as Liber Salomonis, a 1564 English
Grimoire from Sloane MS 3826. [SOURCE WORKS OF CEREMONIAL MAGIC, volume 6]. Singapore:
Golden Hoard Press, 2010.
• Klaassen, Frank F. RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAGIC:
MANUSCRIPTS OF MAGIC 1300-1600. Ph.D. dissertation: Toronto: University of Toronto, 1999:
p. 133 (ref. Liber sacer i.e., “Honorius material”), p. 207 (as an example of a seventeenth-century
collection combining ritual and scholastic image magic), p. 259 (listed under “Seventeenth
Century [MSS]”).
• Mathiesen, Robert. “A Thirteenth-Century Ritual to Attain the Beatific Vision from the Sworn
Book of Honorius of Thebes,” in Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic,
edited by Claire Fanger. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998: p. 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, p. 995.” (This entry
appears on the British Library reference form which accompanies the microfilm version of the
MS from which the current transcription has been done.)
• 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: pp. 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: p. 281.
• Waite, Arthur Edward. Book of Black Magic and of Pacts. London: Redway, 1898; rpt. New York:
Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1972: pp. 33-4 of the Weiser edition.
• Waite, Arthur Edward. The Book of Ceremonial Magic. London: Rider, 1911; rpt. New York: Bell
Publishing Company, 1969: pp. 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.) 2009
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Works of Related Interest:
Abraham von Worms, AKA Abraham of Wurzburg AND Abraham the Jew.
The Book of Sacred Magic of Abramelin [Abra-Melin] or Abramelin the Mage.
• Translated and edited by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, London: Watkins, 1898; 2nd
edition
1900; rpt. New York: Causeway Books, 1974; New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1975.
• A SHORTER VERSION IN SEVEN CHAPTERS, translated by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, edited
by Adrian Axworthy. [KABBALISTIC GRIMOIRE SERIES VI] Edmunds: Holmes Publishing
Group, 2001; 2nd
revised edition, Sequim: Holmes Publishing Group, 2008.
• A NEW TRANSLATION, compiled and edited by Georg Dehn, translated by Steven Guth.
Lake Worth: Ibis Press, 2006.
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 is the translation of Robert Turner (London: 1655) and the only edition which includes all of the
items in 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 Agrippa’s Fourth Book and the Heptameron or Magical Elements of Peter de Abano; find both at
www.esotericarchives.com.
______________. Three Books of Occult Philosophy, 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. Text at
www.esotericarchives.com.
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).
(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, pp. 113-132. 2009
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(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
edition revised 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 recent Weiser edition is 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, 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”?
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 18
th
-century writer in “From Ghost Writer
to Magus: Paul Christian” (= CHAPTER 9).
Cresswell, Julia. The Watkins Dictionary of Angels: Over 2,000 Entries on Angels & Angelic Beings. London:
Watkins Publishing, 2006.
Cresswell uses British Library Sloane 3826, Liber Salomonis/Cephar Raziel, as her “base text.”
Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels. New York: The Free Press [A
Division of The Macmillan Company], 1967.
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.” 2009
4
16
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 10-12, and the reference list
at 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, 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.
Ennomoser, Joseph. The History of Magic, 2 vols. translated from the German by William Howitt, “To
which is added an appendix… selected by Mary Howitt.” 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.
_________________. 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.
Gardner, F. L.; Hockley, Frederick; & Redgrove, H. S. Hebrew Talismanic Magic, edited by Darcy
Kuntz [KABBALISTIC GRIMOIRE SERIES V]. Edmunds: Holmes Publishing Group, 2001.
Gollancz, Hermann (trans.) The Book of Protection: Syrian Magic and Charms, Being Codex A of a Syrian
Magical Maniscript. Edmonds – Sequim: Holmes Publishing Group, 2001;
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008.
See in particular, CHAPTER 2, “Italian Renaissance Magic and Cabala,” CHAPTER 3, “Planetary and Angel
Magic in the Renaissance,” and CHAPTER 10, “Ritual Magic from 1850 to the Present.”
Greene, Thomas M. “Language, Signs and Magic,” in Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Seminar &
Symposium, edited by Peter Schäfer & Hans G. Kippenberg. Leiden – New York – Köln: Brill, 1997.
Greene opens his discussion comparing the attitudes of sixteenth-century “country gentleman Reginald
Scot” and his contemporary “English theologian William Perkins” toward witchcraft, concluding that “the
perception of these two authors was generally correct, that witchcraft—and more broadly magic—does
indeed threaten a conventionalist disjunctive linguistics. Both Scot and Perkins understood that a belief in
magic required an alternate linguistic theory which would give substance and energy to the word…” (—
page 256). 2009
4
17
Griffith, F. Ll.; and Thompson, Herbert. The Leyden Papyrus. An Egyptian Magical Book. (originally
published 1904 as THE DEMOTIC MAGICAL PAPYRUS OF LONDON AND LEYDEN); rpt. New York:
Dover Publications, 1974.
Guazzo, Francesco Maria. Compendium Maleficarum Milan: 1608. Translated by E. A. Ashwin and
edited by Montague Summers, London: John Rodker, 1929; rpt. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.,
1988.
“Collected in 3 Books from many Sources…showing the iniquitous and execrable operations of witches
against the human race, and the divine remedies by which they may be frustrated” (from the 1929 title
page).
Harms, Daniel. “Grimoires in the Conjure Tradition,” in Journal for the Academic Study of Magic, Issue 5,
edited by Susan Johnson Graf and Amy Hale (Oxford: Mandrake of Oxford, 2009).
Hockley, Frederick. (Dietrich Bergman, ed.) A Complete Book of Magic Science … Transcribed from an
Ancient Manuscript Grimoire by Frederick Hockley. York Beach: Teitan Press, 2008.
Bergman describes A Complete Book of Magic Science as “a lengthier version of the text that had been
published as ‘The Secret Grimoire of Turiel.’” See below under “Malchus.” Complete Book… is also
included in Joseph Peterson’s Clavis or Key of the Magic of Solomon (Lake Worth: Ibis Press, 2009).
_______________. (Silens Manus, ed.) Occult Spells: A Nineteenth Century Grimoire compiled by Frederick
Hockley. York Beach: Teitan Press, 2009.
_______________. (John Hamill, ed.) The Rosicrucian Seer: Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley.
Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1986; revised edition with a chapter on Hockley’s Manuscripts and
a Note on Hockley as an Astrologer by R. A. Gilbert. York Beach: Teitan Press, 2009.
On Hockley, see Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1994), CHAPTER NINE.
Henson, Mitch and Gail. “Magical Notebooks: A Survey of the Grimoires in the Golden Dawn,” in
The Golden Dawn Journal, Book III: THE ART OF HERMES. [LLEWELLYN’S GOLDEN DAWN SERIES]. St.
Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1995.
Idel, Moshe. “Hermeticism and Judaism,” in Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the
Occult in the Early Modern Europe, edited by Ingrid Merkel and Allen G. Debus. Washington: Folger
Books, 1988.
__________. “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance,” in
Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, edited by Bernard Dov Cooperman. Cambridge/London:
Harvard University Press, 1983.
Izmirlieva, Valentina. All the Names of the Lord: Lists, Mysticism, and Magic. Chicago – London:
University of Chicago Press, 2008.
In the first section of her book, Izmirlieva analyzes The Divine Names of (pseudo-)Dionysius the
Areopagite (1
st
century); in the second section, she studies the (Slavonic) amulet known as The 72 Names of
the Lord (13
th
century). Izmirlieva “demonstrate, over a large body of textual traces, that The 72 Names of
the Lord has its roots in the Gnostic 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 and Renee; and Pietrangeli, Angelina. “Picatrix and the Talismans,” in Romance
Philology 19:4 (1966), pp. 574-593.
Kieckhefer, Richard. Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. 2009
4
18
_________. Magic in the Middle Ages [CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL TEXTBOOKS]. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989; rpt. 1995.
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. “Medieval Ritual Magic in the Renaissance,” in Aries, NEW SERIES, vol. 3, no. 2.
Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2003.
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 Spain, Italy, or Greece, but rather Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia.
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 note on Hockley’s Complete Book of Magic Science, listed above.
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 treatments are readable and reliable, being distillations
of the long and careful research of a first-rate scholar. 2009
4
19
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 GRÆCOROMAN 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.
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—take your pick—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: Oxfor
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.
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.
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 pp. lix-lxxv; and Picatrix: The Latin Version of the GHAYAT AL-HAKIM,
edited by David Pingree (The Warburg Institute, 1986). See Martin Plessner’s summary of the contents of
Picatrix at www.esotericarchives.com > Classical Grimoires.
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.
Ryan, W. F. The Bathhouse at Midnight. An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia. 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. 2009
4
20
An appendix to this book (pp. 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.
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: 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.
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.
See especially “Booke XV,” which can be viewed at www.esotericarchives.com.
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.
See Chapter 2. “Jewish Magic”; Chapter 3. “Solomon: King and Magician”; and the Bibliography,
“Grimoire References.”
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. University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2006.
Sullivan, Lawrence E. (ed). Hidden Truths: Magic, Alchemy, and the Occult. [RELIGION, HISTORY AND
CULTURE: Selections from THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, edited by Mircea Eliade]. New York:
Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989.
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. 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. 2009
4
21
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.
Winters, Dana. “Hermetic/Cabalist Ritual in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus,” in Journal for the
Academic Study of Magic, Issue 5, edited by Susan Johnson Graf and Amy Hale (Oxford: Mandrake of
Oxford, 2009). 2009
4
22
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.
What follows is our outline repeated with a selection of website addresses (followed by >
WHAT TO CLICK TO FIND A TEXT OR INFORMATION)—plus a few notes:
1. The Clavicles
a. The Key of Solomon
• TWILIT GROTTO: www.esotericarchives.com > Classical Grimoires. This ample
site gives Mathers’ text of the KEY; two other 16th
-century renditions of the
KEY: “The Key of Knowledge” (Add. MS 36674), and excerpts from a MSS
Mathers used, “The Veritable Clavicles of Solomon” (Landsdowne 1203);
Hermann Gollancz’ description and a facsimile of Mafteah Shelomoh, a Hebrew
version of the KEY; and Conybeare’s translation of Testament of Solomon—all well
presented.
• INTERNET SACRED TEXTS ARCHIVE: www.sacred-texts.com > Grimoires
(Mathers’ text)
• ALCHEMY WEBSITE AND VIRTUAL LIBRARY:
www.levity.com/alchemy/solomon.html >
Solomonic Manuscripts: KEY OF SOLOMON, English Versions
• NORTON’S IMPERIUM: www.hermetic.com/browe-archive > Classics of
Magick (Mathers’ text)
b. Lemegeton
• www.esotericarchives.com > Classical Grimoires (Joseph H. Peterson’s editions
of all five sections, plus Weyer’s Pseudo-monarchia dæmonum)
• www.levity.com/alchemy/solomon.html >
Solomonic Manuscripts: Lemegeton and Ars Notoria
• www.hermetic.com/browe-archive > Classics of Magick (Mathers/ Crowley)
(This site includes a transcription of the alternative fifth book, Ars Nova.)
2. The Grimoires
a. Grimorium Verum
• www.esotericarchives.com > Black Magic (two versions: French/English and
Italian)
b. True Black Magic
• (not found)
c. The Grand Grimoire
• www.esotericarchives.com > Black Magic (Only the contents are given on the
website; the full text on CD can be ordered.)
3. The SWORN BOOK and the Grimoire of Honorius (two different texts)
• An English version of THE SWORN BOOK from “the Royal MS 17 A xlii” (=
Liber juratis) and the contents of three French versions of the Grimoire are at
www.esotericarchives.com > Classical Grimoires and > Black Magic 2009
4
23
4. Semiphoras and Shemhamphoras Salomonis Regis
• The complete text of The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses (which includes S&S)
with a brief introduction “but most illustrations omitted” is at
www.esotericarchives.com > What’s new > Jan 1, 2006 > Part 2
• The Sixth Book of Moses and The Seventh Book of Moses can also be found at
www.sacred-texts.com > Grimoires.
• The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, Semiphoras, and Shemhamphoras are all at The
Realm of Shade: www.realm-of-shade.com/booksofmoses/ (This site no longer
exists: CHECKED December 29, 2008)
5. Liber Salomonis and other portions of Sloane MS 3826
• A full transcription of British Library Sloane MS 3826 appears
at HERMETIC KABBALAH: Don Karr’s Solomonic Magic,
at www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/karr/Solomon/index.htm
• www.levity.com/alchemy/solomon.html >
Solomonic Manuscripts: Sepher Raziel,
• The transcription of a closely related text, Sloane MS 3846: Book of the Angel
Raziel, also in English, can be viewed at TWILIT GROTTO:
http://www.esotericarchives.com/raziel/raziel.htm
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