Angelological
Angelologists are single-minded and
concerned only with the messengers of God - Fallen or otherwise. Anything else
is of no, or minor, interest. Mollifying their one-eyedness, is the fact that
they will read anything from any culture – as long as it pertains to angels, angel-like
beings, or their antithesis. Thus, the Christian Bible, the Koran and the
Talmud should all figure prominently on their bookshelves.
Angelologists who walk in the footsteps
of that other ‘angel whisperer’ John Dee, may feel inclined to mix their lists
of divine messengers with books on divination and astrology. The Dee link is
also a good one for adding some Mythos elements, as he was known to have
translated the Necronomicon in his
day.
Note that some of the texts in this table
appeared in a previous post and their particulars are not presented below;
details about those works can be found in that earlier document.
01-09%
|
The
Apocrypha
|
10-18%
|
Beatus
Methodivo (1st Century AD)
|
19-27%
|
Book
of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin (1458)
|
28-36%
|
Collin
de Plancy’s “Dictionnaire Infernale” (1818)
|
37-45%
|
De
Mirabili Potestate, Artis et Naturae
|
46-54%
|
The
Gnostic Gospels (2nd-4th Century
AD)
|
55-64%
|
The
Golden Dawn (1936)
|
65-72%
|
The
Key of Solomon (G)
|
73-81%
|
The
Sixth & Seventh Books of Moses (G)
|
82-90%
|
Wonders
of the Invisible World (1693)
|
91-00%
|
The
Zohar (1200s)
|
The
Apocrypha
The Biblical
Apocrypha (from the Greek meaning “hidden”) are a number of books written
by Biblical figures, or about Biblical matters, but which are not considered as
part of the Biblical canon. For various reasons – mainly due to heterodoxy or
the statement of non-orthodox Christian matters of faith – they were excluded
from the main text and were occasionally forbidden to be presented to the
faithful. The various strands of Christianity have differing approaches to the
dissemination of this material: some Bibles have the Apocrypha presented between the Old
and the New Testaments, or added as a
supplementary index in the back; other faiths prefer the Apocrypha to be printed as a separate volume, distinct from the
Bible itself.
Some branches of Christianity feel that
the Apocrypha is instructional about
life matters and manners, although not to be used for the establishment of
doctrine. Some books – 3 Esdras, 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh – are considered canon by the Eastern and
Oriental Orthodox Churches, but are considered non-canonical by the Catholic
Church and are therefore not presented in Catholic compilations of the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha is of great interest to angelologists because within its
pages are recorded many more encounters with angels than in the canon text of
the Bible, particularly in the Book of
Tobit.
Beatus
Methodivo
This work is more generally known as the Bea Methodius, which is a contraction of
its full name, Beatus Methodivo. It
was also misprinted as “Bermechobus”
at one point, and that name appears occasionally too. The authorship is unclear
and is usually attributed to either St. Methodius of Olympus (martyred in 311
AD), or the St. Methodius who was patriarch of Constantinople and who died in
846 AD. There is, however, nothing specific in the work to link it to either of
these figures. In essence, this work is a vision of the Apocalypse, not unlike
the Revelation of St. John and
outlines the fate of the world.
The book details how Seth journeyed to
the east to find a new country in which to settle and tells of how the children
of Cain went to India and established a culture dominated by black magic. It
goes on to reveal how the Ishmaelites were the real tribes who overthrew the
Roman Empire. It speaks of a powerful Northern people who will one day be
conquered by the Antichrist, or his machinations, and how afterwards, a
worldwide kingdom under a ruler of French descent will institute a reign of
peace and justice.
The
Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin
The
Book of Abramelin (to
give it its more succinct title) reveals how Abraham of Worms – a German Jew
who is presumed to have lived from around 1362 to 1458 – encountered the
Egyptian mage Abra-Melin and was indoctrinated into his system of magic. The
work is written as a series of letters from Abraham to his son Lamech,
revealing how he travelled to the town of Arachi in Egypt and the things he
encountered along the way before meeting Abra-Melin and becoming his pupil.
The work is largely kabbalistic and much
of the information contained within it is an extended ritual for contacting
one’s “guardian angel” an element of which involves summoning and binding
several malevolent entities including Satan and Lucifer. The process is
supposed to take eighteen months, however Crowley – who tried to undertake the
procedure several times before dropping it – claims to have accomplished the
task in only six (of course!). Other rituals involve the creating of magical
wands and other ritual objects, recipes for “Abramelin Oil” and “Abramelin
Incense” – both of which are mentioned (but not by those names) in the Book of Exodus – and a great many
talismanic squares, similar to the well-known Sator Square, which produce a
wide range of effects, from turning the user invisible to allowing them to walk
underwater without the need to breathe.
The book purports to have been written in
1458 but the earliest versions of the book, all in German, are much more recent
than this: two manuscript copies dating from around 1608 are in Wolfenbüttel
and two other manuscript copies reside in Dresden and are dated 1700 and 1750
respectively. The first printed copy, also in German, was produced by Peter
Hammer in Cologne in 1725. A partial copy in Hebrew is kept in the Bodleian
Library in Oxford and a manuscript version in French was once housed in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris: this
copy has been stolen but it still exists on microfiche.
All the German copies are composed of
four books: the autobiographical account of Abraham’s journey to Egypt; a book
of kabbalistic teaching; and two books containing the magical procedures
outlined by Abra-Melin. The French and Hebrew versions have been shown to have
been translated from the German originals: the Hebrew version only covers the
first book of the work, without reference to any of the other books, while the
French version – likely translated in the 18th Century - only covers
the first three books. The English version – translated by Samuel Liddell
MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918) of the Golden Dawn, used the French version and
it is riddled with errors and incomplete sections, notably the duration of the
“guardian angel” procedure which is given as eighteen months in all other
versions but only six months in the English. Can we see the meddling hand of
Crowley here?
German esoteric scholar George Dehn
produced a new version of the work, published by Editions Araki in 2001. It
combines all the information across all sources, correcting Mathers’s errors
along the way. It was translated and re-published in English by American
publisher Nicholas Hays in 2006.
Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal
"To deny that there
are sorrows and rewards after death is to deny the existence of God; since God
exists, it must be necessarily so. But only God could know the punishments
meted out to the guilty, or the place that holds them. All the catalogues made
herebefore are only the fruit of a more or less disordered imagination.
Theologians should leave to the poets the depiction of Hell, and not themselves
seek to frighten minds with hideous paintings and appalling books"
-Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire
Infernal
Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy
(1793-1887) was a writer, printer and publisher who lived and worked in Plancy-l'Abbaye
and Paris. He was also an occultist and demonologist and compiled his
best-known work – the “Infernal
Dictionary” – over the course of his life, publishing several editions. He
was greatly inspired by Voltaire, an avowed free-thinker and scornful of both
religion and superstition. Initially, the Dictionnaire
Infernal was a means of poking fun at the ludicrous extremes of Catholic
belief; however, as de Plancy aged, he converted to Catholicism himself and
became ever more confirmed in this belief, something which confounded his
initial fans.
First published in 1818, the Dictionnaire as a listing of the various
demonic rulers of Hell, spoofing other such catalogues like the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and the Lesser Key of Solomon. The 1863 re-print
was decorated with its famous engravings of the demons and became an instant
success; many esoteric books published later in England ‘borrowed’ these images
without consent. After this, de Plancy began to invert the intent of his work
and it became a testament of his faith – which now incorporated a belief in
demons – rather than an exercise in intellectual criticism. Towards the end of
his days he collaborated with a French priest to write a Church-sanctioned
encyclopaedia of occult sciences.
The Dictionnaire
Infernal was first released in 1818 under de Plancy’s imprint and went
through six editions before 1863, becoming a two-volume book along the way
(partnered with de Plancy’s Dictionnaire
Sciences Occultes et des Idée'es Superstitieuses along the way). While the
first edition is much sought-after, the illustrated 1863 edition is the most
valued by collectors.
Gnostic
Gospels
In 1945, two Egyptian farmers unearthed a
cache of documents buried inside an earthenware jar in the Nag Hammadi
district. They were centuries old and, upon inspection, turned out to be
codices on the teachings of Jesus, written between the 2nd and 4th
Centuries AD. These documents – the Nag
Hammadi Library – were added to over time by subsequent finds, or earlier
finds of a similar nature, and became the core of what are now known as the Gnostic Gospels.
The works vary widely in content and
theme and scholarship is divided as to exact dates and attributions. The
umbrella term “Gnostic” represents a common theme in the various books which
ascribes the understanding of God and one’s self with an inner search, without
the intervention of a guiding church structure. As such, the Gnostic Gospels are listed as part of
the Christian Apocrypha. Many scholar
believe that the Gospels represent an intermediate state of Christian thought,
blending Western and Eastern philosophies.
Some of the gospels – such as the Gospel of Thomas – reflect elements of
Gnosticism, while others – such as the Gospel
of Judas or the Gospel of the Lord
are borderline, or outright, heretical. Others reveal a wide sampling of the
current philosophies of the period, such as the Gospel of Truth or the Trimorphic
Protennoia. Other finds have revealed newer or more complete versions of
the various texts but some of the gospels – like the Gospel of Mary, discovered in 1896 – remain extant in only one
copy.
Modern day fictional authors – notably
Dan Brown – have generated a renewal of interest in these works.
The
Key of Solomon
Like Enoch and Moses before him, Solomon
became the focus for a unique tradition of grimoire-writing, stemming from the
fact that, when given the option by God to have anything that he desired, he
asked for all the wisdom of the world. To many philosophically-minded
commentators in later ages, this naturally meant all the dark and mystical wisdom
of the world as well. Legend goes on to say that Solomon was tempted by the
Queen of Sheba into the idolatrous worship of Moloch and Baal in later years,
so the magical traditions of these beliefs were generally supposed to be part
of his magical arsenal as well.
According to Biblical, apocryphal and
legendary sources, Solomon was capable of great feats of magic, including the
trapping of demonic spirits in order that they do his bidding. He was said to
have been able to ensnare all of the demons of creation inside a bottle which
was stoppered with a magical Seal of Solomon. These demons were then able to
build, at Solomon’s command, the Temple in Jerusalem – a massive stone edifice
– in only nine days. Naturally, many necromancers in later times eagerly sought
this powerful sigil.
As the sources of magic were later
believed to stem from Hebraic roots, largely influenced by commentaries on the
Kabbalah arising in southern Spain, books of magic attributed to Solomon began
to have greater currency on the mystical market. Most notably in Europe, the Clavicule of Solomon was a prime source
for grimoire manufacture. The Clavicula
Salomonis, or Key of Solomon,
circulated widely, attributed to Solomon but was most likely written in Italy
during the 14th or 15th Centuries. It is a typical magic
text of those times and inspired many other European compilations of magic, the
best known of which was the 17th Century Clavicula Salomonis Regis, better known as the Lesser Key of Solomon, or the Lemegeton.
The
Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses
“...I
admitted privately to some curiosity about the object of my host’s
preoccupation, insofar as he had been given to reading the Seventh Book of Moses, which is a kind of Bible
for the supposed hexes, since it purported to offer all manner of spells,
incantations, and charms to those readers who were gullible enough to believe
in them.”
-August
Derleth, “Wentworth’s
Day”
What a mess.
This is what happens when three different religions with (at least) three
different languages and styles of writing use the same material across several
different cultures to tell the same story and impart spiritual meaning to an
identical series of events. The essence of the Moses legend is that he was the
abandoned scion of an oppressed people who, having grown up amongst the
oppressors, was able to lead them to freedom and into a covenanted lifestyle in
a new land with a beneficent deity. In order to do this, he had to draw upon a
magical repertoire which gave him the ability to defeat those in opposition to
him. Historically, there is little evidence to support the notion that Moses
existed at all; theologically, there is a wealth of writing - contributions
from Jewish, Islamic and Christian writers - which delves into the source and
nature of the mystical powers of Moses and those of his brother Aaron.
The
predominant way of thinking regarding Moses was that he must have been given
access to magical powers in order to call down the plagues upon Egypt, thus
convincing Pharaoh to let his people go. In fact, most of the plagues are
actually called down by Aaron, who is instructed by Moses accordingly. This
suggested that whatever lore to which Moses was privy, he could share it with
others. A theory emerged that Moses had inherited mystical knowledge from the
patriarch Enoch, who had written down his magical procedures and passed them
along to Moses via Noah; this lore, the Books of Enoch possibly allowed for the summoning of
plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the succouring of those lost in the
Wilderness and the curing of the faithful.
Later in the
narrative, Moses receives the Ten Commandments from God upon Mount
Sinai. There are various interpretations as to what this incident actually
entails, suffice it to say that, according to Jewish tradition, it is believed
that God gave Moses a work called The Book of the Covenant – what would
later become the Talmud - or what Christians refer to as the Pentateuch,
comprising the first five books of the Bible. Jews believe that the
stone tablets accompanying this gift are simply a kind of elaborate ‘receipt’
of the transaction between God and Moses; Christians and Islamics place much
greater emphasis on the tablets than on the books. These five books were
thought to contain the secrets of the magic that Moses and Aaron used to escape
Egypt; however, patently, as every Jewish male over a certain age can tell you,
they do not. A belief arose that there were more books than were generally
known about, circulating amongst a select group of cognoscenti and
possibly kept hidden in the magical Ark of the Covenant.
The writers of
Moses’ exploits in the earliest days were keen to emphasise that Moses’ magical
powers were different from those of the Egyptians, who were seen at the time to
be great and powerful sorcerers. Moses’ power came from God; in other words, a
purer, cleaner source than the magic of the Egyptians which – speculation
suggested – was based on murky, necromantic thinking. Later writers in the
mediaeval period inverted this thinking, emphasising the fact that Moses had
been raised as an Egyptian and therefore would have had access to their magical
arsenal. Medieval thinkers re-invented Moses as a magical wunderkind and
books of magic attributed to him swiftly appeared: a scroll, dating from the Second
Century AD, was discovered in the Nineteenth Century discussing Moses’ puissance
as a magician and notes the following texts attributed to him:
The Archangelical Teaching of Moses;
The Eighth Book of Moses;
The Key of Moses;
The Secret Moon Book of Moses; and
The Tenth & Hidden
Book of Moses.
By the time of
the later Roman Empire, the roots of magical power had removed from the
Egyptian to the Jewish peoples and many Roman emperors had Jewish slaves in
their households for the purposes of casting divinatory spells or countering
evil influences. In the Dark Ages, Islamic and Jewish mystical lore filtered
into Europe via Spain taking this notion of Mosaic writings with them: by the Eleventh
Century, copies of a grubby little grimoire called the Harba de-Mosha (“The
Sword of Moses”) were circulating there, with spells allowing the caster to
walk on water rubbing along with the usual hexes and wards for avoiding the
Evil Eye. In 1725 in Germany, a work entitled The Sixth and Seventh Book of
Moses appeared and, despite the fact that the author is unlikely to have
known about the posited Eighth Book, it became the most influential
magical work to appear in modern times.
Probably
written in the 18th or 19th Century, the Sixth and Seventh
Book of Moses contains a wide array of incantations and other spells designed
to duplicate the miracles outlined in Exodus. It contains lists of Talmudic
magical names and a wide selection of seals useful in controlling the weather,
contacting the dead or Biblical figures among other things. The book was circulated
through Germany in the 18th Century and an 1849 printing made its way
to America via German settlers in that country. From there it passed into the
magical traditions of Black America.
Moses’ African
roots appealed strongly to the black communities in America’s southern states
and to residents of the large cities such as New York and Philadelphia. Small
presses churned out cheap mail order copies of the Sixth and Seventh Book of
Moses and distributed them all along the Eastern seaboard of the US and as
far away as Haiti and West Africa. The influence of the work is strongly felt
among the folk traditions of Hoodoo and Voodoo, the Rastafari religion, and it even
influenced the workings of the modern Spiritualist movement.
Wonders
of the Invisible World
“The essential Saltes of Animals may be so prepared and preserved,
that an ingenious Man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his own Studie, and
raise the fine Shape of an Animal out of its Ashes at his Pleasure; and by the
lyke Method from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a Philosopher may,
without any criminal Necromancy, call up the Shape of any dead Ancestour from
the Dust whereinto his Bodie has been incinerated.”
-Cotton
Mathers, Magnalia
Christi Americana, 1702.
Cotton
Mather lived at the time of the Salem Witch Trials and had a huge impact on
those deplorable events. He was pastor at Boston’s North Church and had some
very strong and very peculiar ideas about America and the things which lived
there: specifically, he felt it was a land infested with “devils”, all of which
were trying to tear the Puritan bulkhead that he and his folk were trying to
establish. Although he was not a witness to the events that happened in Salem,
he was instrumental in causing the hallucinations and visions of those involved
to be taken on board by the court as “evidence”. An earlier book which he had
written - Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions – revealed his views that America had been
the undisturbed realm of Satan prior to the puritan’s landing and fanned the
flames of the witch-hunting frenzy that culminated in the Salem debacle.
Wonders
of the Invisible World – written in 1693 - discusses the Salem trials and
many other cases of witchcraft and possession which Mathers took a direct hand
in prosecuting. It discusses the means of freeing one’s self from the powers of
the Devil (mainly through prayer and fasting) and the means of determining if
an ecstatic vision derives from God or from Hell. It sifts through the evidence
presented at the Salem trials and vigorously defends the verdicts reached at
those hearings. Ironically, in the aftermath of the trials, those involved
deeply regretted their actions, and felt that Mathers’ interference was a
direct catalyst in the matter getting out of hand. In fact, a later book was
published – More Wonders of the Invisible World – which critically
discusses the hysterical meddling of Mathers and other notable figures of the
colony during the events.
Mathers survived the backlash and went on to
further his career as a religious leader in Massachusetts. He died and in 1728
and was buried in Copps Hill Burial Ground in Boston. Given the ghoulish
activity Lovecraft identified as taking place in that locale, it’s probably not
worth anyone’s time going to visit him there...
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