the book of ceremonial magic contents - Yankeeclassic.com

convocation of all the "masters of Magic," to the number of 811, all of whom seem to
have come out of Naples, Athens and a place. entitled Tholetus. Among these a species of
spokesman was chosen, whose name was Honorius, the son of Euclidus, Master of the
Thebans. He was deputed to work for the rest, and he entered into counsel with an angel
called Hochmel or Hocroel, (? Hochmaël), and thereafter wrote seven volumes of
Magical Art, "giving the kernel to us and the shells to others." From these books he
seems afterwards to have extracted ninety-three chapters, containing a summary of the
whole subject, and made them into a volume which "we term the sacred or sworn book."
In the meantime, the princes and prelates, having burned "certain fables or trifles,"
concluded that they had completely destroyed the art, and were therefore pacified. The
magicians, however, took an oath among themselves to preserve the masterpiece of
Honorius in the most secret and careful manner, making three copies at the most, the
possessor of any example being bound over to bury it before his decease, or otherwise
insure its interment in his own grave, unless there were some trusty and worthy person to
whom it could be transmitted. It is interesting to note that this is the Law of Transmission
in respect of Alchemy. The important point about the MS. itself is that it fixes the source
of the mendacious tradition which ascribes a Grimoire of Black Magic to a Pope of the
name of Honorius, as will be seen at length later on. The Sworn Book is not, of course,
the Grimoire, but the existence and reputed authorship of the one will enable us to
understand the attribution of the other. Honorius the sorcerer was identified with
Honorius the Pope, firstly by the confused mind of magical legend, and secondly by
conscious imposture, much after the same manner that Raymond Lully, the "illuminated
doctor" of Majorca, was
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identified with Lully the alchemist, by tradition at the inception, and not long afterwards
by the help of forged treatises. The Sworn Book is in other respects remarkable, and has
been unaccountably overlooked by writers on Ceremonial Magic; it may be taken to
indicate that an association of magicians was most probably in corporate existence during
or before the fourteenth century. While it is clearly of Christian origin, it derives from the
supposed works of Solomon, and would appear to indicate that the Solomonic cycle was
at that time only in course of formation, as also that the earliest elements approximate not
to the Grand Clavicle, but to the Little Key, otherwise, the Lemegeton. As to the
operations contained in the Sworn Book, they are those of White and Black Magic,
undiscriminated, without, however, any trace of the conventional "dealing with the
devil." The MS. under notice need not, of course, be regarded as the original; as to this
there is no means of knowing. The British Museum possesses also a later transcript,
belonging to the sixteenth century, and a most valuable English translation, written on
vellum in beautiful Gothic characters. It is referred to the fifteenth century.
The second group comprises two MSS., both in the Sloane collection, and both
containing, among other treatises, the important and curious work attributed to Solomon
under the title of Sepher Raziel. That numbered 3826 belongs to the sixteenth century. It
is an English translation of a Latin original which in this form is unknown to myself; the
first line of the original is usually given at the beginning of each section. It is divided into
seven books, and purports to have been sent to Solomon by a prince of Babylon who was