the book of ceremonial magic contents - Yankeeclassic.com

It is an open question whether all of these books could have been completed without a
proportion of that dangerous instruction which makes for open Black Magic. The
Isagoge, however, must be exempted in part from such charge; the Seven Septenaries
p. 29
of aphorisms of which it consists contain many moral and spiritual exhortations, which, if
they are not exactly unhackneyed, are on the surface quite unexceptionable, and might
indeed rank among the more exalted of their kind, were it not for the art with which they
are connected. The initial groups of these aphorisms serve to introduce the Ritual of the
Olympic Spirits, dwelling in the firmament and in the stars of the firmament, between
whom the government of the world is distributed. There are 196 1 Olympic Provinces in
the entire universe, so that Aratron has 49, Bethor 42, Phaleg 35, Och 28, Hagith 21,
Ophiel 14, and Phul 7. These Provinces are termed visible, but even as the Seven
Septenaries of Arbatel cover the whole ground of reputed Transcendental Magic, so these
seven successive multiples of the same mystical number may most probably be taken to
indicate powers and offices. It is further said that the Olympic Spirits rule alternately,
each for 490 years, which would be mere confusion were separate assemblages of spheres
permanently assigned to them.
The powers possessed by these Intelligences are very curiously set forth. They rule
naturally over certain departments and operations of the material world, but outside these
departments they perform the same operations magically. Thus Och, the prince of Solar
things, presides over the preparation or development of gold naturally in the veins of the
earth--that is to say, he is the Mineralogist in Chief of Nature; he presides also over the
quicker preparation of the same metal by means of chemical art--that is, he is the Prince
of Alchemists; and, finally, he makes gold in a moment by Magic. It is in this way
p. 30
that Ceremonial Magic connects with while it assumes to transcend Hermetic Art. 1
There is another curious instruction, with regard to the names and characters of the
Spirits. In opposition to much of the traditional doctrine of Magic, it is affirmed that there
is no power in the figure of any character or in the pronunciation of any name, except in
so far as there is a virtue or office ordained by God to both. The names, moreover, are not
definite, final or real names, whence they differ with different writers accordingly as
these have received them. The only effectual names are those which are delivered to an
operator by the Spirits themselves, and even then their efficacy seldom endures beyond
forty years. It is, therefore, better for the student, says the Arbatel, to work only by the
offices of the Spirits, without their names; should he be pre-ordained to attain the Art of
Magic, the other parts of that Art will offer themselves of their own accord.
The sources of occult wisdom, it proceeds, are, firstly, in God; secondly, in spiritual
essences--that is to say, the Angelical Hierarchy; thirdly, in corporeal creatures, the
reference being probably to the signatura rerum of Paracelsus; fourthly, in Nature--that is
to say, in a knowledge of the secret virtues of natural things, as, for example, herbs and