the book of ceremonial magic contents - Yankeeclassic.com

Abramelin the Mage was an instructor of the magical Abraham, who reduced into writing
the knowledge which he received from this source, prefixing thereto some account of his
own life and occult adventures. There are several respects in which the text differs
conspicuously from the common run of the Rituals. It derides, for example, all
observations of times and seasons along the usual and accepted lines. Such formalities, it
is said, have no power over spirits or virtue in supernatural things. It would follow not
unreasonably from this, and is made plain in a special chapter, that the majority of
magical books are false and vain. They are also otherwise evil, not only on account of
their superstitious attention to celestial signs but from their use of unintelligible words in
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the processes of conjuration, and so forth. These words are inventions of the devil, or
alternatively of wicked men. Stress is laid also on the fact that Rituals of this kind contain
no invocations of God, which is demonstrably a libel on the literature.
It will be understood that the hypercritical Abraham is careful on his own part to call
upon the Divine aid, but his conjurations are few and simple. He relies, however, on the
help of those Guardian Angels which Christian tradition and doctrine attribute to each
soul of man. On the other hand, he makes no use of words, figures or pentacles, which he
proscribes as abominations invented by diabolical enchanters. He is, therefore, an
exponent of Art Magic in the utmost simplification thereof, but that which he saves in
ritual he expends in the dramatic elaboration of general mise en scène. Looking, however,
at his claim, one is tempted to think for a moment that we are in the presence of new
modes and even of new intentions in respect of "magical vanity." This time surely, the
work is on the side of God, and there is a certain encouragement in the mere title, which
says that the content of the book is actually that Holy Magic which God gave unto
Moses--to Aaron, David, Solomon--to the other saints, patriarchs and prophets; that it is
also the true and the Divine Wisdom, a statement reiterated continually throughout the
text itself. It is all for the glory of God, for His high honour, the good of the pious
operator and that of the human race.
But when we come to the dealings with spirits, we find that they are Lucifer, Leviathan,
Satan and Belial, for the superior princes, and Astaroth, Asmodeus, Beelzebub, et hoc
genus omne, for the lesser powers. Furthermore, these demons may be summoned
indifferently for operations of good or evil, while the objects are the usual objects, the
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time-long interests, the glorious dedications of White and Black Magic, as established by
the concurrent testimony of all the Rituals. The recovery of stolen things, the acquisition
of buried treasures, the stirring up of hatred and enmity, the casting of spells and the
usual venereal experiments-such are the ends in view. There are even processes in
Necromancy, which art is eschewed by all but the most abominable forms of Black
Magic.