My work for free

 Starting today you can freely get my work, The Magical grimoire of Pope Honorius, on EsotericArchives:

http://esotericarchives.com/solomon/The-True-Grimoire-of-Pope-Honorius-1736.pdf

Latest updates

 Yes, I am not dead nor am I sucked into the void beyond by malicious Old Gods. 

My recent workload has been immense, the time alloted to the blog and my Youtube channel slim to none. 

I did post in a consistent manner on my Patreon, however, the 24 mysterious seals from a Jewish grimoire, upon which I will expand more in a future article.  An article in it can be found on the most exquisite page Books of Magic.

 This is a small glimpse:

This is the Tenth Seal from our series of 24 seals belonging to the Baal Shem tradition, enhanced and isolated from the manuscript by me and translated by my friend, Rabbi Michael Yosef Cohen.

It belongs to the Month of Tebeth.

Its sign is Capricorn.

Its angel, Shaniel שניאל

What else?

I am working on a two video-series detailing the seven planetary pentacles of Athanasius Kircher.

Also working on a special Patreon video detailing the making of the cinnabar ink with traditional recipes, used to write talismans, books of consecration or characters, from the ground up cinnabar to the ink itself.

Also working on doing 3 videos on 3 books which are bound by me in personal copies, one for me and one for the author, in full calf: John R. King s Faculty of Abrac (In the Picture above), Dan Harms Book of Four Occult Philosophers and Frater Ashen s Gateways Through Light and Shadow.

And my laptop is currently on it s last breath and will only be able to make more videos once I earn more and bind more books and do less videos you know, the classic vicious circle.

Please be patient. Love you guys.

Angelic Alphabet of Solomon

 My interest in magic and talismans changed drastically around age 16 or 17. Back then, I had no internet, no books in English, no phone, no nothing. I found a very kind lady in another city that was quite versed in tarot and kabalah and wrote to her and she was my first teacher: Tamara Brumaru. I cannot express my gratitude to her even to this day. It was a time before email, so i d send her real paper letters, and every time she would reply with a thick envelope. 

Inside were 5 to 10 pages of writing and on the back, mysterious talismans from a weird website, TwilightGrotto, which became EsotericArchives, and Levity.com, full of alchemical imagery. 

The first time my mind was blown is when I received a print out on large paper of the Virga Aurea treatise. 

This began my life-long journey in studying, decoding, deconstructing talismans and diagrams, which lead me to my current project, of gather all possible instances of magical alphabets, either from print or manuscripts. 

This is a first sample of my study, which will manifest into a book eventually if people will be interested in. 

My current slice of study would be only the angelic alphabets or ”charakteres”-like scripts, easily recognisable by their final ring shapes, also called ”au lunettes” or ”letters with glasses”. 

One of these alphabets was presented by Hepburn in his Virga Aurea treatise, and looked a lot like the scripts of Agrippa, but was none of them preciselly: The Brahmanic Script. One of my issues was not being able to isolate the shapes because of the low resolution crop from the website, and I was to give up, yet something told me that if I were to ask, I was to receive. I wrote to mister McLean and of course, he sent me a high resultion scan of this wonderful script: 

With this occasion I would like to thank him wholeheartedly for the wealth of information he has put out through the decades, selflessly and tirelessly. He is, indeed, one of my role models. 

Back to out alphabet, each one has a biblical passage appended, with a circular firgure written out in this alphabet. About this issue, perhaps another time. 

My desire is to isolate all examples of these alphabets, bring them to a similar size, arrage them in the Hebrew order and systematise the whole thing, so you can find my rendition below:

1. The Virga Aurea: Brahmanic Script (1616)

The first thing that is obvious with this alphabet is the mis-titling. Brahmans have never used such an alphabet on acount of two things: 1. They have their own script, namely Devanagari 2. They are not a semitic people, so an alphabet based on the Hebrew alphabet would be quite out of place. 

Does this script appear in any other Treatises? 

Why thanks for asking, yes it does. 

In 1799, Edmund Fry publishes his masterpiece called Pantographia, with over 200 alphabets culled from every corner of the typographical world. We can find this script on page 144, superbly rendered as Hebrew alphabet number 3:  

2. Fry: Hebrew 3 (1799)

The first thing we notice is that it is indeed recognised as Hebrew. The second thing is that Hepburn s versio has three Pe letters, presumably one initial and one final, with an extra variant, and Fry`s version only has one, the last.  The Zayin is chanhed as well, the Mem appears to have a middle break, the Nun appears quite different and the Resh is quite similar to the Lamed. Overall, small cosmetic enhancements. But what does he say about it:

Hebrew 2 and 3.

These two alphabets are attributed to King Solomon, by Theseus Ambrosius, in his `Appendice des differentes lettres, et des differentes langues`; but he does not offer any authority. He also asserts, that that prince had many treatises written in them, of which, Apollonius Thianeus was the translator and commentator. Duret, p. 132

 

All of a sudden, a wealth of information. We have this Duret fellow where he copied the alphabet directly from, we have another source, Theseus Ambrosius, and he have a mythical story, that it was used by King Solomon in his books that were translated by Apollonius of Tyana. 

Intriguing. 

Who`s Duret?  Claude Duret (c. 1570–1611) was a French judge and magistrate who was very interested in botany, natural sciences, languages and of course, alphabets. In 1613 he published a work called Thrésor de l'histoire des langues de cest univers [...] where this alphabet is featured on page 131, along with the other alphabet of Solomon. 

original Duret engraving

I will not go into the same detail on Duret`s text but it suffices to say that the information presented by Fry is basically the same, attributing it to Salomon via Apollonius, through Theseus Ambrosius. 

3. Duret: The Second Alphabet of Solomon (1613)

From the forms of the letters Zayin, Mem and Nun we can conclude that indeed Duret was the inspiration for Fry, despite the missing characters, but not for Hepburn.

So who is this Ambrosius character? 

Theseus Ambrosius  (1469–1540) or rather Teseo Ambrogio degli Albonesi was a very interestig character, Italian humanist, linguist, mystic and Christian kabbalist. In 1539 he published a groundbreaking work on semitic languages, Introductio in Chaldaicam linguam, Syriacam, atque Armenicam, & decem alias linguas. 

On pages 203-204, he writes about the two alphabets that the other authors cite:

`Ex varijs praeterea qui Solomoni attribuuntur libris, & interprete eius Apollonio infrascriptos literarum characteres, & Hebraeorum alphabeta desumpsimus.

Non mireris charissime lector, si in hoc alphabeto , tria Phe & duo Zadich scripta inuniuntur , ita enim in libro vnde sumpta funt eodemque in ordine reperiuntur.`

4.Ambrosius: Second alphabet of Solomon (1539)

From various other books that are attributed to Solomon and his interpreter, Apollonius, we took the following letter characters and Hebrew letters below.

Do not wonder, beloved reader, if in this alphabet we find three Phes and two Zadichs, for thus they are found in the book from whence they were taken, in the same order.`

From exactly what book of Solomon, translated by Apollonius of Tyana, these alphabets could have come to Ambrosius, we know not.  But considering that most of Hepburn`s alphabets are contained in his work, we can safely assumed that Ambrosius was the source of the Virga Aurea. 

The Throne of Bartham

 

In our last episode we were discussing an experiment used to conjure a powerful spirit inherited from the Arabic tradition, Barqan, present in one Italian manuscript under the names Barcan, Barcon and Baracon, and one Hebrew manuscript also under the name of Barakon. In this episode we will meet him and three of his ministers in a German manuscript, the famous Munich Handbook, under the name of Bartham.

 

One of the most important texts published in the field of academic study of magic is Richard Kieckhefer`s 1988 book Forbidden Rites: a Necromancer`s Manual of the Fifteenth Century, which I have in a cheap, ugly paperback reprint but that dealt a massive blow to my grimoire studies. In it, as many of you know, professor Kieckhefer transliterated almost the entire CLM 849 manuscript, and translated large portions of it.

Large portions of course, but not all. One of the experiments that he described in one chapter but never translated in full would be number 15: To obtain a flying throne.  My endeavor here is not the Latin transliteration, but the translation and commentary.  And yet, without proffesor Kieckhefer s edition, this translation would not have been possible.

 

The exact manuscript pages, as well as proffesor Kieckhefer`s text is on my blog, as well as my translation and notes. However, a full PDF of this, along with my commentary and graphics, will be available on Patreon for my Subscribers.

Fol.34r

Fol.34v

Fol.35r

Fol.35v

Vade ad locum secretum et altum, tempore sereno et absque ventu, et dic:     Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis, Secundum magnam misericordiam, cum Gloria Patri totum, In manus tuas, domine, commendo spiritum et totum spiritum et corpus meum, Domine deus, Pater omnipotens, [et] Iudica me     Postea fac talem circulum vt inferius designabitur, cum ollis, et [34v] pone in ollam septentrionis cinerem et farinam, et in orient[al]em ignem cum sale, in occidentalem aquam et calcem. Et sede in medio circuli et verte te versus septentrionem, et voca regem nubium, nomine Bartha, vt mittat 3es de ducibus qui habent posse [super] nubibus et ventris, scilicet Saltim, Balthim, Gehim, qui ducent te absque lesione et absque periculo tui corporis et anime ad locum quem volueris. Et tunc apparebit tibi parua nubes, et de tribus ollis exibunt tres alie olle, dicen[te]s, Ascende, ascende, ascende. Tunc autem inperterrite ac et cum audacia parate sellam magistro, hec dicas ter. Tunc videbis kathedram in medio nubis, et tu ascende illam, et dic,   Rex Bartha, et duces Saltim, Baltim, [et] Galtim, portate me placabiliter, sine timore et inpedimento et periculo aliquo mei corporis  et anime, vsque ad talem locum, et suauiter me leuate et suauiter me deponite. O tu rex Bartha, et o vos principes Saltim, Balthim, Galtyra, vos potenter invoco vt cito et velociter me ducatis vsque ad talem locum sine omni timore et periculo mei corporis et anime, et ad hoc  vos invoco et coniuro potenter et exorziso per hec angelorum nomina altissima qui in aere sunt potentes:   Mastiesel (Masciesel), Emedel, Emethel, Sangel, Eymeal, Venoel, Gerbon, Seutan, Ty- [35r] robay, Teneyn, Teregey, Gerebon, Gamelorum, Tubairum, Ficary, Gysay, Austeron, Boreal, Gemeloy, Garoen, Sypro, Ebely, Aurora, Subseloy, Siego, Afonei, et Zephirim, Boreoth, Beolthoray, Aforax (Afforax), Aquelyo, Eureal, Fauelyon.   Per hec nomina vos invoco et coniuro et exorcizo et constringo, vt sine mora veniatis ad me existentem in hoc loco, et multum me suauiter et benigne deferatis et ducatis ad talem locum, sine omni timore, lesione, et periculo mei corporis et anime. Sic fiat, fiat, amen.   Vade securus et non timeas, quia portabunt te quo volueris. Si forte socios habere volueris in via et in opere, oportet quod sitis impares, tamen plus. Hec nomina dices, scilicet Semegibetelye, Sabolaay, Saroten, Saramey, Cerbelli, Tyaurax (Tyanrax).  Et sic ire poteris in omnem partem et terram securus quo volueris. Si quis tibi forte nocere voluerit vel attemptauerit: Si a parte septentrionali senseris kathedram descendere, dic,       O Balthym, te invoco, coniuro, et constringo vt vindices me de isto qui michi nocere temptatur, per hec septem nomina que in omnibus potestatem habent, scilicet Flegely, Stygeloy (Scygeloy), Melyon, Babaia, Regale, Setgaboy, Guitipabey,     et statim veniet tempestas super eum et timeas.     Si vero a parte occidentali quis tibi nocere temptauerit, dic audacter:   O Saltim, coniuro et constringo te per ista semptem nomina, [35v] scilicet Sebegyol, Sebely, Serbaton, Tymelyy, Gerotal, Tyboel, Galtym. Fiat vt sit pluuia et nubes super illum, in tantum quod non possit videre nubem.   Si vero ex parte orientali quis temptare voluerit, dic,   Veniatis, Galtym [et] Baltym, per ista nomina, scilicet Flegely, Stygeloy, Melyon, Barbaia, Regale, Segaboy, Guitipabey, et cadant tonitrua super illum et nubes et tempestas, ita [quod] me temptare non audeat.   Si forte in via videris super te tempestates uel serpentes aut aues aut alia terribilia, quibus forte posses terreri, dicas:    O tu rex Bartham, ego te invoco et coniuro et constringo, rex sapiens et fortis, per hec nomina, scilicet Alrogen, Segeuratetho, Spitalote, Frigonay, Gebelsey, vt hec terribilia  facias protinus remoueri statim.     Dictis hiis verbis, sine mora recedent, et vltra non habebis contrarium. Hic circulus debet fieri ad istud opus, etc.

Go to a secret and high place, on calm weather without wind, and say:   -Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis[1] -Secundum magnam misericordiam[2] with -Gloria Patri[3] entirely -In manus tuas, domine, commendo spiritum et totum spiritum et corpus meum[4] -Domine deus, Pater omnipotens[5] [et] -Iudica me[6]   Then make that certain circle that is described below, with jars, and [34v] put in the northern jar ash and flour, and in the eastern one fire with salt, in the western one water and lime. And place yourself in the middle of the circle and turn towards North, and call upon the king of the clouds, named Bartha, that will send three of the dukes that have power  over the clouds and the winds, that is Saltim, Baltim[7], Gehim, that will carry you without any harm and without any danger to your body or soul to the place which you will desire. And then shall appear to you a small cloud and from the three jars shall come out three other jars, saying: Climb up, climb up, climb up! Then therefore arm yourself with daring, without fear in the master`s chair and say this three times.  Then you shall see a throne in the midst of the cloud and you shall climb in it, and say:   King Bartha, and dukes Saltim, Baltim and Galtim, beare me appeasingly, without any fear and hinderance and danger to my body and soul, to such-and-such place, and gently lift me and gently lower me. O thou king Bartha, and o thou princes Saltim, Balthim, Galtyra, I more forecefully invoke and call upon thee, and quicker take me to such-and-such place without fight or danger to my body and soul, and at once I invoke thee and conjure thee more strongly by the names of these most high angels that are powerful in the air:   Mastiesel (Masciesel), Emedel, Emethel, Sangel, Eymeal, Venoel, Gerbon, Seutan, Tyrobay, Teneyn, Teregey, Gerebon, Gamelorum, Tubairum, Ficary, Gysay, Austeron, Boreal, Gemeloy, Garoen, Sypro, Ebely, Aurora, Subseloy, Siego, Afonei, et Zephirim, Boreoth, Beolthoray, Aforax (Afforax), Aquelyo, Eureal, Fauelyon.    By these names I invoke and conjure and exorcise and constrain thee, that thou should come to me in this place without delay, and carry me most gently and kindly and take me to such-and-such place, without any fight, harm, or danger to my body and soul. So shall it be, shall it be, Amen.   Go untroubled and be not afraid, for they shall carry you where you will want. If by any chance you wish to have companions on the way and in the operation, you must be odd in number, however more. Say these names, that are: Semegibetelye, Sabolaay, Saroten, Saramey, Cerbelli, Tyaurax (Tyanrax).  And so you will be able to go to every part and land in safety, wherever you want. If any force would want or attempt to harm you: If you will feel that the throne descends from the part of the North, say:    O Balthym, I invoke, conjure and constrain thee that thou might avenge me of this that has tried to harm me, by these seven names that have power in all things, that be Flegely, Stygeloy (Scygeloy), Melyon, Babaia, Regale, Setgaboy, Guitipabey, that at once shall come upon them storms and let them fear.   If ideed from the part of the West might something try to harm you, say boldly:   O Saltim, o conjure and cinstrain thee by these seven names [35v] that be Sebegyol, Sebely, Serbaton, Tymelyy, Gerotal, Tyboel, Galtym, let there be  rain and clouds upon them, such that they will not be able to see the cloud.   If indeed from the part of the East something might tempt you, say:   Come ye, Galtym and Baltym, by these names, that be Flegely, Stygeloy, Melyon, Barbaia, Regale, Segaboy, Guitipabey, and let thunder fall upon them and clouds and storms, so that they that tempt me might not hear anymore.   If indeed in your way you will see storms or serpents or birds or other terrible things that you might fear, say:   O thou king Bartham, I invoke and conjure and constrain thee, wise and powerful king, by these names that be Alrogen, Segeuratetho, Spitalote, Frigonay, Gebelsey, that thou might remove at onve these frightful faces from before me.     Having said these words, they will depart without delay and you shall have no hinderance from then on.  This circle must be made in this working, etc.

 

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[1] A verse from Ave Maria, perhaps meant to indicate the whole prayer.

[2] Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam, Psalm 50 (Vulgate)

[3] Unidentified by Kieckhever, Gloria Patri is the Lesser Doxology.

[4] Luke 24:46

[5] Unidentified by Kieckhefer: Dómine Deus, Rex caeléstis,
Deus Pater omnípotens, patrt of tyhe Greater Doxology

[6] Iudica me Psalm 42 (Vulgate)

[7] Kieckhefer reads Balthim followed by a redundant Baltim, My Reading: Baltim followed by Balthym.