Beelzebuth

Belzébuth ou Belzebub ou Beelzebuth, prince des démons, selon les Écritures; le premier en pouvoir et en crime après Satan, selon Milton; chef suprême de l’empire infernal, selon la plupart des démonographes. Son nom signifie seigneur des mouches.[i]

Ahaziah, eighth king of Israel and son of the infamous Jezebel, “fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick”[ii]. Fearful, he sent his messengers “enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron”[iii]. The initiative was ill-fated, as an  Yahweh angry with his infidelity cursed him to die.

Ahaziah is not the first disobedient king in the biblical narrative; in famous examples, Saul broke biblical precepts to invoke the ghost of the prophet Samuel with the help of the Witch of Endor, and Solomon, listening to his wives “went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.”[iv].

Ahaziah’s story in the first chapter of the second Book of Kings preserves the only reference to this deity in the Old Testament; in the Hebrew original the name appears as בַּעַל זְבוּב, BAAL ZEBUB. The word Baal can be, genereally, translated as Lord, and Zebub “is the collective noun for ‘flies”[v]; from there the famous interpretation of the name was formed as meaning Lord of the Flies. 

The name is commonly translated “the lord of the flies”, and the god is supposed to be so called either because as a sun god he brings the flies, though the Ba’al was probably not a sun god, or more likely because he is invoked to drive away the flies from the sacrifice, like the Zeus Apomuios, who drove them from Olympia, or the hero Myiagros in Arcadia.[vi]

However, more current analyzes have considered that in this case zebub may have been the result of a derisory word game that altered the Baal Zebul form, this one indicating something like “Baal the prince, a chthonic god able to help in cases of illness”[vii]. In this case, the transliterated form of the name Βεελζεβοὺλ (= Beelzeboul) in the Greek of the New Testament would be closer to the original name.

The Archon of the Demons

The name Beelzeboul comes into the lives of Christians thanks to the famous and controversial passage reported by Matthew (12: 24-29), Luke (11: 15-22) and Mark (3: 22-30), where he is called ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων (arkonti ton daimonion, archon of the daimones):

Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub [Βεελζεβοὺλ], the prince of the devils [ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων].[viii]

The answer given by Jesus in the Gospels can be considered to be either naive or tricky; he contradicts the Pharisees by arguing that Satan [Σατανᾶς] would not subsist if he cast out his own demons[1][ix], which in no way really refutes the charge that he used these demons to deceive people. However, what is of interest here for us is that, in answering, Jesus uses the alternative name Satan, which makes it clear that, in this first moment, Beelzeboul is just another name for the same entity.

The primacy of Beelzeboul reappears in the key text of Solomonic Magic, the Testament of Solomon, a Greek text whose composition, although debated, certainly refers to a period after the first century of the Christian era, and for which there is evidence already in the fourth century..

The demonology of the Testament not only places Βεελζεβούλ as the head of the demons, it does so using exactly the same expression that we find in the Gospels: ἄρχοντα τῶν δαιμονίων, in addition to others like τών δαιμονίων ό έξαρχος[2], the exarch of the demons, Βασιλέα (Basilea, King), like Solomon, and δεσπότης (despotes, ruler) of the spirits of the air, the earth and below the earth. When summoned by Solomon, Beelzeboul declares to him:

I am Beelzeboul, the exarch of the demons. And all the demons have their chief seats close to me. And I it is who make manifest the apparition of each demon.[3][x]

Beelzeboul promises Solomon that he will bring all impure spirits to him in chains, and further on he tells Solomon that he alone is the prince [ἄρχων] of the demons because only he is left of the ούρανίων άγγέλων (ouranion aggelon, angels from heaven) who have descended, and that he was the first angel of the first heaven and that he now controls those trapped in Tartarus; to this is added the fact that he claims to have a son to indicate the influence of the Book of Enoch on the composition of the Testament. It is in the Book of Enoch that we first encounter the concept of angels who disobey and are punished, and the cause of their downfall was love for the daughters of men, with whom they had children.

In the Testament, when questioned by Solomon, Beelzeboul declared to him:

 

I destroy kings. I ally myself with foreign tyrants. And my own demons I set on to men, in order that the later may believe in them and be lost. And the chosen servants’ of God, priests and faithful men, I excite unto desires for wicked sins, and evil heresies, and lawless deeds; and they obey me, and I bear then on to destruction. And I inspire men with envy, and desire for murder, and for wars and sodomy, and other evil things. And I will destroy the world.[xi]

The Ruler of the Goetia

The Neoplatonic philosopher Porfírio de Tiro (234-304 AD) left us with an important description of the Goetic practice, which we can see that remained true to its older descriptions from the 6th and 5th centuries BC: it was the invocation of daimones of the dead or other chthonic spirits under the authority of an appropriate deity – the same scheme narrated earlier in Homer necromancies in the 8^th century BC and Aeschylus’ in the 5^th century BC.

But it is through the opposite kind of daimones that all sorcery [γοητεία] is accomplished, for those who try to achieve bad things through sorcery [γοητεία] honour especially these daimones and in particular their chief.[xii]

According to Porphyry, these daimones help people to prepare filters and loving spells, and the chief, regent or ruler [άρχοντας, arcontas] of these maleficent daemones would be the god Serapis, that he in another passage equates with Pluto. Serapis is a syncretic deity created after Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy I Soter; he gathers attributes of the god Osiris and the sacred bull Apis, this considered to be the son of Hathor. Serapis, Pluto and Osiris within the religious syncretism of the time refer, therefore, to a god who rules the chthonic world of the dead. Porphyry indicates the goddess Hecate as being also a ruler of these spirits.

These passages from Porphyry are relevant here because, when Bishop Eusébio de Caesarea (265-339) commented on them, he left us a perfectly clear example of how this Greek goetia metamorphosed into the Christianized goetia that we know today. In his Praeparatio Evangelica, he wrote:

And who the power presiding over them happens to be, shall be made clear by the same author again, who says that the rulers of the wicked daemons are Sarapis and Hecate; but the sacred scripture says Βεελζεβούλ (Beelzebul).[4]

Lucifer e Beelzebul

The above examples we have seen, taken from the Gospels, the Testament of Solomon and the writings of Bishop Eusébio de Caesarea, show that, until the fourth century, the name most associated with the demon leader was Beelzebul; the same biblical passages also mention the name Satan, but this was perhaps less considered because, in its origin, it was not a proper name, nor was it used only for evil beings: the angel who confronts the prophet Balaam, for example, receives this epithet, and even the Satan (הַשָּׂטָן) of the book of Job must be considered a very different figure from the Christian Devil, since he stands before God and converses with him.

But, during this period, another name began to gain popularity: Lucifer. The creation of the “Christian Lucifer” is the pathetic result of a sequence of translations and misinterpretations. This story begins with the passage from Isaiah, who compares a Babylonian king to the planet Venus using its title Helel ben Shahar (הילל בן שחר) – the brilliant, or the son of the morning. The first translation of the Old Testament into the Greek language translated the expression using the word Ἑωσφόρος (heōsphoros, bearer of dawn) and, finally, at the end of the fourth century, the Latin translation known as the Vulgate translated Helel ben Shahar as Lucifer, one of the Latin names for the morning star. As Origen of Alexandria (185-253) had apparently already suggested that the king of the Isaiah passage would be the Devil himself, the name Lucifer came to be associated with him.

The adoption of the new name brought an interesting consequence: Beelzebul, little by little, started to indicate another demon, ceasing to be one of the Devil’s names.

Beelzebul in the Literature of Grimoires

In one of the manuscript versions of the Treatise of Solomon, or Hygromanteia, MS Harleianus 5596, this distinction is already clear: Loutzipher is the demon of the East, and shares the demonic empire with Asmodai in the North, Astaroth in the West and Berzeboul in the South. Each of the main demons has a retinue of subordinate spirits; in this case:

O you spirits and demons of the South, Berzeboul, Arkanel, Akhonioth, Zirtheouel, Ephlakh, Ephipta, Meltos, Kariter, Hypopalt, Listitho, Kaliouth, Boidonatekan, Malekapon, Liskax, Belioukh, Pelgiab, Gaabon, Eisgonel, Rhendipon, Khameloul, Digmason, Hyperikphimas, Oukaslabitan, Ptethama, Bebykis, Ourti, Kethapson, come, come, come,

from wherever you may be, quickly, at once. [xiii]

A similar system appears in the Book of Abramelin [xiv]:

In the Livre des Esperitz, a grimoire that survives in a sixteenth-century French copy, and which relates in its catalog to the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and, by extension, to the Ars Goetia of the Lemegeton, Bezlebuth shares the supreme demonic power with only Lucifer and Satan – and this is the oldest example I know of where the names Lucifer and Satan come to refer to different beings. The Livre des Esperitz thus describes Bezlebuth:

Gay, great and evil spirit, is called Bezlebuth, and was called before the time of Solomon of Anthaon, and is the greatest of hell after Lucifer, and it must be known that he reigns in the parts of the east, and whoever calls him he must have his view towards the east and he appears to him in a beautiful figure and appearance. He teaches all sciences and gives gold and silver to anyone who compels him to come, and gives a true answer to what is demanded of him, and reveals the secrets of Hell if he demands it, and truly teaches the things kept on

land and at sea, and manifests all the treasures that are at rest on earth, and protects from other spirits, and must be called in good time.[5]

Finally, giving yet another example, Belzebuth shares with Lucifer and Astaroth the head of the hierarchy of the Grimorium Verum, a late example of 18^th century grimoire literature. Here, he has the obedience of the spirits that inhabit Africa, and his direct subordinates are Tarchimache and and Fleruty. The Grimorium Verum so describes him:

Beelzebuth sometimes appears in monstrous4 forms, such as the shape of a monstrous calf, or a billy goat with a long tail, and yet most often he appears in the shape of a fly of an extremely large size. When angry he vomits flames, and howls like a wolf.[xv]

Beelzebuth in the Quimbanda

With the publication of the works of Aluízio Fontenelle (1913-1952) on Umbanda and Quimbanda, between 1950 and 1952, Beelzebuth and the other spirits of the Grimorium Verum acquired great importance in Brazilian occultism. Fontenelle syncretized the spirits of this grimoire with the most well-known exus of his time, also preserving the triadic arrangement of superior spirits; thus, Beelzebuth will be the Exú-Mór, who “it presents itself in various forms or aspects, almost never intermingling with incarnated beings, due to the fact that, having great honors, he is in charge of command over an incalculable legion of Exus[xvi].

Interestingly, in Quimbanda’s iconography, the image of “Exu Beelzebub” was inspired by the famous illustration of Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet.

Note: this article incorporates excerpts from my book Goetia: History & Practice (forthcoming).

[1] “Se Satanás expulsa Satanás, está dividido contra ele próprio. Como poderá então subsistir o seu reino?”. Mt. 12:26.

[2] The Testament of Solomon: Edited from Manuscripts at Mount Athos, Bologna, Holkham Hall, Jerusalem, London, Milan, Paris and Vienna, Chester Charlton McCown.

[3] The Testament of Solomon, translated by F. C. Conybeare.

[4] Eusebius of Caesarea Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel), Tr. E. H. Gifford (1903).

[5] Les who’s who démonologiques de la Renaissance et leurs ancêtres médiévaux, Jean-Patrice Boudet.

[i] Dictionnaire Infernal: Répertoire Universel, par J. Collin De Plancy. Sixième Édition, 1863.

[ii] 2 Kings 1:2, King James Bible.

[iii] 2 Kings 1:2, , King James Bible.

[iv] 1 Kings 11:5 , King James Bible.

[v] Dictionary of Deities and Demons in The Bible, Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter W. van der Horst.

[vi] Beelzebub, Encyclopedia Catholica. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02388c.htm

[vii] Beelzebub, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Karel van der Toorn, Bob Beking. Pieter W. van der Horst.

[viii] , King James Bible, Mt. 12:22-24.

[ix] “And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?”. Mt. 12:26.

[x] The Testament of Solomon, translated by F. C. Conybeare.

[xi] The Testament of Solomon, translated by F. C. Conybeare.

[xii] Porphyry: On Abstinence from Killing Animals, Translated by Gillian Clark.

[xiii] The Magical Treatise of Solomon or Hygromanteia, translated & edited by Ioannis Marathakis

[xiv] The Book of Abramelin: A New Translation, by Abraham Von Worms (Author), Georg Dehn (Editor).

[xv] Grimorium Verum, A handbook of Black Magic, Edited and Translated by Joseph H. Peterson.

[xvi] Exu, Aluizio Fontenelle.

The post The Great Lord of the Flies appeared first on Occult-Study.

It was thanks to the eminent Portuguese Cyprianist José Leitão that the secret of the origin of this character was clarified for me: the text that appears in the edition of the Livro de S. Cypriano ou Thesouro do Feiticeiro, published at the end of the 19th century by the Livraria Econômica in Lisbon, with the title of A Feiticeira de Évora ou História da Sempre Noiva (The Witch of Evora or the Story of the Forever Bride), was taken from a work by Amador Patrício (pseudonym of Martim Cardoso de Azevedo) published in 1739, the Historia das Antiguidades de Evora.

EBORA LIBERALITAS JULIA

The historian Plínio (the Elder) in the first century called the Roman settlement established in the place where the city of Évora is located today, Ebora Cerealis, a name derived from the ancient Celtic eburos, which indicated a shrub known today as yew. The neighborhoods are notable for the Neolithic megaliths that date back 5,000 years, including the Cromlech of the Almendres, one of the largest groups of menhirs in Europe.

In the 1st century BC, the town received the honorary title Liberalitas Julia for its loyalty to the Roman emperor Julius Caesar during the civil wars. One of the historical landmarks of that time are the ruins of the Temple erected in honor of Emperor Caesar Augustus, who was revered as a god; the attribution of the Temple to the goddess Diana was made erroneously in the 17th century, and again in another error in 1945 to the Goddess of Grace.

IN THE BOOK OF SAINT CIPRIAN

The chapter dedicated to the Witch of Évora in the edition of Livraria Econômica opens with the description of the discovery of a fantastic place that, in fact, comes from a narrative also from the Historia das Antiguidades de Evora but which does not refer to the Witch. It is the (very interesting) description of the discovery of the grave of one Montero-mur, during the supposed construction (or reconstruction) of the Castle of Giraldo, a castro (fortified structure) with origins in the Bronze Age, located today in the District of Évora:

In the middle of the house was a grave the height of a man. The inside was all painted in circles, with lizards, snakes and geckos. Outside, at the edges, were four natural stone frogs, and between frog and frog were figures of children, each half the size of a cubit, standing. They had bundles of wands in their hands that threatened the frogs. In one of the corners of this house was the figure of a monster that from head to waist was a man, and from the waist down a coiled snake. In the other corner was a turtle and on top of it a crow that had a bat in its mouth, as if it were eating it. In the other two corners, in each, a figure of a woman, one awake and the other sleeping; the awake had a man’s head in her left hand by the hair, and at the foot was a hunting dog with his mouth open, as if he wanted to attack the head, and the woman with her hand prevented it. The one who slept had an owl in one hand and a hawk with open wings in the other, wanting to attack the owl. On the walls of the house were many paintings of snails, slugs, frogs, wasps, drones, beetles, bugs and other small animals.

This is a translation of the text as seen in the Livro de S. Cypriano; it follows very faithfully what is seen in the Historia das Antiguidades de Evora, with one or other copyist error; but, the following sentence was inserted to associate the place with the Witch of Évora,

It was the den where the Lagarrona witch performed her diabolic spells.

Lagarrona is the name given in the story for this witch (bruxa), who is also called a sorceress (feiticeira) several times. At no point in the original text do we see the expressions Witch of Évora or Sorceress of Évora being used; these expressions, which became so popular, were introduced by the Livro de S. Cypriano that gave its composed text the title of A Feiticeira de Évora, ou História da Sempre Noiva (The Sorceress of Evora or the Story of the Forever Bride). When introducing the character, Amador Patrício wrote that she was “a Moor, also Magician, and enchantress, which was called Lagarrona”.

THE POWERS OF THE WITCH OF EVORA

This story introduces us to Lagarrona as a witch of great powers: she makes her son invisible, and then turns him into an ass. Here we find new mistakes by the copyist, who claims that this donkey disappeared “fleeing through the fields”, when the original narrative says he was carried away in the air – so Lagarrona also had this power.

The sorceress “had achieved by her spells that her son would disappear for the love of a Christian woman“, so she could predict the future. She prepared spells that, placed under the pillows, made the girl coveted by her son and her fiancé to fall asleep without consummating the marriage, and other enchantments that, put on the groom’s clothes, killed him in twenty-four hours. And so with two more suitors.

To all this, illusionism powers are added, well described in an interesting paragraph that, unfortunately, the copyist of the Livro de S. Cypriano forgot to include, and that I take the opportunity to rescue. According to what can be seen in the Historia das Antiguidades de Evora, when the girl intended by her son was captive in her home, the Lagarrona distracted her:

[…] with many inventions of enchantments: now it seemed, that she was in his very sumptuous Palace, in fresh gardens, and cheerful orchards: at other times she invented beast hunts, horse games, tournaments, dances, masks; and finally a thousand things, with which she spent time, and she was happy.

Lagarrona, in despair when her son was arrested and sentenced, again resorted to her powers of illusionism, making “many black shadows shrouded in fire” and “armed giants and ferocious animals” appear in the prison.

Tying the prisoner, with his hands and feet, they went out with him to punish him; but when they arrived at the gallows, great thunder and lightning began, which terrified everyone, and soon there were black clouds, so thick, that the air darkened and they didn’t see each other, and after that the earth opened up, with a lot of smoke and black shadows that walked through the air, with snakes in their hands, whipping everyone. Then, hearing a great thud and earthquake, the air came to stay as clear as before.

The witch dies at the end of the story, when her magical trance is interrupted by the men of justice during a great spell, and she suffers a fatal accident. As the Livro de S. Cypriano also presents copy errors here, I translated from the original:

Justice put her in that place hanged, where she was until rotting, which was the same house, where she lived; and after that the place was called Lagarrona, taking the name of this witch, who there died, and changing a letter it today is called Lagardona.

The magic words that Lagarrona used in her last spell, according to the story, were not recorded, “but some Authors say […] that she said the following words”:

Olenta in pus, nigabao, negabus. Oleolapolaó merrinhao, mirrinhaó, nhao, nhao, nhao, nhao.

The copyist of the Livro de S. Cypriano left us:

Olenta in pus, nigalao negabus. Oleolapolaó, merrinhaó, merrinhao, nhão, nhãn, nhão!

New Stories

Whoever tells a story increases it, so goes a saying. The Livro de S. Cypriano has added several stories where, without regard to details of time and logic, we have adventures where the saint and the sorcerer mix. Likewise, new narratives about the Witch of Évora were being created. One of the most beautiful is found in the book by Maria Helena Farelli:

But what do the Arabs have to do with our history? The reason is that, according to the legend, the Witch of Évora was Moorish; yes, they said she was Arab or Moorish. She was dark, not white like most Portuguese women. She had come from the hot lands and had Arab friends, but she was raised in Iberia; so she spoke Arabic and Portuguese well, besides Latin. Legend has it that her father and mother died when she was seven; that an old aunt raised her and taught her the magical arts, giving her as talismans seven gold coins from the caliph Omar, an agate stone with Arabic inscriptions and a silver plate with the name of the Prophet. And she taught her to work in pottery: the witch made her clay pots and vases. Some say that she was crazy about rugs and, all the money she earned, she spent on them. Legend has it that she read the Koran and wrote; among her belongings was a rich carved copper inkwell. She knew mathematics and, looking at the sky, she recognized the stars; she knew how to read the luck in the sands, in the stars, and how to do spells and healings. She knew the magic of her Muslim ancestors; but, living in the 13th century, she also knew that of the Celts, who for a long time occupied the south of Portugal. Infidel, therefore. Devil worshiper … Enemy of the Church. But the old witch had already made the pilgrimage to Santiago of  Compostela, where there were precious relics. She had already gone to the Cathedral of Braga many times to pay promises, and she lived well. She was free. She picked flowers and herbs, earned her rich money, was feared and respected. She was afraid only of being arrested and tortured as a devil worshiper. So, she used to disappear. They said she flew on her broom, with her owl on her back … things from the time of kings..

Farelli’s narrative turns the Witch of Évora into a magical heroine, even a scholar. In the original narrative, she was, in fact, a wicked sorceress who collaborates in the kidnapping of a Christian virgin and helped to kill her grooms.

CYPRIAN & THE WITCH

The original narratives about Saint Cyprian make him a martyr during the reign of Diocletian, who reigned from 284 to 305. The story of the Witch of Évora takes place during the time of the Muslim occupation of Portugal, which lasted from 726 to 1249. The book São Cipriano o Legitimo Capa Preta, however, had no qualms in putting the two characters in the same narrative:

At the age of thirty, he went to Babylon where he was to learn astrology and the deepest mysteries of the Chaldeans, at the same time that he gave himself up to an impure and scandalous life. In order to be more connected to the demons he studied magic and came to associate to the old Witch Évora, known as the most powerful fortune teller and dream interpreter. When the Witch died, at a very old age, she left all her secrets and discoveries, carefully compiled in her manuscripts, material that would be of great use for Cyprian.

The witch here has a more dignified ending … In the original texts on Saint Cyprian, written in the fourth century, one of the first things the sorcerer does when deciding to convert is to present himself to the bishop and burn his books; the São Cipriano o Legitimo Capa Preta also innovates on this point:

Already converted, Cyprian hurried to distribute his goods to the needy and his manuscripts, as well as the notes of the Witch Évora, he kept them at the bottom of a large chest, locking it with a powerful lock. Even though Cyprian recognized that them had no value against the Almighty God, worshiped by Justina and Eusebio, he recognized that those documents could, in the future, clear many doubts and elucidate certain mysteries.

THE POMBAGIRA WITCH

The  Livro de S. Cypriano mentions two characters who would later become part of Quimbanda; Maria Padilha appears in five spells in this book, and is today one of its most important entities. Spells with Maria Padilha appear in the confessions of Portuguese witches exiled by the Inquisition to Brazil, in the times of the colony, but the Witch of Évora only made her passage from Myth to Magic thanks to the popularization of the Books of Saint Cypria sold and published in Brazil.

The Pombagira Witch of Évora has become popular; this seems to me to be a recent phenomenon, as I have found no mention of her (so far) in the literature of Umbanda and Quimbanda of the first seven decades of the 20th century. In an Internet source, which also uses material from Farelli’s book, today we see:

Pomba-Gira Witch of Évora is very much in demand when you don’t know what else to do. She knows and does it with the greatest willingness, as she is thirsty to complete her objective. Instead of chasing her victims, she prefers to attract them, which she does very well. She herself decides which spirit will be assigned to each mission and has the power to surprise them if they do not perform their tasks well.

And still:

She was always visited by a black goat. Goats were always animals of sorcerers because they were considered sensual. The Pomba-Gira Witch of Évora obeys all Yabás (female orixás), a little-known entity that has many mysteries around her. Almost you don’t hear about her, but she works with all sorts of magic and enchantments for all purposes. She presents herself as she wishes, now as a lady, now a dame, now a beautiful and pleasant girl. Because she works for all Yabás, she doesn’t have a very definite stereotype, she likes champagne and cigarillos.

(https://www.marciafernandes.com.br/site/pomba-gira-bruxa-de-evora/)

Proving that she is here to stay, the Pombagira Witch of Évora already has its own image, as we can see below. It follows the archetype of the old witch riding the broom so popular in our culture.

Image of the Pombagira Witch of Évora.
Photo by Verónica Rivas.

THE REAL WITCHES OF ÉVORA

When she was surprised in her last spell, the Lagarrona was in a room where “a sign of Solomon was painted on the floor”. This detail is in accordance with the narratives collected by the Portuguese inquisitors; in O Imaginário da Magia – Feiticeiras, adivinhos e curandeiros em Portugal no Século XVI, by Francisco Bethencourt, for example, we see:

Isabel Lopes, for example, used to say that she made a circle in the house and entered it and from within she would call the devils, who if they found her outside that circle and the sign of Solomon they would make her into pieces.

The Portuguese Inquisition began in Évora in 1536, with the promulgation of the papal bull Cum ad nihil magis; its court functioned until 1821, when the Holy Office in Portugal was extinguished by the government.

A very interesting thing raised by Francisco Bethencourt, based on the Évora court cases, is the existence, in the 16th century, of a network of exchange and learning among witches. So we know, for example, that the witches Brites Marques and Brites Frazoa were considered by the others to be “the most knowledgeable”; Brites Marques was consulted in more difficult cases by companions Inês Arruda, Inês Rodrigues Catela and Guiomar Rodrigues, who even sent them “clients whose problems exceeded their level of competence”. These networks of witches also extended outside the localities: Ana Godinha, a witch from Alcácer do Sal, had learned from Brites Frazoa de Évora, and even the “most knowledgeable” Brites Marques and Brites Frazoa consulted the Moorish woman from Montemor called Maria Fernandes. In an interesting detail, the sorceress Jerónima da Cruz confessed to having learned to communicate with the devil with “a captive moorish woman”.

These witches and sorceresses trapped in the net of the Inquisition of Évora were sometimes sent to serve time in Brazil. For example, in 1675 the Évora Court arrested Leonor Gonçalves, accused of witchcraft, superstition and pact with the devil, and deported her to the colony. Leonor confessed to talking to her guardian angel and her deceased husband, and that “she took from the altar of the Church of Mercy of Vila de Frades, a piece of the altar stone to make certain spells with it in order to cure the sick”. She declared to the inquisitors that:

Our Lady of the Rosary was the mother of the Devil and Our Lady of Medicine was the aunt of the devil and that she gave her soul and heart to him for having nothing better to give. (Vadios e Ciganos, Heréticos e Bruxas: Os Degredados no Brasil-Colônia, Geraldo Pieroni)

Exiled to the colony, these Witches of Évora became, by right, the first Witches of Brazil.

The post Bruxa de Évora appeared first on Occult-Study.

(an excerpt from a forthcoming work on Quimbanda)

Published with the author’s approval

Athenodorus and the Ghost, by Henry Justice Ford, c.1900

The earliest records of necromancy in a Western language come from the verses of Homer. The Iliad and the Odyssey give us information on three categories of the dead and how they can interact with the living.

First we have the restless, spirits that could not integrate themselves in the underground realm of Hades and had some power to affect the living. The Iliad give us the psyche of Patroclus who returns to beg Achilles for his burial, and in the Odyssey the psyche of Elpenor does the same, but this time with threats:

There, then, O prince, I bid thee remember me. Leave me not behind thee unwept and unburied as thou goest thence, and turn not away from me, lest haply I bring the wrath of the gods upon thee.[1]

Patroclus and Elpenor were restless because they were ataphoi (from αταφος, unburied); the crowd of ghosts that surrounded Odysseus at the beginning of his necromancy also seems to be made of diverse categories of restless dead, as we can distinguish between them the aoroi (from αωροσ, untimely) who died before the proper time, the biothanatoi (from βιαιος and θανατος, violent and death) who died violently and the agamoi (from αγαμος, unmarried).

Then there gathered from out of Erebus the spirits of those that are dead, brides, and unwedded youths, and toil-worn old men, and tender maidens with hearts yet new to sorrow, and many, too, that had been wounded with bronze-tipped spears, men slain in fight, wearing their blood-stained armour. These came thronging in crowds about the pit from every side, with a wondrous cry; and pale fear seized me.[2]

Christianity with its cult of martyrs and saints brought a completely reversal in these beliefs, seen the violent death of young virgins not just as a direct ticket to heaven but also as granting them power to intercede for the still living.

The second category of dead were the ones accepted in Hades who “flit about as shadows”[3]; Hades was as gloomy as the Jewish original Sheol and its shades just could recognize Odysseus after drinking the blood of his sacrifice. The mancia that these nekroy could provide was limited to the knowledge they had before dying.

There was, however, one exception, the sole individual of the third category who prefigured the future initiates of the mystery cults: “the spirit of Theban Teiresias, the blind seer”[4]; to him “even in death Persephone has granted reason, that he alone should have understanding”[5]. Tiresias, like his counterpart in the Old Testament, the dead prophet Samuel invoked by Saul with the craft of the Witch of Endor, could still give mancia about the future.

Although Odysseus referred to the inhabitants of Hades as the “powerless heads of the dead”[6] the Greek view about the restless dead changes after Homer and the Greeks began to attribute to them more power to interfere in the lives of the living; that power began to be harnessed by magicians and there are several formulas and recipes about how to do this in the Greek Magical Papyri and in the curse tablets. Here Christian ideas also interfered, as Christian eschatology denied the possibility that the souls of the dead could escape their post mortem status to medley in the affairs of the living: what “the Greeks call νεκρομαντείαν” Saint Augustine reinterpret as “appearances whereby the demons made sport” of the practitioner who believes to be invoking the gods or “the inhabitants of the nether world”[7].

After Homer we also see the rise of the Greek cult of heroes, the heroes being now a special forth category of the dead that are powerful to help their devotees, and their cults usually were administered at their tombs. The Christian cult of saints was essentially an adaptation necessary to fill the gap left by the abandonment of this Pagan practice.

To talk about the Iberian necromancy that helped shape the Quimbanda we are going to use the Portuguese Book of Saint Cyprian, and that for two reasons. First, the Book of Saint Cyprian collected a large amount of folk magic recipes where we can discern many of the necromantic concepts that were brought to Brazil; second, as João do Rio attested in 1904, the Book of Saint Cyprian was widely used by the practitioners of the diverse European-African syncretisms that would help create the Quimbanda:

But what is ignored by the people who sustain the sorcerers, is that the base of their entire science is the Book of S. Cyprian. The greatest alufás, the more complicated fathers-of-saint, have hidden between the stripes and the animals one nothing fantastic edition of S. Cyprian. Whilst that crying creatures await for the bewitchings and the fatal mixtures the blacks spell the S. Cyprian, by the light of the lamps…[8]

The influence of the Book of Saint Cyprian remains strong as we can see nowadays several different versions and editions for sale in the same stores where we find the implements for Quimbanda practices; in fact, the last decades saw a rise in its prestige thanks to the work of researchers like Felix Castro Vicente, Jake Stratton-Kent, José Leitão and myself.

The necromantic concepts we find in the Portuguese Book of Saint Cyprian are fundamentally Catholic, but they also deviate from orthodoxy in three important points. First, souls in Purgatory are not limited in their actions and can be invoked for practical purposes; second, a few special souls of the damned are not confined in Hell but can also be invoked, like Maria de Padilha who appears in five spells of the book; and in third place we have a few mentions to “baptized evil spirits” that may be interpreted as referring to lesser human damned spirits and ghosts that can harm people together with the “excommunicated demons”[9] with whom they are in league:

[…] by these most joyous names of Our Lord Jesus Christ let all demons, ghosts, and all malign spirits in the company of Satanás and his companions flee to their abodes that are in hell, where they will be perpetually in the company of all the sorcerers who made sorcery against this creature (so and so) or in this house.[10]

The allegiance of the dead with the devils and their ability to leave Hell and affect the living, the idea that some of the damned dead are in prominent positions in the infernal hierarchy and the concept that the Purgatorial souls can be used for sorcery were key elements in the development of the Quimbanda, and we can suspect direct influence from the Book of Saint Cyprian in some practices as well, like the way the balé is used by some people today (more on that ahead). The necromancy of the book, for instance, attest that spirits can be coopted from the cemetery to aid the sorcerer, as we see in the following recipe:

Recipe to be happy in the things that are undertaken

Take a living toad and cut off its head and its feet on a Friday, soon after the Full Moon of the month of September. Put these pieces in the sap of the elder tree for twenty-one days, retrieving them after this time as the church bells begin to toll at midnight. Then, exposing them to the beams of the moon for three consecutive nights, calcinate them in a clay pot that has never been used before. Mix it later with an equal amount of soil from a cemetery, but specifically from the grave belonging to someone related to the person for whom the recipe is made. The person that possesses this can be assured that the spirit of the deceased will watch over them and over all things they undertake, because the toad will not lose sight of the interests of the person.[11]

The idea that spirits could stay at cemeteries or around their places of burial (like the dead buried in churches and churchyards exploited in other spells in the Book of Saint Cyprian) was not so far away from Catholic orthodoxy or acceptance as we may think; the idea that tombs and relics of saints are locals of power, for instance, and the practices of indulgences in cemeteries as we saw before could led people to believe that the grave can keep some kind of liaison with the spirit of the deceased. A few striking examples can be taken from the revelations of the polemical Spanish Franciscan nun Magdalena de la Cruz (1487–1560), who from her childhood until 1546 was respected as a living saint, but then confessed to be under the thrall of the devil during her whole life. During her golden years she repeatedly affirmed that sinful souls could suffer in their graves and come to ask for prayers and forgiveness; the fact that the concept behind these revelations was not challenged before or after her fall from grace is an indication that the idea was found to be acceptable.

And one day she said that from a grave that she pointed out, a Nun would raise to speak to her and she told certain people that the souls of the deceased come to ask her for forgiveness.

And once she being enraptured it seemed to her that the soul of  certain person whom she named, was eight days suffering in the grave together with his Body, and that from there it had gone to Rejoice in  Christ, which she told to certain person that this was the greatest punishment that the souls have in the other world.[12]

These ideas blur the frontier between the grave and the Purgatory, and in fact they make the grave a gateway to the place where souls are purified through suffering. In the example above, suffering in the grave (“the greatest punishment”) was enough for grant access to Heaven. From the perspective of the “suffering in the grave” then we can infer that to be raised by the sorcerer to work for him as in the Recipe to be happy could mean a betterment in the situation of the spirit, an idea also to be found in the Umbanda and the Quimbanda.

[1] Odyssey 11.71-75. In The Odyssey with an English Translation, A.T. Murray, PH.D.

[2] Odyssey 11.40-45. In The Odyssey with an English Translation, A.T. Murray, PH.D.

[3] Odyssey 10.496. In The Odyssey with an English Translation, A.T. Murray, PH.D.

[4] Odyssey 10.496. In The Odyssey with an English Translation, A.T. Murray, PH.D.

[5] Odyssey 10.494. In The Odyssey with an English Translation, A.T. Murray, PH.D.

[6] Odyssey 11.9. In The Odyssey with an English Translation, A.T. Murray, PH.D.

[7] The City of God, Book VII, Chapter 35.

[8] As Religiões do Rio, João do Rio.

[9] The Book of Saint Cyprian, Humberto Maggi. Nephilim Press.

[10] The Book of Saint Cyprian, Humberto Maggi. Nephilim Press.

[11] The Book of Saint Cyprian, Humberto Maggi. Nephilim Press.

[12] Judgement of Madalena de la Cruz, professed nun from the Monastery of St. Isabel of the Angels, belonging to the Order of St. Claire. Translated to English by Verónica Rivas for the forthcoming The Devils Abbess: The diabolical revelations of Sister Magdalena de la Cruz, by Madeleine LeDespencer, Hadean Press.

The post The Book of Saint Cyprian and the Quimbanda appeared first on Occult-Study.

Le Chef ou Prince des mauvais Esprits auquelles Formosans sacrifient. From George Psalmanaazaar’s “Description de l’Isle Formosa en Asie” (1712).
It is showed here as an example of the imposition of European demonological ideas over the culture of the colonies.

The past and the future of the craft of Quimbanda, with some personal observations on encounters with Exu

The Inquisition in Portugal in the XVI century presented some utterly unique peculiarities. The inquisitors displayed the usual obsessions to be found at the other courts in Europe with the three key concepts of the Church definition of diabolical witchcraft, namely the Pact, the Mark and the Sabbath. However, what they got was a torrent of loquacious ethnographic data on the popular magic of the common folk, which much extrapolated what they were looking for.

[…] the intensive analyses of around hundred processes of the Inquisition we selected about magic showed an enormous loquacity of the prisoners, accusers and witnesses, although none of them was submitted to torture. The declarations found did not correspond, in the majority of the cases, to the mental universe of the judges. Whilst the inquisitors were concerned to know if the magical practices had profited from the diabolical pact, the inquired agents talked about syncretic practices, with alternated invocations of God and demons, of souls and of supernatural forces, the throwing of sorts, the realization of conjures, the prognostic of the past, of the present and of the future, the elaboration of love philters, boilers, bindings, amulets, nominas[1], touching letters[2], sorceries of love and hate.[3]

What is of interest here for us are the popular concepts of the diabolical magical practices of Portugal back then and, to a certain extent, also from Spain. It is difficult to distinguish Portuguese and Spanish folk magic as both nations shared a continuous mutual influence, including being under the same crown in the period of 1580 to 1640. As we will see, there is a very close resemblance between the devilish invocations used in both countries, and the history of conjures of the dead Spanish witch queen Maria de Padilla shows very clearly the line of influence coming from Spain.

The concepts behind these devilish practices are very simple. We do not see here the complicated hierarchical arrangements to be found in the grimoires or in the demonological treatises used by the Holy Office. The list of demons usually invoked is short and composed of the most common known names, like Satanaz, Lucifer and Belcebu. There is a much diminished respect for the hierarchy of Hell and they lack the specialization attributed to many different spirits in the grimoires: the kings of the demons are called for everything and charged with the most prosaic tasks.

The most important characteristic of the magical view behind these practices is the fundamental role attributed to the souls of dead. Prominent in the Greek-Roman magic before the rise of Christianity, the invocation of the souls of the dead suffered from Saint Augustine‘s reinterpretation of magical practices as being an exclusively demonic enterprise: every spirit attending an invocation was denounced as a devil in disguise, no matter if it was believed to be a god or a ghost. There were no gods, wrote the African bishop, only deceiving demons thirsting after the adoration and the offerings provided by humans. And the eschatology developed by the Church during centuries of confuse councils would deny any magical powers to the souls of Hell and in Purgatory.

There was however some doctrinal breaches through which necromantic practices could leak in, most of them deriving from the cult of the saints. The saints were the blessed souls in Heaven who were believed to have power of action in the world of the living, where they were as loved as feared[4]. So it is not a surprise to find some of them named in the spells. Saints like Erasmus or Mark appear repeatedly in the Portuguese conjures – very often mixed with diabolical callings:

Oh glorious Saint Mark, Saint Mark mark you, Jesus Christ assuage you, Saint Manso tame you, the Holy Spirit humble you, my Saint Mark glorious Saint, I ask you that my blood be not spilled and neither my forces taken neither my enemies found me by the power of God father, God son and of the Holy Spirit that my enemies have eyes but not see me, and the mouth they have do not talk of me by the power of Lucifer all the hours be with me whenever I am to be found with my enemies.[5]

But it is not only demons and saints we find in the sorcery of the common folk. There is a list of dead souls who seem to have being adopted into the infernal legions where they rose to positions of power and command. In Spanish spells we have figures like Marta the Lost, the mother of Saint Peter, the Queen of Sardinia, the Marquis of Villena and the most important of them, Maria de Padilla. All these souls have in common some past association with sin or magic which made the people believe them to be condemned to Hell, but at the same time they had some extraordinary characteristic which provided them with a better afterlife fate between the legions of the damned. Marta the Lost (who is in Hell for the love of a man), and the mother of Saint Peter (who brings the broth to the hanged) are more mythological in character; there is a long list of Queens of Sardinia to be researched to discover to whom the spells refer to, but when it comes to the Marquis de Villena and Maria de Padilla we are treading in more safe historical grounds. The Marquis in question could be Diego López Pacheco y Portocarrero (1443—1529), the second Marquis of Villena who protected the heretical sect of the Alumbrados[6], or more likely Enrique de Villena (1384-1434), who wrote one Tratado de la fascinación o de aojamiento (Treatise on the Evil Eye), and was considered after his death to be a necromancer[7]. Maria de Padilla (1334-1361) is the well known lover and posthumous wife of the king of Castile Peter the Just (1334-1369), whose influence over the king was accused of being magical. These special souls of the dead always appear in the known spells associated to the principal demons mentioned before.

From the diverse confessions and denunciations gathered by the inquisitors we can reconstitute the method used by the witches to summon the devils and the dead, according to the following features:

Place: The invocations were usually done in the fields or bushes, sometimes in the backyard of the house. The domestic space could be dangerous to other people (as the demons could attack them) and to the witch herself (who could be spied upon and denounced), but some witches believed the spirits could manifest better in the isolated places.[8]

“Margarida Pimenta, concretely, said to a client “that she could not do anything at the house of her sister named Calista because there was a boy there […] son of the said Calista and she was afraid that the demons could do him some harm and she would instead do it in the fields because there the demons came to her better.”[9]

Time: The chosen days were the Fridays, the Wednesdays and the Mondays, usually between the twenty and two and midnight hours.[10]

Protection: Some witches used simple variations of the magical circles we know from the grimoires, usually drawing a simple circle, a sign of Solomon or a cross in which they went inside.

“Isabel Lopes, for example, used to say that she would make in the house a wheel and would go into it and from inside it she would call the devils, who if they found her out of that wheel and the sign of Solomon would make her in pieces. In a confession of Iria Jorge, she said that the devil always challenged her to leave the circle she drawn on the floor, because that way she would be under his power.[11]

Nudity: Partial nudity and loose or disheveled hair is frequently mentioned, and was even considered by some to be a very necessary condition (see below the justification of the witch Margarida Pimenta).

“To walk naked and with the hair [loose or disheveled] certainly identified, in the popular imagination, the protagonist of this act with the witch. In the XVI century, in Evora, it is known that the person interested in the conjuration of the stones should do it ´with [loose] hair and in shirt, gazing at a star and holding in the hand nine stones taken from crossroads.´ In the XVII century, such gestures persisted: in 1637, Maria Ortega conjured the spirits disheveled and naked from the waist up, and in 1664 it was in an identical form that Maria da Silva invoked demons or uttered a beautiful orison of Saint Erasmus, using also one bowl and green candles.”[12]

Offerings: There is frequent mention of simple offerings, generally of food, made to the spirits.

“Margarida Pimenta, who put outside the circle three small portions of barley for when the demons under the figure of piglets came, justified the failure of her conjuration saying that she was not naked and lacked the entrails of a goat to feed them. Brites de Figueiredo, for her part, was famous for giving bread, meat and fish to a little devil named Martinho; [the devils preferred] according to Simão Pinto “black bread and fish cooked with mud”; Brites Dias give them garlic and onions to eat.”[13]

Conjure: The conjuration is made with simple verses, easily remembered and repeated.

Aims: The invocations of demons are usually made to solve quotidian problems and often on behalf of clients.

Relationship: The relationship with the devils may vary; some witches brag about her power over the spirits, others confess their submission and fear and often the dangers of the activity are also mentioned.

“Now the [witch known as] Arde-lhe-o-rabo[14] used to affirm to wander disheveled and naked in the churchyards and bushes, in search of sorceries: “because I go at midnight to my backyard with the head in the air and the door opened toward the sea and I bury and unbury some jars and I am naked from the waist up and with the hair [disheveled] and I speak with the devils and call them and I am with them in great danger.” When she returned from these walks, she came “beaten” by the devils and the works she had. [15]

It was this folk style of conjure magic which migrated to Brazil, as a result of the exile of the witches. As an example of this, we have Antonia Maria, a professional witch prosecuted by the Inquisition of Lisbon and condemned to deportation to Angola, who ended up in Brazil around 1715 together with another Portuguese witch (whom she indicated as her teacher in the craft), Joana de Andrade. Antonia Maria surpassed Joana learning in Brazil from another sorcerer named Páscoa Maria and, after a time, became a rival to her old master, whom she apparently bewitched to death for trying to break some of her spells.[16]

Antonia Maria is a good example because her spells are perfect samples of the necromantic and diabolical conjure brought to Brazil from the Iberian countries. She would sit at the entrance of her house, with a cheese made from she-goat milk cut in three pieces to offer to the main demons, and recited conjurations like the following:

In this portal I come to sit, and I do not see so and so and I do not have anyone to go and bring him to me, go Barabbas, go Satanas, go Lucifer, go his wife, go Maria Padilha with all her quadrilha[17], and all want to gather and at so and so house enter, and do not let him eat, sleep or rest without entering through my door, and do everything I ask of him, and grant to me, and if you do it a table I will offer to give to you.[18]

This spell shows clearly the divergence between the popular and the erudite view about demonological magic. For the witch, it was a business matter with a specific form of payment, the offering of food (the she-goat cheese for the initial contact, a table of food if the spell worked out); for the inquisitors, the effectiveness of the practices could not be understood without resource to the Pact. The theology of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas even created the notions of implicit and explicit pact which enabled the Holy Office to impose its own interpretation regardless of what the accused confessed or believed – exactly what happened in the second trial of Antonia Maria.

But the offering of food was also a dangerous practice, because it could easily be reinterpreted by the witch-hunters as a form of idolatry, the reason why it disappeared from the grimoire literature since the time of the Hygromanteia[19], the main source for the later most popular of the grimoires, the Key of Solomon in its many variations. But the offering of food survived with the Iberian sorcerers and would soon be married to African practices when the exiled and the enslaved joined forces against their common oppressors.

The Colonial Roots of Quimbanda

Portugal’s new found possessions on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean soon became in the imaginations of many Europeans a forsaken land ruled by the Devil. The harshness and many dangers of the Tropics and the savagery of its inhabitants soon eclipsed the view that the land of Paradise was found. The change of the name of the colony, which was first called Terra de Vera Cruz (“Land of the True Cross”), to Brasil was seen by the Portuguese historian and chronicler Pêro de Magalhães Gândavo (1540-1580) as a work of the devil, taking away the blessed name in exchange for the name of the red wood intensely commercialized. The Franciscan friar Vicente do Salvador (1564-1635), considered to be “the father of Brazilian history”, also lamented the change to which he attributed the decadence of the land.

The exiled witches and the enslaved people from both sides of the ocean soon got together in unholy alliances. The exchange of magical knowledge between the Europeans, Indigenous Brazilians and Africans is attested very early:

Another specific feature of colonial witchcraft, which began to accentuate in the end of the XVI century, was its association to the African magical practices. According to the Visitations [of the Inquisition] in Bahia, a slave from Guinea named André Buçal made divinations with pans and boilers around 1587. Since then, the references grow: around 1610, the witch Maria Barbosa, protégé of the governor of Bahia Don Diogo de Menezes, acted in collusion with the Black Cucana, who made powders with scraps from certain roots. In 1616, white men already used the knowledge of the African sorcerers to get the cure to relatives and friends.[20]

In 1767, in the river Tajurá, many people – the majority Indigenous Brazilians – used to make sorcery operations invoking the demon, pretending to make spirits descend, prophesying future things and discovering the hidden ones, pretending, by those means, to cure and heal the sick. All the cases refer to a very similar practice. Ludovina Ferreira, white woman, assimilated the curative magic of the indigenous people; around 1735 she promoted cures in the company of the Indigenous Brazilian Antonio.[21]

It is important to notice that it is this triple cultural symbolism that will give rise later to the three types of spirits we find in the new Brazilian religion named Umbanda: the spirits of the Old Blacks (“PretoVelhos,” wise and old slaves of African origin); the Caboclos (Indigenous Brazilians or the result of the union of Europeans and Indigenous Brazilians) and the Exus (heavily indebted to the European iconography of the Devil and his human associates). Together they represent respectively the African traditions brought by the slaves, the Indigenous elements of the original owners of the land and the diabolical concepts of European folk magic. This last devilish retinue, however, would at some point begin to work its way toward independence under the denomination of Quimbanda.

The Feast

The invention of the diabolical Sabbath is the history of a tragic irony, the re-elaboration of an ancient slander which, in the end, received a life of its own:

The fantasy is first met with in the second century, when pagan Greeks and Romans attached it to the small Christian communities in the Empire. These unfortunate people found themselves accused of holding meetings at which babies or small children were ritually slaughtered, and feasts at which the remains of these victims were ritually devoured; also of holding erotic orgies at which every form of intercourse, including incest between parents and children, was freely practiced; also of worshipping a strange divinity in the form of an animal.[22]

The myth of the Sabbath was then created against the Christians, but ended up being used by the Church to slander every group considered as heretic from the XIV century onward, until it finally was transformed into the Sabbath of the witches.

No matter how diligently the inquisitors guided their victims into confessing their attendance to the diabolical feast, the fact remains that the soldiers of the Church and their Reformers colleagues never caught a group of witches actually meeting in the woods, churchyards, fields or cemeteries from the beginning to the end of the persecutions. Groups of heretics were with a certain frequency found out, ambushed and arrested, but the only notices of the gatherings of the supposed witches came from their confessions.

Until, of course, the Europeans discovered the religious festivities of the Native Brazilians and Africans.

Native Brazilians like the Tupinambás called immediately the horrified attention of the colonizers with their cannibalistic celebrations, which were seem as diabolical meetings, and the New World soon lost the image of a new found Paradise to be seen as the true Kingdom of the Devil:

The New World was given over to sin and seemed to not have salvation anymore, many Jesuits narrate in their letters actions that in their eyes were things of the devil: “incest” (…), polygamy, (…) nudity, laziness, greed, paganism, cannibalism,” some Jesuits been saying that “the Native Brazilians are the people of the devil.” The demonization attributed to the Native Americans was one of the aspects of the perception of the European, to whom the New World was before a domain of God but now became a refuge of the devil, who losing space in the Old World searched for shelter in the new lands, where a range of opportunities was open for his dominations. [23]

The ceremonies of the African slaves also called for similar considerations, and both subjugated cultures also shared the ritual use of trance possession. Trance possession was, of course, known for a very long time in Europe, a knowledge inherited from Antiquity when it was seen in both positive and negative ways. In fact, possession by the gods was then a very important feature of the religious experience:

Possession by the gods, or ‘divine inspiration’, was an important phenomenon in ancient, polytheistic Graeco-Roman religion. Divine possession formed one of the most significant elements of certain divination rituals. One of the most ubiquitous and widespread types of divination was the Oracle.3 Oracle centres were specific temples of deities which both individuals and state delegations frequently visited to ask for guidance. This oracle was obtained through a prophet or prophetess who was thought to be ‘inspired’ or ‘possessed’ by a god or goddess or by a daimon, a type of semi-divine spirit.[24]

But there was also another side to the phenomenon, the possession by evil spirits widely known to every Mediterranean culture. In fact, the ability to exorcise these intrusive entities was seem as a necessary proof of holiness and played a major role in the development of Christianity.

Exorcism is the ancient magical technique of driving out daemons from patients who are thought to be possessed. It was practiced in antiquity by ‘‘medicine men’’ and miracle-workers long after Hippocrates had established the foundations of scientific medicine. Christ exorcised, and in the early Church the ability to drive out daemons was considered a spiritual gift, like speaking in tongues.[25]

Again as a consequence of the theological interpretations of Saint Augustine, possession became seen only in a negative way, and its presence in the ceremonies of the colonized people of Africa and America could only strengthen the diabolical prejudice. Ceremonial possession was achieved with the aid of music, something that was also knew in the Late Antiquity:

It may be instructive to examine how this paradoxical situation occurs, according to Iamblichus. The philosopher describes states of divine possession which occur in cults where musical instruments (such as pipes, cymbals, tambourines, etc.) are used to encourage or induce a state of receptivity in the human being.[26]

We have several descriptions from the colonial times about the religious meetings held by the slaves and other sympathizers, meetings usually named calundus. The following excerpt, taken from a denunciation made to the Holy Office in 1772, shows very clearly how these reunions happened and also how they were interpreted after the theological bias of the Church:

To my presence came a black man named Francisco and through him it was said that as a true Catholic and son of the Holy Mother Church he came to denounce himself because being certain time in the Arraial of São Sebastião, near this town, and hearing that many black men and women were making batuques in a place outside the arraial, and by curiosity he went to see the dances and he saw that the author of the dances was the black man Felix, from Green Cape, and he began to make calundus by diabolical art making a black woman, Maria Angola, the slave of a mestizo woman, to fall as dead and the said Felix spoke that the souls from the Coast of Guinea were the ones talking inside that creature. [27]

A cannibalistic feast in Brazil, painted by Theodor de Bry, 1592. The Native Brazilians are depicted as demons. (Picture taken by the author at the National Museum, in Rio de Janeiro)

Trance possession would become the most important contribution to the praxis of the Afro-Brazilian religions, a formidable way of contacting the spirit world which was prohibited and half-forgotten in Europe. Together with the practice of offerings, possession became after a time the most characteristic feature of the Quimbanda.

The Secret of the Macumba

Brazil was the last country in the Western world to abolish slavery, in 1888. However, this late act of humanity was not followed by policies of integration and the great mass of ex-slaves was severally marginalized.

In Rio de Janeiro the African descendants occupied a large area in the center of the city, where they mingled with European immigrants and other people ill-favored by Fortune. This hotbed of prostitutes and capoeiras[28] was the cradle of the syncretic magical-religious movement named Macumba.

It is very difficult to describe with accuracy the characteristics of the Macumba as it developed in the end of the XIX century, before its rituals were refurbished by the creators of the Umbanda in the first four decades of the XX century. We know that its main influence was from the Bantu religion, brought by the Congo-Angolan slaves who were majority in Rio de Janeiro. Bantu religion dealt deeply with the cult of the ancestors, seen as active forces with whom the living could interact. Many traces of Bantu religious practices are discernible in the Macumba:

In the late 1900s, Yoruba and Kôngo-Angolan people represented the majority of the enslaved brought to Brazil. Later, the Kikôngo-speaking groups incorporated the combined religions of Dahomey and Native America (Amerindian) with Catholicism and European spiritualism to construct the religious practice of Macumba. In practice, cruciforms chalked on the floors of shrines, and the presence of certain medicinal spirits attest to the Kôngo-Angolan influence. Many Macumba priests “mark points” (pontos riscados) in the manner of the Bâkôngo to “center” consecrated water. The Afro-Brazilian term pontos cantados and pontos riscados (simultaneous singing and marking points) provides further evidence of the Kôngo custom.[29]

The “marking points” are a very good example of the syncretic way in which African and European practices got combined in Brazil, as European magic also made use of symbols drawn on the floor and the symbols today used in Umbanda and Quimbanda largely derive from that source. It is very difficult to determine when African or European traditions were more important in the development of a certain feature of Quimbanda, but at the moment I tend to think that the Bantu people provided the basic ritual performance, with the centrality of trance possession, and European demonological magic provided the aesthetic features like the images of the exus and pombagiras. The inception of European magical thinking into the structure of African rituals happened since the beginning of the slave traffic to Brazil, and can be summarized in the following moments:

1. Association of Portuguese exiled (or not) witches with the African slaves, since the beginning of the traffic in 1533.
2. Association of freed slaves with European immigrants (especially Italians), after the end of slavery. Europeans were encouraged to mass migration in an attempt of “whitening” the country, and brought with them many magical folk practices.
3. Influence of French magical and Spiritist literature, which were imported in the fin-de-siècle and the beginning of the XX century. Occultist societies and publishers existed in the middle and upper classes, and France was then the cultural model of the Brazilian elite. These books were soon available to a larger audience in the public libraries.

Some of the fundamental traces of the Macumba can be already discerned in the descriptions of the rituals practiced in the final years of the XIX century by the most famous sorcerer of the time, the African descendent Juca Rosa. Juca Rosa became famous for being the most known and looked for sorcerer in the Court and because of the legal prosecution he suffered in 1871 for fraud. He had an impressive list of followers and clients from the upper strata of the society, especially women. A good deal of facts came out during the investigations for the fraud prosecution, and Juca Rosa himself was not ashamed of giving a good amount of information himself.[30]

The first thing that calls the attention in the descriptions of these rituals and practices is that the essential framework is really of Bantu origin: the pillar of Juca Rosa work was possession by ancestral spirits, mainly by a spirit named “Pai Quibombo” (“Father Quibombo”). We can see here already the first stages of what would become in the Umbanda of the XX century the important class of spirits named Old Blacks, as they all carry the title of “father.”

The oldest of the attendants who went for a long time to these activities, knew what they were about to witness. There would be music, dance, a lot of food and drink. At a certain moment, Rosa would go into trance, when, as it was said, he would receive spirits in his body, or “talk to the spirits,” and then he was transformed or began to act as Father Quibombo, and not as José Sebastião da Rosa. In that state he attended the people, as he was now gifted with a “supernatural” power, as it was told by his followers.[31]

The music of the meetings was usually played by four musicians, two of them playing a percussion instrument called “macumba.” That important detail was the reason why Juca Rosa was also known in the city as the “Chief of the Macumbas.” That indicates that the name Macumba, which would become the popular denomination for this kind of magical work, was in the origin an appellation given by outsiders of the cult due to the use of the musical instrument. We are also aware that Juca Rosa was not the only sorcerer to work like that in Rio de Janeiro at the time, but he was considered to be the most powerful.

The description of some of the ordered works made by Juca Rosa to his clients is also very telling. He used black and red clothes, a handful of many different foods and sacrificed a rooster. I am very happy that Juca Rosa´s biographer came to the same conclusion I had when reading the descriptions of these rituals:

Between the many Orishas worshiped, in the Umbanda as in the Candomblé, the cult of the entity Exu seems to be the one more close to the ceremonies of Rosa. Many times identified as the Christian devil, Exu is, however, very different from him. In the Christian religion, the demon is associated to the absolute evil; it is referred to the representations of the Inquisition. In the Umbanda, and also in the Candomblé, however, Exu is not just linked to evil. Although his representation is the figure of the devil, with trident, horns and tail, Exu originally has an ambiguous condition, being not good or bad, but can realize good or bad deeds as it is manipulated. Stubborn, abusive, the different Exus are potentially dangerous, because they accept any requisition from their clients, independently from preoccupations of moral order, as long they are properly paid.[32]

The Orishas come from another African culture, the Yoruba whose slaves were in majority taken to the North provinces of Brazil, especially to Bahia. In the XIX century there was a great movement of slaves and ex-slaves through the provinces, and Juca Rosa many travels to “purify” himself in Bahia are a perfect example of the cultural exchanges going on back then. In this process of mutual syncretism, which would culminate in the Umbanda in the beginning of the next century, the Orisha Exu would give origin to a new category of spirits. Worth of note, Juca Rosa used to describe his chief spirit as being capable or doing “both good and evil,” a key description applied to this new category of entities. To better understand this spirit category, we must then understand some of the basic characteristics of this deity.

The Slandered God [33]

The process of demonization of the Orisha Exu, which would end in the diabolical image of the exus and pombagiras of the Quimbanda, began already in Africa. We know from the reports of Antoine Pruneau de Pommegorge (1720-1812), published in 1789, who traveled through Africa in the mid-eighteenth century, that the images of the Orisha called the attention of the Europeans for his phallic character. Pommegorge identified him with the god Priapus. The preacher Thomas Jefferson Bowen (1814-1875), a Baptist missionary who worked in Africa and Brazil, wrote in 1857 a description which linked Exu with the Devil[34]:

In the Yoruba language the devil is called Exu, him that was sent again, name which comes from su, throwing out, and Elegbara, the powerful, a name given due to his great power over the people.

The abbot Pierre Bertrand Bouche (1835-1903), who spent seven years on Africa and published an account of his adventures in 1885, clearly made the connection between Exu and the Devil:

The blacks recognize in Satan the power of possession, as they call him usually Elegbara, that means, he who seize us.[35]

Pierre Verger in his Notas sobre o culto aos orixás e voduns, from 1957, listed several more cases like that[36]. It is important to notice that the identification with the Christian Devil was imposed from outside and not immediately and never totally accepted. That is why in Porto Alegre Exu was instead syncretized by the true followers with Saint Peter or with Saint Anthony and in Recife with Saint Bartholomew[37], and it is today an important point of propaganda for the followers of Candomblé, Umbanda and Quimbanda to stress that Exu is not the Devil, and that the exus and pombagiras are not demons.

However, the true nature of Exu has being progressively rescued by historians and anthropologists and the Orisha is revealed to be the representative of a fundamental feature of reality. As the other Orishas rule over and are responsible for specifics parts of the universe (like the rivers, the seas, the rain, the thunder and the forests), Exu is the movement itself, the very dynamis of the universe, so being part of everything and being the necessary cause of every transformation.

The concept of being ever present in movement and change and so associated with the growth and multiplication of everything led to the idea of the multiplicity of individual Exus[38]. Every Orisha, for instance, has his Exu, understood primarily as his individual dynamis but it has also a specific name, a kind of individuality and must always be propitiated first with the offerings.

Olodumare[39] created Esù as an entirely special ebora in such a way he must exist in everything and reside in each person. By virtue of his competency and power of realization, of his intelligence and dynamic nature, the Esù of each one must direct all his ways in life.[40]

Exu (or Esù) accumulates other functions, being the Orisha of communication and the intermediary between the worlds, between men and the deities. He rules the ways, being able to create, to open and to close them. He is by consequence the one who carries the offerings, and so is responsible for inspecting and controlling the sacrifices – he will not for instance carry an offering not correctly prepared.

Esù is the restorer principle in the Nago. He is the rigid controller of all sacrifices. General inspector, […] “impartial police officer” […] the action of Esù is … to punish the transgressors, particularly the ones who neglect to do the prescribed sacrifice.[41]

Here lies the frightening aspects of Exu, the deity responsible for correcting the paths and who is capable of everything to achieve it. Exu in the African myths has an undeniable trickster quality, which he uses to achieve his aims. But we are here outside the Christian conceptions of good and evil when treating about not just Exu, but also all other Orishas who are basically beyond these concepts.

Esu or Elegba, short for Elegbara, is the divine messenger, trickster god of chance, principle of indeterminacy, and essence of fate among the Yorubas in West Africa and all those who possess him, by extension, all of humankind. He is arguably the most important and influential deity in the Yoruba pantheon because everybody, including the other gods, must acknowledge him.[42]

The manifold functions executed by Exu gave rise also to a plethora of titles, and that together with the multiplicity of his presence became in the Macumba of the Rio de Janeiro the countless exus we work with today. As examples, we have the function of the Orisha Exu of opening and closing the ways between the worlds being personified in the Exu Tranca-Rua (Exu Lock-Street), and the name or title “Tiriri” (registered by Pierre Verger in Africa and Brazil, according to Reginaldo Prandi[43]) also became an individual spirit. The name “pombagira,” given to the female spirits of Quimbanda, most likely derived from the name of the nkisi Pambu Njila, the deity with the equivalent functions of Exu in the Kimbundu culture.

The exus of Umbanda and Quimbanda kept the roles of guardians, maintainers of order, punishers; they also inherited the sacred places of the Orisha, especially the crossroads. The expression give to these entities as “people of the street” is also reminiscent of the association with the Orisha:

Esu’s altar is distinctive in the Yoruba pantheon by the very fact of the elemental, interchangeable relationship the god seems to have with it—a mound of red laterite, yangi, which is also one of the many names used to celebrate him. This physical presence and ritual structure is commonly found at crossroads, his favorite location, at the threshold of a Yoruba household or compound, or at the entrance to a market. These locations, significantly, identify him as lord of the crossroads, controller of the market, and gatekeeper or tollgate keeper (Onibode, Adurogbona). In this regard, he is associated, in some New World orixa cults, with Saint Peter, keeper of the keys at Heaven’s gate.[44]

Another characteristic of Exu which helped to identify him with the Devil was his preeminence as a magician. Magic have been attributed solely to the teaching of the Devil in Christianity at least since the influential writings of Saint Augustine, and anything connected to it would be immediately classified as devilish. We must have that in mind, when we see later the exus being reinterpreted as being not demons, but the spirits of dead magicians and alchemists.

What helped in Brazil that element of wickedness to be accentuated, besides the popular dualism of good and evil, is the fact that Exu occupy a great place in magic. Some Exu or Legba are then in Africa remarkable sorcerers and in Cuba, Exu is equally the Master of Magic.[45]

The Exus of Umbanda

Exus and pombagiras have been a controversial part of Umbanda since this new religion, generally labeled as a “genuine Brazilian religion,” made its appearance in the beginnings of the XX century. Umbanda is not much more than the Macumba[46] developed in Rio de Janeiro in the end of the XIX century, refashioned by the adoption of principles taken from the Spiritism of Allan Kardec. And the “founding myth” of Umbanda shows that very clearly.

Scholarly research in recent times came to doubt the accuracy and real importance of this story about the origins of the Umbanda[47], but it is very useful to understand the dynamics of the conflict between Macumba and the Spiritism of Kardec in the transition of the past century, a conflict in which the presence, definition and function of the exus occupy an important part.

The story tells that in 1908 Zélio de Moraes, then seventeen years of age, became the victim of some mysterious disease which could not be treated by the doctors nor exorcised by a priest. He was then taken to a meeting at the Spiritist Federation of Niterói, where the director invited him to sit at the table.

In the sequence, the young lad was possessed by a spirit who presented himself as the Caboclo Seven Crossroads. The caboclo then questioned why the spirits of caboclos and preto velhos (Old Blacks) were not allowed to work in the Spiritist tables, receiving the usual answer that these spirits were not evolved as Native Americans and Africans were people of a lower stage of evolution. The caboclo then proclaimed he would start a new religious movement where these spirits would have their chance to work helping the needy, and in the next day Zélio began to work in his house also with the spirit of an old black named Father Anthony, founding what would be considered to be the first Umbanda center or “tent,” the “Spiritist Tent of Our Lady of Piety.”

The first thing that calls our attention is the absence of any mention of the exus and pombagiras in the myth. According to the development of the story Zélio was further instructed by the Caboclo Seven Crossroads to found seven new tents, what was done between 1918 and 1939[48]. Only the fifth, the Spiritist Tent Saint George, founded in 1935, worked with the exus, being considered the first to do it (or so it was said). It is probably in this tent where “another revolution” inside the Umbanda happened[49], when in 1940 the Caboclo Tupinamba ordered the table to be removed from the center of the room, giving space for the exus and pombagiras to manifest after the caboclos and old blacks.

The ambiguity with which the exus are seen in the Umbanda can be detected in the thought of Zélio himself. During the 70´s he gave an interview to the journalist Lilia Ribeiro[50], when many questions about the presence of exus in the works of Umbanda were asked:

Question: Mr. Zélio, about the work with the Exus. There are tents giving consultations with the Exus on special days beside the normal consultations with Old Blacks and Caboclo. How do you see this?

Zélio: I know about this, that there tents working with the Exus, I do not like it because it is very easy to manifest an Exu, any person who is a medium [can do it], a bad medium [easily] manifest an Exu, it is enough to have a backward spirit; or also pretending to have a spirit, that is why I do not like it, in my tent we do not work with Exu for any reason.

Question: But don´t you consider the Exu a working spirit as all other Orishas?

Zélio: After being awaken, because the Exu is a spirit admitted in the darkness, after being awaken, is that he gives a step forward in the path of regeneration and it is easy for him to work to benefit others. In this way I believe in the work of Exu.

Question: Are there not cases in which the other Orishas vibrating in other lines can not solve immediately some problems of their sons, and would it not be the Exu the most suitable to solve it, because he is materially closer, for being more accepted at the material works?

Zélio: Our chief, the “Caboclo of the Seven Crossroads” taught us like that, 60 years ago, that the Exu is a worker. As in the police there is the soldier, the chief of police does not arrest, the deputy does not arrest, the soldiers are the ones who arrest, follow the orders of the commanders, so Exu is a spirit who leans toward a phalanx, taking the chance to make good, because every step toward good they do increases their light, in a way that he is awaken and will work, that means, he will catch, he will seduce the spirit who is obsessing someone, then this Exu will evolve. That is how the Caboclo of the Seven Crossroads taught us.

Question: In which way the Exu is an assistant and not an employee of the Orisha or vice-versa?

Zélio: I would not say an employee, but he is a spirit who tend to get better, so for him to get better he will make charity together with the phalanxes, running to help who is obsessed, awakening and helping the spirit to turn him away from the evil his was doing, then he become an assistant to the Orishas.

What we see here (besides some initial confusion, with the reporter thinking about the Orisha Exu and Zélio answering about the spirits exus) is the syncretism of the original Bantu ideas about the souls of the ancestors with the universal fear of the restless ghosts, all combined with later Spiritist ideas. Kardec promulgated ideas about the spirits which goes against almost every spiritual tradition, including Christianity itself, as it affirms the existence of only one kind of spirit. For Kardec there is only the human spirit and angels and demons are just the evolved and the debased manifestations of this unique kind.

This is the key to understand the original view of the Umbanda about the exus and pombagiras. They were the souls of criminals, prostitutes, suicides who in the afterlife continued their evil deeds, until redeemed by association with the lines of Umbanda. Exu Tiriri, for instance, is described as the soul of a Portuguese gambler who committed suicide in the XIX century. It notable also that generally the exus and pombagiras are represented as souls of European origin, so completing the triad of historical influences which formed the Macumba.

The duplicity of the views about the exus and pombagiras gave rise to the actual concept of Quimbanda, which we now will observe.

Quimbanda

There is not much divergence of opinion about the origin of the term “Umbanda,” which must likely came from the name given in the Macumba and in its predecessor, the Cabula practiced in the neighbor state of Espírito Santo, to the chief of the cult, the “embanda”:

But from where came the Umbanda? It is believed that the word “umbanda” designated, between the Africans, the priest who works with cure. In the macumba, the word “embanda” or “umbanda” also designated the chief of the terreiro or, simply, the priest. Never a religious modality.[51]

The chief of the table was called the embanda, which is the name of the priest in the Bantu religions. The chief of the terreiros[52] of Macumba, around 1934, when Arthur Ramos described the terreiro of the old Honorato, were also called embandas, umbandas or fathers-of-terreiro. It is worth to note that the term umbanda would be later the designation of one of the branches of the Macumba, after its unfolding, under the influence of the Kardecist Spiritism. In the Cabula, as later in the Macumba, the embanda was the chief and the instructor of the community.[53]

With the name “Quimbanda” things get a bit more complicated. As a word from the Portuguese Language it came from the Quimbundo, a Bantu language, where it designated a professional of the sacred specialized in cures[54]. However, in Brazil the term acquired a sinister reputation, by reason of the Portuguese orthodox view that all these kinds of practices were witchcraft. When middle class white men created the Umbanda by mixing the practices of the Macumba with the tenets of the Spiritism of Kardec, they began a process which took decades where the original practices were selected, censored and even banned. Quimbanda then became the term by which the Umbandista intellectuals referred to the practices they thought to be not acceptable, and that included for many the works with exus and pombagiras. Quimbanda became then a category of accusation, it was the black magic (with double understanding, black indicating both evil intent as the primitive magic of African origin) done by others. When the exus began to be officially accepted in the sessions, Quimbanda began to be used to indicate the part of the work, or “gira,” where the exus and pombagiras are called. Now, slowly, Quimbanda is separating itself from the mainstream Umbandista practices and becoming an independent system.

The Demons of Quimbanda

As part of the continuous process of syncretism that is typical of the Quimbanda, understood as the sorcerous art of commerce with a very specific class of spirits, in 1951 the influential writer of Umbanda Aluizio Fontenele published his work Exu, where he presented a correlation between the exus and the demons of a European grimoire named Grimorium Verum[55]. This work represented a return to the European demonological ideas which influenced the aesthetic of the spirits of Quimbanda, and it still is highly criticized by segments following ideas more close to the Spiritist view of the spirits:

Aluízio Fontenele has a hard posture and criticism in his way to express the Umbanda. He presents the diverse influences with emphasis to the Hinduism, Theosophy, Kabbalah and European Magic. He highlights the existence of an esoteric, closed and occult aspect in all religions, propounding the search for the “real fundaments” of the Umbanda in its esoteric aspect. He presents the Seven Lines of Umbanda and its Legions through a model created by Lourenço Braga (Umbanda e Quimbanda, 1942). However, it is in relation to Exu that this author will innovate and become one of the most copied and ill-understood writers in the religion.

The search for the “Esoteric and Initiatic Umbanda” took him, as with others Umbandistas, to look for the “pinnacle” of the religion in other cultures. Aluízio Fontenele is the first author to compare the exus of Umbanda with the demons of the Goetia, European ”Black Magic.” If for one side he had the intention of elevating the intellectual level of the religion, for another he started a “demonization” of the exu from inside, as if the one from the outside was not already enough. That means he attributed to the well known names of the exus and their popular phalanxes, names perhaps even more known in the “Black Magic.”

In this way Aluízio Fontenele was the first Umbandista writer to relate the names of the exus of Umbanda with names from the European “Negative Magic” (Black Magic). He was copied or simply served as an inspiration for authors like Decelso, Antônio de Alva, José Maria Bittencourt, N. A. Molina and many other later authors to adopt this syncretism between Umbanda, Quimbanda and Goetia (“Black Magic” – Negative Magic).

Of course there are positive and negative contributions made by all authors, however, since we begin to identify exus as “demons” or “pretended demons,” in its popular sense, we are giving ourselves wood to heat the bonfire of the discrimination and prejudice. His tables were largely used by the Brazilian “Quimbanda.” [56]

Ponto riscado of the Maioral, as published by Aluisio Fontenele

No matter how widely Fontenele´s syncretism is accepted or rejected today, it became an important influence in all segments related to the Quimbanda. Many attempts to draw a comprehensive hierarchy of the exus rely on the Three Chiefs Pattern displayed in the Grimorium Verum, as we can see in the following table[57]:

Brief Encounters

My appreciation of traditions of African origin and Quimbanda in particular is a process of reeducation. When very recently the usefulness and power of such systems of spirit communion were questioned on an Internet discussion list, in the face of the poor social conditions of many of its practitioners, I was able to comment on the subject not just because of the understanding I have today about what magical proficiency is, but also because I once shared the same kind of doubt or criticism. A part of my answer[58] to the list can help understand this point; it was written in the context of a discussion about the importance the traditions of African origin are having today in the Western Magic:

The reason the ATR’s came to evidence is because they preserved and even enhanced complete systems to attain ecstasy and establish proper communication with the spirit world. The persecution in Europe resulted in a very fragmented tradition founded on books, books incomplete, censored, improperly copied, etc

What many people lack is a proper understanding of what magical success is. Magical success can happen in two steps:

1. Successful ceremony, in which changed states of conscience are achieved and proper spirit communication happens.
2. Meaningful happenings after the ceremony which manifest the intent of the practitioner or the appeal made to the spirits.

Now, the second step is totally dependent on the conditions around the people involved in the ceremony. These conditions put limits to what the spirits can do to help. Spirits invoked to help someone get a job in New York, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro will have much more to work with than spirits invoked in the Amazon forest states or in the states in process of desertification in Brasil. In the same way, someone coming from a low social strata, without a proper schooling, cannot expect great miracles from the spirit’s intervention when it comes to getting jobs or receiving money.

The traditions of African origin are an inheritance from slave populations forced into the lower strata of the colonial societies, and until today their descendants have difficulty in accessing proper schooling and the means to social climbing. So, even if they are very accomplished in having the step 1 very well done, there is not much scope for them to achieve step 2.

To think that someone is not a good and accomplished magician because he lives in a poor environment, is to show very little understanding about what magic is, and also little knowledge about the world we live in.

All that reminds me of the rebuke Don Juan would have given to Castaneda, in face of the latter’s misguided pity about the poor conditions of some boys in a small Mexican village. Don Juan clarified to him that the only valuable achievement in this world is to become a “man of knowledge” and that was easily accessible to the boys, whilst all the facilities to be found in rich countries just led to a spoiled and wasted life.

As I came from the same social background of the “founders” of Umbanda in the beginning of the XX century – white middle class man with access to higher education – in my young years I looked at such traditions as Umbanda with suspicion and even despised them; based exactly on the kind of rationalization indicated above. Also, a misunderstanding about the nature of spiritual beings made me develop a preconception about methods I found out to be primitive and crude, like the food offerings at the crossroads. I had to walk a similar path some of the writers of Umbanda did, when they had to justify the use of things like cigar and alcohol in the ceremonies. They resorted to explanations taken from French spiritism and occultism – all that old ideas about fluids invoked to answers the Kardecist critics that the use of smoke and drink was due to the attachment lower spirits still had to their past vices.

It was not, however, just the twenty and five years of studying everything I could lay my hands upon, from Shamanism to the precious insights of Chaos Magick,[59]what helped me to change my view. My approach to the retinue of the spirits of Quimbanda happened by unasked manifestations of power from them, brief and bewildering encounters that maybe (or maybe not) foreshadow a future commitment.

First time I experienced the power of an exu was after a visit to the Museu de Folclore (Centro Nacional de Folclore e Cultura Popular) in Rio de Janeiro, sometime between 1995 and 1996. The Museu had back then a large room entirely filled with iron pieces dedicated to the exus hanging from the ceiling, a very impressive view. As it happens often with objects linked to the exus, the place was heavily charged with their energy, and the energy followed me home. For some time I could feel the unmistakable pattern of their presence, the vibrant red and black energy that usually takes over me like a wave of loud laughter. After that I never failed to identify the characteristic energetic signature of an exu, the reason why I consider syncretism’s like Fontenele´s to be very mistaken: having worked with the Grimorium Verum myself for some years, I could see by myself the difference between these two lines of spirits. The Verum spirits are much more sober and present patterns of energy more subtle, and so far only one of them presented itself with this “black and red” energetic pattern so characteristic of the exus, the spirit Satanachia.

Next brief experience was during an invocation of Thoth performed with some friends, aided by the inhalation of ether. I was briefly possessed uttering the loud and characteristic laughter, and hit the floor with the hand with a force that in normal circumstances would have hurt it. This second experience showed me again how the contact with the exus differs from the usual invocations I was used to, as the main focus of the manifestation was myself.

The third time was in 2008, when I bought, a little out of fun, an exu wand in an Umbanda shop that existed in the corner of my daughter´s house. It was one of this with the red head of a man, with the typical moustache and beard we usually associate with the European representations of the Devil. The wand was crossed, that means, charged with the energy. I was at the moment involved in a very bad relationship and was feeling very disempowered. The energy of the exu came in a good moment, and made me feel much better. More than that, the exu proved to be very helpful later in aiding the relationship to end. I had at the occasion experimented with ecstasy (MDMA), which opened my magical perception a lot for a couple of days, and in one of the visions I had at the occasion I was allowed a glimpse at the home of the exus, and was taught how objects like the wand I bought were sent as “baits” to allow contact between them and us.

A turning point in the “drop by drop” process of manifestation of exus in my life happened in October 2010. I knew that my beloved wife had a past in Santeria before turning to Vajrayana Buddhism, but I was not aware of how deep her connections were. She had left her Santeria “house” and later became initiated in the Sangha of Chagdud Gompa, so her past experiences were just something mentioned now and then. On the occasion I had bought five different statues of exus to send to Jake Stratton-Kent – images that represented some of the spirits syncretized by Fontenele. As sometimes happen, as it happened before with the wand, the images came charged, and that led to my wife being half possessed by the spirit she knew before as her chief in the Quimbanda practiced in the Santeria house, Maria Padilha of the Souls. The event came as a spiritual crisis for her, which in the end led her to a higher and more comprehensive understanding about the nature of spiritual work.

As my wife began to mix her former and actual practices and work again with spirits of the Quimbanda, so my contact with them increased. In Uruguay Maria Padilha of the Souls feast is commemorated on the 18 of October; and my wife usually send flowers to the house of her former “mother-of-saint,” and makes her own private adorations and offerings. On the feast of 2011, although I was very far away, working in Angola, the spirit of Maria Padillha came to me in a dream and introduced me to two exus-mirins – exu spirits which manifest as children. They gave me their names and the kind of offerings they liked. I and my wife have made some offerings to them since then, but there were not any further manifestations.

On my 44^th birthday[60] a new experience happened. It was the second time I felt “possession” in a dream – it happened some time before, but I do not have the diary notes here to ascertain exactly when. In the first time the entity said that “exu vem quando quer” (“exu comes when he wants to”), which with no doubt explains a lot about all these brief encounters. It may seem like something trivial, but it is in fact a very important point when we compare the Quimbanda method to the methods of invocation we are used to after the European grimoires. In fact, it is widely stressed in writings about the exus and pombagiras that they can not be bound or constrained or forced to work – although in Umbanda houses their work seems to be supervised, controlled or directed by the Caboclos, the Old Blacks or the Orishas. This is one of the many contradictory points regarding the Quimbanda spirits, to which the Umbandista writers tried to develop answers or explanations, creating new concepts like “pagan exu” and “baptized exu” to indicate the difference between the exus who obey the entities “of the right” and the ones who supposedly don´t[61].

On the night of my birthday, however, the experience did not limit itself to being possessed in the dream state: I awakened from it to see a very beautiful manifestation where the spirit gave me his name, Exu Seven Stars, and explained to me his expertise was Alchemy but that he could teach me some necromantic secrets if I wished to work with a skull.[62] This proved to be a very difficult exu to research about, being now and then mentioned but never described. The best information I found come from the excellent work of Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold, and even there it is just a passing mention, in the entry about the Exu of the Seven Laughters:

Some say this Exu [of the Seven Laughters] fell from the stars and is the same as Exu Sete Estrelas (Exu of the Seven Stars). These stars are the Ursa Minor and as such this Exu brings the possibility for the reign of Quimbanda to unfold upon Earth by virtue of its connection with Polaris.[63]

One would expect that after that introduction a period of more close contact and work with this entity would follow. It didn´t. Some time around February 2012 I had some rapport with the pombagira Rosa Caveira (Rose Skull) when reading Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold book Pomba Gira and the Quimbanda of Mbùmba Nzila. Together with some contacts I had already with Maria Padilha of the Souls, it helped me to identify a typology for this kind of spirits, as I perceived them to be different from the other exus who manifest as “dark & fiery” spirits. Maria Padilha of the Souls and Rosa Caveira appear to me as dead souls strongly charged with Lunar energy.

But in April 2013 things started to happen again. My wife was invoking Maria Padilha of the Souls regularly on Mondays, and I was with her in Brazil during my work leave when we decided to visit the Umbanda shops in the center of the city of Niterói. I do not have the proper date noted here because I left my former magical diary in Brazil and I am finishing this paper from my mother-in-law’s home in Uruguay; but it was a Monday for sure, because on that same night the event happened. In one of the shops I saw an image of an exu I never saw before, although of course I had come upon his name a couple of times, the Exu Morcego (Exu Bat). It was a large statue of a quality higher than usual, and it called my attention because it was left alone on the balcony of the shop.

At night my wife went to do her magical works and I was lying on the bed, not feeling very well. I suddenly felt a presence, saying to me that if I wanted to work I would have to sit, so I did. It guided me to sit facing the candle, and when I did it the flame began to crack and make noises. I could then feel the powerful presence of the Exu Morcego all around me, in a mild state of possession, and I understood he was trying to show me his power over or connection with fire. He appeared to me with the same iconic image I saw at the shop except for having a black top hat. Black top hats are a common item of European origin that composes the image of some exus, but not the known images of Exu Morcego. Of course, real experience always goes beyond the basic information provided by symbols and images, but so far I had not deciphered the meaning of the black top hat. In the end of the manifestation, the spirit said: “Faltou charuto” (“It lacked cigar”). I bought the cigars he showed me in the vision but up to now he never asked for them.

I returned to the Umbanda shop to look after the statue. There was none to be seen anymore, but after talking to one of the sellers he took me to the back of shop; there was one sole exemplar left, at the top of a series of shelves, so I took it.

Back at home I made a simple consecration and tried to contact the spirit with mild results, very similar to the conversations I was used to have at my Verum altar, and left for bed. I was half asleep, stretched over the mattress, when suddenly an acute pain woke me up: our cat, in a totally unusual behavior, bit me in the little toe of my left foot, fiercely enough to make me walk to the bathroom bleeding on the floor all the way there; what of course meant bleeding in front of the statue of Exu Morcego. It was so old fashioned for setting some kind of pact, including the small scar left. I guess it was some response from the spirit to my request of learning from him.

On the next week on the night of Saint George (April 23) we lighted a large candle for Ogum, and when we came to check it later we saw with some fright that the plastic around the wax had caught fire and the candle had became a torch. First thing that came to my mind was the power of Exu Morcego over fire. I then tried to put a small plate under the candle to protect the furniture, and suffered a serious accident: there was a lot of melted wax unseen on the top of the candle, and it burnt my left hand so badly as to destroy several layers of skin, leaving an open wound which took almost two months to be completely healed. It did hurt like hell, but all the time I had the firm perception that it was a positive happening. In fact, the accident made many good things to happen and allowed me some important insights on the nature of power. Two months later, consulting Frisvold´s book, I made the amazing discovery that the legend of Exu Morcego says he was burnt like Saint Cyprian. Saint Cyprian in fact is said to have been executed by decapitation, but before that an attempt to burn him in a cauldron was made. The implication is that Exu Morcego would have been executed (probably by the Inquisition) being burned alive with some liquefied substance – like melted wax.

When I returned to my work in Angola, Maria Padilha of the Souls gave me inspiration to write a small work about her, together with my wife. It asked for a long research and in the middle of it a series of insights took me outside the field of History to delve in the symbolism of the visions of Aleister Crowley in the Second Aethyr, after my attention was called to the song he learned on it, as it seemed to be very proper to an invocation of pombagira:

Omari tessala marax

I am the harlot that shaketh Death

tessala dodi phornepax

This shaking giveth the Peace of Satiate Lust

amri radara poliax

Immortality jetteth from my skull

Armana piliu

And music from my vulva

amri raara piliu son

Immortality jetteth from my vulva also

mari narya barbiton

For my Whoredom is a sweet scent like a seven-stringed instrument

madara anaphax sarpedon

Played unto God the Invisible, the all-ruler

andala hriliu

That goeth along giving the shrill scream of orgasm

The Second Aethyr in the visions of Crowley, besides all the imagery and symbolism leading to connections with pombagiras, also gives three names[64] which can be associated to the Chiefs of a line of Quimbanda which, according to what I perceived, wants to be worked under Thelemic guidelines. That is something easy to understand, as the work of Quimbanda so far suffered tremendously from the imposition of Christian and Kardecist erroneous ideas and misguided moralities. During my research to this present paper, I came upon some testimonies taken by academics where the revolt of this spirits against the rules imposed by the Umbanda guides is very clear. Renato Ortiz[65] quotes the horrified description made by an Umbandista of a gira of exus he attended, where the unrestrained spirits manifested their antinomian nature by ripping off (with the teeth of the mediums) the head of small images of Saint Anthony – a Saint usually called in Umbanda to control the exus. In his most recent work[66], Diamantino Fernandes Trindade quotes from an interview given by a pombagira through her medium, where she complains in a very beautiful and instructive speech about all the difficulties she has to work with, because of the prejudices of the medium and the interference of other entities.

The friction mounting to antagonism between the lines of the “right” and “left” in the Umbanda-Quimbanda system was the subject of a very interesting study made by Marco Aurélio Luz e Georges Lapassade, published in 1972[67]. Both authors being full academics with graduations in France, they worked an interpretation of the Macumba and the Quimbanda based in Marx, Reich and Nietzsche, where the exus and pombagiras are seen to represent the revolt and resistance of the repressed, both in the social as in the sexual fields. Of course, forces guided by antinomian impulses against the religious and social status quo defended by Christian and Kardecist tenets can not and never will be properly understood and worked within those systems of ideas.

The main difficulty arises from the ways Christianity and Kardec described the spirits. The theology of Saint Augustine conceded only two classes of spirits, angels (the good and the fallen) and souls, and Kardec was fooled into believing there is only one kind. The childish Christian ideas about the fallen angels, their eternal damnation and never ending war against humans, as was seen before, served to prohibit any contact with spirits, as this contact would logically provide knowledge which would doubt a doctrine so full of mistakes and contradictions. Kardec ideas did not do a better job, giving a wrong description about the variety of kinds of spirits and forcing his followers into blind acceptance even when confronted with new facts. The myth about the origins of Umbanda is a clear exposition of exactly this.

After my personal experiences, the Quimbanda spirits come from two main groups: non-human daemons of a dark and fiery nature, the kind more easily identified with the imagery of European devils; and souls of the dead charged with a strong Lunar energy. This perception allowed me to highlight the old Iberian invocations where we find just that, daemons and departed souls working together, often at the head of bands of spirits (quadrillas, legions or phalanxes). The Lucifer of this new Quimbanda line moving toward a Thelemic system appeared to me as being somehow also of a Solar nature, and my guess is that he would be under the authority of Heru-ra-ha, the Solar-Martial deity of the Thelemic pantheon. Lucifer, Belial and Satan as Chiefs would manifest in the sub-lunar realm the potencies of Sun, Saturn and Jupiter – the Astrological principles more connected with kingship. The other planets would be represented by four Kings and Queens, and guessing again I would say that Maria Padilha of the Souls would be the Moon Queen on Earth; up to now I have no idea about who would be the Venus Queen of Water or the Mercurial and Martial kings of Air and Fire. So far, I received only the sigil for the Lucifer of this system:

Artistic depiction of the Seal of Lucifer received by the author, made by Asterion

I returned to Brazil on the end of July for what was supposed to be a short leave, but mysterious ways kept me away from work until now, and I am finishing this paper almost at Halloween. During that period my wife and I made some strong contacts with Exu Morcego, and the spirit began to prepare me to be able to achieve a deeper state of possession. He and Rosa Caveira gave me some frightful visions about their magical places, and as I am not of the kind who gets frightened easily, I can tell you it was really frightening. I can say that it is true when wiser humans warn us about the harsh and hard and unexpected ways the exus and pombagiras can act toward whoever approaches them.

However, we recently sold the flat we had and began to travel, which interrupted the progress of the work we were doing with the Exu Morcego. Among other places, we visited Ilhéus, an old city in the state of Bahia where legend has that Maria Padilha lived her last life on earth – something I find very debatable. But the entity had asked my wife to go there and make some specific offerings in the cemetery and in the Church of Saint George, a very old construction erected in the XVI century, so we went and we did it.

There is no proper way to finish this paper, as from what I exposed it is clear that my experiences with the retinue of Quimbanda were until now very superficial. It is my guess that the conditions of my life will change radically in the coming years and a deeper work will take place. But, when dealing with the exus and pombagiras, a guess very often is all we have.

Photograph made by the author of his personal image of Exu Morcego

[1]Nominas: orisons kept in a wrapping, to protect from evil.

[2]Touching letters: letters used to touch other people, with the aim of enchanting them.

[3]O Imaginário da Magia -Feiticeiras, adivinhos e curandeiros em Portugal no Século XVI, Francisco Bethencourt.

[4] For the fear the people felt of the saints, see Religion and the Decline of Magic, Keith Thomas.

[5] O Diabo e a Terra de Santa Cruz, Laura de Mello e Souza.

[6] The Alumbrados “held that the human soul can reach such a degree of perfection that it contemplates even in the present life the essence of God and comprehends the mystery of the Trinity.” They declared that all external worship “is superfluous, the reception of the sacraments useless, and sin impossible in this state of complete union with Him Who is Perfection Itself.” To them, once achieved this state “all carnal desires may be indulged and other sinful actions committed freely without staining the soul. The highest perfection attainable by the Christian consists in the elimination of all activity, the loss of individuality, and complete absorption in God.” Source: The Catholic Encyclopedia.

[7] The only problem with the identification of Enrique as the Marquis of Villena mentioned in the spells is that, although he was the son and grandson of the two previous marquises, he never assumed the title, as it was reclaimed by the Crown due to debts owned by his family. But Enrique kept signing documents using the title, which could have created the confusion. Upon his death his library was investigated by the Crown and the Church due to his supposed studies on Alchemy, Astrology, Philosophy and Mathematics, and several books were burned. Later legends connect him with the Cave of Saint Cyprian in Salamanca, where he would have been a disciple to the magical arts taught by the Devil himself, acquiring there the knowledge that would have made him later very successful in the court.

[8]O Imaginário da Magia – Feiticeiras, adivinhos e curandeiros em Portugal no Século XVI, Francisco Bethencourt ;Inferno Atlântico – Demonologia e Colonização nos Séculos XVI-XVIII, Laura de Mello e Souza.

[9] Inquisition of Evora, process 6492, Page 18r-v. Quoted by Francisco Bethencourt.

[10]O Imaginário da Magia – Feiticeiras, adivinhos e curandeiros em Portugal no Século XVI, Francisco Bethencourt.

[11]O Imaginário da Magia – Feiticeiras, adivinhos e curandeiros em Portugal no Século XVI, Francisco Bethencourt.

[12]Inferno Atlântico – Demonologia e Colonização nos Séculos XVI-XVIII, Laura de Mello e Souza.

[13]O Imaginário da Magia – Feiticeiras, adivinhos e curandeiros em Portugal no Século XVI, Francisco Bethencourt

[14]Arde-lhe-o-rabo is a vulgar expression which translate more or less as “Her-ass-burn.”

[15]Inferno Atlântico – Demonologia e Colonização nos Séculos XVI-XVIII, Laura de Mello e Souza.

[16]O Diabo e a Terra de Santa Cruz, Laura de Mello e Souza.

[17]“The term is related to the idea of a small troop or band, and in the case of the spell seems to indicate that María de Padilla was the head of a small army of spirits.” From my monograph written together with my wife; Maria Padilha, Queen of Hell.

[18] O Diabo e a Terra de Santa Cruz, Laura de Mello e Souza.

[19]The Magical Treatise of Solomon or Hygromanteia, Translated and edited by IoannisMarathakis.

[20]Inferno Atlântico, Demonologia e Colonização nos Séculos XVI-XVIII, Laura de Mello e Souza.

[21]O Diabo e a Terra de Santa Cruz, Laura de Mello e Souza.

[22]Europe´s Inner Demons, Norman Cohn.

[23] A demonização do Paraíso: fé e religiosidade no Brasil colonial, Márcio Douglas de Carvalho e Silva.

[24]Divine Possession and Divination in the Graeco-Roman World: The Evidence from Iamblichus’sOn the Mysteries,Crystal Addey.

[25] Arcana Mundi

[26]Divine Possession and Divination in the Graeco-Roman World: The Evidence from Iamblichus’s On the Mysteries, Crystal Addey.

[27] Feiticeiros de Angola na América Portuguesa Vítimas da Inquisição, Luiz Mott.

[28]Capoeira is a martial art created by the slaves in Brazil, mixing dance and acrobatics. The capoeiras of the XIX century were bands of adepts of this martial art who hired their skills or committed small crimes.

[29]Palo, Patricia E. Canson .In Encyclopedia of African Religion (edit.Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama).

[30]A História do Feiticeiro Juca Rosa, Gabriela dos Reis Sampaio.

[31]A História do Feiticeiro Juca Rosa, Gabriela dos Reis Sampaio.

[32]A História do Feiticeiro Juca Rosa, Gabriela dos Reis Sampaio.

[33] Exu was dubbed “the slandered god” by Roger Bastide, the prominent French anthropologist, who spent many years studying the African heritage in Brazil.

[34]Exu, de mesageiro a diabo – Sincretismo católico e demonização do orixá Exu, Reginaldo Prandi.

[35]Exu, de mesageiro a diabo – Sincretismo católico e demonização do orixá Exu, Reginaldo Prandi.

[36]Exu, de mesageiro a diabo – Sincretismo católico e demonização do orixá Exu, Reginaldo Prandi.

[37]Immigration et Métamorphose dún dieu, Roger Bastide.

[38] The following paragraphs are borrowed from my forthcoming work on the Quimbanda Queen Maria Padilha.

[39] The higher deity, creator of everything, but a dues absconditus who delegated the government of the world to the Orishas.

[40]Os Nago e a Morte, Juana Elbein dos Santos.

[41]Os Nago e a Morte, Juana Elbein dos Santos.

[42]Esu, Elegba, article by Femi Euba.InEncyclopedia of African religion, edited by MolefiKete Asante and AmaMazama.

[43]Exu, de mesageiro a diabo – Sincretismo católico e demonização do orixá Exu, Reginaldo Prandi.

[44]Esu, Elegba, article by Femi Euba. In Encyclopedia of African religion, edited by Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama.

[45]Immigration etMétamorphose dún dieu, Roger Bastide.

[46]A Invenção do Brasil no Mito Fundador da Umbanda,Mario Teixeira de Sá Junior; Caboclo angélico “baixa” no Kardecismo para anunciar a Umbanda, José Henrique Motta de Oliveira;

[47]Zélio de Moraes e as origens da umbanda no Rio de Janeiro, Emerson Giumbelli.

[48] http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbanda

[49]As ressignificações de Exu dentro da Umbanda, Lenny Francis Campos de Alvarenga.

[50]Exu e a Umbanda Branca e Demanda, Pedro Kritski. Published in

Exu e a Umbanda Branca e Demanda

[51]Caboclo angélico “baixa” no Kardecismo para anunciar a Umbanda, José Henrique Motta de Oliveira.

[52] Terreiro is the named often given to the place where the religious meetings occur.

[53]Cabula e Macumba, Valdeli Carvalho da Costa

[54]Do Kimbanda à Quimbanda: encontros e desencontros,Mario Teixeira de Sá Junior.

[55] Jake Stratton-Kent´s edition of the Grimorium Verum, beside other excellent features, discusses deeply about this connection.

[56] A Demonização de Exu Dentro da Umbanda, Alexandre Cumino http://www.diariodoadeptu.com/2013/10/a-demonizacao-de-exu-dentro-da-umbanda.html

[57] http://cabaladeexu.blogspot.com/2012/10/organograma-do-alto-comando-no-reino.html

[58]Published in Aaron Leitch´s Solomonic list in 27 of May 2013.

[59]Specially important on this process was the contact with the researches of Aaron Leitch and Jake Stratton-Kent.

[60] 26 of July 2012.

[61] The recent movement toward a greater acceptance of the exus and pombagiras also led to a new emphasis on the use of the word “kiumba” to designate marginal, criminal spirits who disturb the “giras,” very often trying to pretend to be the real exus. The kiumbas are assuming more and more in the Umbandistaa thought the place before assigned to the exus.

[62]I was interested in the subject then, after a paper I tried to write to the Memento Mori anthology edited by Kim Huggens. I end up writing another piece, however.

[63]Exu, Nicholaj Mattos Frisvold.

[64]Lucifer, Belial and Satan.

[65]A Morte Branca do Feiticeiro Negro, Ricardo Ortiz.

[66]Você sabe o que é Macumba? Você sabe o que é exu, Diamantino Fernandes Trindade.

[67]O Segredo da Macumba, Marco Aurélio Luz e Georges Lapassade.

The post The Gnosis of the Devil appeared first on Occult-Study.

The Interpretatio Christiana

of Saint Augustine

Πάντες οί θεοί τών έθνών δαιμόνια

Aurelius Augustinus, born in the North African city of Tagaste in 354, lived to the ripe age of 76 to become one of the two most influent Christian thinkers, only to be outshined eight centuries later by Saint Thomas Aquinas. Canonized as Saint Augustine, his work is a watershed between the first theological speculations and what would become the canon of the Church. We can have a good idea of his importance from the quote below:

To the Catholics of his own day St. Augustine was the great champion of the church against the Manichees, the Donatists, the Pelagians. To the Catholic of a day fifteen hundred years later he is still the doctor of Grace and Ecclesiology, the builder who set on the stocks every single one of the later treatises of systematic theology. But to Catholics of the thousand years which followed his death he was more even than all this. He was almost the whole intellectual patrimony of medieval Catholicism, a mine of thought and erudition which the earlier Middle Ages, for all its delving, never came near to exhausting.[1]

Augustine’s writings were decisive to the establishment of the orthodox view about demons. The first centuries of Christian development were aptly defined as “an age that was constantly speaking and writing of demons”[2]. The main reason for that was the identification of the Pagan gods as being fallen angels in disguise, a very offensive interpretation that gave (and still gives) an excuse for the persecution of every non-Christian religion. We find the identification already in Justin Martyr (100 – 165), who supported his ideas both in the Books of Enoch as in the Septuagint. The Books of Enoch introduced the idea of the fallen angel, and the Septuagint, the first Greek translation of the Old Testament, used the word δαιμόν to indicate the gods of the nations and other despised cultic figures[3].  The Books of Enoch developed his narrative after Genesis 6:1–4, interpreting the “sons of God” as a group of angels who fell in love with women and generated a progeny with them. By the time of Augustine, the Books of Enoch were mostly rejected by both Christians and Jews, but were still in circulation. In fact, it was left to Augustine to put the final stone upon their use; referring to them, he wrote:

Let us omit, then, the fables of those scriptures which are called apocryphal, because their obscure origin was unknown to the fathers from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has been transmitted to us by a most certain and well-ascertained succession. For though there is some truth in these apocryphal writings, yet they contain so many false statements, that they have no canonical authority.[4]

Augustine, to strength his argument, also let us know that in his time the Jews had already also rejected these books; in fact, it is known that the Jewish rejection of the Books of Enoch weighted heavily in their fall from grace among Christians.

But it is not without reason that these writings have no place in that canon of Scripture which was preserved in the temple of the Hebrew people by the diligence of successive priests; for their antiquity brought them under suspicion, and it was impossible to ascertain whether these were his genuine writings, and they were not brought forward as genuine by the persons who were found to have carefully preserved the canonical books by a successive transmission.[5]

Matters of Angelology influenced these decisions. Judaism rejected the very idea that angels could fall; the Talmud, for instance, see demons as a different category from the angels[6]. Christianity kept the idea of fallen angels, but with Augustine rejected entirely the notion that angels could have sexual intercourse and generate progeny with women. In fact, Augustine dedicated a whole chapter in his The City of God to the subject; Chapter 23 in Book 15 has the title “Whether We are to Believe that Angels, Who are of a Spiritual Substance, Fell in Love with the Beauty of Women, and Sought Them in Marriage, and that from This Connection Giants Were Born”[7], and there he concludes that “certainly I could by no means believe that God’s holy angels could at that time have so fallen”[8]. The definitive interpretation of Genesis 6:1–4 then identified the “sons of God” with the descendants of Seth who married into the bloodline of Cain.

Demonic Gods

We see that the identification of the Pagan gods with the fallen angels became very popular amongst Christians before Saint Augustine when we check, for instance, works written outside the more serious apologetic endeavors of the Church Fathers. The Confession of Saint Cyprian, usually attributed to the first half of the same century that saw Augustine being born, for instance, describe several of the most important Pagan gods as being subsidiary demons that the young μάγος had to invoke to approach their true leader:

Young men I buried in honor of Hades, and to please Hecate I decapitated many foreigners who were my guests. The blood of virgins I offered to Pallas, and to Ares and Kronos I sacrificed adult men. All these things I did to appease the demons and get near to the Devil himself.[9]

The idea of the angelic leader of the fallen spirits also goes back to the Books of Enoch. There we find him referred by the name of “Samyaza”; the latter Book of Jubilees named him “Mastema“. These angels were not properly rebelling against God: they just disobeyed because they could not ignore the beauty of the daughters of men. But,  inspired by these tales, Christianity invented a far more dangerous adversary:

In the organization of the spirit world of demons, Lactantius like the other Christian writers differs very greatly from the non-Christian expressions on the subject. These early apologists group the entire demon world about the one leader Satan. Satan or the Demoniarch, as he is sometimes called, rules this kingdom like a despot, the other spirits are his servants and satellites.[10]

This is the interpretation we find in Saint Augustine. Here the Devil’s sin is not Lust anymore, but first Pride in relation to God, and then Envy towards Men. Pride drove him to establish his rule over the world, and Envy guided his actions against humanity.

But after that proud and therefore envious angel preferring to rule with a kind of pomp of empire rather than to be another’s subject, fell from the spiritual Paradise, and essaying to insinuate his persuasive guile into the mind of man, whose unfallen condition provoked him to envy now that himself was fallen, he chose the serpent as his mouthpiece in that bodily Paradise in which it and all the other earthly animals were living with those two human beings, the man and his wife, subject to them, and harmless; and he chose the serpent because, being slippery, and moving in tortuous windings, it was suitable for his purpose.[11]

The Christians from the first centuries can then be credited for having created one of the most durable “conspiracy theories”, where the Devil with his demons created the Pagan religions to achieve his double purpose of ruling the world and deceiving humans. To add insult to injury, they conflated Pagan Religion with Magic, the latter being already a category of accusation.

Goetia, Magic and Theurgy

We had already seen a hint of this conflation in the quote from the Confession of Saint Cyprian, where sacrifice to the gods was presented as a preliminary to the invocation of the Devil. By doing this Christians achieved two things: defend themselves from the accusation of being magicians and, at the same time, they denigrated Pagan practices. Augustine’s theory of how Magic works ties all these together, when he says that magical ceremonies are just a method of communication established between humans and demons: there is no intrinsic power in the symbols and materials used. Magicians enter “into fellowship with devils by means of leagues and covenants about signs”[12], or as the original Latin says, “cum daemonibus initam societatem per quarumdam significationum quasi quaedam pacta atque convent”. Augustine uses the Latin word “pacta” several times when describing the agreements between humans and demons, as we can see in his repudiation of the divinatory arts:

All arts of this sort, therefore, are either nullities, or are part of a guilty superstition, springing out of a baleful fellowship between men and devils [pestifera societate hominum et daemonum], and are to be utterly repudiated and avoided by the Christian as the covenants [pacta] of a false and treacherous friendship [infidelis et dolosae amicitiae]. “Not as if the idol were anything,” says the apostle; “but because the things which they sacrifice they sacrifice to devils and not to God; and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils”.[13]

Divination was an area where Augustine could bring closer Pagan religion and magic, as Greeks and Romans had a long standing tradition of official oracles like the Oracle of Delphi. When he mentions the oracles attributed to Hecate about Jesus Christ, he says that they “were either composed by a clever man with a strong animus against the Christians, or were uttered as responses by impure demons with a similar design” – so implying that the pagan oracles could only be frauds or operate through demonic agency. In the same fashion, Augustine also denies any kind of manifestation to the dead: the dead are just another demonic disguise:

For Numa himself also, to whom no prophet of God, no holy angel was sent, was driven to have recourse to hydromancy, that he might see the images of the gods in the water (or, rather, appearances whereby the demons made sport of him), and might learn from them what he ought to ordain and observe in the sacred rites. This kind of divination, says Varro, was introduced from the Persians, and was used by Numa himself, and at an after time by the philosopher Pythagoras. In this divination, he says, they also inquire at the inhabitants of the nether world, and make use of blood; and this the Greeks call νεκρομαντείαν. But whether it be called necromancy or hydromancy it is the same thing, for in either case the dead are supposed to foretell future things.[14]

(The Hague, MMW, 10 A 11, detail of fol. 353v (‘Numa Pompilius and Pythagoras by mystification of the devils resort to hydromancy; devils in hell’). Augustine, La Cité de Dieu (Vol. I). Translation from the Latin by Raoul de Presles. Paris; c. 1475 (c.) c. 1478-1480 – Source)

Augustine here makes hydromancy and necromancy the same thing not just because they both operate as a communication channel with demons, but because he thinks that the Pagan gods were created or modeled after notable persons from a now forgotten past:

Wherefore the things which are written in those books were either abominations of demons, so foul and noxious as to render that whole civil theology execrable even in the eyes of such men as those senators, who had accepted so many shameful things in the sacred rites themselves, or they were nothing else than the accounts of dead men, whom, through the lapse of ages, almost all the Gentile nations had come to believe to be immortal gods; whilst those same demons were delighted even with such rites, having presented themselves to receive worship under pretense of being those very dead men whom they had caused to be thought immortal gods by certain fallacious miracles, performed in order to establish that belief.[15]

The same reasoning is behind Augustine’s evaluation of the magical arts of his time: there is nothing about them but pacts and conventions by which man and demon communicate their desires and intentions. The next quote from Augustine is also interesting because it testifies to different categorizations being employed at the time by some practitioners, where goeteia occupies the lowest position in opposition to theurgy. It was important for Augustine to attack theurgy because Iamblichus defense of the theurgic rites also served as a philosophical justification for the practices of the Pagan religion.

These miracles, and many others of the same nature, which it were tedious to mention, were wrought for  the  purpose  of  commending  the  worship of  the  one  true  God, and  prohibiting  the  worship of a multitude of false  gods.  Moreover, they  were wrought by simple  faith and godly confidence, not by the  incantations  and charms composed under the  influence of a criminal tampering with the unseen world, of an art which they call either magic [magian], or by the more abominable title necromancy [goetian], or the more honorable designation theurgy [theurgian]; for they  wish  to  discriminate  between  those  whom  the  people  call  magicians,  who  practice necromancy, and are addicted to illicit arts and condemned, and those others who seem to them  to  be worthy of praise for  their  practice of theurgy,—the  truth,  however, being that both classes are the slaves of the deceitful rites of the demons whom they invoke under the names of angels.[16]

 

(Augustine, City of God. Paris, Maïtre François (illuminator); c. 1475; 1478-1480. The Hague, RMMW, 10 A 11, f.422v. “Charity admonishes demons representing ‘knowledge without love’ which does no good, but ‘inflates man with an empty windiness’.” – Source)

Demonic Power

The power that demons can manifest are derived from the nature of their bodies; Augustine seems to have first advocated an ethereal body to demons in his treatise The Divination of Demons[17], but later in the City of God he considers their bodies to be aerial due to their fallen state[18]. In the Divination he says that the demonic ethereal body is superior to earthly bodies (human and animal) in terms of sensitivity and speed, what allows them to “predict or announce many events known to them in advance”. Demons also surpass humans due to the experience they acquired from their larger life span.

These qualities are not lost with his later attribution of aerial bodies to the demons. This transition in Augustine thought put him in harmony both with the Pagan philosophical considerations, which placed the daimones in the sublunary air and the gods (now the angels) in the ether, as with the text of the New Testament where we have:

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.[19]

Demonic communication, and by extension demonic influence, seems to happen in subtle forms. If man can indicate his desire by the ceremonial signs proper to their pact, demons on the other hand can come to the magician “in marvelous ways”:

Or, even if there is such a place which is called paradise in which Adam and Eve dwelled corporeally, do we have also to understand the devil’s approach as corporeal? Of course not! [His approach was] rather spiritual, as the Apostle says, “According to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit who now is at work in the children of disbelief.” Does he appear visibly or approach by corporeal places those in whom he is at work? Of course not. Rather he suggests in marvelous ways whatever he can by thoughts.[20]

This spiritual transmission of thoughts allowed the Augustinian demons to keep their role of teachers of magic and sorcery that the Books of Enoch attributed to them. In the chapter Of the Impiety of the Magic Art, Which is Dependent on the Assistance of Malign Spirits, Augustine says that:

But all the miracles of the magicians, who he thinks are justly deserving of condemnation, are performed according to the teaching and by the power of demons.[21]

(Augustine, City of God. Paris, Maïtre François (illuminator); c. 1475; 1478-1480. The Hague, RMMW, 10 A 11, f.401v. Demons rejoicing in the misfortunes of mankind (i.e. pointing and mocking). Source)

~~~~

Note: Psalm 96:5 LXX:   ὅτι πάντες οἱ θεοὶ τῶν ἐθνῶν δαιμόνια ὁ δὲ κύριος τοὺς οὐρανοὺς ἐποίησεν; in the King James Version: For all the gods of the heathen are devils: but the Lord made the heavens.

[1] A History Of The Church, Volume Two: The Church And The World The Church Created, Philip Hughes.

[2] Angels and Demons According to Lactantius, Emil Schneweis.

[3] For a more extensive and detailed description, I refer to my Daemonology: An introduction with a Selection of Texts, published by Hadean Press.

[4] Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series I, Volume 2:  St. Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, edited by Philip Schaff.

[5] Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series I, Volume 2:  St. Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, edited by Philip Schaff.

[6] There is a good deal about Talmudic Demonology in my Sepher ha-Maggid: The Book of Asmodeus, published by Aeon Sophia Press.

[7] Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series I, Volume 2:  St. Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, edited by Philip Schaff.

[8] Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series I, Volume 2:  St. Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, edited by Philip Schaff.

[9] Confession of Saint Cyprian. In The Book Of Saint Cyprian: The Great Book of True Magick, Humberto Maggi.

[10] Angels and Demons According to Lactantius, Emil Schneweis.

[11] On Christian Doctrine, Book XIV, Chapter 11. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series I, Volume 2:  St. Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine, edited by Philip Schaff.

[12] On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 39.

[13] On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 23 (Why We Repudiate Arts of Divination).

[14] The City of god, Book VII, Chapter 35.

[15] The City of God, Book VII, Chapter 35: Concerning the Hydromancy Through Which Numa Was Befooled by Certain Images of Demons Seen in the Water.

[16] The City of God, Book X Chapter 9.

[17] I provided a translation for this text in mine Daemonology: An introduction with a Selection of Texts, published by Hadean Press.

[18] Several authors I consulted refer to an aerial body also in the Divination of Demons; I will later try to check the Latin text to clarify this point.

[19] Ephesians 2:2 King James Version (KJV).

[20] On Genesis Two Books on Genesis Against the Manichees and On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book , Saint Augustine (translated by Roland J. Teske, S.J.)

[21] City of God, Book VIII. Chapter 19.

The post Deities, Dead and Demons: The Interpretatio Christiana of Saint Augustine appeared first on Occult-Study.

Dæmonology:  

First Developments:

Homer and Hesiod

           The oldest known record of the word δαίμων (daimon) appears in the first book of Homer’s Iliad. In verse 222, when the poet says that Athena “returned to Olympus to the palace of aegis-bearing Zeus, to join the company of the other gods“[1], the gods in the verse are called “δαίμονας” (daimonas), plural form of δαίμων.

           The study of the etymology of the word reveals roots, however, much older, deep into the Indo-European culture, from which the syllable *da(i) brought with it the meanings of “dividing, distributing, giving lots”, making the Greek daimon originally a divinity which distributes to men the lot that belongs to each one, which, by extension, defines the destiny of each one. So we have Achilles, in the Iliad, and Telemachos, in the Odyssey, describing Zeus as the Supreme Distributor:

The immortals know no care, yet the lot they spin for man is full of sorrow; on the floor of Zeus’ palace there stand two urns, the one filled with evil gifts, and the other with good ones. He for whom Zeus the lord of thunder mixes the gifts he sends, will meet now with good and now with evil fortune; but he to whom Zeus sends none but evil gifts will be pointed at by the finger of scorn, the hand of famine will pursue him to the ends of the world, and he will go up and down the face of the earth, respected neither by gods nor men.[2]

Zeus is who gives to each mortal who eats bread as he wills.[3]

           Although in the Indo-European culture the word might have a more positive meaning, focused on the distribution of blessings and riches that had its parallel in the distribution of food and gifts made by the tribal chief, over time also the misfortunes of life came to be represented in the lot that the gods distribute to every human being. “Distributor,” as well as “immortal,” for example, evolves from an adjective into a term appropriate to divinity.

           Already in Hesiod a major change takes place. First, it is important to know that Hesiod did not use the word “daimon” to address the deities; when referring to them he employs the terms αθανάτων (atanáton = imortals) and θεούς (teoís = gods)[4]. However, the distributive role associated with “daimon” is conspicuously referred to in the narrative:

He [Zeus] is king in the sky, holding the thunder and the blazing thunderbolt himself, since he gained victory in supremacy over his father Cronus; and he distributed well all things alike to the immortals and devised their honors.[5]

Tell how in the first place gods and earth were born, and rivers and the boundless sea seething with its swell, and the shining stars and the broad sky above, and those who were born from them, the gods givers of good things; and how they divided their wealth and distributed their honors, and also how they first took possession of many-folded Olympus.[6]

It is when Hesiod sings about Eos, the goddess of the dawn, that he says:

And to Cephalus she bore a splendid son, powerful Phaethon, a man equal to the gods. While he was young, a delicate-spirited child, and still possessed the tender flower of glorious youth, smile-loving Aphrodite snatched him away, and made him her innermost temple-keeper in her holy temples, a divine spirit [δαίμονα δϊον].[7]

           This is the first recorded instance of the word “daimon” being used in a context different from the one we find in the Homeric works. The distance from that earlier use[8] is emphasized by the employment of the adjective “divine”. The passage opens the way to the use of “daimon” to indicate non-divine spirits and also is the first known indication of the possibility that a human could be “daimonized” by a god, entering into a category different (but close) from the one of the heroes.

           It is in the Work and Days, however, that Hesiod made the most known and commented use of the term. Here it is where the new concept of the “daimon” comes in, when he describes the fate of the Golden Race:

First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods. But after the earth had covered this generation—they are called pure spirits [δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ] dwelling on the earth, and are kindly, delivering from harm, and guardians of mortal men; for they roam everywhere over the earth, clothed in mist and keep watch on judgements and cruel deeds, givers of wealth; for this royal right also they received.[9]

           Hesiod called the spirits of the men from the Golden Race δαίμονες ἁγνοὶ, making them the invisible representatives of Zeus in charge of “watch on judgements and cruel deeds” and also having the typical daimonic feature of being “givers of wealth”. Their function under the aegis of Zeus was also mentioned a few verses ahead:

You princes, mark well this punishment, you also, for the deathless gods are near among men; and mark all those who oppress their fellows with crooked judgements; and heed not the anger of the gods. For upon the bounteous earth Zeus has thrice ten thousand spirits, watchers of mortal men, and these keep watch on judgements and deeds of wrong as they roam, clothed in mist, all over the earth.[10]

           With Hesiod, therefore, the δαίμων no more indicate the gods directly and goes on to refer to a category of intermediate, non-divine or semi-divine beings, who, under the orders of Zeus, guard the human being, distributing riches and watching over their actions.

           In Homer, however, we already encounter several characteristics which will later be attributed to these intermediate spirits. For example:

1. To communicate to men the wills and counsels of the gods: in the Iliad, Athena, for example, manifests to Achilles at the request of Hera. Athena is a subordinate deity who, at that moment, comes to earth as an intermediary to communicate to a mortal the will of a hierarchically superior goddess.
2. Bring the prayers and supplications of men to the gods: also in the Iliad, Thetis takes the request of Achilles to Zeus and intercedes in favor of this hero.
3. To Influence human thoughts and feelings, inspiring ideas and sending dreams, giving energy and strength, as well as affecting others’ perception of the person – the examples are many, and basically they define the interaction between the heroes and the Olympic δαίμονας.

           Still very important is the idea of a personal daimon that we find in the Homeric poems. The most famous example comes from the relationship between Athena and Odysseus, but this is a repeating pattern: Tethys and Achilles, Aphrodite and Paris, Crises and Apollo… Mortals could enjoy the favor of a deity for various causes; so Achilles was the son of Tethys, Chryses was a priest of Apollo, Paris for having elected Aphrodite at the trial, and Odysseus was dear to Athena for having a brilliant mind.

Athena inspires Odysseus for vengeance (1901) Jan Styka

           Along with the personal daimon, the Homeric hero commonly had an antagonist daimon. The best examples are that of Odysseus, who incurs the wrath of Poseidon, and that of Paris, who gains the sworn enmity of Athena and Hera while making Aphrodite his protector. The theme of the two daimons, one good and the other bad, reinterpreted under a moral view, was part of Empedocles’s philosophy, which made mention of the two daimons and the two fates (“two destinies and two daimones receive and lead each of us from birth“)[11] and survived to become quite popular in Christianity

           As the attentive reader must have realized, in Homer and Hesiod are all the key themes of pagan daemonology and its later derivative, Christian demonology. The relationship between the human being and the daimones has also become a very important element in the magic found in the Greek Magical Papyri and the theurgy of Iamblichus; this becomes a theme for a sequence of this text.

____________________________________

[1] Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation, A.T. Murray.

[2] Homer, The Iliad, Samuel Butler.

[3] Inventing Homer: The Early Reception of Epic, Barbara Graziosi.

[4] With one notable exception, when the Ἑκατόγχειρες (Hecatoikeires = Hundred-Handed One) Cottus   adresses Zeus in a speech; he call the supreme god “δαίμόνι”. But here the word is used not in the direct speech of the poet, but in a speech narrated by the poet.

[5] Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days, Testimonia, edited and translated by Glenn w. Most.

[6] Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days, Testimonia, edited and translated by Glenn W. Most.

[7] Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days, Testimonia, edited and translated by Glenn W. Most.

[8] I am assuming, together with the majority of the specialists, that the Homeric epics are earlier compositions.

[9] Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation, Hugh G. Evelyn-White.

[10] Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation, Hugh G. Evelyn-White.

[11] La démonologie platonicienne : histoire de la notion de daimon de Platon aux derniers néoplatoniciens, Andrei Timotin.

The post Dæmonology: First Developments. Homer and Hesiod appeared first on Occult-Study.

My interest in the books of Saint Cyprian was reborn in 2011. I had just finished the first volume of my Thesaurus Magicus collection of translations for the Brazilian readers and decided to translate the Spanish grimoires attributed to the saint for the second volume. I had by then published my first English paper in the Diabolical anthology by Scarlet Imprint, and was invited by Jake Stratton-Kent to contribute to the first Conjure Codex by Hadean Press. Scarlet Imprint Howlings reignited my interest in goetic practices and studies, and Jake Stratton-Kent considerations about the forgotten importance of the dead in Western magic helped me to see the Book of Saint Cyprian with new eyes.

I first heard about the Book of Saint Cyprian when I was in my teens and used to frequent the Heavy Metal scene in Rio de Janeiro, which happened mostly in the Caverna show house. There was always strange stories circulating amongst the fans and once someone mentioned that the bass player of a local band was a warlock and that he used the Book of Saint Cyprian. That was years before I started to pursue the magical knowledge and the inference given was that the Book of Saint Cyprian was a work of black magic.

Next time the book was mentioned in my presence was when I was serving the Army in 1987. There I got in touch with comrades of lower socio-economical classes and it was through then that I heard the fantastic stories about the book. These stories were told in secretive ways and talked about houses where someone kept the book, with poltergeist like phenomena happening. The core of the concept was that the book had an intrinsic power, it was talismanic by its very essence and opening the book was the equivalent to opening the Doors to Hell. When someone opened it laughter and screams could be heard.

We own to Saint Thomas of Aquinas the concept of implicit pact but the idea that magic was dependent on the power of devils appears already with Origen and was established as a definitive point of Church doctrine in the writings of Saint Augustine. When Augustine wrote, however, the Confession of Saint Cyprian was already circulating and promoting the concept of the Devil as the spiritual patron of magicians.

The idea of Saint Cyprian as the “Saint of Sorcerers” is however a very new development. It did not exist in the Late Antiquity or the Middle Ages; on the contrary, the devotion paid back then that still today thrives in the Orthodox Churches focused on the proficiency of the Saint to fight against magic and sorcery. Saint Cyprian after his conversion and martyrdom was considered especially apt to break spells, curses and enchantments. It is from this tradition that the Book of Saint Cyprian versions that circulate in Brazil inherited the exorcisms and the versions of the Prayer of Saint Cyprian. I was later introduced to the importance of that exorcist aspect of the book on the third time I heard it mentioned in a conversation.

It was on an e-mail sent on the 16 of September 2011 that I first talked to Frank Redd from Nephillim Press about the possibility of publishing an English version of the Book of Saint Cyprian. I had presented the Heptameron o Elementos Magicos to Jake and introduced him to the Galician anthropologist Felix Castro Vicente. We put together a privy Yahoo group to exchange information to which I enlisted Frank, whom I made the acquaintance when I purchased from him a De Laurence Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses. After a time he left the group and that was when I wrote to him:

I received your unsubscription from the Book of Sand list. Jake and I are working in similar projects with the Book of Saint Cyprian, that is why there is so much stuff about it on the list. I am preparing a critical edition of the Book of Saint Cyprian as the number two of the Thesaurus Magicus collection. I want later to have it also in a special separated edition. Of course, it will be in Portuguese. However, if you have interest in publish a small edition of it in English, we can discuss the subject.

Frank bought into the idea and I started to work in both versions of the book, the English and the Portuguese. I invited Kim Huggens to help and she made the first revision of the material, giving the excellent feedback I expected from her. I was then immersed in the Cyprianic magical universe when I heard someone mention the book for the third time in my presence.

I started working in Angola in 1999 providing security services to the Sociedade Mineira de Catoca in Angola, the fourth largest kimberlite diamond mining in the world. As the work requires I fly from Brazil and back on the average four times in a year. Now and then I travel together with other Brazilians, with whom I have a polite but distance acquaintance. On that occasion I ended up with a group of them in the Belas Shopping in Luanda. The conversation was about the usual themes, things that not really ever caught my interest like beer and football. Suddenly, without any intervention on my part, they started to talk about cemeteries and ghosts and the Book of Saint Cyprian.

The oldest man in the group, an electric engineer, said his father had the book when he was a kid and used it to perform exorcisms when someone of the family had what to me sounded like epileptic attacks. However, the fits he described were also accompanied by bizarre behaviors like grabbing and eating insects. His father then used to take the book and read from it until the crises were subdued. He most likely was using the Prayer of Saint Cyprian after the advice given by the book itself.

After that you must say the orison of S. Cypriano to unmake every quality of sorcery and conjurations from demons, malign spirits or bindings made by men or women, or to pray in a house that is judged to be possessed by malign spirits and even for everything related to supernatural diseases.

I had the chance to talk to that man again this year as we once again traveled together. He told me his father belonged to what seems to be a kind of Spiritism group who met around a table in his house in a closed room. He once defied his father asking why he did not use the Book of Saint Cyprian to get cured from his drinking habit, and received a slap in the face as an answer.

This man is from the Northeast states of Brazil, a place where Saint Cyprian is a kind of folk hero, sung in poetic verses for instance in the chap books published in the “literature de cordel” genre. The cordel genre gets its name from the string (“corda”) which sew the pages and where the pamphlets hang in the fairs where they are sold. It is a continuation of the Portuguese “papel volante” and the Spanish “hojas volanderas” that appeared in the seventeenth century and that were printed in the eight-page quarto format. The Saint Cyprian that appears in these chap books is well advanced in the “whitewashing” process his figure is undertaking, starting in the many popular editions of the book where the frightening descriptions of his magical career are left out and the description of his magical studies are emphasized. In the “Luta e vitória de São Cipriano contra Adrião Mágico”[1] written and first published by the cordelist Joaquim Batista de Sena in 1966 a young Cyprian pretends to be illiterate to trick the evil magus Adrião to allow him access to his books. After learning all he could he engaged the older magician into a magical fight with many recognizable folkloric elements – as the transformation contest which Cyprian wins when he transforms himself into a chicken and eats Adrião under the form of corn grains.

Saint Cyprian and his partner Justina were already represented in the Spanish „hojas volanderas” so his role as folk hero in the cordel literature is not an innovation; Spanish versions of the Prayer of Saint Cyprian were also produced in this medium.

The oldest version of the Prayer I could find is the Arab one published by Rene Basset. It is considered to be derived from a Greek version that most likely existed, as the structure of the prayer follows closely the argument of the Greek Confession. In it Cyprian mentions his past as a magician and his misdeeds, his repentance and conversion, and then addresses a list of sorceries he is breaking with the help of God. Its many variations are very instructive when we want to compare what kind of magic was believed to be perpetrated at the time the prayer was employed. The Arab version for instance lists:

If there is sorcery or magical binding or wickedness by iron, by gold, by silver, by bronze, by lead, by tin, let it be unmade and be no more, as if it existed in a thread, from silk, from cotton, from flax, threads of silk, in the remains of wool, let it be unmade; if it is made with human bones, with the bones of a quadruped, or of birds, of fish, let the enchantment be undone. If the enchantment or the magical binding was made with the help of wood or any other created plant, let it be undone. If it exists in a book, in a beam, in a stone, in the tomb of an orthodox, of a Jew, of a pauper, of a foreigner, or of a hermit, in ruins, inside the corpse of a murdered man, in a coffin, in the bone of a dead man, in the water, in a point of infiltration of water, in a spring, in a fountain, in a river, in the sea, in a brook, let it be removed from the carrier of this writing, so-and-so son of so-and-so [mother]: If the enchantment exists in a high room or in a low room, in a purse, in a field, in an orchard or in a tree, in a rosebush, ina narrow place, or in a grotto, let it be undone and frustrated. If it is made under a star, at a crossroad, among ruins with the image of a martyr, in beeswax, in a fava bean, or anything of the kind, let it all be undone. If it is in the wall or in the hinge of the door, in the ashes, in the atrium, in the oven, let everything be powerless against the carrier of this writing, so-and-so son of so-and-so [mother], as everything wicked I mentioned and the ones I did not mention that will be tried against him.

The prayer would later be forbidden as being superstitious by the Catholic Church, in the process that step by step took Saint Cyprian away from its official teaching, but survived in the Portuguese Book of Saint Cyprian. We can compare the list of sorceries to the broken contained in both versions:

Free from every danger and unbind everything which has been bound by this creature of the Lord; let it be untied, unbound from any form. I unbind, unpin, tear, put and take out everything, such as the doll which is in some well or taken, to dry this creature (so and so), so every damned devil and everything be delivered from evil and from all the evils or bad deeds, sorceries, enchantments or superstitions, and diabolical arts! The Lord destroyed and annihilated all of them; let God from the height of Heaven be glorified in Heaven and on Earth as Emanuel, which is the name of the Powerful God. […] if any witchery is made against you by the hairs of the head, cloth of the body or of the bed, in the footwear or in cotton, silk, linen, or wool; in the hair of Christian, of Moor, or of a heretic; in bones of human creature, of birds, or of any other animal; in wood, books, or in a sepulcher of Christians or Moors, in a fountain or on a bridge, altar or river, in a house or in a wall of lime; in a field or in solitary places; inside the churches or at the division of rivers; in a house made of wax or marble; in figures made of cloth, inside a frog or inside a salamander; in animal of the sea or of the river; in a slough or in food or drink; in soil taken from the left or from the right foot, or in any other things by which a sorcery can be made… All these things be undone and unbound from this servant (so and so) of the Lord, the ones I, Cyprian, have done, as much as the ones made by these witches, servants of the demon; all this be turned back to what it was before, or in its own figure, or in the one in which God created it. Saint Augustine and all the Saints, by holy names, make all creatures be free from the evil of the demon. Amen.

If Cyprian then was valued as being the protector against sorcerers, how did it happen he is now seen as the „Saint of Sorcery”? This is a very interesting development that was mostly influenced by the syncretism between Christian and African religions in the New World. The syncretism between Orishas and Vouduns and Ikses with the Catholic Saints shed a new light on the way the saints could be seen and associated many of them with magical ideas and practices. Portuguese folk magic, brought to Brazil with the exile of witches forced by the Inquisition, included in the same spell without any parsimony appeals to saints and devils and so already displayed a propensity to syncretism.

The contact between metropolis and colonies enriched the Book of Saint Cyprian itself. One of the magical secrets in the Portuguese edition is so presented:

In the province of Mato Grosso in Brazil, there was a celebrated sorcerer, who was an indigenous negro, who died in 1884, and who performed amazing miracles for a long time, such as the secret we will indicate to the readers.

It is possible that the sorcerer mentioned here was inspired in Juca Rosa (1822-1889), a very important religious leader of African descent who lived in Rio de Janeiro, where he led a mysterious magical association with members coming from all levels of society. For many decades after his death, he was still remembered, and his name became a synonym for black sorcerer. He was nicknamed the „King of the Macumbas” due to the use of these musical intruments in his sessions.

Juca Rosa was prosecuted in the end of the XIX century and was very loquacious in his testimonies and in the interviews he gave to the newspapers, leaving to us a rich description of the magical practices in vogue in the court of Rio de Janeiro. It is unsure if editions of the Book of Saint Cyprian published in Portugal were already circulating in the colony during the lifetime of Juca Rosa, but it would be most likely. Anyway, according to the testimony of the Brazilian journalist Joao do Rio (1881-1921), who in 1904 conducted a series of interviews in the demimonde of the Rio de Janeiro, the book was by then already very popular:

But what is ignored by the people who sustain the sorcerers, is that the base of their entire science is the Book of Saint Cyprian. The greatest alufas, the more complicated fathers-of-saint, have hidden between the stripes and the animals one nothing fantastic edition of S. Cyprian. Whilst that crying creatures await for the bewitchings and the fatal mixtures the blacks spell the S. Cyprian, by the light of the lamps…

It is to the idea of the book that we own the presence of Saint Cyprian in magic until the more recent syncretism. The Confession mentions the books Cyprian burnt when he converted, and after that the book(s) he had possessed when he was the most powerful of the magicians became the object of a never ending greed. So now lost works mentioned by Trithemius and Agrippa were produced under his name, but it was not until the printed editions in Spain and Portugal in the XIX century that the idea of the book having intrinsic powers started to crystalize until people began to believe that the mere possession of the book correspond to an implicit pact: to have the book is enough to turn the person into a sorcerer, and to buy or to accept it as a gift is the equivalent of an implicit pact.

The belief in the powers of the book in Brazil is so strong that it was mentioned in a juridical process in 2014 in the city of Brasilia de Minas where the lawyer adviced caution to the justice official in charge of convening the defendant because the latter „possess the book of Saint Cyprian and so he can transform himself into a piece of wood or hide behind a hoe.”[2]

The impressive presence of the Book of Saint Cyprian in Rio de Janeiro in the beginning of the XX century explains the importance of Saint Cyprian in the origins of the Quimbanda, but it is difficult to ascertain why he lately lost his importance in the cult. Different and even divergent trends may have contributed to it. The „whitewashing” of the forms of Spiritism considered to be „lower” undertaken by the first generation of Umbandists severely limited the scope of the forms of Quimbanda accepted by them, and of course they tried to distance themselves from the book. Although Saint Cyprian remained a popular saint, he was never syncretized with an African deity, what had serious consequences and led to his virtual disappearance in the cults. Also the importance is his fall from favor inside the Catholic Church, which removed his feast from the calendar of the Roman Rite in 1969 and from the Roman Martyrology in 2001. Before that, the prayer of Saint Cyprian was already prohibited by the Catholic Church and condemned as being superstitious by the Inquisition in the Index of 1559.

The syncretism between African and Christian ideas happened in a very popular level, the same cultural level where the legends about Cyprian that we find in the Portuguese book were produced. The legends cofound the Cyprian before and after the conversion, the saint and the sorcerer, and prepared the way for the „Saint of the Sorcerers” concept to emerge. The folk magic tradition from Portugal which was not ashamed of invoking in the same voice the saints and the devils and the powerful dead queen Maria Padilla is still much alive as we can see in the Internet groups dedicated to Saint Cyprian. Prayers attributed or addressed to him in these groups usually do not care for moral scruples – what underscore that today the saint and the sorcerer are not distinguished n the same figure anymore. This new Cyprian forged by folk wisdom is a sorcerer who acquired holiness without abandoning his former path, and because of that he became more powerful. He is a spiritual patron who serves and can be served both by God and the Devil. In this new Cyprianic view of the Devil is not an outcast to be forced by recourse to God but again the ruler of his own domains we see in the text of the Confession. The new Cyprian that emerges attains to Hermetic perfection by holding the keys to Hades and Olympus at the same time, as when he was described as sacrificing to Pluto, Hecate, Pallas, Ares and Kronos.

He is the triumphant Hero of Sorcery who teaches us that the same path goes from Hell to Heaven.

[1] “Fight and Victory of Saint Cyprian against Adrian Mage”.

[2] Processo N° 0086 14 124-8 da 2ª Vara Cível e Criminal da Comarca de Brasília de Minas/MG.

The post The New World of Saint Cyprian appeared first on Occult-Study.

(image source)

And as he [the demon Ornias] was not willing to be subject to me,

I prayed the archangel Uriel to come and succour me;

and I forthwith beheld the archangel Uriel coming down to me from the heavens.

Testament of Solomon

The demons are with us from the beginning. The Talmud teaches that they were created on the eve of the first Sabbath, and when Adam opened his eyes and first saw the Paradise, the snake was already silently waiting for him, next to the Tree of Knowledge.

Today we know that the Bible inherited this subject from the ancient Mesopotamians. It is in the Epic of Gilgamesh that the first snake precedes the hero and devours the fruit of the Tree of Life, gaining, for itself only, the desired immortality.

The identification of the biblical snake appears in the Apocalypse of John, where the fallen angel is called the old serpent, Devil and Satan. Together with the writings attributed to Paul the Apostle, influenced by apocryphal themes, this passage marks the beginning of the disagreement between the Jewish and the Christian demonology that will decisively influence the development of European Ceremonial Magic. In the Talmud, the demons are described as beings of intermediate nature, living between the world of men and the skies of angels, with wings that take them from one end to another of the world and who know the future, but also who eat and drink, procreate and die. The main figure of the Christian demonology, the Prince of this World denounced in the Gospel of John, among the Jews is comfortably installed in the divine hierarchy, enjoying the great privilege of talking to God face to face.

We do not need to be limited to the Jewish-Christian thinking to meet demons. Demons are present everywhere and at all times. In Ancient Mesopotamia they were identified with diseases, and men’s magical relationship with such beings was defensive and therapeutic, unless the person had exactly the opposite objective – to cause illness, death or misfortune to their victim. The victim could be offered ritualistically to a demon as Lamastu, who afflicts children, but the supernatural agent of harm could also be a deity. In fact, the analysis of these ancient texts shows that in more than half of the diagnoses, the one who causes the suffering was an offended god, with the demons sharing with the ghosts only two fifths of the blame. It is interesting to know the Magic of Ancient Mesopotamia because then we can find almost all elements of medieval grimoires: purifications, prayers, offerings, lists of talismans, stones and plants… An important element within this set of beliefs was the idea that the exorcist did not have authority to command the demons directly, nor did he possess any supernatural powers; he merely appealed to the gods for help and acted at their command. Therefore, 4,000 years before Abraham of Worms began his long journeys in search of divine wisdom, there is a record of what we now call the Abramelin Principle and the confirmation that the Christian piety is nothing new.

Although the cultures from Ancient Mesopotamia reached a high degree of sophistication, the demonological pattern is basically the same we find in shamanism of all primitive cultures. It is a recurring fact that people spontaneously feel what they understand as the presence of magical beings and energies and analyze such experiences from the resulting feelings of well-being or discomfort. By the same token, all known solutions for the confrontation with demons had already been tested by primitive cultures. We did not progress at all in regards to magical practice and we only created more elaborate metaphysical and cosmological systems that try to explain or justify it, and sometimes not even that.

The two objectives of this historical introduction are to highlight the ideas supporting the conclusions presented at the end of the article and to demonstrate the metamorphosis that happened inside the magical relationship between men and demons in the western culture. The primitive cultures were more flexible in regards to dealing with the world of spirits and gods, but when the great civilizations got organized, the shaman was replaced by the college of priests with their interpretations, rules, laws, techniques and traditions progressively walled in an orthodoxy sustained by the written word. The demons were circumscribed to illnesses and misfortune.

According to Professor Sarah Iles Johston, the oldest known reference in any Mediterranean culture about demons working to the benefit of men, instead of being used to cause suffering to others, is found in the Testament of Solomon, written between the first and the third century AD. The text tells how Solomon, with the help of Ouriel and several other angels, forced Beelzeboul and a whole long list of less important demons to reveal their names and secrets. Solomon led them to work in the construction of the Temple and imprisoned them in sealed vessels – an element that was later on important in some of the medieval grimoires, and that Aaron Leitch correctly associates with “Spirits Pots” present in several primitive cultures. Solomon also received a ring that granted him power over the malign spirits, but in the end his power and authority depended on the protection from God and when Solomon loses such protection, his power is over.

And it came about through my prayer that grace was given to me from the Lord Sabaoth by Michael his archangel. He brought me a little ring, having a seal consisting of an engraved stone, and said to me: ‘Take, O Solomon, king, son of David, the gift which the Lord God has sent thee, the highest Sabaoth. With it thou shalt lock up all demons of the earth, male and female; and with their help thou shalt build up Jerusalem’.

The Testament of Solomon is a key text to European Ceremonial Magick as it marks an important passage in the magical function played by demons. Asmodeus, whose job and joy was to transport men into fits of madness and desire, when they have wives of their own, so that they leave them and go off by night and day to others that belong to other men; with the result that they commit sin and fall into murderous deeds, under the power granted to Solomon is led to make the clay for the entire construction of the Temple, treading it down with his own feet.

Still according to Professor Sarah Iles Johston, from at least the start of the first millennium BC, Mesopotamian magicians also used ghosts to accomplish various goals and in the Greek Magical Papyri we see these magical formulations for attracting love addressed to the ghosts of the victims of violent deaths and infernal gods as Hecate, but the demons seem to remain as a limited and rarely used resource. To us, the most important point in these papyri is the figure of the parhedros, or magical assistant. The parhedros is granted by a god, has a divine essence itself and appears as such an important element to the point of being considered in one of the texts as the fundamental magical element:

He will serve you suitably for whatever you have in mind, O blessed initiate of the sacred magic, and will accomplish it for you, this most powerful assistant, who is also the only lord of the air. And the gods will agree to everything, for without him nothing happens. Share this great mystery with no one else, but conceal it, by Helios, since you have been deemed worthy by the lord god.

Besides being a clear example of the Abramelin Principle[1], the parhedros is also of interest to us due to the similarity between the list of his powers and the description of the demons found later in the grimoires:

He sends dreams, he brings women and men without the use of magical material, he kills, he destroys, he stirs up winds from the earth, he carries gold, silver and bronze, and he gives them to you whenever the need arises. And he frees from bonds a person chained in prison, he opens doors, he causes invisibility so no one can see you, he is a bringer of fire, he brings water, wine, bread and whatever you wish in the way of foods [but never fish or pork]. He stops ships and releases them, he stops many evil daimons, he checks wild beasts and will quick break the teeth of fierce reptiles, he puts dogs to sleep and renders them voiceless. He changes in whatever form of beast you want: one that flies, swims, a quadruped, a reptile. He will carry you into the air, and again hurl you into the billows of the sea’s current and into the waves of the sea; he will quickly freeze rivers and seas in such a way that you can run over them firmly, as you want.

The search for a protective spirit can also be found in the beginning of Shamanism and became a trend in late Antiquity. The daemon of Socrates was identified as a protective and guiding spirit by Neo-Platonist and theurgists and in Porphyry’s Vita Plotini, it is demonstrated that the idea became common place:

There was a certain Egyptian priest who arrived in Rome and through some friends became acquainted with him [Plotinus]. Wishing to give a demonstration of his own wisdom, he asked Plotinus to come to a visible conjuration of the personal daemon abiding with him. He readily agreed, and the conjuration took place in the temple of Isis, this being, as the priest said, the one pure place that he had found in Rome. When the daemon was conjured to appear, a god came forth, not one of the daemon-kind. The Egyptian therefore said “Blessed art thou who hast as the daemon abiding with thee a god and not one of the lesser race. Having, then, one of the higher classes of daemons abiding with him, he for his part continued to direct his godlike gaze toward that being.

The Church incorporated the idea under the terminology of the Guardian Angel as of the Fathers of the Church in the earliest Christian texts, where he is referred to by several terms that define their functions: phylax (guardian), phrouros (guard), prostates (protector), epimeletes (superintendent), ephoros (overseer) and boethos (assistant). Sometimes the Guardian Angel is also compared to a shepherd (poimen) and to a herdsman (nomeus). Although every human being has an appointed Angel, the Christian belief defined that only after the baptism the Angel is actually effective in fulfilling its function, an idea that shall be in the origin of the key concept of the Abramelin Operation. According to Origen, the Guardian Angel “is like a father”, a concept that Crowley agreed with much later, who wrote “he is something more than a man, possibly a being who has already passed through the stage of Humanity, and his peculiarly intimate relationship with his client is that of friendship, of community, of brotherhood, or Fatherhood”.

The cultural characteristics of the Middle Ages called for interesting changes in the way demons are seen. Firstly, as a result of the opposition between religion and science resulting from valuing ignorance (now understood and held as ‘simplicity’), the Arts and the Sciences then were seen with disdain, as the emphasis in life was the salvation in the upcoming world. The writers of the New Testament demonized the whole world when they stated that it is under the rule of Satan and, consequently, so the Arts and the Sciences that deal with the world were suspect of diabolism. This is where the demons take on a new role, supported by the apocryphal passage where the fallen angels take women for themselves and teach them several arts, a role that later on is confirmed in the later elaboration of the grimoires. The best example comes from XVI century when Johann Weyer, the demonologist who was a disciple of Cornelius Agrippa, publishes Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, providing to the adepts of invocations a complete hierarchy of gloomy spirits. Such hierarchy is notable not only for presenting the spirits now organized according to the ranks of European nobility, but because besides the former functions we already know, as to cause earthquakes, to cause disagreement, war, arguments and deception and to kill men on three days with putrefying wounds, the demons start performing tasks that in themselves are benign and useful: to promote the science and knowledge of the mechanical arts; to search for favours and to reconcile friends and enemies; to teach moral and natural philosophy, logic and the use of plants and herbs; to give the best familiar spirits and to cure all illnesses.

Amongst the several grimoires, two stood out towards the end of XIX century and became, together with John Dee’s Opus Enochian, the main references in contemporary ceremonial magick: The Goetia and The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.

The oldest known manuscripts of these two sources date from the XVII century but the text in the Goetia is based on Pseudomonarchia Daemonum‘s list to which it adds Vassago, Seere, Dantalion and Andromalius spirits and provides an invocation ritual, something omitted by Johann Weyer. Some of the names also have minor alterations, as Marbas and Barbas and there are significant changes in the order of the names.

The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage has the form of a long epistle where Abraham of Worms tells his journeys and instructs his son Lamech in the Abramelin Operation, that consists of six months of constant prayers that culminate with an experience called “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel”. The Holy Angel then instructs and protects the mage in the invocation of demons whose names can be found in a series of magical squares. Afterwards, the demons start performing all the typical acts of the grimoires which basically repeat the same activities seen on the description of the parhedros. The difference is that the Angel of Abramelin is less versatile or refuses to get his hands dirty, delegating the tasks to the infernal spirits.

Both books became contemporary icons for being associated with the two most influential names of Magick in the XX century. MacGregor Mathers, the main founder of Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, translated both books, which then became available to a larger public. Aleister Crowley published The Goetia and left us some referential passages by reporting his own experiences.

Abramelin was translated in 1897. Part of the legends about the book came about during its translation, with Mathers resigning to walk five miles every day, after recurring bicycle accidents on the way to Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal where the manuscript was, and after losing one hundred pages of translated material and two notebooks on the train from Auteil to Gare du Nord. His relationship with the publisher became conflicting and he  was urgently in need of cash. Mathers left a record of the perilousness of the grimoire that at some stage justifies the later evaluation done by Crowley, that although Mathers was an expert magician who knew grimoires such as The Greater Key of Solomon well, he did not notice soon enough that Abramelin was the equivalent to dynamite compared to the gunpowder of the other systems.  Mathers wrote:

It is the Squares which I have found to be endowed with a species of automatic intelligent vitality. I have had much experience of Magical Manuscripts, but to tell you my experiences copying these squares would cause you altogether to doubt my veracity. Therefore I advise you to be on your guard all the time that the squares and the Frontispiece are in your house. The shape of the Casket [in the illustration of the Frontispiece done by Mathers’ wife] presented by the head of the lower triad of Demons in the drawing was altered completely in the pencil sketches and that by no mortal hand.

Probably the most dangerous of all grimoires, Abramelin proceeded after his victims. According to Crowley, the young composer of genius Philip Heseltine engraved one square of Abramelin neatly on his own arm, to get back his wife. Crowley said that the woman returned, but a very short time afterward the musician committed suicide.  Actually, it was never completely clear whether Heseltine’s death by gas was suicide, accident or homicide.

In 1929, in a warrant letter published in the Occult Review, an anonymous reader described his terrible experience of four months after a self confessed gross carelessness attempt to use one of the squares to get some information. Beginning with a vague feeling of oppressing terror, felt as an imposed emotion upon himself which could be banished by an effort of will, the manifestation quickly escalated in the following months to visions extremely clear of an entity that seemed be gradually awakening and becoming more and more active and clear, also proving being capable of hearing phenomena noticed by other people.

Crowley witnessed until the end of his life about the autonomous nature of Abramelin squares. In one of his letters, he advises:

You must on no account attempt to use the squares given in The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, until you have succeeded in the Operation. More, unless you mean to perform it, and are prepared to go to any length to do so, you are a fool to have the book in your possession at all. Those squares are liable to get loose and do things on their own initiative; and you won’t like it.

The first edition of Abramelin had a small printing run and the spontaneous power of the grimoire might have dicreased with its later publishing in large scale. Abramelin is currently available in French, Spanish and Portuguese. Curiously, when the new and more complete translation by Steven Guth was published, I had to order the book four times. Although I buy a large amount of books every month, mainly from Amazon and from Alibris, very rarely a book gets lost. Three of the Abramelin copies mysteriously disappeared in the post and after I got it, although a new copy, was the only one amongst almost three hundred books that got moulded in my living quarters in Angola.

Crowley left to us his descriptions of the execution of the Abramelin Operation and, together with the diaries of the Operation performed by George Chevalier in 1973, still are the only testimonials that I know about what happens when a magician decides to take such irrevocable step. Both narratives coincide when they show that the demons do not wait to be called upon and they manifest themselves spontaneously as soon as the magician begins the works. George Chevalier was systematically attacked during all the six-month period, also inside the Oratorium. Crowley left an impressive description of these phenomena:

The demons connected with Abra-Melin do not wait to be evoked; they come unsought. One night Jones and I went out to dinner. I noticed on leaving the white temple that the latch of its Yale lock had not caught. Accordingly, I pulled the door and tested it. As we went out, we noticed semi-solid shadows on the stairs; the whole atmosphere was vibrating with the forces which we had been using. (We were trying to condense them into sensible images.) When we came back, nothing had been disturbed in the flat; but the temple door was wide open, the furniture disarranged and some of the symbols flung about in the room. We restored order and then observed that semi-materialized beings were marching around the main room in almost unending procession.

The march of the demons happened still in London, before Crowley moved to his mansion in Boleskine and before he actually began the Operation, which was duly accompanied by several issues: his assistant ran away without explanation after less than a month; the housekeeper started drinking again (after almost twenty years of abstinence) and tried to kill his own family; a second assistant started showing symptoms of panic and the butcher, who mistakenly received the sketch of one of the squares at the back of a note, cut his own arm by accident.

Besides these comparatively explicable effects on human minds, there were numerous physical phenomena for which it was hard to account. While I was preparing the talismans, squares of vellum inscribed in Indian ink, a task which I undertook in the sunniest room in the house, I had to use artificial light even on the brightest days. It was a darkness which might almost be felt. The lodge and terrace, moreover, soon became peopled with shadowy shapes, sufficiently substantial, as a rule, to be almost opaque. I say shapes; and yet the truth is that they were no shapes properly speaking. The phenomenon is hard to describe. It was as if the faculty of vision suffered some interference; as if the objects of vision were not properly objects at all. It was as if they belonged to an order of matter which affected the sight without informing it.

As part of the magical war that later took part between the master and the disciple, Crowley took ownership of the translation of The Goetia prepared by Mathers and published it in 1904. This edition also presents a theory over the phenomenon of invocation that had a great influence over some of the modern interpretations of Magick. In The Initiated Interpretation of Ceremonial Magic written in 1903, Crowley explains the Spirits of the Goetia as being portions of the human brain and their seals as methods of stimulating or regulating these particular spots through the eye. Such explanation became fairly popular amongst some magicians later on and seems to eliminate a significant part of the risks due to dealing with an objective and independent entity. However, it shall be reminded that the text was written by Crowley during his skeptical-buddhist phase, prior to receiving of The Book of the Law in 1904. Crowley’s later writings always emphasise that both the Guardian Angel and the demons have an existence independent from the magician’s:

But do remember this, above all else; they are objective, not subjective, or I should not waste good Magick on them.

The Book of the Law is sometimes presented by Crowley as being the most powerful grimoire. In fact, the book presents elements of practical magick that qualify it as such, as recipes for incense, instructions for rituals, prescriptions for sacrifices, recipes for perfumes, recipes for cakes, instructions of sympathetic magick to slay enemies, instructions to create and use an altar and how to properly print the book itself. Crowley considered that getting The Book of the Law was the coronation of his efforts to finish the Abramelin Operation, started in 1900 in Boleskine. The scripture of The Book of the Law corresponded to the Sign and to the advices that the Holy Guardian Angel writes about a small square plate of silver at the end of a successful Operation and Aiwass, the entity that dictated the text, would be his Holy Guardian Angel. However, I found in this something that may be an embarrassment for those who support Thelema, the magical philosophy presented by Aiwass, as being in fact an original revelation. Crowley’s diary entitled The Book of the Operation of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage, in the entry for 20 March 1900, reveals that he had been reading Clothed With the Sun by Anna Kingsford in that period. Four years later, when he purportedly completes the Abramelin Operation, the content of his revelation repeats in detail all the main ideas of Anna Kingsford:

a) Both state they are the prophets of the new era

b) Both received a book from spiritual entities, which they defend as being the doctrine of  the new era.

c) Both defined the new era as being under the spiritual direction of a regent: the Archangel Michael for Anna, the god Horus for Crowley. Both the Archangel Michael and the  god Horus have the duty to fight against the decadent forces  of the past era.  Both archetypes are mythologically equivalent, with Michael defeating Satan and  Horus defeating Set.

d) Both identified themselves with characters from the Apocalypse: Anna with the Woman Clothed with the Sun, Crowley with the Beast.

e) Both witnessed being guided by a personal daemon. Anna’s personal daemon considered the term “Angel” as being misinterpreted and preferred being called ‘minister’ better indicating its functions of guiding, advising and enlightening. Crowley’s daemon presented itself as being the ‘minister’ of Horus.

f) Both stated that women’s re-valuation and the harmonization between Science and Religion were essential characteristics of the new era, ideas most likely inherited from Eliphas Levi.

An important part of the Thelemic doctrine is based on the idea that the world had been “destroyed by fire” in 1904, when the praeter-human entity called Aiwass had dictated The Book of the Law. An identical idea was published by Anna Kingsford only a quarter of a century before and is extremely unlikely that Crowley did not know about it, as he had at least read Clothed With the Sun in 1900. Anna Kingsford describes her book The Perfect Way in a way that reveals strong similarity not only of ideas, but also of style, with the same verbosity used later by Crowley when describing The Book of the Law:

Enough, it is hoped, has now been said to show that the “world” did indeed, as foretold, “come to an end in 1881;” that the predicted new era then began; and that in the promulgation of the system contained in The Perfect Way, especially, if not solely, the prophecies have found their due accomplishment. For, to enumerate a few only of the grounds of the claim made for the book in question, it affords to minds duly instructed and percipient, a complete demonstration, altogether unique, of the spiritual nature of existence, and of the reality and persistence of the soul. It formulates the doctrine announced as that whereby the new era would be characterized. It solves simply and effectually the profoundest problems, historical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, to the full reconciliation of religion and science. And, finally, it appears at precisely the juncture both of time and of conditions, indicated as that of the period of an event which should inaugurate precisely such a change in the world’s system and thought as The Perfect Way is calculated to bring about.

As for Crowley, in his Confessions:

Generally, The Book of the Law claims to answer all possible religious problems. One is struck by the fact that so many of them are stated and settled separately in so short a space. […] It reconciles cosmological conceptions which transcend time and space with a conventional, historical point of view. In the first place it announces unconditional truth, but in the second is careful to state that the “Magical Formula” (or system of principles) on which the practical part of the book is based is not an absolute truth by one relative to the terrestrial time of the revelation. (It is a strong point in favor of the Book that it makes no pretense to settle the practical problems of humanity once and for all. It contents itself with indicating a stage in evolution.) […] The existence of true religion presupposes that of some discarnate intelligence, whether we call him God or anything else. And this is exactly what no religion had ever proved scientifically. And this is what The Book of the Law does prove by internal evidence, altogether independent of any statement of mine. This proof is evidently the most important step in science that could possibly be made: for it opens up an entirely new avenue to knowledge. The immense superiority of this particular intelligence, AIWASS, to any other with which mankind has yet been in conscious communication is shown not merely by the character of the book itself, but by the fact of his comprehending perfectly the nature of the proof necessary to demonstrate the fact of his own existence and the conditions of that existence. And, further, having provided the proof required.

Paradoxically, the repetition of Anna Kingsford main ideas in Crowley’s prophetical revelations shows that the experience with Aiwass on 8, 9 and 10 April 1904 was a legitimate magical experience. To better understand this point, I will first describe my personal experiences with the Goetia and Liber Sameck.

In 1993 I got my first edition of The Goetia published by Weiser. Although editorially correct, I was personally disappointed for not finding in it all the well known images of the Spirits present in Dictionnaire Infernal, by Collin de Plancy. My dissatisfaction remains, as years later, when I bought a copy of the Dictionaire, the edition inexplicably did not have any illustrations…

The book was ordered from the famous book store of the Argentinean immigrant Francisco Laissue. Besides being the best occultist book store in Rio de Janeiro and, then, probably the best in Brazil, it certainly had a Borgean atmosphere, with occult entrances through unsuspicious moving book shelves and a large amount of books kept in the impenetrable neighboring room, much larger than the ones available to the public. The bookseller that worked with Francisco Laissue was also a character, a gentleman of a strong Spanish accent, a light hunchback and with disturbing blue eyes that resembled the eyes of a blind person. He passed away a few years ago, but the owner is still active.

One or two days before I got the book, I had a serious problem when closing my till at Banco do Brasil, where I worked for ten years. What initially seemed to be a simple authentication error, turned out to possibly be a considerable loss that I would have to pay for, when the documents required to correct the error mysteriously disappeared. The Goetia came to my hands exactly in this moment of crisis.

I came home decided to try the grimoire. I had some experience with the Angels from Kaballah and with Enochian Magick, but Goetia seemed more suitable to solve that urgent problem and it had the strong appeal of the novelty. Benefiting from being by myself in the apartment, I performed a quick invocation.

My partner at the time only came home later in the evening, but I did not mention the ritual. She had a strong clairvoyance, but was also very suggestible and not always reliable, what made me decide to wait and see if she would say anything. At the time I still had not developed the ability to perceive a magical presence and depended on her to know what happened during the ritual.

The evening went through normally until my partner woke me up in an irritable mood, asking me directly if I had invoked a demon. I remained quiet and asked the reason for the question. She said she was seeing a demon walking repeatedly over a plate in flames.

The invoked Spirit was Phenex and the description given by her impressed me, as it is attributed to the first decan of Aries and to the element Fire, besides, obviously, having its name deriving from the mythological bird. But the best was still to come: I immediately felt the pressure of the energy from the entity on my forehead, making me have the vision of a man in a warrior elm and flaming eyes that aggressively demanded what I wanted. During all night I had a succession of apocalyptical dreams and woke up feeling a strong and impressive fiery energy around my body. I decided to personally go to the Bank’s archive and as soon as I came in a colleague received me in a disturbed manner stating that he had had an intuition and had just found the pack with documents in another branch’s folder.

Now, I shall emphasize the fact that the Spirit that manifested itself did not show any of the characteristics described in the grimoire. It did not have the voice of a child, did not sing, did not talk marvelously over all sciences and, certainly, did not seem obedient. My choice was not rational too: I chose him intuitively, opening the book and placing my finger on the page, without bothering with its apparent inappropriateness for the task.

Obviously, such a success encouraged me not only to new practices but also to an effusive propaganda of the grimoire that became a trend in the Order I was initiated in some years later. Unfortunately, this trend originated several problems with the neophytes that started working with the system and, till now, people who were members of the Order eventually came to me for advice and to tell me bizarre cases.

Although I seem to enjoy the good fortune of whom is born with the Ascendant in Sagittarius and with Jupiter in the Midheaven, I did not leave unharmed after the series of invocations I performed. Even more than ten years after I stopped working with the grimoire, cleansing and purification works performed by other people found Goetic energies and bonds in my body, phenomena that do not differ at all from the ones described by ancient Mesopotamian healers that exorcised spirits nested in parts of the bodies of their clients – something also present in Shamanic practices.

The work with the Goetia, for my own personal experience, is full of risks and I can only fully agree with what Thea Faye says in The Devil is in the Detail. The phenomena are never what we expect from a superficial reading of the text. The grimoire does not explain that the Spirit can already be present before the ceremony begin, what happened when I instructed a brother from the Order in the work praxis. It also does not advise that, with the practice, the magician establishes a link with the Spirits that makes the ritual unnecessary. In a certain period, I needed only to think and the communication started.

With the evolution of my magical path, I ended up abandoning the grimoire in search of my Holy Guardian Angel. The method I used was to start working periodically with Liber Sameck for years, what allowed me in 2005 to reach an initial level of Knowledge and Conversation. One of the things I have been noticing is that the constant purification and energizing that Liber Sameck and other Theurgic practices grant, slowly change the person into a living talisman and subtly act in all other areas in life. Whilst the Goetia has an immediate and drastic applicability, many times with non-lasting results, Theurgy slowly establishes all the conditions in a permanent and balanced manner for the person who needs it.

Another important point that differentiates the Goetia from Theurgy is health. My personal experience and the conversations with other practitioners show that the presence of the Spirits negatively impacts in our physical state, maybe because of the contrasting energies. Goetic invocations seem to cause disturbances after practices such as depression, gastro-intestinal problems, susceptibility to viruses, panic attacks and stress. I was spiritually advised that, on the long term, a constant Goetic practice would give me cancer of the larynx. When I worked with this system, I used to perform subsequent invocations with Enochian Lesser Angels to cleanse and re-energise my aura.

Another fact not mentioned by the Goetia authors is that, apparently, the Spirits create situations where their invocation seem to be the ideal solution and the practitioner is found immersed more and more in this type of event. I today see the situation involving my buying the book and invoking Phenex with a well-humoured suspicion and I cannot avoid mentioning the famous advice from Crowley:

It is, however, always easy to call up the demons, for they are always calling you; and you have only to step down to their level and fraternise with them. They will tear you in pieces at their leisure. Not at once; they will wait until you have wholly broken the link between you and your Holy Guardian Angel before they pounce, lest at the last moment you escape.

My Goetic experience did not end when I parted with the grimoire. The period as an A.: A.: Probationer was marked by a large number of events of this kind. A few months before having my Reception, which happened in a hotel in Rome, I could enjoy the most impressive manifestation I have had so far and it happened spontaneously. In fact, I was in the shower when all 72 Spirits started manifesting themselves with an intensity so far unknown to me and I believe they spent almost an hour parading clock-wise around the magical circle I quickly took shelter in. I had to invoke Hru-Ra-Ha during the whole process to maintain some integrity amongst all that energy. But there is an important fact about this experience and the subsequent ones: the Spirits were not attacking me and neither demonstrated any aggressiveness towards me. They were presenting themselves and many showed energetically how their seduction and aggressive characteristics are manifested.

I shall call the attention to the fact that my attitude towards the Goetic Spirits was always one of respect and friendliness. The demons attract and always fascinated me. One of the biggest problems of Western Magick is due to adopting the apocryphal vision that the demons are fallen angels which, as I stated earlier, is not a vision originated in Judaism. From a scientific view of the reality, the Goetic phenomenon shall be assessed independently from Christian nonsense. Christianity was wrong about the various scientific facts that are considered trivial nowadays and it will most likely not be correct in more complex and subtle questions.

I can now introduce my theory over the Goetic phenomenon and the magical phenomena in general and, thus, explain why I consider the writing of  The Book of the Law a genuine magical experience, although it is basically a pastiche of Anna Kingsford’s thinking.

The knowledge and the conversation with magical beings is a phenomenon ever present among human beings, since the most primitive cultures of the past to our urban civilization. I personally know several people that, since their childhood, perceive and interact with spirits regularly and at the same time live a completely normal life and are discreet about what they witness. It is part of the Brazilian culture a narrow familiarity with all sorts of mediumship and rarely do we know a family where at least one member does not belong to a Kardecist group or regularly attends an Umbanda temple.

However, with such vast collective spiritual experience in Humanity time and space, the contact with spiritual beings still is object of belief, rather than of science. I do not have means of scientifically proving that in fact I had a meeting with Phenex as the presence of these beings does not leave photographic or phonographic records neither does it show in computerized tomography. But computerized tomographies do record cerebral alterations that happen during the experience of what is called perception of a spiritual presence. It is a phenomenon that occurs on a specific part of our brain but this in no way clarify the objectivity of our invisible friends.

The difficulty in establishing a science of the spirits is not in finding a way of producing an objective record, although it may still happen. Even the revolutionary production of such record would be hindered by a fact that is obvious to the skeptical ones but at the same time is severely repressed by the practitioners, either spiritual mediums or Enochian magicians. It is the fact that a spiritual communication never provided a knowledge that is unprecedented and verifiable.

Put differently, no spiritual communication to date has gone beyond the content of the memory of the recipient.

What happens during the knowledge and conversation with a spiritual being is the stimulation of the human mind with extraordinary and highly creative forms. This explains how it is possible, for example, that the so called spirits of the deceased can preview or accurately tell events, tell things that seem extremely personal and, at the same time, be incapable of repeating the names of their parents and siblings when the medium does not know them. It tells a lot about the inherent human desire to deceive itself the fact the every day thousands of people attend spiritual sessions and never question these key issues.

Crowley was aware of this fact and one of his arguments in favour of The Book of the Law is that for the first time in history, it would have scientifically been proved the existence of Praeter-human beings. Unfortunately, we now know that all small numerological enigmas that The Book of the Law present as proof can be produced subconsciously, specially if you have an exceptional memory regularly trained in Gematry exercises. Aiwass would actually have radically changed the course of Science and History if he had dictated his book in an existing language but, till then, unknown to Crowley, revealed historical facts that were unknown so far, or any other information that Crowley could prove he did not know and that was true.

Another important fact to be considered here is telepathy. I personally know the phenomenon, which happened a few times in my past with people I had a strong affective relationship. As we see Crowley repeatedly being surprised when a new lover starts having visions with symbols that are related to him, we wonder how his magically exercised and active mind affected his lovers’ thoughts.

However, the personal experience of the magician, mine included, tells that the manifestation of a spirit is a phenomenon that seems very realistic and it is hard – in face of a successful invocation – to tell yourself that the entity in front of you is a mere phenomenon inside your own mind. Add to this the fact that sometimes the manifestations are spontaneous and unexpected, even undesired. That they affect third parties could be explained by telepathy and, if we check carefully, almost all magical practical operations are epitomised to effects caused on other living beings – unless you are into making rain.

Thus, my theory is: the magicians’ magical perception of the spirits and the spirits’ inability to communicate are not necessarily incompatible neither is there a need to be summarized into a purely subjective process, if the Spirits are energetic structures that organize memory and intelligence in a way that differs from ours.

Within this theory, a Spirit will affect and stimulate our body, our nervous system and our brain, according to its energetic characteristics. Its energetic configuration can enable itself to stimulate our ability to learn a new language or affect the area in our brain that works with Geometry, it can excite us sexually, activate our prescience and telepathy or make a part of our body ill. It communicates by associating and affecting energetically our mind and, therefore, will never speak in a language we do not know. It can affect other people at the magician’s request and cause synchronicities whenever there will be a living being that can be influenced.

An analysis of my first invocation with Phenex shows that all these effects happened:

1. My partner was affected when she perceived the Spirit.

2. I was affected in several ways and my magical perception was awakened or strengthened.

3. The archivist was affected, causing a synchronicity. As it was the archivist who lost the documents, placing them in the wrong folder, the Spirit may simply have activated his subconscious memory.

From this point on, I can explain why I consider the scripture of The Book of the Law as being a genuine magical experience. Crowley was intelligent and knowledgeable more than enough to create a fraudulent revelation that, besides the obvious uses of Rabelais, repeats in details Anna Kingsford’s ideas. I will not even consider that he defended, consistently and throughout his life, the truth of his prophecy. What I will say is that if his intention was to create a fraud, he had critical sense and knowledge enough to forge a revelation that would not run the risk of being, at any moment, compared to the original. Actually, it is hard to believe that this comparison was not made sooner, mainly considering the fact that several of Crowley’s adversaries and enemies had personal contact with Anna Kingsford whilst she lived.

According to my theory, Crowley in fact was in touch with a daemon in Cairo and it produced The Book of the Law, magically affecting the memory, the creativity and the literary capacity of his scribe. Anna Kingsford’s ideas were strongly engraved in his memory because Crowley had read her book in the dramatic circumstances present during his first attempt to perform the Abramelin Operation and also because such ideas satisfied his needs for self-projection and recognition. In fact, the presence of Aiwass seems to have helped emerge a little of everything that affected most profoundly Crowley’s mind since his being admitted to Cambridge in 1895 until he went to Cairo in 1904; therefore, there are so many passages in The Book of the Law that seem to repeat parts of other known works and trends at the time, such as the translation of Kabbalah Denudata done by Mathers and the publishing the Chaldean Oracles by Westcott – both founding members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and, thus, influential figures for Crowley.

As mentioned in the beginning of this article, the demons have always been with us. In Ancient Sumer they were feared and exorcised. Later on, they started being treated as condemned, to whom it is legitimate to impose all sorts of forced work. Some preferred to sell to them their own souls in exchange of temporary benefits, secretly plotting a way of avoiding the pact sealed. Today, when Magick is practiced more than ever in History, we are back to the individualism of the primitive era when each one seems to have their own personal formula for dealing with these beings.

The first issue of Howlings will probably be a precious object of study for the anthropologists of the XXII century, as there are testimonials from Magicians that approach their Goetic invocations in many different ways, from the extremes of Paul Hughes-Barlow, who states that the Goetic Spirits are our friends and advises us not to use rituals, magical weapons and the magical circle to Aleq Grai, who learned that we need one almost anal attention to detail and advises us to the need of courage and depth of character when we call “the bugger” and eventually torture “the little bastard” when it does not serve us properly. Although I am more in tune with the position expressed by Thea Faye, it is impossible to say who is right, even more because what is right for one person today may not be useful to them tomorrow – all can change to the extent the magician evolves and suffers the consequences of his acts.

In retrospective, my contact with Goetic Spirits was fundamental to awake my magical perception, gave me a strong certainty over the reality of Magick, taught me to be prudent and respectful and prepared me to search Theurgy in a more lucid way. The experience with Goetia seemed to really be part of my path and if I suffered in the process, it was a result of my own mistakes.

Bibliografia

Anonymous, circa I-III AD                        Testament of Solomon

A. Cohen                                                        Everyman’s Talmud

Ankarloo & Clark                                        Witchcraft and Magic in Europe – Biblical and Pagan Societies

Sarah Iles Johston                                       The Testament of Solomon from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance

Aaron Leitch                                                Grimoire Shamanism

Anna Scibilia                                                Supernatural Assistance in the Greek Magical Papyri: the Figure

                                                                        of  the Parhedros

Hans D. Betz (ed.)                                       The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation

Mark Edwards                                             Neoplatonic Saints

Jean Danielou                                              The Angels and their Mission According to the Fathers of the

                                                                        Church

Johann Weyer                                              Pseudomonarchia Daemonum

Mathers (trans.) & Crowley (ed.)              The Goetia

Mathers (trans.)                                           The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage

Crowley                                                         Magick Without Tears

                                                                        Magick – Book Four

                                                                        Confessions

Aiwass & Crowley                                       The Book of the Law

Francis King                                                  Modern Magic

George Chevalier                                         The Sacred Magician, a Ceremonial Diary

Darcy Küntz  (ed.)                                       The Battle of Blythe Road

Humberto Maggi                                         Therion: The Life and Word of  Aleister Crowley (forthcoming)

Anna Kingsford                                           The Perfect Way

                                                                        Clothed With the Sun

                                                                        How the World Came to an End  in 1881

Alkistis Dimech (ed.)                                  Howlings

[1] A better term would be “Solomonic Principle”, as I used in papers written after the publication of this one.

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Renaissance, Reformation and the Book of the Law

Tahuti standeth in His splendor at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.¹

In the Palm Sunday of 1484, the city of Rome witnessed the strangest happenings, events that, however, did transpire with an enthusiastic familiarity. Dressed with a bloodstained linen mantle, a crown of thorns and a silver crescent engraved with Hermetic words, the prophet Giovanni da Correggio, self-proclaimed as the Angel of Wisdom, entered the Immortal City to sermonize to the people.

This is my servant Pimander, whom I have chosen. This Pimander is my supreme and waxing child, in whom I am well pleased, to cast out demons, and proclaim my judgment and truth to the heathen. Do not hinder him, but hear and obey him with all fear and veneration; thus speaks the Lord your God and Father or every talisman of all world, Jesus of Nazareth.[1]

All the details of the bizarre procession were carefully planned and executed, according to Biblical and Hermetic symbolism. Giovanni had a reed-staff in his hand and an inkwell hung from his reins. Hiding a white ass in a clear reference to Jesus entrance in Jerusalem, and a basket containing a human skull (probably in memory of John the Baptist), he was heralded by two servants mounted on horses – one carrying a book, the other a sheathed sword. Leaves of paper were distributed to the people on the streets, helping them to identify the prophet:

I, Giovanni Mercurio of Corregio, the Angel of Wisdom Pimander, in the highest and greatest ecstasy of the Spirit of Jesus Christ evangelize loudly unto all this water of the kingdom for the few.[2]

Giovanni was following the ancient tradition of the Biblical prophets who engaged in symbolic actions as a mean to better transmit their messages, as did Oseias who married a prostitute to symbolize the idolatry in which the Chosen People felt. But, as a Hermetic magician, his actions were probably not intended as a mere representation of his message, but as an efficient means to bring the desired changes to happen. When Aleister Crowley in 1937 reunited five representatives of the different races and cultures of Humanity, and delivered to each of them one copy of The Book of the Law at the Cleopatra’s Needle on the Embankment of London, he was acting after the same principle[3]. Both men believed that magic was a way to prophecy, and that prophecy and magic could be used to change the world.

Giovanni’s choice of Mercury and Pimander as a new prophetic identity was not accidental or fortuitous, but can be seen as the apotheosis of a process begun two decades earlier.

The Return of Hermes

In 1463, one anonymous Macedonian monk rediscovered an important collection of texts, devoted to metaphysics, cosmology, and magic. The writings were long lost to Europe, and belonged to ancient traditions attributed to a complex and polemic figure: Hermes Trismegistus. Now, Hermes Trismegistus is a legendary figure, the heir of a litte bit confuse genealogy which began with the fusion between the Egyptian god Toth and the Greek god Hermes. He was later humanized as have being a prophet who, beside other merits, enjoyed the very special dignity of has received a glimpse of the future Christian revelation. However, after some time he proved to be much more than a dubious reference to the origins and the forerunners of Christianity, as his credentials as a Heathen prophet became important as an apology to whoever would be interested at other areas of knowledge associated with his figure, and amidst these areas magic figured proeminently. The traditions and the authority connected to him were preserved in the Muslim world, and leaked back into Europe through Spain during the XII and the XIII centuries, preparing the fertile ground in which the recovered texts of the Corpus Hermeticum would be received in the XV century.

Early Arabic accounts tell of an ancient Egyptian sage named Hermes Triplicate-in-Wisdom, the founder of the pagan religion before the great Flood, a lawgiver who ascended to the heavenly spheres of the planets and returned to teach astrology, a true prophet like Jesus and Muhammad. The teachings of this wise Hermes circulated in Arabic translation, having been handed down, as the accounts said, over long ages by the great philosophers of the past, such as Aristotle and Apollonius of Tyana, or after being rediscovered inscribed on tablets in subterranean chambers of Egyptian ruins. The Arabic books of Hermes claim to explain the hidden workings of the universe, the secrets of creation, and the mysteries of nature. They offer means to predict the future from astral omens, instructions for the manufacture of potent talismans, and encrypted directions for manufacturing the elixir of the alchemists.[4]

It is not that Hermes Trismegistus was completely forgotten in Europe: the Hermetic treatise known as Asclepius was preserved in the monastic libraries and the Church Fathers were kind enough to mention his name several times. But Hermetic knowledge remained dormant during the first millennium, just to burst into the XV century when the rescued collection of texts found his way to Renaissance Italy. The official discourse of the Christian theology, of course, repudiated any tentative of using the figure of Hermes Trismegistus as a justification for the study and practice of magic, and there was a dissention on the subject which went back to the beginnings of Christian literature. Although Lactantius in the III century defended the veracity and legitimacy of the legend, it was Saint Augustine one century after who determined the Ecclesiastical line to be followed, condemning the idolatry of Hermes Trismegistus in De Civitate Dei. That condemnation, however, did not stop the new adepts of the rediscovered Hermetic wisdom to use Lactantius definitions to justify their interests.

Now let us pass to divine testimonies; but I will previously bring forward one which resembles a divine testimony, both on account of its very great antiquity, and because he whom I shall name was taken from men and placed among the gods. According to Cicero, Caius Cotta the pontiff, while disputing against the Stoics concerning superstitions, and the variety of opinions which prevail respecting the gods, in order that he might, after the custom of the Academics, make everything uncertain, says that there were five Mercuries; and having enumerated four in order, says that the fifth was he by whom Argus was slain, and that on this account he fled into Egypt, and gave laws and letters to the Egyptians. The Egyptians call him Thoth; and from him the first month of their year, that is, September, received its name among them. He also built a town, which is even now called in Greek Hermopolis (the town of Mercury), and the inhabitants of Phenae honour him with religious worship. And although he was a man, yet he was of great antiquity, and most fully imbued with every kind of learning, so that the knowledge of many subjects and arts acquired for him the name of Trismegistus. He wrote books, and those in great numbers, relating to the knowledge of divine things, in which be asserts the majesty of the supreme and only God, and makes mention of Him by the same names which we use-God and Father. And that no one might inquire His name, he said that He was without name, and that on account of His very unity He does not require the peculiarity of a name. These are his own words: “God is one, but He who is one only does not need a name; for He who is self-existent is without a name.” God, therefore, has no name, because He is alone; nor is there any need of a proper name, except in cases where a multitude of persons requires a distinguishing mark, so that you may designate each person by his own mark and appellation. But God, because He is always one, has no peculiar name.[5]

The recovered collection of hermetic texts was handed to Marsilio Ficino, the first name in the new lineage of Hermetic magicians that would wage the war of magic to fight and resist tyranny, superstition and oppression for six centuries, a lineage from which Aleister Crowley would inherit and to which he would belong wholeheartedly, a lineage made of magicians and books. Ficino translated the entire Corpus Hermeticum, a series of eighteen tractates from which the first is called Pimander. Such is the power of these writings, that in just 21 years a hermetic inspired prophet was taking the names of Mercurius and Pimander and leaded a magical procession through the streets of the city which was the very heart of Christendom.

The image of Hermes Trismegistus proved to be a very powerful source of inspiration, an image whose origins can be found at the core of the human mind where reason and imagination are born and married. He is god and man, patron of Writing and Magic, forerunner of Science and, at the same time, he is the religious representative of a pantheon which until today haunts and perseveres. Magic and Revelation are essential features of the teachings of this god of double nationality, reinterpreted as Pagan prophet and revered by Muslim and Christians alike, and even capable of making himself to be represented in the Renaissance churches when leading the magical and philosophical revival of the XV century. Inspired by the writings attributed to Hermes, the magi of Renaissance did not hesitate in associating once again Magic to Revelation, what in practical terms put the magical experience at the origin of the religions:

Magic, and the astrological premises that accompanied it, made operational a fully evolved nexus of forms which guaranteed the existence of a sphere in which man´s cosmological position took on a new dimension. For if the soul vivified the corporeal world through spiritus, and if a spiritus of celestial origin was diffused throughout nature, then not only was the soul´s process of ascent and descent clarified, but the highest part of the soul was clearly not attached to the corporeal realm. Proof of this was man´s ability, under certain conditions, to attain supracosmic levels, to command the elements and to prophesy.[6]

Magic and Prophecy

The association between Magic and Prophecy was already present in Antiquity and was preserved by the Classical authors Cornelius Agrippa consulted. In his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, for instance, he clearly mentioned this connection between the magical practices and prophecy:

Now the second phrensy proceeds from Dionysus: this doth by expiations exterior, and interior, and by conjurations, by mysteries, by solemnities, rites, temples, and observations divert the soul into the mind, the supreme part of itself, the supreme part of itself, and makes it a fit and pure temple of the gods, in which the divine spirits may dwell, which the soul then possessing as the associate of life, is filled by them with felicity, wisdom, and oracles, not in signs, and marks, or conjectures, but in a certain concitation of the mind, and free motion: so Bacchus did soothsay to the Boeotians, and Epimenides to the people of Cous, and the Sybil Erithea to the Trojans. Sometimes this phrensy happens through a clear vision, sometimes by an express voice: so Socrates was governed by his demon, whose counsel he did diligently obey, whose voice he did often hear of his ears, to whom also the shape of a demon did often appear. Many prophesying spirits also were wont to show themselves, and be associates with the souls of them that were purified; examples of which therein are many in sacred writ, as in Abraham, and his bondmaid Hagar, in Jacob, Gideon, Elias, Tobias, Daniel, and many more.[7]

Some of the main processes of Ceremonial Magical are mentioned in this passage from Agrippa: expiations, conjurations, mysteries, solemnities, rites, temples, observations… All this leading to the “diversion of the soul into the supreme part of the mind” and preparing the magus to become “a fit and pure temple of the gods in which the divine spirits can dwell.” The benefits of the process are great: the soul is filled with felicity and attain prophecy (wisdom and oracles). The list of characters who shared this blessed state is impressive and includes two key persons: Socrates and Abraham. If the foundations of our culture are to be found in the Greek philosophy and in the Jewish religion, we can say then that the daemonic knowledge received through prophecy (by Socrates and Abraham) is ever present in the Western civilization.

Today, having access to the surviving texts from the Greek-Roman magic, we can verify that the association between magic and prophecy was already well established at the beginning of Christianity, the bastard child of Greek and Jewish cultures. It was used to reinterpret key religious figures as, for instance, the Moses of the Jew, who was largely believed to have being a magus. His successor Jesus, considered today by many researchers to have been a magician and itinerant miracle-worker who was deified after death by his followers[8], is an excellent example of how magic can be the origin of a new religious foundation, what should not surprise us so much, if we pay attention to the common Shamanic sources of both religion and magic. Shamanism is at the same time the original religion and a complete magical practice, where we already find described all the varieties of religious experiences repeated so many times in the Gospels as in the Grimoires.

What magic and religion initially share, through revelation, is the premise of a contact with one spiritual being, from whom the magus would derive a new knowledge. Although to religion this contact usually belongs only to the founder and remains registered since its origins and are unalterable, to the magician the prophetic experience can become part of his daily reality:

By the efficacy of religion the presence of spirits doth dispose the effect, neither can any work of wonderful efficacy in religion be done, unless some good spirit the ruler and the finisher of the work be there present.

[…] Also the divining of suitable things works so with man´s mind, that good spirits do assist us willingly, and communicate their power and virtue to us, daily helping us with illuminations, inspirations, oracles, prophesying, dreams, miracles, prodigies, divinations, and auguries, and working upon and acting upon our spirits, as images like to them, by framing them by their influences, and making them most like to themselves even so far, as that oftentimes our spirit doth as surely work wonderful things as the celestial spirits are wont to do.[9]

We can see the perfect demonstration of the confrontation between the prophetic magus of the Renaissance and the established doctrine in the audience John Dee had with the Polish king Stefan Batory. Dee was moved by his prophetic zeal, after the angelic communications he received during his magical ceremonies, to appear before the king with his spiritual messages. The king, however, started the meeting with a statement that the prophetic revelations came to an end after the coming of Jesus Christ, and that the audience could only proceed in accordance to the well-established doctrines of the Church.

The association between magic and religion, through prophecy and revelation, attacked a fundamental theological premise of Medieval Christianity, by which the initiative of revelation rested exclusively in the hands of God. During a long period the theological censure covered much of the knowledge about prophecy which, far from being a happening typical of Judaism and its derivative religions, was a characteristic phenomenon of many of the Mediterranean cultures. The universal character of prophecy is testified by the Bible itself, as in the Book of Kings there is mention to the prophets of the Canaanite god Baal. Prophecy was associated to the ecstatic states during which visions and messages were received. In fact, the survival of ecstatic prophets in Israel until the exile to Babylon which was associated, on one side, with the official cults and its temples, and on the other, with the nomadic groups in extinction, has its roots in the most primitive religious forms associated to the Shamanism. The existence of professional prophets exercising their craft inside the norms of the cult and at the temples of Yahweh is mentioned several times in the Old Testament and always connected to techniques to ecstasy induction, like the use of incenses, chanting, musical instruments and dance. Of course, these techniques have their origins in the prehistory and were discontinued inside Judaism due to the military catastrophes suffered by the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The destruction of both kingdoms and the exile to Babylon favored the codification of the texts and the valorization of the literary prophets, whose experiences of revelation were not associated (at least in the surviving texts) with the techniques of ecstasy induction, what was in accordance with a more radical monotheistic view developed during the exile.

However, the theological censorship was not able to completely erase the existent registers about the universality of prophecy and the techniques to induce prophetic ecstasy, and it is again in Agrippa’s masterpiece that we find them abundantly, frequently mentioned together with elements of ceremonial magic, which for Agrippa became the universal discipline which gathers inside its corpus all the specific techniques. I will make a point here of quoting these passages abundantly, because Agrippa´s book was the fundamental source and influence for the next generation of magicians of the Renaissance, the ones who would play a far more active role in the war of magic. In the following excerpts, we find the apologies for magic, its connection to prophesy, and several mentions about manifold means and techniques to achieve prophecy through magic, inherited from the ancients:

I do not doubt but the Title of our book of Occult Philosophy, or of Magic, may by the rarity of it allure many to read it, amongst which, some of a crazy judgment, and some that are perverse will come to hear what I can say, who, by their rash ignorance may take the name of magic in the worse sense, and though scarce having seen the title, cry out that I teach forbidden arts, sow the seed of heresies, offend pious ears, and scandalize excellent wits; that I am a sorcerer, and superstitious and devilish, who indeed am a magician. To whom I answer, that a magician doth not amongst learned men signify a sorcerer, or one that is superstitious or devilish; but a wise man, a priest, a prophet; and that the sibyls were magicianesses, and therefore prophesied most clearly of Christ; and that magicians, as wise men, by the wonderful secrets of the world, knew Christ the author of the world to be born, and came first of all to worship him; and that the name of magic was received by philosophers, commended by divines, and not unacceptable to the Gospel.[10]

Also it is well known that Pythagoras, and Plato went to the prophets of Memphis to learn it, and travelled through almost all Syria, Egypt, Judea, and the schools of the Caldeans, that they might not be ignorant of the most sacred memorials, and records of magic, as also that they might be furnished with divine things.[11]

So also peony, sallendine, balm, ginger, gentian, dittany, and vervain, which is of use in prophesying, and expiations, as also driving away evil spirits.[12]

So we read that the ancients were wont often to receive some divine, and wonderful thing by certain natural things: so the stone that is bred in the apple of the eye of a civet cat, held under the tongue of a man, is said to make him to divine, or prophesy.[13]

Also there is a herb called rheangelida, which magicians drinking of, can prophesy.[14]

Wherefore suffumigations are wont to be used by them that are about to soothsay, for to affect their fancy, which indeed being appropriated to any certain deities, do fit us to receive divine inspiration: so they say that fumes made with linseed, and fleabane seed, and roots of violets, and parsley, doth make one to foresee things to come, and doth conduce to prophesying.[15]

I being bound to you by the band of these your great virtues am so far a debtor as to communicate without envy by the true account of all opinions, those mysteries of divine and ceremonial magic which I have truly learned, and not to hide the knowledge of those things, whatsoever concerning these matters the those old priests of the Egyptians, and Chaldeans, the ancient prophets of the Babylonians, the Cabalists, the divine magicians of the Hebrews, also the Orpheans, Pythagoreans and Platonists the profoundest Philosophers of Greece, further what the Bragmanni of the Indians, the Gymnosophists of Ethiopia, and the uncorrupted theologians of our religion have delivered, and by what force of words, power of seals, by what charms of benedictions and imprecations, and by what virtue of observations they in old times wrought so stupendous and wonderful prodigies, intimating to you in this third book of Occult Philosophy and exposing to the light those things which have been buried in the dust of antiquity and involved in the obscurity of oblivion as in Cymmerian darkness even to this day.[16]

Also the divining of suitable things works so with man’s mind, that good spirits do assist us willingly, and communicate their power and virtue to us, daily helping us with illuminations, inspirations, oracles, prophesyings, dreams, miracles, prodigies, divinations, and auguries, and working upon and acting upon our spirits, as images like to them, by framing them by their influences, and making them most like to themselves even so far, as that oftentimes our spirit doth as surely work wonderful things as the celestial spirits are wont to do.[17]

So we read in the books of the Senates in the chapter of Eleazar, that Rabbi Israel made certain cakes, writ upon with certain divine and angelical names, and so consecrated, which they that did eat with faith, hope, and charity, did presently break forth with a spirit of prophecy.[18]

The ideas listed in the work of Agrippa would exert a very powerful influence and receive a revolutionary practical treatment by the Renaissance magi who would come after him, Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella and John Dee – all of them readers of Agrippa. Even Paracelsus, who rejected the theories of Agrippa, in close analyses seem to debt a lot to him. We can say that beginning with the work of Marsilio Ficino and achieving its apex with the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Renaissance magic defined itself in its aims and methods, but these aims and methods were until then viewed as an initiatory path of relevance only for the individual magician. After this initial period, the magi would not be concerned only in justifying their path against the condemnations of the Church, but they would escalate the war of magic by using their knowledge in search for a power capable of changing the world.

The Magi of the Renaissance

Giordano Bruno had travelled through Europe divulging the bases of a new religious movement, based on “Egyptian” ideas derived from the Hermetism. This movement depended on the access, that only a magus could achieve, to the intermediary sphere between the natural-human world and the divine one, which allegorical-symbolic nature demanded an exegesis available but to a few. The prophet, according to Bruno though, would reach the intermediary sphere through a transcendent use of the Art of Memory, of which Bruno considered himself to be a master. The result should be the reception of a revelation that would permit to reverse the crisis and decadence of Europe, which Bruno believed to have its origins in the degeneration of the original Hermetic religion that happened inside Christianity:

The political and religious crisis troubling Europe is thus no casual event, according to Bruno, but has deep theological roots and was born from none other than the reversal of values produced by Christianity, which put civil virtues in second place and exalted as supreme values humility, ignorance, and the passive obedience to the divine law. According to Bruno’s interpretation, the seeds of decay introduced by Christian preaching culminated in Luther’s Reformation, which represents the “evil angel” foreseen in the ancient Hermetic prophecy.[19]

The result of the prophetic contact achieved by the magus would be the determination of a legislation which, instead of aiming at the greater glory of the divine, instead had its goal in the increase of the well-being and of the civic splendor of man.[20]In the writings of Bruno, Hermes Trismegistus reappears as the representative of a magical revelation with clearly reformist aims:

And the dialogue in the De umbris idearum makes it quite clear that the instructor of Philothimus—and therefore of Filoteo or Teofilo, of the Nolan, of Giordano Bruno – is Hermes Trismegistus. It is Hermes who hands the book with the new philosophy and the new art in it to Philothimus; and this is the book on the Shadows of Ideas by Giordano Bruno, which is, in fact, written by Hermes – that is to say it is a book about magic, about a very strong solar magic. The allusion to the Lament in the Asclepius, describing how the magical religion of the Egyptians came in late, bad times, to be forbidden by legal statutes, relates this new Hermetic revelation vouchsafed to Giordano Bruno to the Egyptian religion, the religion of the intellect, or of the mind, reached beyond the worship of the visible sun. Those who forbade that religion by law, were, in the Augustinian interpretation of the Lament, the Christians, whose purer religion superseded that of the Egyptians. But, according to Bruno, the false Christian “Mercuries” have suppressed the better Egyptian religion – an anti-Christian interpretation of Hermetism of which much more evidence will be adduced from Bruno’s works later on.[21]

It is important to note the strong similarities between the program of Aleister Crowley, developed three hundred years later, and Bruno’s. Both were magi bearers of a revelation, obtained through magical practices, of a Hermetic-solar character and destined to reform and regenerate the society of men.

The great problem the view by which prophecy is the result of the most elevated form of magic presented to the official representatives of the European religion, both Catholic and Protestant, was exactly the fact that it put the initiative of obtaining a revelation in the hands of the magi. That carried three great threats:

1. It attacked the official theological premises, to which prophecy and revelation depended exclusively on the divine initiative.
2. It made impossible to the ecclesiastical authority to censor a message supposedly of divine origin.
3. The prophetic messages of some of the great magi of the Renaissance, like Paracelsus, Bruno, Campanella and Dee, had a clearly heterodox and reformist character.

I pretend to quote large excerpts from the excellent work by Robin Bruce Barnes[22] about the apocalyptic influences of the Reformation, because they are directly related to the magical efforts we are analyzing here; so I begin with an excerpt that goes right to heart of the matter:

Not all Magic rested on explicit neo-Platonic foundations, but virtually all was associated with some form of mysticism. In other words, magic assumed that knowledge could be gained by direct insight into divine reality. Hence the focus of freedom and transforming power tended to shift away from God to the human mind. This shift of focus above all made magical practitioners like Paracelsus, as well as contemplatives like Valentin Weigel and Jacob Boehme, heretical in the eyes of the orthodoxy. But we should neither overestimate how far sixteenth-century magic rejected Christian doctrines, nor underestimate how far genuine Lutheran piety could bend in the direction of mystical speculation.[23]

The Protestant inclination toward mystical speculation and prophecy, according to Barnes’ supposition, can partially explain the happy sojourn Giordano Bruno enjoyed in the cities of Wittenberg and Helmstedt between 1588 and 1590. Before anything else, Bruno’s longings for a Hermetic reform of religion certainly were to some degree in agreement with the reformist yearnings initially manifested by Luther. The longing for changes was one of the leitmotivs of the period, and it resurfaces again in the XX century in the radical reform proposed by Aleister Crowley, which does not only reiterated the ideals of the Renaissance magic, but owe much to the Lutheran ideas, ideas like the universality of the priesthood between all Christians and the need of a direct contact both to the Bible as to God. We see the repetition of these ideas, for instance, when Crowley insists that “all questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself.”[24] In the midst of the great dispute of ideas and principles which reigned in Europe between the theologians, a dispute which was taken to the streets and which moved armies, the appeal both to a wisdom validated by time as to a direct access to the divine source of that wisdom fulgurated as a transcendent solution, and who but the magus could revendicate the access to both?

Like most of the German universities at this time, Wittenberg subscribed quite fully to the revival of antiquity. Belief in the superiority of ancient wisdom was well-nigh universal. In one sense, the Renaissance notion of an ancient wisdom was at odds with the confessional understanding of truth held by devoted Lutherans. The ancient wisdom was so highly valued by Renaissance seekers partly because it was obscure, and it was obscure because it seemed a core of divine knowledge that lay behind and united all religious and philosophical doctrines. The underlying implication that all creeds should be tolerated could not have been more foreign to Lutheran confessionalism. Yet the notion of ancient wisdom could also be interpreted in a properly Lutheran sense. All that was necessary was to insist that a certain doctrinal insight was not merely another outer wrapping of the deeper truth, but an essential, or even the essential, piece of that truth. Precisely this view allowed partisans of Luther´s Reformation to be, at the same time, avid pursuers of ancient or hidden knowledge.[25]

In the search for further learning at the fount of ancient wisdom, the Renaissance magus, who claimed to be reviving and carrying on this very tradition, could become a highly admired figure. Among those Lutherans for whom the search for prophetic insight was central, a magus like Bruno could represent the hope of prophetic clarity despite the profound unorthodoxy of his thought.[26]

We can see in these excerpts the subterranean fight of the Hermetic wisdom and magic, in its tentative of creating an ambience of tolerance and respect where they could manifest in plenitude. It was, and it still is, a conflict that happens principally inside the human minds, a confrontation between the magical creativity inherent to every human being and the superstitious impositions forced by tyranny through ideological oppression. The magi are essentially adherents of a free society where individuality is respected because it is only in this kind of society where they can prosper in their longings, and so they amongst the ones who feel more acutely the oppression. The appeal to the figure of Hermes Trismegistus, and its defense, made part of an intellectual strategy which aimed to make magic socially acceptable and, because of that, the Renaissance magi elaborated apologies based upon a division of their theoretical field: definitions of a natural and a spiritual magic were defended in opposition to the forms considered more dangerous or religiously unacceptable.

The transition from the medieval period to the Renaissance in Christian Europe was accompanied by a reevaluation of the status of Magic in some intellectual circles. The appearance of ancient bodies of literature, Neoplatonic and Hermetic, in Latin and Italian translations, together with the rendering of significant corpus of Kabbalistic literature into Latin and Italian, precipitated the emergence of a new attitude toward magic, first in the circles of the Florentine literati, and afterward, under their influence, in a long series of European Renaissance and post-Renaissance figures all over Europe. This positive reevaluation of magic was not a simple change from medieval times. Renaissance figures remained reticent, if not manifestly negative, to the popular medieval types of magic. For them, magic was the lore taught by ancient masters like Hermes Trismegistus or Jamblicus, which did not envisage a pragmatic way to solve material problems by appeal to supernal or infernal powers. Rather, it was lore based on a vast knowledge of the universal order, a knowledge that culminated in actualizing the potentiality inherent in human nature. Instead of being the practice of obscure and peripheral persons, the Renaissance magician came to designate the apex of human achievement, to be cultivated by the elite in order to exercise the human qualities that testify to the fullness of human perfection. It was not so much the subjugation of the material world to which the learned magicians of the Renaissance aspired, as to the fulfillment of their spirit.[27]

The Way of the Magus

The magus is someone who foresees the possibilities of illumination and transcendence, it is as if a glimpse or pre-enjoyment of the magical possibilities were intuited by him or her, and he (or she) perceive in the symbols and ceremonies of magic the keys to that experience. I know it, because it is what happened to me. I always had in my younger years the feeling that, somewhere, certain knowledge and certain techniques should exist. And they did. I found them in the Trumps of the Tarot, in the Tree of Life and in the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, and when I found them I was sure that they were what I was expecting for. Now, readers used to that kind of stereotype must be quickly waiting for me to insinuate some past life, and will be maybe disappointed to know that I do not give too much credit to this kind of explanation. And I do not even think it is necessary, the explanation can be much simpler: I have a brain. What do I mean with this? Independently of any objective reality which takes (or not) part in the magical phenomenon, the magical phenomenon must be necessarily processed in our brains – or else we would not even be able to remember it. That means that “to foresee the possibilities of illumination and transcendence as an intuited glimpse or pre-enjoyment” is simply to feel that certain areas of our brain where these experiences can happen exist and can be stimulated, and when we come in touch with magical symbols and we imagine ourselves enacting ceremonies, these areas of our brains begin to be affected, and we have the sensation of recognition. That does not look so extraordinary if we remember the presentiment and the pre-enjoyment we felt in our teen years about love and sex – we could feel and thrill foreseeing the future actual enjoyment of these experiences.

So, returning to our magical war, we have the Renaissance magus striving to achieve his metaphysical goals, but at the same time he lacks the security and the peace of mind that exists only in a free and stable society. If he wants to persist, and if he wants that others after him carry on the knowledge – and the Hermetic magician, being a learned man values the preservation of the books he so eagerly looked for as much as the transmission of the knowledge they contain – he must act in the world he lives, and the action of the magi at that time fell on one of the following lines:

• To make apology for Magic as useful Natural Magic, or as Ceremonial Magic devoted exclusively to pious contacts and results.
• To use Magic as a prophetic tool to have influence in the present situation.
• To use Magic to bring the transformations he desires to see in the world.

In the first line, we have magi like Ficino and Agrippa. Ficino endeavored to remain in good terms with the Church, and being under the protection of the Medici certainly helped him to achieve this. Ficino practiced a benign kind of astrological magic aimed at therapeutic results, but his translations and writings, both on philosophy as in magic, became the foundation of everything that came after. His famous apology for magic circulated through all Europe, and set the tone for all similar endeavors.

After this, you too rise, O mighty Guicciardini, and reply to intellectual busy-bodies that Marsilio is not approving magic and images but recounting them in the course of an interpretation of Plotinus. And my writings make this quite clear, if they are read impartially. Nor do I affirm here a single word about profane magic which depends upon the worship of daemons, but I mention natural magic, which, by natural things, seeks to obtain the services of the celestials for the prosperous health of our bodies. This power, it seems, must be granted to minds which use it legitimately, as medicine and agriculture are justly granted, and all the more so as that activity which joins heavenly things to earthly is more perfect. From this workshop, the Magi, the first of all, adored the new-born Christ. Why then are you so dreadfully afraid of the name of Magus, a name pleasing to the Gospel, which signifies not an enchanter and a sorcerer, but a wise priest? For what does that Magus, the first adorer of Christ, profess? If you wish to hear: on the analogy of a farmer, he is a cultivator of the world. Nor does he on that account worship the world, just as a farmer does not worship the earth; but just as a farmer for the sake of human sustenance tempers his field to the air, so that wise man, that priest, for the sake of human welfare tempers the lower parts of the world to the upper parts; and just like hen’s eggs, so he fittingly subjects earthly things to heaven that they may be fostered. God himself always brings this about and by doing, teaches and urges us to do it in order that the lowest things may be produced, moved, and ruled by the higher. Lastly, there are two kinds of magic. The first is practiced by those who unite themselves to daemons by a specific religious rite, and, relying on their help, often contrive portents. This, however, was thoroughly rejected when the Prince of this World was cast out. But the other kind of magic is practiced by those who seasonably subject natural materials to natural causes to be formed in a wondrous way. Of this profession there are also two types: the first is inquisitive, the second, necessary. The former does indeed feign useless portents for ostentation: as when the Magi of Persia produced a bird similar to a blackbird with a serpent’s tail out of sage which had putrefied under manure, while the Sun and Moon occupied the same degree in the second face of Leo; they reduced the bird to ashes and poured it into a lamp, whereupon the house seemed as a result to be full of serpents. This type, however, must be avoided as vain and harmful to health. Nevertheless the necessary type which joins medicine with astrology must be kept. If anyone obstinately insists further, however, gratify him, Guicciardini, to the extent that the man (if one wholly undeserving of such a benefit is a man) may never read these things of ours, nor understand, remember, or make use of them. There are many points besides which your own genius will be able to bring forward to oppose ungrateful ignorance. [28]

The strategy of trying to whitewash magic did not started in the Renaissance, however. As we can see from an excerpt from Saint Augustine, the practice goes back at least to the IV century. As Augustine works were widely known in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the magi were conscious about how easily their argument could be contradicted.

These miracles, and many others of the same nature, which it were tedious to mention, were wrought for the purpose of commending the worship of the one true God, and prohibiting the worship of a multitude of false gods. Moreover, they were wrought by simple faith and godly confidence, not by the incantations and charms composed under the influence of a criminal tampering with the unseen world, of an art which they call either magic, or by the more abominable title goetia, or the more honorable designation theurgy; for they wish to discriminate between those whom the people call magicians, who practise goetia, and are addicted to illicit arts and condemned, and those others who seem to them to be worthy of praise for their practice of theurgy, – the truth, however, being that both classes are the slaves of the deceitful rites of the demons whom they invoke under the names of angels.[29]

Agrippa displayed a contradictory allegiance to magic, denying being a practitioner of the art and denouncing magic as a folly of his younger years when he finally published the definitive version of his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, but the fact is that he went to great lengths to publish it, and through all his life cultivated a net of adherents all over Europe. That was another effective tactic in the war of magic, as it allowed books and people to circulate in more safe conditions.

He [Agrippa] studied in Cologne from 1499 to 1502, when he received the degree of magister artium, and later in Paris. During his studies in the latter city, Agrippa seems to have taken part in a secret circle or self-help society, the members of which were interested in studying res arcanae, and with whom he tried to remain in contact in later years.[30]

The apologetic approaches are well summarized in another two passages of Robin Bruce Barns excellent book:

On the other hand, the magical seeker knew that he could never simply take flight from the repugnant world of appearances. His role was primarily to alter the sensibilities through the communication of superior understanding. He was, indeed, a kind of preacher of prophetic truth.[31]

The common denominator of the apocalyptic and magical world-views was the assumption of underlying universal purpose. For the magical outlook as well as for apocalyptic faith, this purpose was God´s. As in the study of history and astrology, the ultimate justification for inquiry into nature was that it helped to show this purpose, and therefore to glorify the works of God. For this reason the magician was generally at great pains to show that he was concerned with spiritual, not demonic magic. The distinction was extremely important, because it confirmed that the magician was on the side of faith.[32]

In the second and third lines of action, we have as the best example John Dee and his apocalyptic conversations with the Enochian angels, a long enterprise of five years full of revelations and prophecies, which Dee dared to deliver to the Holy Roman Emperor himself. Dee´s ceremonies represent the apex of the Renaissance Magic and were also supposed to be the the mean for a dramatic change in the world to happen, and its results survived in a strange way to usher a new chapter in the war of magic, three centuries later.

Of course, magic could be used in a smaller scale to affect kings and princes, or to raise storms to sink armadas (as Dee is believed to have done). But the best of the magi were concerned to use it in a larger scale, to change the entire world, as the truth behind the legends about the Rabbi Joseph della Reina may indicate. Again, magic and revelation seemed to walk hand in hand:

Rabbi Joseph della Reina and the anonymous author of the voluminous Sepher ha-Meshi [Book of the Responding Entity], were committing to writing a long array of magical practices, some of them being put into practice by the same authors. I want to emphasize the fact that these magical practices were performed by at least one of these authors, and it is reasonable to assume that this also was the case for Rabbi Joseph della Reina, who presented them as divine, and sometimes angelic, revelations, and therefore as a manifestly positive form of activity. Indeed these magical practices include rites to compel the divine and the angelic world to answer the request of the Kabbalists regarding theoretical and practical issues. There are several incantations intended to summon the leaders of the demonic world to descend and reveal secrets concerning practical issues, such as the secret of the preparation of gold and silver.[33]

According to the legend, the Rabbi Joseph della Reina tried to put his magical knowledge to practical use attempting what nowadays goes by the expression “immanentize the eschaton”.

According to the earliest version of a legend, in the 1470s the notorious Rabbi Joseph della Reina performed his famous messianic and magical attempt to invoke the leaders of the demonic world in order to overcome them and allow thereby the advent of the messianic era. I should like to describe briefly this legendary event, a highly influential one, which served, as I shall try to demonstrate in the following discussion, as a blueprint for a series of similar attempts of a messianic-magical nature.[34]

Della Reina together with his ten disciples tried to invoke and constrain the demons Samael and Ammon of No, the chiefs of the forces of the Sitra Ahara, the demonic side of Creation. They failed. But they set the example for similar practices to be done in the future.

Now, it seems to me that the use of magic to achieve broader aims, like the coming of the Messiah or the ushering of a New Age, is a new step on the History of Magic, and it came to happen on the very specific cultural environment of the Reformation. Giordano Bruno was moved by the ideal of a magical reform of religion, and Dee was committed to the angels’ agenda for the coming New Age. Crowley, in the sequence, not just inherits the ideals and goals of the Renaissance magi; he definitively embarks in a reformist program guided by the New Aeon ideals.

Insofar as the magician was attempting to understand and control the forces of the natural world, he clearly sought a kind of power. This feature of his enterprise is easily misunderstood by the modern observer. The larger magical striving was essentially contemplative and speculative; the power it envisioned came from deep faith and the gift of insight, and carried with it a profound spiritual responsibility. In Lutheran Germany, where eschatological hope emphasized faith, intuitive insight, and careful observation, magic tended to have particularly strong spiritual overtones. It also took on the tension and the future-directed hope characteristic of Lutheranism. The power to which it looked was above all the power for an inner transformation that would be reflected in the phenomenal world. The intuitive approach to knowledge that supported the Lutheran interpretation of prophecy was thus twisted to encourage more radical strivings after prophetic truth.[35]

Propaganda proved with time to be the best weapon for the magi –as the efficiency of real magical tactics has very elusive means of confirmation until today. That is why the figure of Hermes Trismegistus was so important. But Hermes was not the only icon the magi could use. In the excerpt of Ficino quoted above, and also in one of the quotes from Agrippa, we see the Three Magi mentioned in the Bible being appropriated for the cause. The Three Magi represented in a way an even better marketing image, as it came from the Bible itself and should, in a way or other, be accounted for in some positive view. Paracelsus, for instance, another great magus with prophetic ambitions, used the Three Magi abundantly in his writings.

Paracelsus followed Albertus Magnus in identifying the three kings or magi from the Orient, who had found the Christ child with the aid of the stars, as ideal references for the vindication of magic. Paracelsus repeatedly commented on this passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew. The model of the three kings gave him the opportunity to define a magus as someone who interprets the prophets and performs miracles in front of the people, and foretells events by the help of spirits or the stars. Only a prophet (in later years Paracelsus would prefer to speak of a “divine magician”) can accomplish more: he speaks and acts by direct divine assistance and inspiration, as seen in the case of Moses, who opposed the Egyptian sorcerers. Paracelsus thought that the three magi were also proficient in medicine, commenting that their gifts were of direct medicinal use. Frankincense helped to protect mother and child from “flying ghosts”, and myrrh, by way of the mother’s milk, freed the baby from threatening worms.

This kind of interrelation of medicine, philosophy, astronomy and magic was quite commonplace in the Middle Ages, as can be seen in Peter of Abano. In his later years, Paracelsus interpreted magic as the art of drawing down the powers of the stars, which he considered proxies of celestial ideas, and to make them work for man. Unsurprisingly, he used the term “astronomy” as a synonym for, or even saw it as superior to magic.[36]

Paracelsus did not regard characters as the spells of medieval magic. In his view, magical words and phrases embodied the very language of angels and spirits, who in turn had received their powers from God. This subjection to heavenly forces signified a strong vindication of magic to Paracelsus. The magician was allowed to perform his art as long as he was strictly adhering to the good. Consequently, characters were the only way to retrieve the heavenly powers. Like the physician administering herbs to heal a patient, the magician attained his goal with the aid of characters. Regarding theories of magic, this represents an important shift from the medieval idea of a demoniac influence to that of an impersonal and quasi-natural agent, and thus can be considered as an attempt to establish natural magic on a scientific basis.[37]

Paracelsus fall in the first cathegory (apology for magic as useful natural magic or as ceremonial magic devoted exclusively to pious contacts and results) when it comes to his apologies for magic, but he also included himself in the list of the magi who sought after revealed knowledge:

At the end of his life, Paracelsus attempted to summarize his teachings and describe its key points as clearly as possible. Thus in his Labyrinthus medicorum errantium (Labyrinth of Erring Physicians, 1537/38) he once again set forth the foundations of his medicine. As in the earlier Paragranum, he emphasized the importance of understanding nature, the firmament and alchemy, but this time he also philosophized about the process of attaining knowledge. He spoke about experience, science, and the role of magic. The medical art should not be grounded in mere speculation, but in a certain revelation; then it would be a “magica inventrix” that revealed to the physician all he needed to know. Thus Paracelsus advocated a scientific method that included intuition as a legitimate way of attaining knowledge.[38]

Even more, Paracelsus believed his status as magus put him in a special place concerning the end of times and the prophecies of the New Age:

On account of the relevance of the fig tree passage, Paracelsus located for himself a modest but distinctive part in the apocalyptic drama. First, his new system of medicine was purpose-made for the massive challenges that would arise amid the ruins of the apocalyptic age. Through his efforts, first aid would be available to believers awaiting the return of the Messiah. Secondly, as astronomer and magus, he was among the small elite of experts in a position to monitor and interpret the portentous signs and messages from angelic beings that God provided in such special situations. The interpretation of these signs, about which Christ himself had spoken, was intended to bring relief to believers, because they conveyed assurance that the damned were about to receive their just reckoning. The only persons who would be privileged to understand these portents, or `celestial meteorology´, were drawn from the thin ranks of the redeemed and, among this group, were those only with special knowledge granted by God.[39]

Aleister Crowley would also find a place for him in the apocalyptic drama, although much less modest that Paracelsus, as he identified himself with the very Beast of the Book of Revelations. Paracelsus, as part of his prophetic and preaching endeavors, introduced to the cause another wonderful iconic figure, which enjoyed great acceptance amongst his followers: Elias Artista.

In Judaism, Elijah precedes the Messiah; by analogy John the Baptist became associated with Elijah in the Christian tradition. The figure of Elijah or Elias thus carried clear messianic overtones, and Paracelsus embroidered on his reputation, describing ‘Elias Artista’ as the harbinger of an imminent ‘golden world’, ushering in a social utopia. […] Some expected the arrival of a person; others regarded Elias Artista as the symbol of a golden age in which science would reach its summit.[40]

Paracelsus exerted a very strong influence after his death, partially confirming his belief in the importance of his own mission. Not only in Medicine, but also in Theology his writings attracted many devoted followers. And his name was greatly honored being the only thinker explicitly cited in the most efficacious piece of propaganda ever created in the war of magic, the Rosicrucian Manifestos.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Fama Fraternitatis mentions the name of Paracelsus with respect and admiration, nor that it depicts works relating to this author as being present in the vault where the body of Christian Rosenkreuz rests. The founder of the Rosicrucians, as explained in the Fama, is supposed to have died in 1484, and his mausoleum not discovered until 1604, whereas Paracelsus was born in 1493 and died in 1541. The implausible chronology only goes to underline paradoxically the relationship of ideas between the Rosicrucians and Paracelsus. The latter’s ideas about the Astrum, the world-soul which manifests through the macrocosm; on the Liber Mundi (Book of the World) whose hieroglyphs are there to be deciphered; on the invisible half of the cosmos whose secrets man is able to discover because he is the microcosm and the temple of God; on the notion of cosmic time in which the alchemist may intervene as midwife to nature and co-operator with God; on the capacity of the human soul to command the stars, to control events, and even to produce new beings that the Anima Mundi “imagines”; and finally his belief in “elementary” beings, i.e., those that live in the elements, the ‘nymphs, sylphs, pygmies, salamanders, and other spirits’: all these ideas of Paracelsus recur in the Fama Fraternitatis. His rich and powerful writings, which were not really accessible until Huser’s edition appeared in Basel in 1591, have every appearance of proclaiming him a prophet of the new era.[41]

Magic achieves an important victory by being despised

What happened after the end of the seventeenth century is generally described as the victory of science over magic; magic slumbered in the corners of our culture until the ends of the nineteenth century, betrayed by his younger sister Science:

Natural magic: demonic magic. The two branches of magia had parallel intellectual histories – they were jointly allowed for in the scholastic scheme of knowledge, rose together to a position of prominence in the sixteenth – and seventeenth – century natural philosophical debates, and ceased to be taken seriously (or were resolved into other disciplines) when the changes in scientific and theological taste made them both seem equally implausible.[42]

This is however a partial description, because the period is marked by a growing popularization of magic, attested by the printing of grimoires by the thousands. Magic in fact is not anymore the interest of the great minds of the time like during the Renaissance but, again, the period shows the great importance of the books in the overall strategy in the great war of magic. And this new and more popular wave of magical literature profited from the fact that science discredit magic, what lead to the discredit of the religious accusations against it. Also the separation between religious and temporal powers in Europe broke the yoke religion so far had over the freedom of the individuals, and magic begin to thrive again freed of the need of apologize for itself.

We saw how the Hermetic books were important to restart the magical war. Magic had being persecuted for a long time before the Middle Ages, and the roots of the persecution are to be found in the two pillars of the European culture, as both in Rome as in Israel we find legislations and injunctions against the practice. One important measure carefully attended by the enemies of magic was obviously the hunt and destruction of the books.

We know from literary sources that a large number of magical books in which spells were collected existed in antiquity. Most of them, however, have disappeared as the result of systematic suppression and destruction. The episode about the burning of the magical books in Ephesus in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 19:19) is well known and typical of many such instances. According to Suetonius, Augustus ordered 2,000 magical scrolls to be burned in the year 13 B.C.[43] Indeed, the first centuries of the Christian era saw many burnings of books, often magical books, and not a few burnings that included the magicians themselves. As a result of these acts of suppression, the magicians and their literature went underground. The papyri themselves testify to this by the constantly recurring admonition to keep the books secret. Yet the the systematic destruction of the magical literature over a long period of time resulted in the disappearance of most of the original texts by the end of the antiquity.[44]

I almost cry every time I read this passage above. The war against magic concentrate fiercely on its books because they are a very efficient weapon, being of immediate use as well as turning into sleeping bombs that can detonate again and again with intervals of centuries sometimes. Theologians and witch hunters of the Reformation were always afraid of tomes like the Picatrix, this subversive encyclopedia of magical lore who breached the European confinement to contaminate the best minds with Arabic wizardry.

But none grimoire exemplify better the war of magic as the Liber Juratus, or the Sworn Book of Honorius. Already mentioned in the XIII century, this grimoire has the notable characteristic of denouncing in a clear and straightforward way the conflict between magic and the Church, reverting in an ingenious and ironic form the ecclesiastical discourse. The writer or writers of this work appropriated the great figure of the Catholic marketing, the Devil, and used him against the Vatican hierarchy itself. They pointed that the persecution against magic is the result of diabolical influence, and at the same time highlighted the holiness inherent to the practice of their art. The insinuation is that the “bishops and prelates, the pope himself and his cardinals” fell under the diabolical influence because they were not “cleansed or clean” as the magicians who “work truly in this art.” The narrative of Liber Juratus also exemplify clearly that, at least since the XIII century, the magi had already a clear awareness of their war and they knew the importance of books to win it:

When wicked spirits were gathered together, intending to send devils into the hearts of men, to the intent they would destroy all things profitable for mankind, and to corrupt all the whole world, even to the uttermost of their power, sowing hypocrise and envy, and rooting bishops and prelates in pride, even the pope himself and his cardinals, which gathering themselves together said one to another as here follows:

The health which the Lord has given his people is now through magic and negromancy turned into the damnation of all people. For even the magians themselves, being intoxicated and blinded by the devil, and contrary to the order of Christ’s Church, and transgressing the commandment of God, which says, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, but him only shalt thou serve.”But these negromancers or magians, denying the sacrifice due to God, and in tempting him have done sacrifice to devils, and abused His Name in calling of them, contrary to the profession made at there baptism, for there it is said, “Forsake the devil and all his pomps.” But these magians and negromancers do not follow only the pomps and works of Satan, but have also brought all people through their marvellous illusions into the errors, drawing the ignorant and such like into the damnation both of soul and body, and they thinking this for no other purpose but that by this they should destroy all other sciences.

It is thought meet therefore to pluck up and utterly to destroy this deadly root, and all the followers of this art, but they through the instigation of the devil, and being moved with envy and covetousness under the similitude of truth, they did publish and spread abroad the falsehood, speaking false and unlikely things. For it is not possible that a wicked and unclean man should work truely in this art, for men are not bound to spirits, but the spirits are constrained against their wills to answer men that are cleansed or clean, and to fulfill their requests. Yet against all those wills we have gone about to set forth the principles of this art, and the cause of truth, and for that cause thay had condemned this art and judged us to death.

We therefore, through God’s sufferance, having a foreknowledge of that judgement, knowing also that by it should follow much mischief, and that it was impossible to us to escape the hands of the people by our own strength without the help of spirits, fearing that a greater danger would follow upon it, for the wicked power of the spirits at our command could have destroyed them who condemned us all utterly in an hour.

Wherefore, we called a general council of all the masters. And out of the which council of 811 masters which came out of Naples, Athens, and Toledo, we did choose one whose name was Honorius, the son of Euclid, master of the Thebians, in the which city this art was read, that he should work for us in this said art. And he through the council of a certain angel whose name was Hocroel, did write seven volumes of art magic, giving to us the kernel, and to others the shells. Out of the which books he drew out 93 chapters, in the which is briefly contained the effect of this art, of the which chapters he made a book which we do call The Sacred or Sworn Book for this cause, for in it is contained the 100 sacred names of God, and therefore it is called sacred, as you would say “made of holy things,” or else because by this book he came to the knowledge of sacred or holy things, or else because it was consecrated by angels, or else because the angel Hocroel did declare and show him that it was consecrated of God.[45]

Two things then happened in the transition from the XVII and XIX centuries which affected the war of magic or, as Owen Davies put it, the war against it.[46] First, the course of the now contested “scientific revolution” discarded natural magic, as its principal premises were found to be false, and it also simply ignored ceremonial magic as it never was able to provide verifiable proof of the validity of its claims. On the other hand, the period saw the rise of the print and the discovery of the market for magic, and its emergence was directly connected to the Reformation, which also depended heavily on the print.

The first wave of print grimoires emanated from Protestant German and Swiss publishing centers such as Frankfurt and Basel. The long arms and beady eyes of the papal censors did not reach these Protestant areas. The notoriety of the Germanic mages, Trithemius, Faust, Agrippa, and Paracelsus, would have also generated a keen regional audience. But such occult works were not only of interest to practical magicians and the simply curious. A strong mystical, spiritual tradition emerged in Protestantism during the sixteenth century, most notably expressed in the influential writings of the Lutheran visionary Jacob Boehme, but also evident in numerous other small Protestant sects, such as those that made their way to America during the late seventeenth century. The Neoplatonic discourses on the angelic and spiritual hierarchies contained in the Arbatel, Heptameron, Book Three and Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, and the Steganographia, and the keys they provided to direct celestial communication, appealed to the prophetic and revelatory aspects of Protestant theology.[47]

The books of magic assume a very important role in Western culture because of the lack of a chain of direct knowledge transmission, a lack due to the violent campaign of censure instigated by the Church. (I am a personal witness to this, as my learning and practice came from the books.) The persecution moved by the Church, of course, was inherited from Antiquity and had its roots in the Roman legislation and in the persecution against pagans recorded in the Old Testament.

Although religious reasons played an important role in the war against magic, we must realize that the fear of the magician is as ancient and archetypical as magic itself. Hence here in Angola (where I spend most of the year working since 1999) for instance, from time to time I hear from people who stoned or lynched some “quimbanda” or cunning-man believing them guilt of some magical misdeed. In other parts of Africa we still find the belief in the witch-children which is responsible for the torture, killing and expulsion from home of children believed to have magical powers. In Brazil, my country of birth, the Pentecostal churches profit greatly from the fear of magic, presenting themselves as a defense against the African traditions where magical practices are very strong.

The Law of the Magus

After all we saw thus far, it does not come as a surprise that the legend of the promulgation of the Law of Thelema begins with an invocation of Toth.

On the 17 of March of 1904, after a failed attempt at invoking the sylphs made at the previous day, it is recorded that Aleister Crowley invoked Toth “with great success.”[48] It was the beginning of an amazing magical adventure which would conclude with the reception of the Book of the Law during the 8, 9 and 10 of April.

The central message of the magical-philosophical (some would say religious) system known as Thelema, which comes in part from the Book of the Law, and in part from the magical training Crowley received in the Golden Dawn, is clearly of a reformist character, a radical reformism in which all the former religions are expected to be abolished. It also proposes a religious method in the same lines proposed by Luther and other reformists, by which each individual should approach the central standards of Thelema at the core of the Book of the Law by its own efforts, resorting to its own intellect. Even more, it expected from the true follower a directed effort towards the discovery and realization of his personal will, a task that would seem to require some level of inner experience going beyond the mere intellectual awareness.

The main message, as it issued during the Reformation from the mouth of Zwingli and Calvin, was that men should not put their faith in any external institution, the Church, or in any religious system as embodying the divine. Instead religio designated something personal, inner and transcendentally oriented.[49]

We are here treading very familiar Hermetic grounds. Aiwass, the entity dictating the secrets of the new aeon to his scribe Crowley, seems to be reenacting the role of Pimander in this revelation. Crowley’s magical training and studies, of course, were immersed in Hermetic lore and his system of attainment, itself a reformation of the system of initiations of the Golden Dawn, was based in key concepts inherited from the Kabbalistic-Hermetic mages of the Renaissance. This inheritance came to him through both the content of the initiatory magic of the Golden Dawn as through his personal studies. The long magical path towards deification of man and the consequent bestowal of powers to change the world were defined during the Renaissance not by appeal to Hermetic doctrines only, but also by the adoption of the ideas received from the Kabbalah. Lurianic kabbalah in XVI century developed the doctrine that the elevated sage could help bring the Messianic age by the realization of religious acts, a point of view which married perfectly with the Hermetic ideas, to a point it is in fact very difficult to ascertain if the Renaissance and Reformation ideas about the power and function of magic own more to the Hermetism or to the Kabbalah. By the time Agrippa finished the final version of his work, both doctrines were already completely mingled. Giordano Bruno, a reader of Agrippa as we mentioned before[50], drew extensively on the Kabbalistic system of the sefirot in his descriptions of the path to illumination,[51] and the entire system used later by Crowley depended on the degrees of initiation based in the sefirot developed by the Golden Dawn. Christopher Lehrich, in his seminal study on the De occulta philophia,[52] highlighted the importance of the adoption of the Kabbalah in the magical theory advanced by Agrippa:

For our purposes, then, we can say that Kabbalah has a speculative cosmological (theosophical) component, focused on the nature of the divine, commonly expressed in terms of the sefirot or emanations. Next, there is an ecstatic, mystical component, whose focus is on unity with the Godhead and the means of its achievement. Under these two general headings are sometimes found exteriorizing, “magical” practices. In some cases, these magical techniques are intended to draw down power from the sefirot, and may be understood as a kind of practical application of theosophical doctrines. In other cases, the magical techniques are more closely related to ecstatic techniques, and are intended to elevate the practitioner toward the Godhead, the main distinction between the magical and the ecstatic here being the magician’s intent to deploy divine forces in the world subsequent to his elevation above it.[53]

Let us recall Moshe Idel’s description of two explanatory models for Kabbalistic magic: on the one hand, the magician may work more or less ecstatically, the practical effect of his techniques being elevation of the soul towards the divine nature; on the other, magical techniques may be employed to draw down power from the sefirot. Given our analysis of De Occulta Philosophy in general, it seems clear that both forms are present here: the use of magical techniques to achieve mystical ends is formulated quite explicitly, but the discussion of angelic hierarchies implies that the same techniques may draw down power.[54]

In sum, De Occulta Philosophy’s ceremonial magic has two linked functions. First, the techniques assist the soul’s cleaving to God, purifying and elevating the magician toward the divine. Second, through such elevation, the magician gains power over the angels and ministering forces, and can manipulate them to produce worldly effects. The higher the magician rises through the spheres and the divine world, the more powerful the angels which can be thus manipulated; furthermore (as we shall see) such manipulation binds the magician to the superior nature of the angels, aiding further ascent. By linking these two functions, De Occulta Philosophy consecrates magic: no magician can control spirits whose status is higher than his own, therefore the manipulation of angels is both proof of purity and an instrument for achieving divine union. The radical promise of ceremonial magic is fulfilled: demonic magic leads the soul to God.[55]

We can see that the whole rationale is in perfect agreement with the apology we found in the preface of the Sworn Book of Honorius: magic own intrinsic characteristics and methods, requiring purification and spiritual elevation, are its main witness against the attacks of its enemies.

Crowley followed the same rationale in his essay The Revival of Magic, so making clear his adoption of the Renaissance view of magic; this excerpt is very illustrative, as he also seems to endorse the Renaissance opposition to a “lower” type of magic, and repeat the claim we found in the Sworn Book of Honorius about the radical antagonism between magic and evil:

I must again call attention to the necessity of this formula of identification in order to show the impossibility of evil in magick. Evil is synonymous with failure. With the low class sorcerer who sells himself as a slave to some “devil” we have nothing here to do. That is the antithesis of magick.

The aim is to command the spirits. Very well; suppose we begin in a gross, selfish, avaricious way, and try to get spirits to bring us gold. We call Hismael, the spirit of Jupiter. Nothing happens. We learn that Hismael will not be commanded but by his proper Intelligence, Iophiel, who is only amenable to the orders of Sachiel, his Angel. Same story with Sachiel. We go to Tzadquiel the Archangel. Still no good; for Tzadquiel obeys none but El. Good, we invoke El, the God. We must then become El; and having done so, having entered into that vast divine essence, we cannot bother any more as to whether we have any money. We have left all that behind. So then we see that to perform any miracle, we must show a divine reason for it.[56]

Crowley also followed in the steps of the Renaissance magi when he developed his key concept of the magus and his work. He took the title given by the Golden Dawn to the initiatory grade corresponding to Hokmah, which was originally an administrative title in the Societas Rosicruciana in England, and refashioned it completely. Crowley redefined the magus as being someone who, achieving that evolutionary degree after ‘crossing the abyss’ (which is to be found below Hokmah), returns to the world with a new message or a new law, founding a new religion. This is clearly again the Renaissance and Reformation ideal of prophecy achieved through magic and ushering a new age. Crowley also presented a lineage of the previous magi to which he added his own name after the reception of the Book of the Law: Lao-tze, Gautama, Krishna, Dionysius, Tahuti (Toth), Mosheh and Mohammed.

Now, o my son, the Incarnation of a Poet is particular and not Universal; he sayeth indeed true Things, but not the Things of All-Truth. And that these may be said it is necessary that One take human Flesh, and become a Magus in Our Holy Order. He then is called the Logos, or Logos Aionos, that is to say, the Word of the Æon or Age, because He is verily That Word.[57]

And this is also a Renaissance strategy to achieve legitimation; both Ficino and Bruno used lineages of magi to reinforce the status of magic. Ficino prisca theology followed from Mercury (“who was called Theut by the Egyptians and Trismegistus by the Greeks”[58]) to Orpheus, Aglaophemus, Pythagoras, Philolaus and Plato[59]. Bruno`s genealogy of prisca magia used more generic names as the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Magi, the Gymnosophists and the Orphics, but sometimes honored more modern names like Albertus Magnus, Nicholas de Cusa and Copernicus.[60]

The Magical Utopia

In the year of 1920 Aleister Crowley retired to the island of Sicily with a small group of followers. There they create the Abbey of Thelema, inspired in the writings of the Renaissance humanist François Rabelais. The debt of Thelema to Rabelais’ work is much known, and it was celebrated by Crowley himself:

Far more important is the Word of Rabelais, Fais ce que veulx. The sublime Doctor does indeed intend, so far as he goes, to set forth in essence the Law of Thelema, very much as it is understood by the Master Therion himself. The implications of the context are significant. Our Master makes the foundations of the Abbey of Thelema the quite definitive climax of his story of Gargantua; he describes his ideal of society. Thus he was certainly occupied with the idea of a new Aeon, and he saw, albeit perhaps dimly, that Fais ce que veulx was the required Magical Formula. The Cardinal Jean du Bellay, indeed, reported to Francis I that Gargantua was a “new Gospel.” It was in fact, the Book that the Renaissance lacked; and had it been taken as it should have been, the world might have been spared the ignominy of Protestantism.[61]

Rabelais in his original creation of the Abbaye de Thélème was developing over a concept very dear to the philosophers of the Renaissance, the possibility of creating a utopia. Utopic literature is a genre with its roots in the Republic of Plato and which became very popular during the Renaissance and Reformation years. The most known utopias were the one described by Thomas More, the New Atlantis by Francis Bacon and the City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella. With Campanella we are again on the familiar ground treaded by the Renaissance magus:

Tommaso Campanella, an early modern thinker possessed by a vision of the total restoration of society and morals, of the return of mankind to a state of innocence before Adam’s fall and of Astrology, himself as the prophet destined to usher in this coming transformation.[62]

And, as it would be to be expected, Campanella’s view on prophecy was also related do magic:

Beneath its profession of extreme naturalism, his philosophy presents certain ambiguities. For example, the natural foundation of his epistemology had to legitimize a higher level from which, in turn, he had to draw the conditions of its intelligibility. Thus, in his Città del Sole (1602) he declared that Christianity had only added the sacraments to the natural law, where it was destined by its higher rationality to impose itself. So the superiority of the senses to the intellect was valid both at an inferior level – that of the perception of perceptible reality – and also at the higher level of the perception of future events by superior inspiration, a perception which was called upon to constitute the level of revelation. Prophecy, thus promoted to the rank of scientia experimentalis, could therefore be considered as the highest form of gratia gratis data, by which the divinity guided and provided for man, and also as the highest form of magic, namely divine magic.[63]

Afterword: The Fate of the Magicians

It is instructive to see how ended the personal ambitions and the lofty ideals for which the magi from the Renaissance until Crowley’s years fought and die.

Giovanni ‘Mercurio’ da Corregio had an eventful life. He was imprisoned a number of times, as it would be expected. He escaped from prison in Rome with the aid of friends and followers, although it is not certain if that happened in 1484; he tried to prophesize other times there. He was arrested on the suspicion of heresy in Bologna, where he had wife and children. He was set free, probably due for the influence of his family, but again fell in the hands of the Inquisition when passing through Florence. This time things got ugly when he was delivered in the hands of the Franciscan Inquisitor:

And it seems that this Inquisitor used great rigor against the said Messer Giovanni, making all people come and see him in shackles, sneering at him as if he were an animal, threatening all the time to have him burned. Thence the said Messer Giovanni fell into despair and threw his head against the stock, tearing all the flesh off his head with his hands, wherefore it is doubted he will die. And when he did not die, it is feared that things would take a bad ending for him anyway (Letter from Aldovrandino Guidoni to the Duke Ercole d’Este).[64]

Things did not have a bad end, as the influence of his disciple Lazarelli in the court of Naples was good enough to have the King Ferrante asking for his release. The following years saw Giovanni still peregrinating through the Italians cities, now followed by his miserable family, whom he had wearing sackcloth and chains around the neck. Not that they were really pauper: Giovanni always kept servants, published his books and was found of giving expensive symbolic gifts to important people. He ended in the court of the French King Louis XII, were apparently was kept as a curiosity. He maintained his messianic claims, but became also known for his impressive knowledge of medicine, alchemy and natural magic. It is not known how he died and the fate of his family, but this lack of information suppose a peaceful end.

Marsilio Ficino, from the list of magi we are mentioned, is the one who lived most pacifically. He enjoyed the protection and patronage of the powerful Cosimo de Medici, who made Ficino the head of his new founded Platonic Academy. Ficino was very influential during his lifetime, being in contact and being highly respected by most of the European intellectuals of the age. His translations of Plato, Plotinus and of the Hermetic writings remained influential during the entire Renaissance. He practiced a therapeutic kind of magic, much influenced by concepts of Astrology. He became a priest at 40 years old, and lived peacefully until the age of 66.

Agrippa travelled extensively through Europe, and attended several positions in the courts, governments and study institutions. His career was marked by small skirmishes with orthodox minded representatives of Church and State, but none with perilous results. He was also successful in the defense of a peasant woman accused of witchcraft by Dominican inquisitors. During all his life he maintained a net of correspondents who shared similar interests in the occult. After a short imprisonment in the end of his life, he died peacefully. His work on the occult philosophy would become extremely influent in the coming years and is to the day a cornerstone of Western magic.

John Dee’s opus is the greatest achievement of Renaissance magic, an ensemble of angelic revelations, prophetic utterances and magical teachings direct connect with the ushering of a new age. Dee was acclaimed and respect in Europe as a scholar, enjoyed the protection of Queen Elizabeth I and was received by the Emperor Rudolph II in the court of Prague several times. Faithful to the prophetic responsibilities he believed to have received through his magic, he tried in vain to convince the Emperor of the importance of his angelic communications. At the age of 62 he returned to England, to find his famous library in ruins with many books missing. Elizabeth I still protected him until her death in 1603, but the rise of James I could not be advantageous for him, as the new monarch was suspicious of anything related to magic. He died at the age of 82, but the reports that he died in poverty are doubtful. A magician to the end, the last record of his angelic invocations dates from 1607, two years before his death.

Tommaso Campanella first arrest and confinement under the suspicious of heresy happened in 1594 when he was 26 years old, and lasted for three years. He was again incarcerated in 1599 for being the spiritual inspiration in a conspiracy to free the kingdom of Naples from the Spanish influence. He was tried for rebellion and also for heresy, as his participation in the plot was founded in astrological previsions and prophecies. He was tortured on the rack seven times, and had to put fire in his cell feigning madness to escape the death sentence. The tortures he suffered however were extremely severe:

In a passage of the Medicina, he would later recall the prison doctor (vir bonus – ‘a good man’) with sober gratitude, for being able, against all hope, to make him well. Presented with a case of bruising ‘deep … and measureless,’ he found a way to separate the healthy from the damaged flesh, rendering the damaged parts completely rotten so as to be able to remove them, all to the end of avoiding an infection and permitting the reconstitution of the flesh, and also so as to restore the two pounds Campanella had lost.[65]

During the next twenty-seven years he spent in prison, he wrote many important works, between them the description of the utopic City of the Sun. He was released in 1626 by the pope Urban VIII, whom he served as an astrologer advisor for five years. He had to flee to France however, due to a new conspiracy led by one of his former followers. He was received and honored at the court of Louis XIII and protected by Cardinal Richelieu, and spent his final day in a convent in Paris, provided for by a king pension.

Paracelsus died at the age of 47, after have made several important contributions in the history of medicine. His name was mentioned in the Rosicrucian manifesto Fama Fraternitatis and his work also achieved a lasting influence in the European magic. He was especially apt in the creation of astrological talismans in medicine and created the Alphabet of the Magi for engraving angelical names. He also travelled extensively in Europe, but he had a difficult personality and entered in conflict too often. He had to flee from Basel where he held a chair at the university and wandered for years as a tramp. His book were forbidden of going into print and only in 1536, with 43 years old, he managed to publish a work on surgery which regained him some good fame. He would die four years later. We can have an idea of the origins of his troubles from the following excerpt:

I am Theophrastus, and greater than those to whom you liken me; I am Theophrastus, and in addition I am monarcha medicorum and I can prove to you what you cannot prove. I need not don a coat of mail or a buckler against you, for you are not learned or experienced enough to refute even a word of mine. As for you, you can defend your kingdom with belly-crawling and flattery. How long do you think this will last? Let me tell you this: every little hair on my neck knows more than you and all your scribes, and my shoe buckles are more learned than your Galen and Avicenna, and my beard has more experience than all your high colleges.[66]

The fiery demise of Giordano Bruno is universally known. Bruno also had a difficult personality and found himself in constant trouble and conflict, being also accused of being arrogant. From the introduction of his philosophical dialogue The Ash Wednesday Supper[67] we have this self-description which enables us to better judge on that:

In medicine expert, in contemplation judicious, in divination without equal, in magic miraculous, in superstitions provident, in laws observant, in morals irreproachable, in theology divine, in all effects, heroic.

Bruno’s later biographer Dorothea Waley Singer[68] concluded that this was one of many tries Bruno did aiming at generating authority, that largely failed due to him being  ‘‘unsuccessful in  human relations, devoid of social  tact  or  worldly wisdom, unpractical to an almost insane degree.’’ Bruno’s declaration and Singer’s evaluation when put together makes a very close parallel to the description Aleister Crowley gave about himself, in part written in the third person:

 I, of all men on this Earth reputed mightiest in Magick, by mine enemies more than by my friends.[69]

This account has been deemed necessary to explain how it is that a man of such unimaginably commanding qualities as to have made him world-famous in so many diverse spheres of action, should have been so grotesquely unable to make use of his faculties, or even of his achievements, in any of the ordinary channels of human activity; to consolidate his personal pre-eminence, or even to secure his position from a social or economic standpoint.[70]

Crowley in many aspects represents a new apex for the aspirations of the Renaissance and Reformation views of magic. Although his utopic try at Cefalu came to a tragic end, he nevertheless succeeded in creating a religious-philosophical system based on a prophetic experience provided by a series of magical practices. He followed on the steps of the Golden Dawn’s main creator, MacGregor Mathers, who managed to bring together the two magical perspectives inherited from the Renaissance times: the Hermetic-Kabbalistic view of magic as being an initiatory path, proposed by the Renaissance magi, and the daemonological invocations of the grimoires they despised. Mathers helped to formulate the degrees and initiations of the Golden Dawn based upon the system of the sefirot, and designed to each degree instructions and practices in accordance with Hermetic principles; and at the same time he dedicated himself to translate and publish grimoires like the Ars Goetia section of the Lemegeton, the Key of Solomon, the Arbatel and the Book of Abramelin. Crowley’s prophetic achievement combined both currents, as his performance of the magical operation found in the book of Abramelin, which aims at contacting the Guardian Angel and submitting the demons of the world, became the key to receive the revelation of the Book of the Law through the spirit Aiwass.

We may frown at the personal shortcomings of many of the magicians listed in these lines, but we should not lose sight of the reason each of them achieved greatness in history: they all went beyond their individualistic interests of achieving illumination and welfare through magic just for themselves, and made their best efforts to use it to change the world for better for everyone.

I believe the great war of magic to be an ongoing business. Currents of Christian and Islamic fundamentalisms still threaten the liberty of the individual, and Christian politicians have being trying for the past decades to use the democratic system to achieve power and regulate the lives of everyone according to their prejudices. Of course magic cannot prosper in such environments. I believe magicians of our age should focus their ceremonies to have influence at key situations, like oppressive governments, fraudulent and abusive religious institutions and anti-ecological corporations. On the other hand, there are lots of individuals and groups which strive to make the world a better place that should be supported by magical means.

Although at the moment we find ourselves in a good moment for magic, with widespread publications, a worldwide net of students and practitioners, and the recognition of the academy on the importance of the history of magic, we must be aware that it needs just an unhappy sequence of bad elections to turn a democracy into a retrograde religious rule where the impostor and the hypocrite will ascend. On a possible situation like this, the magicians of the age will find themselves once again, not merely fighting for a better world, but fighting for their lives.

[1] Lodovico  Lazzarelli,  The  Hermetic  Writings  and  Related  Documents,  Hanegraaff  and  Bouthoorn. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2005). These were the words engraved in the silver crescent.

[2] Lodovico Lazzarelli, The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents, Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2005).

[3] Perdurabo: the Life of Aleister Crowley, Richard Kaczynski. North Atlantic Books (2010).

[4] The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science, Kevin van Blade. Oxford University Press (2009).

[5] The Divine Institutes, Book I, Chap. VI, Lactantius. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07011.htm

[6] The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Charles B. Smith and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge University Press (1992).

[7] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Chapter XLVII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[8] Jesus The Magician,  Morton Smith. Barnes & Noble (1993).

[9] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Chapter XXXII.), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated  by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[10] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Preface to the Reader), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[11] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter II), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[12] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter XXIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[13] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter XXXVIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[14] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter XXXVIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[15] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book I, Chapter XLIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[16] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Dedication to Hermannus of Wyda), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[17] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Chapter XXXII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[18] The Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Book III, Chapter XLVIII), Agrippa of Nettesheim. Translated by James Freake, edited and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn (2005).

[19] Dictionary of Gnosis &Western Esotericism, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff.. Brill (2006).

[20] The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Charles B. Smith and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge University Press (1992).

[21] Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Frances A. Yates. Routledge and Kegan Paul (1964).

[22] Prophecy and Gnosis, Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation, Robin Bruce Barnes. Stanford University Press (1988).

[23] Prophecy and Gnosis, Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation, Robin Bruce Barnes. Stanford University Press (1988).

[24] The Book of the Law, Aleister Crowley. Red Wheel (2011).

[25] Prophecy and Gnosis, Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran          Reformation, Robin Bruce Barnes. Stanford University Press (1988).

[26] Prophecy and Gnosis, Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran  Reformation, Robin Bruce Barnes. Stanford University Press (1988).

[27] Jewish Magic from the Renaissance Period to the Early Hasidism, Moshe Idel. In Religion, Science, and Magic, in Concert and in Conflict, edited by Jacob Neusner. Oxford University Press (1989).

[28] Three Books on Life, Marsilio Ficino. A Critical Edition and Translation with Introduction and Notes by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies (1998).

[29] The City of God, Saint Augustine. Edited by Philip Schaff (1819-1893). Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

[30] Dictionary of Gnosis &Western Esotericism, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff.. Brill (2006).

[31] Prophecy and Gnosis, Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation, Robin Bruce Barnes. Stanford University Press (1988).

[32] Prophecy and Gnosis, Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation, Robin Bruce Barnes. Stanford University Press (1988).

[33] Jewish Magic from the Renaissance Period to the Early Hasidism, Moshe Idel. In Religion, Science, and Magic, in Concert and in Conflict, edited by Jacob Neusner. Oxford University Press (1989).

[34] Jewish Magic from the Renaissance Period to the Early Hasidism, Moshe Idel. In Religion, Science, and Magic, in Concert and in Conflict, edited by Jacob Neusner. Oxford University Press (1989).

[35] Prophecy and Gnosis, Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation, Robin Bruce Barnes. Stanford University Press (1988).

[36] Dictionary of Gnosis &Western Esotericism, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff.. Brill (2006).

[37] Dictionary of Gnosis &Western Esotericism, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff.. Brill (2006).

[38] Dictionary of Gnosis &Western Esotericism, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff.. Brill (2006).

[39] Paracelsus, Medicine, Magic and Mission at the End of Time, Charles Webster. Yale University Press (2008).

[40] Championing Basilius Valentinus and expecting Elias Artista: Theodor Kerckring’s commentary on Currus triumphalis antimonii. Publicação on-line da bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica J. R. Ritman.

[41] Dictionary of Gnosis &Western Esotericism, edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff.. Brill (2006).

[42] Thinking with demons, the idea of witchcraft in early modern Europe, Stuart Clark. Oxford University Press (2005)

[43] It is important to notice that this destruction happened before the Christian era.

[44] The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, edited by Hans Dieter Berz. The University of Chicago Press (1992).

[45] http://www.esotericarchives.com/juratus/juratus.htm

[46] Grimoires, A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies. Oxford University Press (2009).

[47] Grimoires, A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies. Oxford University Press (2009).

[48] The Equinox of the Gods, Aleister Crowley. New Falcon Publications (1991).

[49] Magic, science, religion, and the scope of rationality, Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah. Cambridge University Press (1990).

[50] Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah: Prophets, Magicians, and Rabbis, Karen Silvia de Leon-Jones. Bison Books (2004).

[51] Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah: Prophets, Magicians, and Rabbis, Karen Silvia de Leon-Jones. Bison Books (2004).

[52] The Language of Demons and Angels, Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy, Christopher Lehrich. Brill (2003).

[53] The Language of Demons and Angels, Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy, Christopher Lehrich. Brill (2003).

[54] The Language of Demons and Angels, Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy, Christopher Lehrich. Brill (2003).

[55] The Language of Demons and Angels, Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy, Christopher Lehrich. Brill (2003).

[56] The Revival of Magick and other Essays, Aleister Crowley. New Falcon (1998).

[57] Liber Aleph vel CXI, The Book of Wisdom and Folly, Aleister Crowley. Weiser (1992).

[58] The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetism from Ancient to Modern Times, Florian Ebeling. Cornell University Press (2005).

[59] Ficino wrote variants of the list, sometimes adding Zoroaster before Hermes. See Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Frances A. Yates. Routledge and Kegan Paul (1964).

[60] Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Frances A. Yates. Routledge and Kegan Paul (1964).

[61] The Antecedents of Thelema. In The Revival of Magick, Aleister Crowley. New Falcon (1998).

[62] Astrology, Ritual and Revolution in the Works of Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639), Peter J. Forshaw. Available at the Academia.edu site.

[63] The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Charles B. Smith and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge University Press (1992).

[64] Lodovico Lazzarelli, The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents, Hanegraaff and Bouthoorn. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2005).

[65] Tommaso Campanella: The Book and the Body of Nature, Germana ernst. Università di Roma Tre (2010).

[66] Paracelsus, Selected Writings, edited by Jolande Jacobi. Pantheon ( 1951).

[67] The Ash Wednesday Supper, Giordano Bruno. University of Toronto Press (1995).

[68] Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought, Dorothea Waley Singer. Schuman (1950).

[69] The Equinox of the Gods, Aleister Crowley. New Falcon Publications (1991).

[70] The Equinox of the Gods, Aleister Crowley. New Falcon Publications (1991).

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