grimoire

05
Jul
2015

Iuratus: Analysis of Non-Christian Elements and Their Integration with Liber Iuratus Honorii


See the preceding part of the essay if you missed it
Analysis of Non-Christian Elements and Their Integration with Liber Iuratus Honorii
Though I argue for the Christian nature of Liber Iuratus Honorii, I will first address the obvious non-Christian references and elements that exist in the text. I propose that they do not take away from the Christian standing of the text but support the text and ritual system as a whole, as well as reflect the complex nature of religious thought at the time.
The majority of non-Christian elements in Liber Iuratus Honorii are drawn from Jewish sources; some of these elements are borrowed and adapted, while others are taken completely without any effort to synthesize them into Iuratus. One such element includes that the fact that in order to obtain divine vision the creation of a seal is required, on which the operator writes the “Shemhamphoras” around the edge . The Shem ha-Mephorash is a Jewish name for YHWH that is recognized as being in 72 parts. To get the name one must read Shemot (Exodus) 14:19-21 in a special way which reveals 72 three letter names of God . This name was very important in the study of the Jewish Qabalah so it initially seems an unusual inclusion in a supposedly Christian text. The use of seals and god names were a prominent part of Judaism, specifically Qabalistically inspired branches. The seal also includes other god names, some that are Christian such as Christos, Alpha and Omega; but others are Jewish again like El, Adonai, Saday, and On . Some names are even Greek like Sother, and a variety are from no easily identifiable source . If the names came from Greek or Hebrew roots then, by the time they have reached the manuscript they have been corrupted beyond my ability to decipher, and others assert the names are “deformed Greek and Hebrew” though some appear to be “pure gibberish.” This use of Hebrew names is a pattern that continues throughout the text. In one case a Hebrew name is used, and then clarified “IF ADONAY, that is to say, almighty God ” which is an unusual moment, as if the inclusion of Adonai (Adonay) was important, but the reader being Christian, and not Jewish, would not understand the use of the name.

All images taken from http://www.esotericarchives.com

Seal of the Angels of Saturn. All images taken from http://www.esotericarchives.com

The integration and use of Jewish sources is more complex than just the use of names of god. The text is perfused with angels. The Qabalah had a large proliferation of angels and angel names; in fact the Shem ha-Mephorash is sometimes interpreted to be 72 angel names. While the Catholic Church at that time recognized very few named or individual angels, and as Liber Iuratus Honorii mentions well over three hundred , it is reasonable that the author would have to borrow some angels to have such a large amount. It is more than just angel names that are borrowed; when the months are listed they are given Hebrew names instead of their Latin names, as are the planets. In Christianity at the time angels were largely conceptualized as impersonal and interchangeable, with no distinguishing features between each other (save Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel), and they were undeniably good. Yet not only are a great variety of angels addressed by name in Liber Iuratus Honorii, but there are also differences recognized between them. For example the angels of Saturn in Liber Iuratus Honorii are “long and slender, pale or yellow” and angels of the Sun are “great and large, full of all gentleness.” The angels of each planet —of which several are named— are distinct from each other, they perform different tasks, their personalities are different, and they appear differently from one another. This was not a conceptualization of angels that had root in Christianity yet, but was a common factor in Jewish views of angels. The angels of the Sun are said to “give love and favor and riches to a man, and power, also … to give dews, herbs, flowers” which could be seen as the “positive” actions one might expect from an angel, but the angels of Saturn “cause sadness, anger, and hatred” while the angels of Mars “cause and stir up war, murder, destruction, and mortality of people.” War, hatred, murder, and sadness are not the commonly accepted sphere of angels from the Christian perspective, and seems contrary to the view of angels as wholly good. Though once more if we look at the Jewish tradition we find a view of angels that fits; angels were not seen as good or evil, but their alignment was more neutral and ambiguous in many cases. Some were good, some were malicious, and many were in-between. Having angels who could do what we would consider good and evil is more in line with the contemporaneous Jewish viewpoint than the Christian one, showing where some of the framework or inspiration of the text came from.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
03
Jul
2015

Iuratus: The Construction of Christianity through Conjuration


The Construction of Christianity through Conjuration: An Exploration of the Christian and Non-Christian Elements and Nature of Liber Iuratus Honorii
Medieval Europe has an unusual class of texts known as grimoires. These books claim to grant the reader power over their material and spiritual world, by instructing how to summon angels, demons, and a variety of other spirits. What makes these texts more compelling is that they are apparently Christian in nature; their symbolism, their language, and their purpose all claim to be Christian and appropriate within the religion. Yet the concept of these books –conjuring demons and commanding them to do the bidding of the reader– seems to be non Christian. Considering the witch trials that took place in this period, religious and secular laws against the practice of magic, and the pre Christian religions of Europe, it would not be unreasonable to consider the grimoires may not have been truly be Christian. Liber Iuratus Honorii, or The Sworn Book of Honorius is one of earliest surviving grimoires, and like the rest claims a Christian heritage. This paper analyzes Liber Iuratus Honorii using links with other texts and traditions, the internal Christian elements, and the internal logic and narrative of the text to show that Liber Iuratus Honorii is a genuinely Christian text likely written by a member of the clergy who disagreed with the establishment of the Church, but not Christianity.
Historical Background of Liber Iuratus Honorii
Liber Iuratus Honorii attributes itself to Honorius of Thebes, son of Euclid. It is unlikely that such a figure ever existed, as grimoires are often pseudopigraphical in authorship and the name seems designed to make the reader associate the text with Euclid of geometric fame. Regardless for ease of reference, I will refer to the author of Liber Iuratus Honorii as Honorius. The earliest surviving copy of the text dates to the fourteenth century, but dates as early as the first half of the thirteenth century have been argued . Dating the text is difficult as it may actually have been composed in parts, some dating to the thirteenth century, and some to the fourteenth. Though six copies of the manuscript survive, in slightly different forms, when compared to each other and by their list of chapters it seems there is not a complete copy surviving. These manuscripts are all written in Latin, and only one critical edition of a manuscript has been produced currently by Gösta Hedegård in 2002. This paper will focus on the only version of the manuscript that has been translated into English, Royal MS 17Axlii, translated around the sixteenth century, though the modern compiler notes textual deficiencies and variant readings from three other manuscripts. The text itself is divided into three or four books (depending on the manuscript), which include: a complex ritual to attain vision of the divine, rituals to attain knowledge in many fields, instructions of specific spirit conjuration, and more conjurations respectively. Other academic works have focused on the textual and religious relationships of Liber Iuratus Honorii, what influenced it and what it influences. Though these works highlight what is and is not Christian in origin in the text, they all assume the Christianity of Liber Iuratus Honorii as certain without challenging that assertion. While I do not disagree with their final position, in this paper I seek to examine and prove the Christian nature of the text, thus further supporting the study and interpretation of Liber Iuratus Honorii as a Christian document.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
02
Jul
2015

Liber Iuratus Series Intro


As some of you know I have a degree in History from a University one of the top three History programs in North America. My final thesis was on Liber Iuratus Honorii, an early grimoire.
The next several posts will be that essay. I could post it all at once, but I know how attention spans on the internet work, so I’ll break it down into more reasonably sized chunks and post it over several days. Unfortunately due to the nature of academic writing there are long thoughts and paragraphs, so there isn’t always a good place to break the essay down. Some entries will be 500 words, others a 1000. I tended to break it along themes whenever possible.
Due to being on this blog, I’ll be removing the footnotes, because they’re a pain in the arte to put onto wordpress, but I will include all the texts I reference in the final post.
My paper is on whether or not Liber Iuratus is a Christian text or not. It claims it is, and I agree (as I’ll say in the intro), so it might seem odd to write a paper on it, but that’s how the historical process works. We can’t just accept at face value a claim in a text, so we have to evaluate it. So the paper is me breaking down the grimoire and looking for clues that really confirm or deny the Christian nature of the text. If you’re not familiar with the process it might seem odd to prove a text is telling the truth. As a historian we can’t just look at what a text says, we have to understand why it would say that, who benefits from it, why has it survived, and what does it tell us. The most fascinating element of history is taking something minor, and fleshing it out to see what it means. Sure, Liber Iuratus is a Christian grimoire, but what can we learn from it, what does it tell us about Christianity at the time, the view of the Church, the social structure of society? That’s the fun, teasing out the information.
Also, as it’s an academic paper written for a general audience of medieval historians, some of my points and explanations will seem really simple and obvious to magickal folks familiar with grimoires, but they have to be said for everyone else.
So that being said over the next several days I’ll be rolling out my posts on it.
And before it begins, since I know someone will be curious. I got an A on the paper, and my professor only challenged one of my assertions, as she felt it was too biased. It was probably my second favourite history paper to write. (My first one being the creation of the lesbian identity in Western culture due to the World Wars.)

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
25
Aug
2014

Grimoire Purism: Logical, Rational, and Historical Considerations


This entry has been stewing in my head for a bit, but reading Davies’s Grimoires really brought it out to the surface.
I’d call myself a Solomonic magickian, a lot of my work revolves around the communion with spirits from grimoires in that style. Yet unlike many I don’t think I’m really “bound” to one text. Granted most of the grimoire spirits I use are from Book I of the Lemegeton, the Goetia, but my summoning circle is based on a design from the Heptameron, using Angel and Godnames I spent over two years skrying, my robes are adorned with the Shem ha’mephorash around the edge, and a variety of angelic and demonic seals on the chest and sleeves. So even though I’m Solomonic, my practice in that regard is all over the place a little.
Why? Because it works. There are some people that this boggles greatly, grimoire-purists. We’ve all seen them, people who are convinced that grimoires can’t and don’t work unless you perform everything exactly to the letter. (These are most notably though people who despite this claim lack the fame, fortune, and harem of King Solomon.)
Now, do not get me wrong, I believe grimoires should be used by the book, or as close to as possible until you are proficient with them. I wouldn’t say everything in them is absolutely necessary, but until you know how they work (and that takes experience, not educated guesses based on other systems or your intuition or lack of drive) I recommend keeping as much of the system intact as possible when you use it. Some things are most definitely symbolic I’d say, others are more relative, others might not be important at all, and some are crucial. If I gave you a recipe for amazing cookies, you shouldn’t make substitutions until you’ve made them my way and think I like my cardamom a bit too much. Follow the recipe the first several times, then you have a sense on what can be shifted.
This is where I get trapped in the middle ground. On one hand “Follow the book” on the other hand “Don’t be a slave to it.” What I wanted to address through was some of the issues with the notion of Grimoire-Purists.
Basically, why do you assume the text is right? Just because King Solomon (didn’t) write it, doesn’t mean it’s perfect. How many of us would pick up any modern occult book and say “The author is 100% right, and we have to do everything as they say or it won’t work”? If you’d do that with any magickal text I think you should re-evaluate your critical thinking skills.
As a subset of that issue, just because it is right, doesn’t mean it’s the only way it can be right. Sure, frankincense might be the right incense to summon a King of the Sun, but that doesn’t mean copal wouldn’t work, wouldn’t work just as well, or even better. Right does not have to be this binary exclusive category. Tied into this is the realism of it being 100% exclusively right. Just because my cookie recipe is awesome doesn’t mean you couldn’t make awesome cookies using a variation on my recipe. Good cookies are good cookies. One thing that came up recently in a discussion group around Solomonic magick is the necessity of wearing a belt made of lion skin. People battled back and forth on why it was or wasn’t necessary, names were called, it was the internet. I made a comment, which largely got glossed over though. Lions are going extinct, and while they’re doing better than they were 15 years ago, they’re still endangered. What happens when the last lion is killed? What happens when the last piece of lion fur deteriorates with use and age? Will these spirits then be forever beyond our ability to communicate with? It seems silly, but that’s the way some people think about it when they go hardcore grimoire-purist.
Lastly I want to question the idea of the texts being 100% right from a historian’s perspective. One of the first things I was ever taught as a historian was “Cui Bono” meaning “To whose benefit?” or “Who benefits?” Thousands, and millions of documents have been lost since humans started writing, and each one that survives there is a reason. The first question a historian asks is “Cui Bono” who benefits from this text still existing? Why was this text preserved when others weren’t? In the case of magickal and religious texts you can say belief, divine intervention, or because it works.
The trouble with this notion is not all texts were preserved on purpose, and not all were lost on purpose. For instance the autohagiography of Christina of Markyate was preserved by chance. The only known copy was in a house that caught fire, and it was one of the few texts near the window that the owner saved by throwing it out before having to flee the fire. If not for its random placement in the library we would have lost the first example of Self-Insert Biblical Fanfiction.
Did grimoires survive by luck or human choice? Well, according to Davies they survived by sheer volume. Why were there so many grimoires though? Because they were big business, forbidden texts that teach you to find treasure and get laid, who wouldn’t want that. The trouble is twofold though, not every person who manually copied the texts, or later every printer, had access to the grimoires, and eventually if there are only two or three or whatever grimoires, soon enough everyone who wants them, will have them, or know how to do what it is them. What is the solution to these problems? Make up grimoires, and that’s exactly what happened. As an idealist you can look at the similarities to grimoires and say that shows a continuation of thought and practice, and to some extent that might be right. What it probably shows more often is plagiarism. You own two grimoires and a book on herbs. Well include the prayers and circle from one text, the spirits from the second text, and mix in the herbs from the third, then make up a story about how some great mystic wrote it, it was found somewhere amazing, and boom, next grimoire craze.
Now the tricky part is, just because its random stuff cobbled together doesn’t mean it doesn’t work (doesn’t mean it will either). Here is the thing though, we know virtually nothing about these grimoires and their creation, we have myths, and ideas, and historical theories, but we don’t know. For all we know the Heptemeron or the Lemegeton were just forgeries crafted by a bored innkeeper looking to make some extra money, and by fluke they became popular, printed in large numbers, and got preserved.
So if you’re considering being a grimoire purist, think about the issues, rationally and historically with that, and see where it takes you. Remember, I do advocate trying to be as much by the book as possible, especially until you’ve worked with the system, but don’t assume that everything in it is 100% right, and that right information is exclusive of all other.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
21
Aug
2014

Review: Grimoires, by Owen Davies


51Mp9yLSz1L._SL160_[1]Grimoires: A History of Magic Books – Owen Davies
Oxford, 2010, 368pp., 9780199590049
If you’re an academically and/or history driven ceremonial magickian, then Grimoires is a book you really need for you collection.
After reading a few reviews about this book, I feel I have to make one point clear: This is an academic text, this is not a book about magick, it is not how to understand or use the grimoires, it is a look at the texts, the social influences on them, historical documents, and how they have changed over time. If you want an overview of grimoires for your magickal practice, look elsewhere.
Davies covers the history of grimoires, going as far back as we can and still understand the texts as grimoires, arguably sometime around the BCE/CE crossover, up until the present day. Along this journey he touches on a variety of factors that influenced the grimoires. It would be too easy to conceive of them as something isolated in the field of magick, but they’re not. Grimoires grew and were shaped by pressures from the Church, by popular fiction, by technology, cultural exchanges, and perhaps something spiritual. “They not only reflected the globalization of the world but helped shape it.” (5) Davies doesn’t write as a magickian, doesn’t write as a believer, but as a historian analyzing the texts and the histories, and that’s to the benefit of this book, otherwise it would be too easy to assume lines of thought persisted only due to magickal reasons.
When we think of grimoires we tend to think of the same handful over and over, but what really intrigued me was how many grimoires were identified and created in the Middle Ages. All of the text was interesting, but the interplay of the grimoires and the medieval Church were really fascinating. Davies covered how various grimoires survived, but more importantly why they were used, and how they were viewed. You could see some of the push and pull around the Church and the grimoires, as both an organization threatened by their existence, and yet obviously making use of them. In that same period Davies makes a case for the “democratizing” magick through the printing press.
Another plus for the book is that lot of magickal histories tend to drop off in the Renaissance, pick up with the Golden Dawn, maybe address the OTO, and then jump to the present. Davies on the other hand covered all that time between, as grimoires flowed into North America, becoming pulp books sold everywhere, in mail order catelogues even, and how they were a part of rural American cultures right up into living memory. This type of continuous thread of thought and practice is just what he traced from the earliest records, through the Dark Ages, into the Renaissance, to the present.
The data itself in this book is amazing, unfortunately Davies has a habit of throwing in random knowledge which seems less to illustrate a point, and more to illustrate his knowledge of something obscure. At first these little side-trips were interesting, but by the end of the book these details felt like they were detracting from the big pictures. When discussing an interesting text, there will often be an inclusion of one of the more unusual spells, even when it is irrelevant to the discussion of the text itself.
As someone who recently finished a university degree in History, with my final paper on Liber Iuratus Honorii, I found this book an excellent resource for creating the context and background for my paper. As a ceremonialist magickian I find this book invaluable to help me centre my practices both in their own magickal tradition, as well as a historical reality.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
26
Oct
2012

Magickal Book Blues


My eventual goal

On and off I have tried to condense my magickal notes into some form of book. Grimoire, Book of the Shadows, General Kal’s Little Blue Book, whatever you term it. I’ve also failed repeatedly. Part of my problem is I had the idea it had to be a physical text, which isn’t the problem in an of itself, but I’m very structured and a perfectionist. So my attempts often had lots of blank pages between sections for me to fill in, cause I couldn’t have anything out of order, but alas eventually one thing would grow too much and ruin the order.
So now I’m going to try shifting my notes into a digital format. At least this will make my notes in Tibetan/Sanskrit/Pali/Hebrew/Greek easier to put down as I can type in those scripts a lot faster than I can write. My challenge becomes though: how in the 136 Hells am I to organize this stuff? I could divide it simply with Western magick and Buddhist stuff, but they really aren’t that separate in my practice, a lot of my stuff draws on both things.
How do I divide what goes in? Cosmological theories? But those bleed into Angel/God/Spirit descriptions and various rituals. Sections on Spirits, but those are dependant in a way on how the Spirit is called. Different forms of evocation. Processes of meditation, ritual. But there in all of them there are the little tips that apply to every thing, but shouldn’t necessarily be repeated everywhere. How to properly dissolve a ritual space shouldn’t be listed in every ritual, but is it worth of it’s own spot? Chants, mantras, recipes, need-to-know facts, comments on astrology and timing.
Excuse me while I flail.
So for now I’m just digitizing stuff without order, and will hopefully organize it better later. But I want to ask my readers, whatever your path, however you store your information, do you have some advice? How do you categorize and separate all these things in whatever your favoured book of notes is? Any examples or ideas would be a great help for me.
And since I’m randomly away three hours into my sleep cycle (the Hour of the Wolf has been strong this week) another issue I have with organizing magickal stuff is my library. Another thing I have had trouble sorting out. My currently layout is more based on when I acquired the book than what it is about. Thankfully I have a remarkable memory for this sort of thing so while my books are in four different places I know what shelf and generally what section of the shelf any given book is on. That’s fine for me, but it’s problematic when I have a friend or student who wants to look at or borrow a book because they need me to guide them to a book. I’d much rather say “You’re looking for a book on summoning? Check out this area” and let them be. So for those of you who have an occult library of a size that needs organization, how does that work for you?
My current idea I’ve sketched out is:
Astrology – Divination – Tarot – Tarot Magick – Ceremonial Magick – Solomonic – Golden Dawn – Thelemic – Western Magick – Chaos Magick – Energy Model
Theravada – Mahayana – Vajrayana – Chöd – Buddhist Psychology – Taoism – Qi Gong – Reiki – Hinduism
Forbidden Archeology – Past Life Research
I’ve tried to group them in like ideas that bleed together, but this is always my problem: some books fit into more than one category, some more than two, and unfortunately my library is confined by three dimension space.
So while this is half rant, half ramble, half request, and half bad fractions, seriously I would love to know more about how others organize their personal magickal notes, and their libraries. Even if you think you organize it poorly it gives me another view to think about it from.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
24
Feb
2012

Review: Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy – Scott Michael Stenwick


Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy – Scott Michael Stenwick
Pendraig Publishing. 2011. 178pp. 9781936922048.
“Dee’s obsession with scrying and communication has been picked up by many modern practitioners of Enochian magick, and from reading some accounts one might be led to think that this is all the system is good for.” (50) I admit, I was in this category, I wasn’t an Enochian magickian, but that’s what I thought the system was for, and my few experiments in the system with friends were for information. This book aims to dispel that idea, as well as the mono-focus on the Great Table which is even more prevalent in the magickal community.
The Heptarchia Mystica is a section of Dee and Kelly’s work that is often overlooked and separate from the Great Table. It is also closer in structure and usage to the grimoires of the time. If you’re a grimoiric/Solomonic magickian (like me) some of the mainstream Enochian system can see a bit much to get into, but the Heptarchia Mystica is more accessible and familiar in many ways. It gives a collection of planetary Kings and Princes, as well as the evocations for each figure, and how to work with them, in a style far closer to what you get from the Lesser Key than from most Enochian texts.
This book is more than just printing of the oft ignored text, but also a general book on how to work with it. It was written with the “intention that you as an aspiring magician should be able to pick up this book and begin working magick right away” (53). If not for the fact that it requires specific ritual items like rings and lamens, this goal seems to be hit. The reader is led through a cursory history of the system and then some preliminary magick. Stenwick takes the standard banishing 101 seemingly required in every magick book, and goes a step farther. Instead of just giving the standard LBRP, the reader is given to Enochian inspired banishing/invoking rituals based on the Pentagram and Hexagram rituals. These are not simple rewrites of changing a name you sometimes get in books where they replace a name and claim it is Celtic (or whatever), but actually fairly distinct rituals I found quite enjoyable. Also Stenwick mentions what he calls the various fields: the effects of combining the different invoking and banishing rituals of the pentagrams and hexagrams. I had toyed with what these combinations too, but he takes it a step farther and discusses each combination and what they are best used for. It was an unexpected inclusion, but I definitely got a lot from it. Aside from the meat of the text that is something I will definitely do more work with.
The Enochian system is Christian in inspiration, it is a fact you can’t really get around, as such a lot of the prayers and evocations are quite Christian. On the other hand Stenwick is not, he’s a Thelemite, so each prayer is presented in its original form and then followed by a more Thelemic form, which often didn’t require too drastic of a change. I really liked this modification, as my belief system is far closer to the Thelemic system in philosophy than the Christian, and I know a surprising amount of Ceremonial Magickians have issues working with an overtly Christian system.
The book had a few formatting errors that irked me. Many of the internal page references were off by a page or two, so when working from the book you have to mark it somehow so you know to turn to the right page. Also sections that were supposed to be italicized so the reader would know what to omit or change were not actually italicized. In the grand scheme these are minor, but interfere just enough with the text to be a gremlin in the book.
For seasoned Enochian magickians, grimoiric/Solomonic magickians looking to break into Enochian systems, or occults of any shade looking for something new to try, this book is a good place to start. Largely complete within itself, and focusing on an uncommon part of a popular tradition, this is an excellent book to explore.
Personally I’m going to harass friends and family to borrow some Enochian gear, and get to work. If you want to read more by Scott Michael Stenwick, you can follow his blog here or comment specifically on his forum post, which is a blog post that looks like it will be question and answer, and discussion with others who have enjoyed this book.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
02
Jun
2011

Review: The Dictionary of Demons – Michelle Belanger


The Dictionary of Demons: Names of the Damned – Michelle Belanger
Llewellyn. 2010. 362 pp. with appendices. 9780738723068.
For the sake of transparency before I start this review I will admit to two reasons why I could be biased toward the book.
1. Michelle is a friend of mine.
2. Jackie, the very talented artist who did the alphabet art and several seals and pieces of art within the book, is also a friend or lab partner.
Of course people who know me, know I’m not exactly easy on most of my friends…
From Aariel to Zynextyur (is he next to your what?) this book has a listing of over 1,500 demons from the grimoiric tradition. This book is an amazing wealth of information on the entities within. Michelle worked strictly from an academic perspective; personal experiences and ideas do not enter into the text, only what information Michelle could dig up from the grimoires. Dig up is a great way to put it, Michelle went through an extensive process of several years of cataloguing these demons and searching for more information, other translations, older manuscripts. The common and popular texts like the Lemegaton and the Book of Abramelin were used, as well as more obscure texts like Liber Juratus Honorii, Caelestis Hierarchia, and Liber de Angelis.
“This book is not intended to be a how-to book on grimoiric magick” (10) instead it is as the title says a dictionary of names that have appeared in various texts. Names, ranks, and powers are given, along with much more. The entries on a demon let the reader know what grimoire they appear in and in many cases the several grimoires they have lent their names too, as well as information like what their name may be derived and distorted from as well as showing how some demons are most likely the same figure but over the course of years scribal errors have pushed their names further apart. Michelle pieces together part of the puzzle of grimoires, by analyzing names and lack of names in different texts Michelle attempts to establish a connection and timeline between the various books. Interspersed with the different entries are small articles by Michelle and Jackie about various relevant topics to the text, such as the scribal process involved in medieval grimoires, the history of Jewish appropriation in Christian mysticism, and comparing different lists of what demon rules what directions.
While most of the book is written in a straight forward manner Michelle was not above the occasional humorous observation. “From the profusion of [love] spells in all the magickal texts, it would seem that practitioners of the black arts had a very difficult time find a date in the Middle Ages” (15) or pointing out that Pist, who helps you catch a thief, has a name that sounds like how one would feel when stolen from (247).
While reading it I only noted one thing that seemed off in that Michelle attributed Mather’s translation of The Sacred Mage of Abramelin the Mage to a 15th century manuscript, when I have always seen the French manuscript dated to the 18th century. All in all I was greatly pleased and impressed with the effort, resources, and scholarship Michelle put into this book. While not a practical how-to guide, this book is an invaluable resource of names and histories for those interested in the grimoiric tradition. I felt the plot was a bit dry, but it had a wicked cast of characters.
Also for those wanting a related, but simpler text, I recommend you check out Michelle and Jackie’s D is for Demon. It is a delightful (not for) children’s book of rhymes leading you through 26 demons. I, of course, got a copy for my two-year old niece to make sure she is brought up right.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick