Derived from a lecture on 7/22/87 e.v. by Bill Heidrick
A class on “The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage” was requested by Thelema Lodge members and friends. At the time of presentation, there were two or three editions of the book in print, including a Dover paperback. The book itself is ostensibly derived from a 14th century source. There are several manuscripts of some age. One or more of the inferior MSS is in the Bibliotecque d’Arsonal in Paris. There are other manuscripts in London which were not mentioned by the so-called translator, Mr. McGregor Mathers. He asserted that he translated it out of the old French edition in Paris, but he was a frequenter of the place where the manuscripts were kept in London. One of the London MSS is in English. Gershom Scholem mentions a translation into Hebrew. Our favorite plagiarist of the last century, Mr. McGregor Mathers, put a little bit of a shine on his work. He published a lot of magical books in the last century and co-founded the Order of the Golden Dawn. Most of his books were sold as translations for fee, and virtually all of them were copied out of English sources. We read pompous stories about the difficulty of the translation in many of Mathers’ books. Perhaps he should have complained instead of “how bad the handwriting was.” Mathers’ notes to the names of the spirits in the Abramelin Book were probably copied or adapted out of the Hebrew manuscript in London. He only got half way through the notes on the spirits and then probably got an advance from his publisher. The antecedents of the book are clouded for that reason. There are false statements made about the source MS.
STRUCTURE AND MYTH
It does appear that “The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage” is a 14th century work. The book is divided into three parts. There is a narrative part, probably fictitious: a story about where this Magick originated, why it is important, and why it was written down. There is a portion of the book with strange squares and notes about their significance written below them. The middle part of the book has a rather interesting description of how to go about learning to work Magick. The Abramelin approach is almost unique in that it’s written to enable students to pick their own method. The 14th century context creates problems for modern readers. We don’t have much stuff around here like they had then. To bring this book up to date, these questions need to be addressed: How can you apply these things? What are the limitations? Where can you find equivalent things? 14th century Europe was quite sparsely populated by modern standards. There were many cities and villages, but life then was very different from modern life. You could live outside the town. It would cost next to nothing to find a piece of land that was no good for farming. Maybe someone would offer you a place to stay. No one would bother you. You could set up a little house and be by yourself for an indefinite period. You wouldn’t have to worry about hiring servants; they were inexpensive. Feed them, and that’s pretty much it. All essential things could be taken care of without any complications: no tax forms, no television, no radio, no temptations. It takes too long to travel anywhere, so there would be few interruptions by visitors.
In the magical portion of the book, there are many strange diagrams and a lot of moral remarks along the lines of: “This is evil.” “This is ambivalent.” “This is dangerous.” “This is safe.” A person reading that would tend to think the notes are simple and understandable warnings. It’s not that way. Cultures set definitions as to what is proper and improper in the general sense of Good and Evil. Just a few centuries ago, ordinary things that we now do would be considered capital offenses. It was even questionable to own a mirror. A mirror could be an instrument of Black Magic. It shows something that isn’t really there. The reflection in the mirror is not right. There’s nobody back there. It’s an illusion, and illusion was considered evil magic. So, modern television is black magic. Movies are black magic. Make- up is black magic. A lot of the moral qualifiers in the Abramelin book are based on that sort of thinking. On the other hand, dealing with the Devil, by the Christian definition of such a thing, was not always thought to be black magic. It’s perfectly natural. If a creature is evil, it must obey God. Holy people can control it, and they should. That’s 14th century thinking. It was considered ordinary that certain religious practitioners, priests and the Pope, should have the power to command the Devil and make him do works. There are legends from that time held up as moral examples that suggest such practices (see “The Golden Legend”). Realize, when reading these older books, that quite a bit of explanation of terms and usage is needed. Some things that look terribly arcane and impossible to do are not that at all. What’s virgin parchment? It’s just unused paper. Paper in those days was mostly animal parchment, made of treated leather. Later centuries used a variety of vegetable fibers, and now we commonly use wood pulp. “Virgin parchment” simply meant that nobody had used it for something else and later erased it or scraped it. With virgin parchment there are no half visible remains of funny writing.
The story of the book makes an interesting bit of mythology, very like that of the Rosicrucians in that the author claims to have learned the magical art in Arabia from a wandering sage named Abra Melin. The Abramelin book is supposed to have been written by a person named “Abraham the Jew”. Nowadays we don’t like to talk about people in such an ethnic way, or perhaps don’t notice it when we do. The intent in this book was to say that the author was very special, perhaps because Abraham was the legendary precursor and patriarch of all sorts of modern religions, including Judaism, Islam and Christianity. I say “legendary” because there are odd stories about Abraham in the Old Testament. Consider the story of the sacrifice of a ram in place of his son, Issac — that was how the god Marduk was worshiped, not Jehovah. Marduk required his worshippers to pass a male child through the fire, usually the first born, or, in this instance, the first born to a wife as contrasted to an earlier child of a concubine. Terah, Abraham’s father, is said to have come with Abram (Abraham) from the city of Ur of the Chaldees, a Babylonian city state. Terah was simply a Babylonian who couldn’t get along in Ur. He wandered off in the wilderness with his family and continued doing whatever he used to do. Maybe he had a falling out with the neighbors and their gods. Abraham’s father left Ur and ultimately settled in the land of Haran. He may have gotten down to just one god, because it’s impractical to travel with a bunch of them. Gods in those days weighed up to 40 or 50 pounds, for a good one. The small ones could break if bundled all together in a bag. They were comforting to talk to and would keep you company, but it’s nice to have some room for food in your backpack. Abraham (Abram was his name at first) had his own time of wandering, and any spare gods his father may have managed to keep were evidently too much to carry. Perhaps Abram just inherited one idol from Terah with the others divided among the family. Anyway, “Abraham” had only one god and his name was quite a good one to drop, being the Great Patriarch and all. In case they missed the point, it was “Abraham the Jew” — That one! Heavy duty Abraham. Later on the book disclosed that this wasn’t old Abraham, but a modern one, a typical 14th century wandering Jewish person. That’s not to be confused with “The Wandering Jew”, an entirely different Christian story. Continue Reading »
