Posts Tagged ‘A. E. Waite’

Praxis Magica Faustiana

BY: Mark

Published in a limited & numbered edition by the Society of Esoteric Endeavour (out of a secret back room at Caduceus Books, I believe), the Praxis Magica Faustiana is an anonymous grimoire attributed to Dr. Johann Faust himself.*

It’s a wee thing, the Praxis Magica Faustiana, and is just a collection of eleven lithographs (text and illustrations) that offer techniques for binding Lucifer and Mephistophiles (who appear as respective components of light and darkness) in order to gain access to the generative forces of the universe. The last lithograph is a picture of two lions embracing a plant, which the Caduceus edition’s commentary points out is probably a mandrake root.

The Praxis Magica Faustina crops up in Arthur Edward Waite’s Book of Ceremonial Magic in the chapter on Black Magic (filed away under the section of Miscellaneous Texts Which Are Probably Quackery, But Let’s Be Thorough And List Them), and he cites its history as being contained in a manuscript added to the Municipal Library of Weimar in 1571. Which, if true, suggests that municipal libraries were much different than they are now. Waite bases his notes on an unprinted translation by Major Irwin, which he owned, and which is now held by the Cleveland Public Library in the United States.

Some public libraries are still havens for esoteric texts, I guess.

Anyway, Waite points out that (a) there was no Municipal Library in Goethe’s birthplace, and (b) the collection as it existed in his era does not contain this MS. Either way, this little grimoire has been published in a fine edition by Caduceus so that we may lay our eyes on its particularly odd incantations and make our own assessment.

The interesting historical tidbit this grimoire provides is a reference point for where Goethe might have sourced the name ‘Mephistopheles,’ as the Praxis Magica Faustiana may be the first historical record of the name. Believed to be of Greek origin, it translates (roughly) to “not light lover,” thereby setting him up as the opposing force with Lucifer, who was still enjoying the “light-bearer” sobriquet.

The pictures and incantations themselves are not very complex, and most of them are exhortations to various named demonic and angelic figures to abide by the commands of the magician. The seventh page, in fact, shows a picture of a cock (the creature who summons the morning light and who is a symbolic stand-in for Lucifer) above the text “Lucifer amicus meus dilectus et Servus”–”Lucifer friend, my love and my servant.” These Infernal Conjurations and Oaths as practiced by the good Doctor certainly appear to be of the kindler and gentler variety.

The Irwin text contains an additional page which contains an interesting depiction of a small creature–perhaps a homunculus–that may be related to the mandrake root drawing of the MS. The Caduceus commentary goes into some interesting discussion about the figure, which I’ll save for another post.

* Somewhat foolishly, I was thinking that Faust was an entirely literary creation, making the real-world existence of an actual grimoire penned by the good Doctor not unlike the Necronomicon as written by Abdul Alhazred, but in the process of educating myself about the history of this text (read getting called on my assumption by a sharp-eyed reader), it turns out out that Faust really existed. Praxis Magica Faustiana is noted as being written in 1527, well within the range of Faust’s lifespan, though it was added to the Municipal Library of Weimar in 1571, after his death. It’s still very likely that the grimoire was used by Goethe as part of his inspiration for his play, though Christopher Marlowe’s play (written in 1604) also used Mephistopheles.