Posts Tagged ‘Manuscripts’

Faust and links

BY: Mark

Following a previous about the Praxis Magica Faustiana and the subsequent realization that I knew very little about Faust, both historically and in literature, I’ve been working on getting educated. It’s a humbling process that dovetails with some of my long-standing embarrassment about the focus of this site. I have wanted DARKLINE to be about esoterica and the strange occult world we live in, but I’m constantly faced with the fact that I know very little of these things. I suppose one should consider oneself a life-long student, but the depth of my ignorance is, well, exceedingly deep. The default solution has been to hunker down and do nothing, which serves no one, especially myself. It is time to shake off that fear, and get on with the enlightenment. The point isn’t to build a platform to display my erudition (which this clearly isn’t), but to provide a forum for discussion and learning. I just get to be the guy providing the general direction of the rubric.

To that end, here’s the current state of my Faust education.

If one is to believe Wikipedia, Goethe’s Faust has, as one of its inspirations, Jacob Bidermann’s play Cenodoxus, though without digging into the text, it is hard to say where the inspiration lies, as Cenodoxus appears to dance around the question of the price of secret knowledge rather than addressing it directly. Goethe’s Faust, even, does not appear to be as dark and as much as a morality tale as the myth that is burned in my brain–the random bits of literary mythology one picks up in course of an classical education. Faust, the man–notably one Dr. Johann Georg Faust–appears to have been a 16th charlatan of the classic sort: a racounteur, a traveling alchemist, a magician, and a scoundrel. Exactly the sort of man that would be a perfect source for the hubristic hero of the tragic plays.

Christopher Marlowe wrote a play about him within fifty or so years after he supposedly died, and I find it almost most interesting than the play itself that Marlowe wrote a play about a man’s pact with the Devil–a suspiciously Christian theme, and I’m hard pressed to think of a Shakespeare play which has a similar theme. Old Bill relied on much more pagan sources for his fantastical elements. Odd, don’t you think? Or was it simply a matter of Shakespeare knowing who his real audiences were and playing more readily to them?

Anyway, Faust the charlatan was purported to be sort of man who would have dabbled in the Black Arts, which makes the historical provenance of Praxis Magica Faustiana certainly easier to swallow. And given the subject material of the text, it follows that this could be source of that type of grimoire known as ‘Faustian.’

Dan Harms has posted a link to a digitized version of a 18th century German grimoire, which falls under the category of Faustian magic. Of course, the comments are insightful and filled with smart people talking all manner of things that will send you spiraling off into other corners of the occult world. Including Dan’s original commentary on the idea of the liber spirituum, the type of book that this MS. purports to be.

According to the commenters, the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek is a hothouse of Faustian magical documents. Who knew there were enough of these that a library could specialize in them? The digitization of the Liber Spirituum Potentissimorum is of exceptional quality, and it makes my fingers tingle as I look at it.

I suppose any magician who seeks knowledge from spirits is engaging in Faustian Magick, though I wonder about the veracity of that statement. Dee, Crowley, and so on sought to communicate with otherworldly creatures in order to gain knowledge. Was Faust, in the 16th century, the first one to do this? Or was his story simply the most readily available and comprehensible to the masses? There certainly had to be other seekers before Faust . . .

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.

Maier’s Jocus Severus and the art of Jose Luis Rodriguez Guerra

BY: Mark

Ouroboros Press has been celebrating the release of their latest book, Michael Maier’s Jocus Severus, and it all culminated in a release party in Seattle over the weekend. I’m a big fan of William Kiesel’s work, both in the selection of titles that Ouroboros is publishing and in his typographical work, and so I wandered up north to attend the party.

The launch party took place at the Rodriguez Guerra Art Studio, a second floor loft studio off Pioneer Square. It was a surprisingly sedate night for Downtown Seattle, and I found parking under the Viaduct–not far from a shapeless lump that made me think of the sack in the girlfriend’s apartment in Miike’s Audition. Naturally, as soon as I had that thought, the homeless man sleeping under the tattered wool blanket moved, and I whistled to keep the dark things away.

Anyway, it’s a shame I can’t get the Internet to cough up a representative sampling of Jose Luis Rodriguez Guerra’s art as it was very engaging. Born in Mexico, he came to the US as a migrant worker and eventually was able to sustain himself as an artist (and I’m cribbing from memory from an article posted on gallery wall). He works in oil on large slabs of wood and masonite, and his pictures are filled with Mexican and Mayan iconography. A number of his pieces were larger than life-sized, split into bands of warm sun-drenched colors and dark earthy tones.

He mentioned in this article that it was a shame that artists couldn’t find more spaces to showcase their art as a collective unit versus being lost in gallery with a dozen other artists, and seeing such a large collection of his work in one location really drove home that point. He has a habit of dividing his paintings into thirds, with the upper third being clearly demarcated by the horizon of his landscape, and he had arranged all the paintings so that line was at the same level throughout the room. With that sort of visual anchor, you started to look at the paintings as units within a larger narrative, and the reoccurring motifs started to emerge. Some of these visual echoes were only visible from specific points in the room–you had to stand in the corner of the alcove near the front door to see a certain repetition of a male figure, for example.

Art, in this instance, becomes not an isolated expression, but an on-going exploration that will probably take his entire life to fully articulate.

The gallery is at 80 South Washington Street, and is well worth the short detour from First Avenue if you’re wandering about Pioneer Square.

Anyway, the release of Jocus Severus. William gave a brief talk about Maier and the time period in which he lived (specifically mentioning the glorious era of Rudolph II, when it was de riguer for all alchemists and like-minded occultists to make a pilgrimage to Prague). While Maier is mainly known for his exceptionally forward-thinking “multi-media” tome, Atalanta Fugiens, Jocus Severus is an allegorical defense of alchemy. It’s an extended dialogue between a number of birds, who are set on defaming the Owl. Fortunately, the Hawk and the Phoenix wander by, and they come to the stately birds defense. This is the first English translation (done by Darius Klein, who also translated Ouroboros’ last release, Giordano Bruno’s Cantus Circaeus), and it features very nice typographical elements by artist Benjamin Vierling, who also contributed cover art and a splendid folding plate depicting all the birds who participate in this alchemical dialogue. (More details about the edition can be found at Ouroboros’ blog–this entry, in fact.)

This is the first time I’ve actually been able to get my grubby little hands on the more limited editions that William does, and while I’m the sort of reader who likes to use his books rather than look at them, I do have to admit that it was difficult to pass on the leather edition. While part of me is very involved in electronic methods of publishing, part of me really loves the feel of a well-produced book.

Esoteric Book Conference

BY: Mark

I only managed to make it to the first day of presentations at the Esoteric Book Conference in Seattle. Held at the Northwest Rooms of the Seattle Center, it’s a quiet little arrangement of a book fair, a room for presentations, and a small art show. Somewhat of a blink-and-miss-it arrangement, and if you wander too far, you end up in a much larger ballroom where the Seattle Miniature Dollhouse show was going on.

As one can imagine, it was pretty easy to tell the difference between the two, and not just from the general wardrobe difference between the patrons of each. Still, an odd little juxtaposition on a somewhat rainy fall day.

Hosted by William Kiesel (proprietor of Ouroboros Press), Michael Kolson (of Night of Pan Books), and Catamara Rosarium (who unveiled Rosarium Blends, an alchemical endeavor that is concocting ways to enrich our sensory lives), the Esoteric Book Conference is in its second year, and from the outset, it was clear that the participants were eager to dive into two days of esoteric book talk. Last year, attendance at the lectures seemed to creep up to a reasonable level–a number that was clearly matched in the first lecture this morning. People were ready to talk about the occult today.

The first presenter was Debra Chesnut, and her topic was the spoken aspect of rituals from the ancient mysteries to modern occult societies–the legomena. No one would argue with her about the idea that words have power, and she quickly dove into the practical application of that concept: how you say the word is almost as important as the word itself. The Greek language, she notes, was not meant to be read, it was meant to be spoken aloud. The written word was only meant to guide the speaker, and most Greeks never read silently. She cites Plato’s dialogue Cratylus as being not only about the meaning of language, but also about how to speak properly.

From there she progressed to the Chant of the Seven Vowels (see Joscelyn Godwin’s book The Mystery of the Seven Vowels for much more detail). The vowels invoke power; the consonants are the container. How you contain and direct the vowels via consonants is how you manifest power. The Tetragrammaton is nothing more than a series of vowel sounds; IAO–which shows up on amulets in the Middle East, is the Greek spelling of the Tetragrammaton, and is the name of a valley on Maui–is clearly a resonance of vowel sounds that transcends cultures and regions. Chesnut walks through examples found on gold tablets in Greek burial sites, within the Corpus Hermeticum, the Mithraic Liturgy, and Zoastrian Hymns to Mithras.

She closed with a quote from the Chaldean Oracles of Julianus.

Never change the barbarous names;
For there names in every nation given from god,
Which have unspeakable power in rites.
When thou seest a sacred fire without form,
Shining, flashingly through the depths of the world,
Hear the voice of fire.

The next presenter I had a chance to hear was David Beth of La Société Voudon Gnostique, who was celebrating the release of a new edition of his book, Voudon Gnosis. His presentation was on the Qliphoth and Nightside Gnosis, two things very near and dear to my heart. He began with a bit of a poke at the “fluffy” groups who look upon Qliphotic pathworkings as their “kink.” Western students of the spiritual arts tend to have a consumerist attitude; they expect answers to be served to them in easily digestible chunks, and when those aren’t offered, they get petulant. “Well, if you don’t give me what I want–” (insert outraged foot stomp) “–then I’ll take my business over here, and boy, won’t you be sorry!” (aka The Supermarket Model of New Age Spiritual Seeking) As a result, some groups look to Qliphotic workings as the off-the-beaten-path material that will keep their fussy constituents happy and engaged.

This is not the Voudon Gnosis model, obviously.

The Qliphotic workings are an inverse way of examining reality, and Beth made the comparison that if study of Universe A was ontological, then study of Universe B was meontological. A lefthand adept understands that bliss cannot be truly received and comprehended if it is not relished. One must be cognizant of what one is experiencing–i.e., maintaining their individuality as a perceptive point–in order to know it. Individuality is not relinquished during gnosis. Working through the Qliphotic Tree–along the Pathways of Frustration–is to be able to understand a synthesis with everything without extinguishing the distinction between the perceived and the perceiver.

It’s a highly individualized process. “The Law may be for All,” Beth says, “But the Gnosis may not be.” When gnosis is attained, there is a reversal of energy within the adept. No longer is he or she nourished by the Golden Light, but he or she will be powered by the Black Sun, the Cosmic Luciferian Manifestation.

His presentation offered a great deal of food for thought, and it certainly dovetails (with less terminology) with the course of thought I’ve been exploring. An underlying precept of the Codex of Souls is the individuation of enlightenment, and I can see that I’ve got some more reading ahead of me, which is perfectly timed as I should be starting Book 3 fairly soon.

Finally, Daniel Shulke have a presentation on the newly released Occult Reliquary, a collection of material from the Richel-Eldermans Collection in the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall. The Occult Reliquary is a large-format book containing more than 250 illustrations (many of them in full color) from the collection, and Shulke pointed out that the material in the book is around 10% of the collection. There is a tradition among secret societies and occultists that libraries and artefacts be destroyed upon the death of their holders (though, in many cases, “destroyed” may simply mean “removed from the public’s conscious awareness”), and to have such a collection preserved for public viewing is somewhat miraculous. Though, there is speculation that the entire collection may have been 10X larger than what was preserved.

The collection of charms, images, magical seals, and other ritual objects stem mainly from the workings of Ars Amatoria, a European magical order that–perhaps not surprisingly, given the antecedent of their name–employed sex magic in their workings. There are also some material relating to the M∴M∴ and the A∴A∴ (again, the whole sex magic angle).

It’s a gorgeous book (as are all the books produced by Three Hand Press), and Shulke’s discussion of the history of the collection (received from the Dutch collector, Bob Richel, who, in turn, inherited much of it from his father-in-law, Mr. Eldermans) was a welcome insight into the secrecy–and controversy–surrounding the legacy of occult collections.

Christie’s to Auction Illustrated Manuscripts

BY: Mark

In July, Christie’s is going to auction Part I of The Arcana Collection: Exceptional Illuminated Manuscripts and Incunabula. Forty-eight lots, with an estimated worth of £11 million to £16 million.

As Art Daily mentions in their write-up of the announcement, illustrated manuscripts were prize possessions during the medieval period as they were more than just books; they were little art galleries, customized for their owners, and each one is an unique record of a time and place. Like time capsules of the way artists and their patrons saw themselves and their world.

A couple of lots made me wish I had a secret stash of cash money to throw down.

- An Italian manuscript Bible (late 13th century) that appears to have been used in a Dominican convent. The allure of this book is its borders of “diverting genre scenes and fantastical creations far from the routine religious illustrations that might be expected.” Theodoric Borgognoni’s death (c.1296) is marked in the Calendar, suggesting that he may have commissioned the manuscript. He was the Bishop of Cervia, and is remembered for being one of the most innovative surgeons in the medieval period. Christie’s estimates this book is worth somewhere between £2,500,000 to £3,500,000.

- A copy of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (valued at £220,000 to £260,000) is the copy once owned by Jean Grolier de Servières, a famed 15th-century bibliophile.

The Vast Library That Is Hermetic.com

BY: Mark

I should start building pages for the things that are on the links page, so that it’s clear why they’re here, as well as a personal reminder of how much useful information the Internet has to offer. Case in point: Hermetic.com. Claiming as their mission the act of “archiving, engaging, and encouraging the living Western Esoteric Tradition,” they’re building a virtual library of all manner of useful texts, including a fairly substantial Crowley library.

They’re also a nexus point for a number of personal sites about the Golden Dawn, the O.T.O, Dr. John Dee, Enochian matters, Chaos Magick, Qabalah, the Tarot, Thelema (and the list goes on).

I hadn’t realized they’ve got all of Crowley’s Equinox material up there (wherein I finally found the picture of the Silent Watcher I’ve been looking for for the last six months). If you’re not obsessed about finding first editions, you can’t go wrong with online versions. (The link there goes to Blair MacKenzie Blake’s book on being a Crowley bibliophile, which I’m currently reading and enjoying quite a bit.)

You may also follow Hermetic.com updates on twitter and Facebook.

The Chinon Parchment

BY: Mark

Central to Barbara Frale’s recent book, The Templars: The Secret History Revealed (which, I have to admit, I have not read yet), is the discovery of the Chinon Parchment, which contains a transcript of the last interrogation of Templar leaders by Church interrogators.

By the 14th century, the Templars had were no longer a “blunt instrument” used by the Church to drive Muslims out of the Holy Land, they had become an institution unto themselves, both militarily and financially. It was the financial bit that got under the King of France’s nose. As Philip IV had the current Pope, Clement V, under his thumb, an order was sent out to imprison the Templars and seize all their assets. On Friday, October 13, 1307, the Templar Grandmaster Jacques de Molay and nearly every other Templar in France was arrested. Clement V waited until November to issue Pastoralis Praeeminentiae, the papal bull that instructed every Christian monarch in Europe to follow Philip’s lead and to sweep up the Templars.

The Templars were then subjected to all the fun bits of the Inquisition, most confessed, and then later recanted, which set up an awkward situation of them all being considered as lapsed heretics (forced confessions notwithstanding). Philip, not finding all the cash and trinkets that he had been led to believe that the Templars held, continued to press Clement V, and in 1312, the Pope issued Vox in excelso, abolishing the Order. Con norma irreformabile e perpetual, the 14th century version of “with extreme prejudice.” DeMolay and a few other leaders were burned at the stake on March 18, 1314.

The legends started almost immediately. De Molay was said to have cursed both King Philip and Pope Clement V as he was being burned, saying that they would meet him before God by the end of the year. Both men may have laughed it off at the time, but Clement V died a month later and Philip had an “accident” while hunting during the fall.

“Accident.” I’m just perpetuating the mythology, aren’t I?

Anyway, a few years ago (our time, now), Barbara Frale, a Vatican historian, stumbled across the Chinon Parchment in the bowels of the Secret Archives of the Vatican (read the room in back where all the uncatalogued paperwork has been stacked for the last eight hundred years). It contains a transcript of the visit several Cardinals made to the castle of Chinon where a number of Templar leaders were being held. In 1308. If you read the transcript, you’ll notice that, in addition to confessing, the Templar leadership were all absolved of the crimes they were accused of.

Now, if you’re absolved of your crimes, then doesn’t it seem somewhat unfair that you’re later hauled out of bed and burned at the stake for those same crimes?

The remnants of the Templar Order certainly thought so. Shortly after the publication of Frale’s book, they sued the Vatican.

The bit in the Chinon Parchment that really piqued the conspiracy theorist in me was that of all the Templars at Chinon only Hugo de Pérraud admitted to seeing the ‘head of an idol’ (one of the purported Templar treasures) while in Montpellier, in the possession of Brother Peter Alemandin, Preceptor of Montpellier. The others were not asked this question, nor did they admit to it. Why was Hugo singled out for this question, and why was it not asked of the others?

The Enochian Manuscripts

BY: Mark

The Magickal Review has put up digital copies of Dr. John Dee’s original journals. During the 16th century, Dr. Dee and his scryer, Edward Kelley, attempted to contact angelic beings, and the results of their efforts have passed the library of esoterica as the Enochian Calls.

The above link takes you to the introduction of the material, which includes MS.Sloane 3188, MS.Sloane 3189, MS.Sloane 3191, and MS.Cotton Appendix XLVI Part I and MS.Cotton Appendix XLVI Part II.

The Magical Review is currently preparing a complete edition of the Spirit Actions to be entitled The Angelic Conferences of Dr. John Dee & Sir Edward Kelley. Publication is not yet set, but this page will allow you to sign up for notification when the book is released.

Wandering the stacks at the Munich Digitisation Centre

BY: Mark

We’re giving this link its own post because there’s much to love here. The Munich Digitisation Centre at the Bavarian State College has an extensive collection of digitized books, including a number of medieval alchemy treatises. One of my favorite links is their tag cloud page. Talk about visual browsing. Each book has been carefully digitized, and each one is the sort of archaic manuscript that makes the book lover salivate.

Books on Alchemy .. Books on Magic .. Exegeses of the Bible ..

The Book of Soyga

BY: Mark

The Book of Soyga is an anonymous 16th century magical treatise that is first mentioned by Dr. John Dee during one of his initial encounters with the angels of the skrying stones. “Oh, my great and long desyre hath byn to be hable to read those tables of Soyga,” Dee said to Uriel. “Et haec revelantur in virtute et veritate non vi,” Uriel replied, deferring any further conversation about the Book of Soyga to the archangel Michael who “est Angelus, qui illuminat gressus tuos.”

When Dee flees to Europe in the last few years of the 16th century, he is forced to leave behind his immense library which is pillaged. Presumably Dee took the Book of Soyga with him (records indicate that there were a number of crates shipped along his route to Eastern Europe and back) which meant that the manuscript wasn’t necessarily one of the ones that was surreptitiously purloined. Though, between 1583 and 1595, Dee had misplaced his copy of the Book of Soyga. There are two copies of the manuscript in existance now: one in the Bodleian collection at the University of Oxford (Bodleian 308) and one in the Sloane collection at the British Museum (Sloane 8). Jim Reed, in his discussion of the Soyga manuscript, argues that Sloane 8 is Dee’s personal copy.

How the manuscript hid in plain view for nearly four hundred years is a simple matter of the title page which bore the inscription “Aldaraia sive Soyga vocor” (the manuscript was catalogued as being the Book of “Aldaraia” and, well, there are lots of books catalogued out there). While portion of the Book of Soyga deals with the fairly standard fare of the era (tables of names of angels and demons, astrological charts, conjurations and invocations), a good portion of its emphasis is on the permutations and combinations of letter values, including the heretofore undeciphered tables in the back. (It is Reed who cracks the code by which these tables are generated, though no one has been able to explain the use of these tables. Reed connects them with the spreading fascination in that era with Cabala — the Catholic version of Kabalah.) Eight of these tables show up in Dee’s Book of Enoch (Sloane 3189), a clear demonstration of the Book of Soyga’s influence on Dee’s Enochian system.

One of Reed’s arguments is that, due to the transcription errors which appear in Sloane 8 and Bodleian 308, the existent copies of the Book of Soyga are generation “C” removed from an original “A.” Reed’s formula for the tables — X = N + f(W) where f(W) is taken modulo 23 — demonstrates errors in the existing tables and his comparison reveals enough common errors to argue that both versions were copied from the same “B” iteration (with the divergent errors in Sloane 8 and Bodleian 308 arising from their transcription).

So, we’ve got an anonymous 16th century manuscript that appears without any antecedents and with no authorial attribution and which concerns itself with the essential combination and re-combination of language and which is based on an even more mysterious manuscript that is still unknown. Most of the commentary I’ve been able to find on the Book of Soyga concerns itself with the contents of the manuscript and not its history. Or its use.

Well, gee, I’ve got a few ideas.