The book of the sacred magic of Abra-Melin the mage
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| The book of the sacred magic of Abra-Melin |
as delivered by Abraham the Jew unto his son Lamech: a grimoire of the fifteenth century
Excerpt from the introduction:
This First Book contains advice concerning Magic, and a description of Abra- ham's Travels and experiences, as well as a mention of the many marvellous works he had been able to accomplish by means of this system of Sacred Magic.
The Second and Third Books {which really contain the Magic of Abra-Melin, and are practically based on the two MSS. entrusted by him to Abraham., the Jew^ but with additional comments by the latter) differ in style from the former y the phraseology is quaint and at times vague ^ and the second person plural, "Vous," is employed for the most part instead of ^^tu'\ The work may then be thus roughly classified: — First Book: = Advice and Autobiography; both ad- dressed by the Author to his son Lamech. Second Book: = General and complete description of the means of obtaining the Magical Powers desired.
Third Book: — The application of these Powers to produce an immense number of Magical results. Though the chapters of the Second and Third Books have special headings in the actual text., those of the First Book has none; wherefore in the " Table of Contents,'' I have supplemented this defect by a careful analysis of their subject matter. This system of Sacred Magic Abraha acknowledges to have received from the Mage Abra-Melin, and claims to have himself personally and actually wrought most of the wonderful effects described in the Third Book., and many others besides. Who then was this Abraham the few?
It is possible, though there is no mention of this in the MS., that he was a descendant of that Abraham the few who wrote the celebrated Alchemical work on twenty-one pages of bark or papyrus, which came into the hands of Nicholas Flamel, and by whose study the latter is said eventually to have attained the possession of the '" Stone of the Wise"
The only remains of the Church of Saint Jacques de la Boucherie which exists at the present day, is the tower, which stands near the Place du Chatelet, about ten minutes' walk from the Bibliotheque de r Arsenal; and there is yet a street near this tower which bears the title of *' Rue Nicolas Flame I,'' so that his memory still survives in Paris together with that of the Church close to which he lived, and to which, after the attainment of the Philosopher s Stone, he and his wife Pernelle caused a handsome peristyle to be erected. From his own account.
The author of the present work appears to have been born in A.D. 1362 and to have written this manuscript for his son, Lamech, in 1458, being then in his ninety-sixth year. T
hat is to say^ that he was the contemporary both of Nicholas Flamel and Pernelle, and also of the mystical Christian Rosenkreutz, the founder of the celebrated Rosicrucian Order or Fraternity in Europe. Like the latter, he appears to have been very early seized with the desire of obtaining Magical Knowledge; like him and Flamel, he left his home and travelled in search of the Initiated Wisdom; like them both, he returned to become a worker of wonders. At this period, it was almost universally believed that the Secret Knowledge was only really obtainable by those who were willing to quit their home and their country to undergo dangers and hardships in its quest; and this idea even obtains to an extent in the present day.
The life of the late Madame Blavatsky is an example in point. This period in which Abraham the few lived was one in which Magic was almost universally believed in, and in which its Professors were held in honour; Faust (who was probably also a contemporary of our author^ Cornelius Agrippa, Sir Michael Scott, and many others I could name, are examples of this, not to mention the celebrated Dr Dee in a later age. The history of this latter Sage, his association with Sir Edward Kelly, and the part he took in the European politics of his time are too well known to need description here.
That Abraham the few was not one whit behind any of these Magicians in political influence, is evident to anyone who peruses this work. He stands a dim and shadowy figure behind the tremendous complication of central European upheaval at that terrible and instructive epoch; as Adepts of his type always appear and always have appeared upon the theatre of history in great crises of nations.
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