The Legacy the Secret Wisdom of the Black Arts

Humankind has long dabbled in the supernatural, lured by the promise of obtaining ability and enlightenment. Several texts accept been devoted to this practice, outlining complicated and mysterious rituals presented as the key to achieving communion with otherworldly spirits.

10Greek Magical Papyri

The Greek magical papyri from the second century B.C. listed spells, rituals, and divinations. These included instructions for how to summon a headless demon, open doors to the underworld, and protect yourself from wild beasts. Perhaps almost tantalizing of all, they describe how to gain a supernatural assistant, an otherworldly entity who does your behest.

The most commonly plant spells in the Papyri are divination spells—ceremonies that offer you visions of the future. Ane of its nearly well-known passages provides instructions for how to forecast upcoming events using an "iron lampstead," "an offer of frankincense," and an "uncorrupted and pure" child. Afterward being placed into a deep trance, the kid sees images flickering in the flame.

Among the Papyri's most famous components is the Mithras Liturgy. This anniversary describes how to ascend through seven higher planes of existence and communicate with the deity Mithras.

nine The Black Pullet

Originating in France in the 18th century, The Black Pullet focuses on the report of magical talismans, special objects engraved with mystical words that protect and empower the wearer. It was reportedly written by an bearding officer in Napoleon's Army, who claimed to take received the contents from a mysterious mage while on trek in Egypt.

The Pullet includes detailed instructions for amalgam talismans out of bronzed steel, silk, and special ink. Amongst these invocations is a spell to call upon a djinn, a creature made of smoke and burn down to bring you true love. If your ambitions are slightly more cynical, so the Pullet also provides talismans that volition force "discreet men" to tell y'all their secrets, allow you to run across backside closed doors, and destroy anyone who is plotting against you.

The noon of the volume'south mystical teachings is acquiring the Black Pullet itself—a hen that can notice buried treasure.

8 Clavicula Salomonis

The Key of Solomon the King or Clavicula Salomonis is a grimoire of medieval origin. It is supposed to be the work of Male monarch Solomon but is of later origin and was probably written in either the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Many manuscripts have survived. In that location are stories of a book of magic spells ascribed to Solomon every bit early every bit the commencement century; the historian Flavius Josephus stated that Eleazar the Jew exorcised devils with Solomon's book. Stories of a ring of Solomon'southward are besides found in the Arabian Nights.

The Key is not an accurate Jewish work since information technology contains ancient concepts that may date from earlier Semitic or Babylonian times. It may accept come up to Europe through Gnostic channels and mixed with afterward kabbalistic notions. In its popular form, its chief employ appears to exist in finding treasure and performing magic rites to interfere with the costless volition of others. The Key tells you how to hinder a sportsman from killing any game, how to return oneself invisible, or how to know who has committed a theft. With incantations for conjuring, information technology gives lengthy instructions on bringing in and releasing various energies.

The power of the Divine Name is much in show, simply the piece of work appears to combine elements of both white and blackness magic. The Lemegeton (Lesser Cardinal of Solomon) is much more noteworthy. Its earliest examples date from the seventeenth century, and it invokes the hierarchies of the abyss by legions and millions. It is divided into four parts that enable the operator to control the offices of all spirits.

7 Picatrix

The Picatrix is an ancient grimoire of astrological magic. Originally written in Standard arabic and titled the Ghayat Al-Hakim, it dates back to the 11th century and spans a mammoth 400 pages of astrological theory. Alongside are spells and incantations to channel the occult energies of planets and stars to achieve ability and enlightenment.

The Picatrix is perhaps most notorious for the obscenity of its magic recipes. These gruesome and potentially deadly concoctions are designed to induce altered states of consciousness and out-of-trunk experiences. Non for the faint of the heart, their ingredients include blood, bodily excretions, and encephalon thing mixed with copious amounts of hashish, opium, and psychoactive plants. To construct a mirror that gives you ability over the dead, for example, you must use noxious fumes of "blood, sperm, spit, ear wax, tears from the optics, feces, and urine."

6 Galdrabok

An Icelandic grimoire that originated in the 16th century, the Galdrabok is a collection of 47 spells compiled by multiple magicians. Like well-nigh Icelandic magic of the period, the Galdrabok relies heavily on staves—runes that accept magical properties when carried on the body, carved on objects, or written out. Among the staves drawn in the Galdrabok are ones to concenter and back-scratch the favor of powerful men, incite fear in your enemies, and put someone to sleep.

The majority of the spells found in the Galdrabok are "apotropaic spells," benign remedies designed to protect the practitioner and heal diverse maladies. These include tiredness, difficulty with childbirth, headaches, and insomnia.

Other spells are pretty peculiar in nature. Spell 46, the hilariously titled "Fart Runes," is a stave that will strike your enemy with "bad gas . . . and all of these will plague thy belly with great farting . . . may thy farting never stop." Some are downright sinister. Spell 27, for case, when drawn on someone's food, volition make them sick and unable to swallow all solar day, while Stave thirty is designed to kill another person's beast. There are also staves to forestall your house from unwanted visitors, catch thieves, and "go satisfaction in a legal case."

5 Arbatel De Magia Veterum

Composed late in the 16th century by an unknown writer, the Arbatel de Magia Veterum is a comprehensive handbook of spiritual advice and aphorisms. The Arbatel reads much similar a mystical self-assist volume, stressing the importance of Christian godliness, productivity, positive thinking, and using magic to assistance instead of harm. Its kernels of wisdom include "live for yourself and the Muses; avoid the friendship of the multitude" and "flee the mundane; seek heavenly things."

The Arbatel reveals a series of rituals to invoke the seven heavenly governors and their legions, who dominion over the provinces of the universe. The governors include Bethel, who brings miraculous medicines, Phalec, who brings honor in state of war, and Aratron, who "maketh hairy men." Notwithstanding, the ability to perform these rituals is merely for a person who is "born to magic from his mother'south womb." All others, the Arbatel warns, are powerless imitators.

In improver to angels and archangels, the Arbatel mentions a coterie of other helpful elemental spirits that exist beyond the veil of the physical world, including pygmies, nymphs, dryads, sylphs (tiny forest people), and sagani (magical mortal spirits that inhabit the elements).

4 Ars Notoria

A Solomonic grimoire compiled in the 13th century, the Ars Notoria does not comprise whatever spells or potions. It focuses instead on the acquisition of learning, the command of retentivity, and gaining insight into hard books.

The Ars Notoria promises practitioners the mastery of liberal arts—geometry, arithmetics, and philosophy amongst them—through a lengthy daily process of visualization, contemplation, and orations. Through these orations, you can beseech God for intellectual gifts, including eloquence, heightened senses, wisdom, and perfect retention.

As a book concerned primarily with enlightenment, the Ars Notoria eschewed some of the more malevolent aspects of magic. However, not everyone was convinced of its benign nature. One notable 14th-century monk, John of Morigny, devoutly followed the teachings of the Ars Notoria and had haunting visions, until he claimed that the visions themselves were demonic in nature. He warned people of the diabolical nature of the Ars Notoria in his ain mystical manuscript, the Liber Visonum.

iii Pseudomonarchia Daedonum

The Pseudomonarchia Daedonum was written past the famed 16th-century physician and demonologist Johann Weyer, who was greatly inspired by his erstwhile teacher, celebrated German occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. It is the appendix to his seminal work against the persecution of witchcraft, the Praestigiis Daemonum, hailed past Sigmund Freud as 1 of the most important books of all time.

The Pseudomonarchia Daedonum is a catalog of 69 noble demons—prominent members of Hell's monarchy—their specialties and the methods of conjuring them. Naberius, for case, is a marquess who comes in the form of a crow and "maketh a man amiable and cunning in all arts." Foras is a president who "recovereth lost things and discovereth treasures." Other members of the demonic aristocracy include Haagenti, who can turn water into wine, Shax, who steals horses and robs people'south sight and hearing, and Eligos, who tin see the future of wars and the fates of soldiers.

Weyer, however, was a devout Christian who approached the prospect of conjuring these Hell-bound spirits with not bad circumspection. He omitted primal details of the rituals and warned those who read the Pseudomonarchia against imitating this "proof of folly."

2 Sworn Book of Honorius

Likewise known as the Liber Juratus Honorii, the Sworn Book of Honorius is a medieval grimoire and defense of ritual magic rumored to be the work of Honorius of Thebes, a mysterious, maybe mythological effigy who has never been identified. The book begins with scathing criticism of the Catholic church. The Church, a staunch enemy of the dark arts, has been corrupted by the devil, whose goal is to doom humanity by ridding the world of the benefits of magic.

The Sworn Book makes lofty demands of its practitioners. Only 3 copies of the volume can exist made, anyone in possession of the book who cannot find a worthy magician to inherit it must take it to their grave, and all adherents must "utterly forbear the visitor of women."

Like many other grimoires, its rituals focus largely on summoning angels, demons, and other spirits to proceeds knowledge and power. By repeating long-winded orations, the practitioner is promised a wealth of scintillating abilities. These powers range from the awesome (causing floods and destroying kingdoms) to the eerie (seeing into purgatory and knowing the hour of your death). Amongst its most malign spells are ones to "cast sickness into whom you will," "to cause discord and contend," and "to kill whom you will."

ane The Book of Abramelin the Mage

Written in the 15th century, the Book of Abramelin the Mage is one of the most prominent mystical texts of all time. Information technology is the piece of work of Abraham von Worms, a Jewish traveler who purportedly encountered the enigmatic magician Abramelin during a voyage to Arab republic of egypt. In exchange for 10 florins and the promise of piety, Abramelin gifted this manuscript of magic to Abraham, who so passed it on to his son Lamech.

Abramelin'southward ritual, referred to as "the operation," is an backbreaking 1. It consists of 18 months of prayer and purification, which is only recommended for men of sound wellness between the ages of 25 and 50. Women in general are discouraged from undertaking "the operation" because of their "curiosity and dear of talk," although an exception tin exist made for virgins. If the tenets of "the operation" are adhered to strictly and with unwavering devotion, you become in touch on with your Holy Guardian Angel, who will grant you a wealth of powers. These powers include necromancy and divination, precognition, control of the weather, knowledge of secrets, visions of the time to come, and the power to open locked doors.

The volume relies heavily on the ability of magic squares—unique words arranged into puzzles. Like the Icelandic staves in the Galdrabok, these squares contain mystic and occult properties when written out. For example, the word "MILON" reveals the secrets of past and time to come when written on parchment and placed over the head, while "SINAH" brings war. The author warns that some magic squares, like "CASED" are too sinister e'er to implement.

This text had a profound bear upon on famed occultist Aleister Crowley, who claimed to have experienced several supernatural occurrences after embarking on the ritual and the Hermetic Guild of the Gilt Dawn, a 19th-century British magical gild. Crowley later used the book as the foundation for his own system of magic.

1000. Fane has never summoned any spirits but has accidentally summoned the fire department during a failed candlelit seance to contact the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt. She lives in California.

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Source: https://listverse.com/2014/10/18/10-ancient-books-that-promise-supernatural-powers/

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