Meddling with the Goëtia again (12)

Given it's been a year and a half since the last update, I'm not sure anyone's still reading this, but going over my notes on the Goëtia again, it occurred to me to check something, which has tended to reinforce my suspicions that the redactor of the Lemegeton used the 1665 "third edition" of Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft.

A brief reminder: the 1665 "third edition" interpolated nine additional chapters of magical processes at the start of Book XV, two others of which contain passages (the prayer for robing in ch. v and the prayer to the Guardian Angel in ch. vii) that are very close (word-for-word identical in places) with ritual speeches in the Lemegeton.  The last of these is titled, "How to Conjure the Spirit Balkin the Master of Luridan" (Luridan being the subject of process which occupied ch. viii).  The spirit is conjured, amongst other things, by "the mighty Prince Coronzon," whose name is also to be written upon a girdle worn by the magician.

Anyway, at the end of the procedure, as is customary, Balkin is licensed to depart, thusly:

Because thou hast diligently answered my demands, and been ready to come at my first call, I do here licence thee to depart unto thy proper place, without injury or danger to man or Beast; depart, I say, and be ever ready at my call, being duly exorcized and conjured by sacred Rites of Magick; I charge thee to withdraw with quiet and peace; and peace be continued betwixt me and thee, in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  Amen.

Compare the Ars Goëtia (Sloane MS. 3825, fol. 116r):

O thou spirit N Because thou hast very dilligently answered my demands and was ready and willing to come at my first call I doe hear Licence thee to depart unto thy proper place without doeing any Injury or danger to any man or beast depart I say and be ever reddy to come at my call being duly exorcised and conjured by the sacred rites of magick, I charge thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly, and the peace of god be ever continued between me and thee, Amen.

Mathers rendered it thusly:

O Thou Spirit N., because thou hast diligently answered unto my demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do here licence thee to depart unto thy proper place; without causing harm or danger unto man or beast.  Depart, them I say, and be thou very ready to come at my call, being duly exorcised and conjured by the sacred rites of magic.  I charge thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly, and the peace of GOD be ever continued between thee and me!  AMEN!

For comparison purposes, the license to depart in the Heptameron (the source for much of the verbiage in the conjurations of the Ars Goëtia) runs:

In nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, ite in pace ad loca vestra: et pax fit inter nos et vos, parati sitis venire vocati.

which Turner translated thus: 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Ghost, go in peace unto your places & peace be between us and you, be ye ready to come when ye are called.

The English Key of Solomon version in Sloane 3645 (fol. 6r) simply instructs the magician, "thou wilt command every one to returne peaceably into his place and say, Peace bee betweene you and mee.  After this let the Conjurer say St. John's Ghospell and the 12 Articles of the Creedo, and goe out of the Circle."

The Key of Solomon version (late 16th-century) in Sloane 3847 (fol. 22v) has: "Let every one of you turne into his place peaceably, and peace be between us and you," followed by a similar instruction to to repeat "St. John's Gospell, In principio erat &c. credo in deum."

There are minor differences in phrasing between the Goëtia and Discovery texts, but much is word-for-word identical and we have seen a similar thing with the material adapted from Turner's translation of the Heptameron.  It does of course remain possible that the compiler of the Lemegeton derived all three of those passages from the same manuscript or MS. tradition used by the editor of the 1665 Discovery rather from the printed text, but the dependence on Scot in other respects (i.e., the catalogue of spirits), and the fact that other considerations make 1665 the earliest possible date for the redaction of the Lemegeton, tend to make use of the 1665 Discovery the simplest explanation.

Lack of progress report 2022.08.01

Latest version of Longobardus (Sloane MS. 3824) is now on Scribd.  This now includes all the text sections but still omits the second collection of talismanic figures as well as the page of circular designs with planetary characters in the middle of "Magical Elements."  It also now has a bibliography.  A bunch of notes on the various names of spirits cited therein (mainly regarding their occurrences in English magical works of the period & century or two preceding) is still under construction.  

Also, after uploading it I managed to track down a source for the first of the "Dr. R" interpolations into the Janua Magica Reserata: Excerpt "A" is taken, with minor paraphrasing and verbal alterations, from the 1633 third edition of The Philosophers Banquet (first pub. 1609 as The Philsophers Banquet: furnished with few dishes for health, but large discourse for pleasure &c. &c. &c., in turn represented as an English translation of the Mensa Philsophica of "Theobaldus Anguilbertus" (Michael Scot, fl. early 13th cent. c.e.)).  The third "book" of this work is a miscellany of material for "after-dinner conversation," wandering over various topics.  That particular passage wasn't in the 1614 second edition (I couldn't find a copy of the first edition online) and was probably added by the "translator," known only as "W. B., Esquire."

Lack of progress report 2022.07.27

Well, have Internet back since last week (kinda-sorta had it before then but the idea of updating this blog on a touch-screen phone isn't all that appealing) although my situation is still somewhat precarious & I'm now in a different city -- hopefully fairly short-term, so won't be changing the imprint just yet.  Been pretty slack the past month (& also tired most of the time owing to only drinking a fraction of the amount of coffee I used to).  

Anyway, after another extended period of slacking and minor tinkering with various documents, made another start at Longobardus (Sloane 3824), largely this meant giving it some semblance of a proper bibliography.  Maybe I'll read Religion and the Decline of Magic next & see if it contains any clues to the social / religious background that produced the "Invocation of Angels" texts.

Lack of progress report 2022.06.30

This will likely be the last update for a while as I have to be out of the place where I'm currently set up today, and do not currently have anywhere long, or even medium, term to relocate to: so rectifying that is going to be something of a priority.

Recently put out an update to On the Invocation of Angels; this is mostly relatively minor tweaks / fixes, though: added the invocation of "L.B.S." from Longobardus to the appendix to "Operations of the Angles of the Air" but the rest is just updated notes / bibliography.  The work still needs a general introduction even if that does end up snowballing into an MA thesis (I can dream...).

My head hurts.

So, I've been going over the Longobardus and Invocation of Angels texts, mainly in preparation for the next updated release of the latter, and decided to run a more detailed comparison of the Sloane 3821 text of "A Select Treatise" with the fragment in Sloane 3825.  So here's the thing:

* The opening of the conjuration of Agiel in 3825 (fol. 99r, v) is with one or two exceptions (e.g. it has "art" for "are" at one point) word for word (i.e., differing on spelling, capitalisation and punctuation) identical to that in 3821.

* The fragment in 3824 (fol. 37r), which was part of the above (handwriting is the same and the page numbering and text continues directly from where the 3825 copy breaks off) until Ashmole detached the sheet on which it was written from the rest of that book and appended it to his "Longobardus" notebook, deviates significantly from the 3821 text before trailing off.

3824: "[…] same to transmit your true & reall presence, Corporally, in your Appearances plainly & Visibly, to the Sight of our Eyes, & Voyces to our Ears, that We may also as plainly & Visible see you & Audibly here you, speake unto us: or otherwise to Appear out of the same Visibly here before us, as it shall please God & you his Servants, or Servants as Messagers of his paterniall grace, & mercy, Seemeth Most Meet, proper, pertinent, or best befitting this action, Appearance, Occasion or Matters &c."

3821: "[…] same to transmit youre true and reale preasance In splended Appearance plainely unto the sight of our Eyes uter your voyces unto our Eares that we may not only visible see you but audibly heare you speake unto us and that we may Convers with you or otherwise forthwith Appeare out of them visibly upon this Table or ffairely upon the flore and shew plainely & visibly unto us A Suffitient signe or teste of youre Coming and Appearance" [&c. &c. &c.]

This almost suggests that the introduction, description of Agiel and the opening of the conjuration was written by one writer: that either the original writer left it unfinished, or whoever was copying it after the 3825 Janua gave up a short way into the conjuration of Agiel, and that the work was subsequently completed by someone else based on that copy after Ashmole detached one sheet.

This is it, which the Angels won't give you a Google Maps link for

In addition to the scheme of the angels and divine names of the four Watchtowers, Dee's "Table of the Earth" contains another set of names, read not on horizontal or vertical straight lines (well, one of them is) but according to a set of angular sigils or Characteres Symmetrici.  These are tabulated in Dee's Liber Scientiæ, Auxillii et Victoriæ Terrestris (book of earthly knowledge, aid and victory), in Sloane MS. 3191 fol. 14r-31r, with the arrangement of characters on the table appearing on 55v-56r.

The seven-letter names thus read are variously characterised as being the names of "Ninety-one Princes and spiritual Governers, to whom the earth is delivered as a portion" (T&FR, p. 139) or "names of the parts of the earth, divinely imposed" (Partium Terræ Nomina, Divinitus imposita) as contrasted with "names of the parts of the earth, imposed by men" (Partium Terræ Nomina, ab Hominibus imposita) (column headings in Liber Scientiæ).  These 91 names are split up into 30 Bonorum Principum Aëreorum Ordines Sphærici with 3-letter names such as LIL, ARN, ZOM, &c.

In Dee's 48 Claves Angelicæ MS. (Sloane 3191, fol. 12ro), immediately prior to the "Key of the 30 Ayres" for invoking these orders, is a diagram showing the orders of "Aërial Princes" as concentric circles with TEX, the 30th, as the innermost and LIL, the first as the outermost, each divided into 3 (or four for TEX) corresponding to the parts of the earth comprehended therein.  This seems to have suggested to some later commentators that the Ayres are something like the Aeons or layers of Heaven of certain Gnostic traditions, which eventually was elaborated into a conception of the scheme (on which, for example Crowley's entire "The Vision and the Voice" working was founded) that managed to completely disregard everything else said about it in the Spirit Actions including the words of the Key and the title of the book in which the whole thing was tabulated.

For example, in the Action of 1584.05.21, Nalvage declared:

There are 30 calls yet to come. These 30 are the calls of Ni[nety-one] Princes and spiritual Governors unto whom the earth is delivered as a portion.  These bring in and again disp[ose] Kings and all the Governments upon the Earth, and vary the Nature of things …… with the variation of every moment.  Unto whom, the providence of the eternal judgment is already opened.  These are generally governed by the twelve Angels of the 12 Tribes: which are also governed by the 7 which stand before the presence of God.  Let him that can see, look up: and let him that can hear, attend, for this is wisdom. They are all spirits of the Air, not rejected, but dignified; and they dwell and have their habitation in the air, diversely and in sundry places, for their mansions are not alike, nor are their powers equal. Understand, therefore, that from the fire to the earth, there are 30 places or abidings: one above and beneath another, wherein these Creatures have their abode, for a time.

(T&FR p. 139-40; spelling modernised; as Turner (Elizabethan Magic, p. 83-4) points out, the entire scheme of Ayres belongs to the "Aërial" realm of the geocentric mediæval / Renaissance magical cosmology, and hence in the sublunary sphere of things subject to change.)

This is doubtless the source of Crowley and others referring to the 7-letter names as being those of "governors" of the Ayres; however, a passage in Latin immediately following appears to suggest that it is the Angels of the 12 tribes who are the governors of the 91 parts, some having many, some fewer, under their rule:

Per tota terra distributa sub 12 Principibus Angelis, 12 Tribuum Israel: quorum 12 aliqui plures, aliqui pauciores partes habent sub sua regimine ex 91 partibus in quas tota terra hic demonstratur esse divisa.  Apocalypsi Johannis Testimonium, de 12 Angelis 12 Tribuum, Cap. 21.

Quando dividebat Altissimus gentes, quando separabat filios Adam, constituit terminos populorum, juxta numerum filiorum Israel [Deut. xxxii: 8]: Hoc igitur hinc egergiè patere.

suggesting that the seven-letter names are the names of the Parts of the Earth themselves and not those of angels associated with but distinct from the Parts.  In the subsequent pages of T&FR where the seven-letters names are given, on two occasions they are explicitly said to be names of parts of the earth, or parts of the world on earth, each governed by one or another of the 12 angels of the 12 tribes.

In Ave’s “expounding” of the vision of the Watchtowers (T&FR p. 170) we are told of

… the Angels of all the Aires, which perfectly give obedience to the will of men, when they see them.  Hereby you may subvert whole countries without Armies […] By these you shall get the favour of all the Princes […] Hereby you shall know the secret Treasures of the waters, and unknown Caves of the Earth.

Compare the Call:

… ye are mighty in the parts of the Earth, and execute the Judgement of the Highest […] your God […] provided you for the government of the Earth and her unspeakable variety, furnishing your with a power understanding to dispose all things […] govern those that govern, cast down such as fall …

The implication being that the twelve Angelic Kings, or, if we continue to insist on them, the “Governors,” are set over the various parts of the surface of the Earth (“The earth, let her be governed by her parts…”).  The 7 before the presence of God are the angels on the outer heptagon of the seal of Æmeth.  The Aires themselves serve mainly as containers for the 91 parts.  Egil Asprem (Arguing with Angels, pp. 24-25) remarks of this:

The intention of this system seems to be that by ‘calling’ the right Aires […] the magician can gain the authority over the geographical entities and presumably the power to control great geopolitical events (thus indicated by the title of the book, “terrestrial victory”).  In other words, this was a form of magic most desirable for Dee, being the occasional counsellor to the Imperial Elizabethan throne.

As regarding the specific attributions to the world's surface -- Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia and other places taken from Ptolomey's Geography via Cornelius Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia (lib. I cap. xxxi), as well as place-names unknown prior to the Spirit Actions such as "Tolpam," "Onigap" and "Coxlant": prior to the delivery those names (T&FR pp. 153 sqq.), Nalvage attempted to point them out on “a great thing like a Globe, turning on two axell-trees.”  

Dee, finding this insufficiently precise, objected:

We beseech you to bound or determine the Countries or Portions of the Earth, by their uttermost Longitudes and Latitudes, or by some other certain manner.” 

Nalvage responded: 

Our manner is, not as it is of worldlings: We determine not places after the forms of legs, or as leaves are: neither we can imagine any thing after the fashion of an horn: as those that are Cosmographers do.  Notwithstanding the Angel of the Lord appeared unto Ptolomie, and opened unto him the parts of the Earth: but some he was commanded to secret: and those are Northward under your Pole.  But unto you, the very true names of the world in her Creation are delivered.

At the conclusion of this Action (p. 158), Dee queried regarding several lands known to him that were apparently not included in the 91 mentioned; some, he was told, were to be reckoned under “Sauromatia” (#46) and “Brytania” (#61), “and so it is of the rest.”  On being pressed about “Atlantis and the annexed places, under the King of Spain called the West Indies?” (referring, by context, to the North American continent and adjacent islands), Nalvage retorted “When these 30 appear, they can tell you what they own.  Prepare for tomorrow’s Action.”

No Action took place the next day.  Kelly and Dee quarrelled, Kelly pointing out that the names of the provinces and countries appeared in “one Volume of Cornelius Agrippa his works,” from which “he inferred, that our spiritual Instructors were Coseners to give us a description of the World, taken out of other Books: and therefore he would have no more to do with them.”  After some argument, Kelly refused to undertake another skrying session, and the next Action, on the 28th, treated of other subjects entirely; Nalvage drops out of the record for a while, reappearing in July for the completion of the Claves Angelicæ.

While one commentator (Robin E. Cousins, in the geographical appendix to Turner et al., Elizabethan Magic), suggested that “those 30” indicated the existence of another 30 Parts corresponding to areas unknown or vaguely known in Dee’s time, this would raise all kinds of problems with the system; considered rather in the context that the reeling off of the Ptolemaic names followed Dee’s rejection of the initial attempt to indicate the terrestrial locations, and Nalvage’s refusal to use human measurements, the instruction could rather have been to call up the 30 Ayres in turn to find out.

It might further be considered from the earlier statement of Nalvage already quoted, that the terrestrial governance of the 91 parts is subject to change over time, and so the list given, even if valid in 1584, is not necessarily still applicable today.

Lack of progress report 2022.06.25

Hardly anything done since last update: have been distracted by other things, and currently have some RL stuff that absolutely needs to be dealt with by next Thursday.

On a whim, ran a Google search on an obsolete word occurring in some of the magical texts in Sloane 3824; this turned up, besides copies of my own typesets and some pirated copies of Skinner & Rankine's books, a passage from Joscelyn Godwin's Theosophical Enlightenment (p. 93-4) in turn citing a 1987 Hermetic Journal article by Ron Heisler, mentioning as among items in the possession of Thomas Britton (1644-1714, a London charcoal merchant better known as a host / promoter of musical concerts) that were sold off in 1694, a collection of ritual paraphernalia and magical MSS. including a table of practice for "the Spirit Pamerfiel" (sic), and a "A brief Introduction explaining the Uses of the magical tables.  The practice of the East Table.  The regal invocation, together with the practice of the West, North, and South Tables..."  The former was almost certainly the "Table of Solomon" from the Ars Theurgia-Goëtia; the latter is either the MS. now known as Sloane 307 (Hans Sloane, per the Wikipedia page on Britton, acquired much of Britton's remaining collection when it was sold after his death) or another complete or partial copy of the Clavicula Tabularum Enochi.

[It is tempting to suggest that the other of the "two Magical Tables or Leaves about a yard square" was a copy of Dee's table of practice, but the description given makes this unlikely, even if we allow that the author of the sale catalogue could have mistaken the Angelic script for "Hebrew or Chaldee."]

Since this sale occurred after the death of Elias Ashmole, it's no help in establishing a date for the Clavicula Tabularum Enochi, of course.

Other items described in the sale catalogue including "a round solid Christal Glass, 3 inches and more diameter, and fixed on a solid Brass Stand" strongly indicate that Britton was actually practicing this stuff (whereas Sloane collected works on magic in order to study the subject as a department of psychopathology, or to debunk it).

Also turns out that a typeset, along with a German translation, of the Clavicula Tabularum Enochi (rather, the introductory section and the "Practice of the Tables" invocations) from Sloane 3821 was printed in 1993, in a book called Henoch Iadnah Mad, Das Wissen Der Götter by Ralf Löffler.  My knowledge of German is minimal, but this book also appears to be heavily founded on G.D. "Enochian magic" and includes several illustrations lifted from Liber Chanokh ("das Wissen der Götter" is simply a fairly literal German translation of iadnah Mad).

* * *

Also, finally finished re-doing the vector art of the Circle from the Mathers-Crowley Goëtia.  I Initially attempted to use Unicode Hebrew for the text, but trying to adjust text on a path which switches between right-to-left and left-to-right character order repeatedly was a complete nightmare, so kludged it by using the old NIHebrew face which maps the letters to ASCII.

* * *

I was wrong in my stated belief in a post earlier this year that "A Select Treatise as it was first discovered to the Egyptian Magi"  (Sloane MS. 3821 fol. 205-225), included in On the Invocation of Angels, had not previously been typeset: an edition by David Rankine was printed in 2018 as part of a Hadean Press chapbook series under the title Conjuring the Planetary Intelligences, supplemented by some materials from Agrippa and pseudo-Agrippa relating to the forms of planetary spirits, the magic squares of the planets, &c.  This edition appears (going on the preview of the Kindle ebook at Amazon) to omit the original title and a portion of the introduction.