Angels and Demons - Enochian Magic

[Plotinus]

I found out a little about Enochian magic recently and I thought I'd share it on the forum. It's some freaky stuff!

The books of Enoch

Enochian magic is (in theory) based upon the books of Enoch. These are several Jewish works, mostly from intertestamental times (that is, they were written between the Old and the New Testaments). They revolve around - guess who? - Enoch, an extremely minor character from the Old Testament:

When Enoch had lived for sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah for three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.

Jewish sages in intertestamental times believed that this meant that Enoch had been a righteous man who was so good that God did not allow him to die: instead, God "translated" him to heaven, that is, literally whooshed him up bodily. But the very brevity of the Genesis account allowed room for a lot of speculation about him, and this is the origin of the three Books of Enoch, which describe his visions of heaven when he got there.

The books of Enoch were also written during a time when Judaistic monotheism was fragmenting in various ways. Originally, of course, the Jews had regarded their god as one among many, before developing a true monotheism; in the intertestamental period, however, people evidently got rather bored with this. One way to make things more interesting was to "hypostasise" divine qualities, that is, speak of parts of God as if they were distinct figures. You can see one strand of this in the Old Testament itself, in the Wisdom literature, where the divine Wisdom speaks and acts almost as a separate character from God himself. See, for example, Proverbs 8-9, which were taken by the early church to be descriptions of Christ (identified with the divine Wisdom). Other sources speak of the Shekinah, God's "glory", as a character in this way; the Talmud contains many references.

The second way in which you can temper monotheism is by introducing lots of angels. They're not gods, of course, just God's servants. And the Jews went in for this in a big way in intertestamental times. Of course, the Old Testament contains various references to angelic figures, but it was in the last couple of centuries BC that they really started multiplying. Once again, the Talmud is full of references to them. Probably the greatest of the angels was Metatron himself, the Prince of the Countenance, and the voice of God (like a presidential spokesperson, as Terry Pratchett put it). According to the Talmud, one Elisha ben Abuya saw Metatron sitting in heaven - rather than standing, as everyone else did - and commented, "There are indeed two powers in heaven!" The Talmud explains that Elisha had misunderstood the situation - for Metatron is indeed lower than God in power, and he sits in order to transcribe the doings of Israel, not to receive worship - but you can understand his error.

Now here's the link to Enoch. The books of Enoch describe his visions in heaven, focusing on the angels and the hypostasised attributes of God (by this stage pretty much indistinguishable). It is these books which give the traditional "ranks" of the angels, although they don't go into details:

And he summoned all the hosts of heaven, and all the Holy Ones above - the Seraphim, the Kerubim, the Ophanim, all the Spirits of Power, the Blessed Ones, and all the Spirits of Principalities, the Angels, and the Powers on earth and over the water: with one voice shall they bless and glorify and exalt the Lord, in the virtue of faith, and in the virtue of wisdom, in the virtue of patience, and in the virtue of mercy, in the virtue of justice, and in the virtue of peace, in the virtue of goodness, and shall sing with one voice: "Blessed is he: may the holy Name of the Lord of Hosts be blessed for ever."

What's more, 3 Enoch actually identifies Enoch himself with Metatron! Not content with "translating" Enoch to heaven, God actually transformed him into the greatest of all angels. The transformation was pretty radical: Enoch became as tall as the earth is wide, with thirty-six wings and 365 eyes. His entire body was transmuted into heavenly fire, he was encircled by whirlwinds, and a crown was placed upon his head - and the angels were instructed that from now on he would be Metatron, second only to Yahweh himself.

 

[Plotinus]

Now here's a digression which doesn't really have much to do with angels and magic, so skip it if you want.

Enoch and early Christianity

If you’re interested in religious history and in the origins of Christianity, this is terribly intriguing stuff. Enoch himself reappears in the New Testament:

By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and “he was not found, because God had taken him”. For it was attested before he was taken away that “he had pleased God”. And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Not so significant, perhaps – especially since most Christians did not accept the book of Hebrews as canonical until the end of the fourth century AD. The book of Jude, which is even more marginal (how many sermons have you ever heard on this part of the New Testament?) actually cites one of the books of Enoch, raising problems for Christian fundamentalists (if you believe the New Testament to be true, do you also have to believe the books of Enoch to be true, even all that stuff about Metatron?). Notably, 2 Peter, which is based in part upon Jude, cuts out the bit about Enoch. But more important is the similarity of the story of Enoch to that of Jesus himself. Here we have a story of an ordinary human being who ascends to heaven and is transformed into a quasi-divine being. And what’s more, it was written not long before Christianity itself came on the scene. Compare, for example:

[God’s] son… was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord…

You see, the notion that Jesus was both human and divine at the same time seems to have developed later in the first century (and wasn’t really established until the fifth century). The most primitive belief of the early Christians seems to have been that Jesus was an ordinary person during his lifetime, but at his resurrection, God made him something more. This is sometimes called a “two-stage Christology” as opposed to the “two natures Christology” which was established at Chalcedon in AD 451. Of course, the two ideas could coexist at the same time (early Christianity was far from uniform) and even in the mind of the same person. In the passage from Romans quoted above, Paul apparently cites an early Christian declaration of faith. In Philippians 2:5-11, he seems to quote an early Christian hymn, which seems to be far more in line with the “two natures” view. Well, that’s Paul for you.

Again, consider this speech, which Luke attributes to Peter on the Day of Pentecost:

Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne… This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear… Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.

You can see again the idea that Jesus only became “Lord” and “Messiah” at his resurrection; moreover, Jesus did not rise due to some internal miraculous power of his own, but he was raised by God – he was “exalted”. The idea seems very similar to that of Enoch becoming Metatron. So did the Christians just nick the idea? I doubt it – it seems more reasonable to suppose that 3 Enoch demonstrates that this basic notion, of God exalting a human being to a quasi-divine status, was quite possible within Judaism during this time. 3 Enoch and these New Testament passages are just different examples of that idea being put to use.

All that is just a digression, really. Back to the angels.

 

[Plotinus]

After Enoch

Both Judaism and Christianity inherited all this stuff. In Judaism, it was important to the Kabbalah, which revolves around the idea of progressing through various spiritual states until you become aware of God. The Kabbalistic mystics were influenced by Neoplatonism, the religious philosophy founded in the third century AD by Plotinus, which spoke of different levels of reality between heaven and earth. Gnosticism was also part of this heady brew: the systems of Basilides and Valentinius in the second century AD also revolved around many “aeons” or quasi-divine beings mediating between the High God and humanity. But we don’t have time to go into all this now.

More important from our point of view was Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, that mysterious philosopher who lived around AD 500 and wrote in the name of an obscure follower of Paul (Acts 17:34), traditionally thought to be the first bishop of Athens. Of course, there’s no way that Pseudo-Dionysius’ books were written in the first century, since they are dripping with late Neoplatonic ideas and language, but people apparently believed the deception for many centuries. (Note: pseudepigraphy was quite common in late antiquity, but people seem nevertheless to have been surprisingly gullible about it. In fact, some people are pretty gullible about it even in modern times: the nineteenth-century scholar Samuel MacGregor Mathers really believed that the Renaissance-era Key of Solomon the King was really written by King Solomon. And many Christians, even today, refuse to consider that many of the books of the New Testament were not really written by the people whose names are attached to them, even though modern scholarship has shown such a view to be nigh-untenable. But still.)

In his book “The Celestial Hierarchies”, Pseudo-Dionysius systematised the names that he found in the books of Enoch. Like all good Neoplatonists, he believed that reality was structured hierarchically, with a series of different levels between God and the world. But he took it much further than his pagan predecessors – indeed, he actually invented the word “hierarchy” (or “hierarchia&#8221, meaning “holy rule”. He explained what he meant by it:

Hierarchy is, in my opinion, a holy order and knowledge and activity which, so far as is attainable, participates in the Divine Likeness, and is lifted up to the illuminations given it by God, and correspondingly towards the imitation of God… The aim of Hierarchy is the greatest possible assimilation to and union with God, and by taking him as leader in all holy wisdom, to become like him, so far as is permitted, by contemplating intently his most divine beauty. Also it moulds and perfects its participants in the holy image of God like bright and spotless mirrors which receive the ray of the Supreme Deity which is the source of light; and being mystically filled with the gift of light, it pours it forth again abundantly, according to the Divine Law, upon those below itself.

He inherited from the pagan Neoplatonist Proclus an obsession with the number three. Thus, Pseudo-Dionysius believed that there were three great hierarchies. The first is God himself, the Trinity, or “Thearchy” as Pseudo-Dionysius dubbed him. The second is the celestial hierarchies, that is, the angels. And the third is the ecclesiastical hierarchies, the church. Moreover, the latter two hierarchies each contain nine members, divided into three groups of three.

So you get:

First hierarchy:

The Father
The Son
The Holy Spirit

Second hierarchy:

Thrones
Cherubim
Seraphim

Powers
Virtues
Dominions

Principalities
Archangels
Angels

Third hierarchy:

Baptism
Eucharist
Confirmation

Bishops
Priests
Deacons

Monks
Laymen
Catechumens

There are several interesting things about these hierarchies, quite apart from all the triads. One is that each hierarchy receives its reality and goodness from the one above it. Thus, the power of the Trinity emanates out to the angels, and they transmit it to the church. This holds within each hierarchy, too. So the Son receives his power from the Father and transmits it to the Spirit. The second three of the angels receive their power from the first free, and transmit it to the third three. As the passage quoted above suggests, the idea is not to work your way up the hierarchies (starting as a catechumen and getting promoted all the way to a Throne?), but to stay where you are within them. The whole hierarchical structure is sacramental, in the sense that it reflects and transmits God’s power and goodness, but it does so in a context of order and structure.

Anyway, Pseudo-Dionysius’ hierarchies were a big hit (as was his apophatic mysticism, but that’s another story) and they proved very influential in both west and east. In particular, Isidore of Seville, who lived a century later, produced a similar hierarchical account of the angels. Although an encyclopaedic thinker (and today regarded as the unofficial patron saint of the Internet), Isidore was far inferior to Pseudo-Dionysius as a philosopher and theologian, and he was no mystic. You don’t get any of that fun Neoplatonic mysticism in Isidore! Still, it was his version of the hierarchies which was generally accepted in the west for the rest of the Middle Ages.

 

[Plotinus]

The Renaissance

And so angelology remained until the Renaissance, at which point the general rationalism and common sense of medieval philosophy and theology dissolved into an outbreak of weird mysticism and obsession with magic, witchcraft, and God knows what else. Grown men started babbling in the tongues of angels and doing strange things with retorts in the hope of refining the tincture of the philosophers and achieving everlasting life. Pre-eminent among this peculiar horde was the infamous Dr John Dee, personal sorcerer to Queen Elizabeth I.

Dee was pretty peculiar even by sixteenth-century standards. He was obsessed with everything – science, astronomy, astrology, metaphysics, and ancient mystico-babble. He delved into the Hermetic tradition, the great corpus of works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary Egyptian magician regarded by most Renaissance magicians as the real, original magician who had influenced Moses, Plato, and everyone else. Of course it was all pseudepigraphy writ large, but that didn’t put anyone off. Here’s a typically incomprehensible passage from part of the Hermetic corpus, supposedly the words of the Trismegistus himself:

Take of the humidity, or moisture, an ounce and a half, and or the Southern redness, which is the soul of gold, a fourth part, that is to say, half an ounce of the citrine Seyre, in like manner, half an ounce of the Auripigment, half an ounce, which are eight; that is three ounces. And know ye that the vine of the wise is drawn forth in three, but the wine thereof is not perfected, until at length thirty be accomplished. Understand the operation, therefore. Decoction lessens the matter, but the tincture augments it; because Luna in fifteen days is diminished; and in the third she is augmented. This is the beginning and the end. Behold, I have declared that which was hidden, since the work is both with thee and about thee - that which was within is taken out and fixed, and thou canst have it either in earth or sea. Keep, therefore, thy Argent vive, which is prepared in the innermost chamber in which it is coagulated; for that is the Mercury which is separated from the residual earth. He, therefore, who now hears my words, let him search into them; which are to justify no evil-doer, but to benefit the good; therefore, I have discovered all things that were before hidden concerning this knowledge, and disclosed the greatest of all secrets, even the Intellectual Science. Know ye, therefore, Children of Wisdom, who enquire concerning the report thereof, that the vulture standing upon the mountain crieth out with a loud voice, I am the White of the Black, and the Red of the White, and the Citrine of the Red, and behold I speak the very truth.

Very truth it may be, but you won’t find a recipe like that in Jamie Oliver. The Renaissance sages loved this sort of thing and vied with each other to replicate it. Mystery was a virtue, and the fewer people who could understand your writings, the cleverer you must be. Consider, for example, the following typically modest passage from one of the most flamboyant of these characters:

I, Philippus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast, say that, by Divine grace, many ways have been sought to the Tincture of the Philosophers, which finally all came to the same scope and end. Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptian, approached this task in his own method. Orus, the Greek, observed the same process. Hali, the Arabian, remained firm in his order. But Albertus Magnus, the German, followed also a lengthy process. Each one of these advanced in proportion to his own method; nevertheless, they all arrive at one and the same end, at a long life, so much desired by the philosophers, and also at an honourable sustenance and means of preserving that life in this Valley of Misery. Now at this time, I, Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast, Monarch of the Arcana, am endowed by God with special gifts for this end, that every searcher after this supreme philosophic work may be forced to imitate and to follow me, be he Italian, Pole, Gaul, German, or whatsoever or whosoever he be. Come hither after me, all you philosophers, astronomers, and spagyrists, of however lofty a name ye may be, I will show and open to you, Alchemists and Doctors, who are exalted by me with the most consummate labours, this corporeal regeneration. I will teach you the tincture, the arcanum, the quintessence, wherein lie hid the foundations of all mysteries and of all works… First of all, then, there must be learnt - digestions, distillations, sublimations, reverberations, extractions, solutions, coagulations, fermentations, fixations, and every instrument which is requisite for this work must be mastered by experience, such as glass vessels, cucurbites, circulators, vessels of Hermes, earthen vessels, baths, blast-furnaces, reverberatories, and instruments of like kind, also marble, coals, and tongs. Thus at length you will be able to profit in Alchemy and in Medicine. But so long as, relying on fancy and opinion, you cleave to your fictitious books, you are fitted and predestinated for no one of these things.

The Philosopher’s Stone was not just lying around for the grabbing, it seems.

Now, John Dee was into all this kind of thing, but he was particularly interested in angels and what we would call mediumship today. His interest was not solely spiritual: despite having the ear of first Queen Mary and then Elizabeth I, he was extremely poor, and hoped that the denizens of the spirit world might guide him to buried treasure. Unfortunately, he had the bad luck to encounter Edward Kelly, a sometime thief and con-man (who had, some time earlier, had his ears cut off for thievery). Kelly convinced Dee that he was a gifted medium, in touch with the spirit world; and many sessions followed in which Dee tried to use Kelly to contact spirits and angels, partly to divine the most esoteric secrets at which Hermes Trismegistus had merely hinted, and partly to try to make some money. No treasure resulted, but Enochian magic did.

 

[Plotinus]

The Enochian system

The Enochian system of John Dee revolved around angels. He believed that by getting in touch with the angelic hierarchies hinted at in the books of Enoch and expounded by Pseudo-Dionysius, immense knowledge could be acquired.

I have often read in Thy books and records, how Enoch enjoyed Thy favour and conversation; with Moses Thou was familiar; and also to Abraham, Isaack and Jacob, Joshua, Gideon, Esdras, Daniel, Tobias, and sundry others the good angels were sent by Thy disposition, to instruct them, informe them, helpe them, yea in worldly and domestick affaires, yea and sometimes to satisfie their desires, doubts, and questions of Thy Secrete; and furthermore considering the shewstone, which the High Priest did use, by Thine own ordering… that this wisdome could not be come by at man’s hand or by humaine power, but only from Thee (O God).

Luckily his piety was better developed than his grammar, and the “experiments” with Kelly soon resulted in “contact” with the angels Annael, Uriel, and Raphael. These helpful celestial beings too time out from their busy heavenly duties to dictate to Kelly and Dee letters, words, and eventually entire texts in a previously unheard of “angelic language”, the tongue of heaven itself. Apparently, some 10,000 pages of this stuff is currently languishing in the British Museum, mostly unpublished and even untranslated. Anyone looking for an idea for a doctoral thesis? Of course, the “discovery” of this angelic language was a real coup from a Renaissance point of view. The magicians were convinced that words have intrinsic power, and that certain languages are more powerful than others. Thus Latin is pretty good for spells, but Greek is better, and Hebrew – the language of God – is the best of all. Modern conjurors’ words (“Abracadabra”, “Hocus Pocus”, etc) come from garbled repetitions of words in these languages. So by uncovering an even more divine language than Hebrew, Dee was really doing well.

This is how it all works, at least according to Dee. There are 21 letters in the “Enochian alphabet”, but I unfortunately can’t show them to you because my computer inexplicably doesn’t have an Enochian font installed. Dee used this language to devise a number of sigils, such as the Sigillum Dei Aemeth, which were meant to contain vast esoteric knowledge cunningly encoded in ways that only the true adept could unlock. Of course, if you were a true adept, you’d probably know the knowledge already and not need to decode the sigil, but that’s a bit of a problem with the whole Renaissance magic thing in the first place, so let’s not go there.

These sigils provide the names of the various powers – arranged in strict hierarchies – that govern the world. Most fundamental are the four watchtowers, each of which is associated with one of the classical elements. Each watchtower is also associated with one of the “Great Secret Holy Names of God”, which are as follows:

Air - Oro-Ibah-Aozpi (He who cries aloud in the place of desolation)
Water - Mph-Arsl-Gaiol (He who is the first true creator, the horned one)
Earth - Mor-Dial-Hktga (He who burns up iniquity without equal)
Fire - Oip-Teaa-Pdoke (He whose name is unchanged from what it was)

As if that weren’t enough, there are also Four Great Kings. Each one is an angelic being who governs a watchtower:

Air - Bataivah (He whose voice seems to have wings)
Water - Raagiosl (He whose hands are turned towards the East)
Earth - Ikzhikal (He who solidifies the past)
Fire - Edlprnaa (He who is first to receive the flames)

Oh, and each watchtower also has six planetary seniors, but I’m not typing all those out. I think my spell checker would explode. And after the planetary seniors there are kerubic archangels, kerubic angels, presiding angels, lesser angels, and angels of the calvary cross. The names of all these beings are determined by reading the text of the sigils in different directions. Basically, the sigils function just like wordsearches; by reading different letters in different directions you can generate an almost infinite variety of peculiar names, and that seems to be exactly what Dee and Kelly did. Oh, that’s before we get to the thirty aethyrs and the ninety-one subaethyrs. The aethyrs, incidentally, each have enormous numbers of “ministers”. For example, Zirach, the angelic governor of Tuscia in the watchtower of water, has 2,362 ministers, known as “The Angers of the Olive Mount, Captains of Ruin”. Pothnir, angelic governor of India in the same watchtower, enjoys the services of 6,300 ministers, the “Lissome Ones of the Habitations of Twilight”. And so it goes on.

The idea seems to be that by studying the sigils you learn all these names and details, and then, armed with this knowledge, you can call upon the powers of these celestial beings, and, presumably, get them to tell you where to find buried treasure. It obviously didn’t work for Dee himself, since he died in poverty. Perhaps forum members would like to give it a go, and let us know if anything turns up…

I ought to point out, by the way, that there are indeed people today who still practise Enochian magic, or at least who try to. These people are regarded as pretty damn peculiar by everyone else in the neo-pagan movement, and that’s saying something!

You can read more weird Renaissance texts for yourself here. And I got most of the information on Dee from The Magician's Companion: a practical and encyclopedic guide to magical and religious symbolism, by Bill Whitcomb (St Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn, 2004).

 

[jonatas]

The Kabbalistic mystics were influenced by Neoplatonism, the religious philosophy founded in the third century AD by Plotinus, which spoke of different levels of reality between heaven and earth. Gnosticism was also part of this heady brew: the systems of Basilides and Valentinius in the second century AD also revolved around many “aeons” or quasi-divine beings mediating between the High God and humanity. But we don’t have time to go into all this now.

Plotinus is interesting as being a kind of pagan theologian. I don't think he particularly liked the Gnostics (I thought he wrote a treatise against them, didn't he?) or the Christians for that matter, though I think his teacher Ammonius Saccas was a Christian, but often we become like those we struggle against. He certainly influenced Christian thinkers. You're right he was part of this mix, but I think Plotinus at least had some real staying power ie. influencing serious philosophy. Timeless in that sense

The magicians were convinced that words have intrinsic power, and that certain languages are more powerful than others. Thus Latin is pretty good for spells, but Greek is better, and Hebrew – the language of God – is the best of all. Modern conjurors’ words (“Abracadabra”, “Hocus Pocus”, etc) come from garbled repetitions of words in these languages.

You're quite right. Another language not found on your list but which is a great example of a "magical language" is Arabic. A great number of Arabic texts were translated in the Iberian city of Toledo in the 12th C IIRC. Many of these were alchemical/scientific/medical in nature and were are a large part of the great intellectual transfer which took place in this era. At the same time, Toledo acquired a great reputation as a city for Sorcery. Arabic was viewed as the language of the devil, but also as a great language of magical power which held the secrets of nature. This trend was already present in the later middle ages in Iberia, as the Christians began to become dominant in Iberia again and transfer Islamic knowledge to their society.

Many of the Translators were Iberian Jews, who were in great position to act as intermediaries due to their knowledge of Latin, Hebrew and Arabic (Jews had often held important posts in Islamic society in Iberia, remember). All in all a fascinating topic Plotinus.

 

[jonatas]

Jewish sages in intertestamental times believed that this meant that Enoch had been a righteous man who was so good that God did not allow him to die: instead, God "translated" him to heaven, that is, literally whooshed him up bodily.

Yeah, I mentioned this before in another thread I think, but Jewish exorcism of this time is filled with elaborate spells involving all sorts of ritual magic. I have a book with some of these exorcisms written down, I might post one for the thread here in a bit

 

[jonatas]

Here is a magical Papyrus dealing with exorcism. I'll add the introduction which comes from it as well:

C. 300 A.D.
Outside the official cults maintained by the state, religion in Egypt reflected the mixed population of the country, in which native Egyptians, Greek settlers, merchants and administrators, and Roman soldiers and officials were joined by various orientals, including numerous Jews. Those in particular who practised magic were willing to adopt from any source names and formulas which sounded impressive and effective. Of the resulting amalgam the following passage is an excellent example. Its Jewish affiliations are unmistakable; but it was certainly not written by an orthodox Jew, and probably not by a Jew of any kind. Yet there were Jewish exorcists (cf. e.g. Matt.12.27=Luke11.19; Acts 19.13), and it may be that some of them used methods akin to those described in this papyrus. The reality of the demon world, constantly assumed in the New Testament, is clearly presupposed.


"For those possessed by daemons, an approved charm by Pibechis. Take oil made from unripe olives, together with the plant mastigia and lotus pith, and boil it with margoram (very colourless), saying: "Joel, Ossarthiomi, Emori, Theochipsoith, Sithemeoch, Sothe, Joe, Mimipsothiooph, Phersothi, Aeeioyo, Jo, Eocharipththah: come out of such an one (and the other usual formulae).

But write this phylactery upon a little sheet up ton: Jaeo, Abraothioch, Phtha, Mesentiniao, Pheoch, Jaeo, Charsoc, and hang it round the sufferer: it is of every demon a thing to be trembled at, which he fears. Standing opposite, adjure him. The adjuration is this: I adjure thee by the god of the Hebrews Jesu, Jaba, Jae, Abraoth, Aia, Thoth, Ele, Elo, Aeo, Eu, Jiibeach, Abarmas, Jabarau, Abelbel, Lona, Abra, Moroia, arm, thou that appearest in fire, thou that art in the midst of earth and snow and vapour, Tannetis: let thy angel descend, the implacable one, and let him draw into captivity the daemon as he flieth around this creature which God formed in his holy paradise.

For I pray to the holy god, through the might of Ammon-ipsentancho. I adjure thee with bold, rash words: Jacuth, Ablanathanalba, Acramm. Aoth, Jathabathra, Cachthabratha, Chamynchel, Abrooth. Thou art Abrasiloth, Allelu, Jelosai, Jael: I adjure thee by him who appeared unto Osreal in the pillar of light and in the cloud by day, and who delivered his word from the taskwork of Pharoah and brought upon Pharoah the ten plagues because he heard not. I adjure thee, every daemonic spirit, say whatsoever thou art. For I adjure thee by the seal which Solomon laid upon the tongue of Jeremiah and he spake. And say thou whatsoever thou art, in heaven, or of the air, or on the earth, or under the earth or below the ground, or an Ebusaean or a Chersaean, or a Pharisee.

Say whatsoever thou art, for I adjure thee by God the light bringer, invincible, who knoweth what is in the heart of all life, who of the dust hath formed the race of men, who hath brought out of uncertain places and maketh thick the cluds and causeth it to rain upon the earth and blesseth the fruits thereof; who is blessed by every power in heaven of angels, of archangels. I adjure thee by the great God Sabaoth, through whom the river Jordan returned backward, the Red Sea slso, which Israel journeyed over and it stood impassable.

For I adjre thee by him who revealed the hundred and forty tongues and divded them by his command. I adjure thee by him who with his lightnings the race of stiff necked giants sonsumed, to whom the heaven of heavens sings praises, to whom Cherubin his wings sings praises. I adure thee by him who hath set mountains abou the sea, a wall of sand, and hath charged it not to pass over, and the deep hearkened. And do thou hearken, every deamonic spirt, for a I adure thee by that moveth the fourth winds since the holy aeons, him the heaven-like, sea-like, cloud-like, the light bringer, invincible.

I adjure thee by him that is in Jerosolymum the pure, to whom the unquenchable fire through every aeon is offered, through his holy name Jaeobaphrenemum, bfore whom trembleth the Genna of fire and flames flame round about and iron bursteth and every mountain feareth from its foundations. I adjure thee, every daemonic spirt, by him that looketh down on earth and maketh tremble the foundations thereof and hath made all things out of things which are not into Being. But I adjure thee, thou that usest this adjuration: the flesh of swine eat not, and there shall be subject unto thee every spirit and daemon, whatsoever he be. But when thou adjurest, blow, sending the breath from above to the feet and from the feet to the face, and he the daemon will be drawin into captivity. Be pure and keep it. For the sentence is hebrew and kept by men that are pure.

The New Testament Background. C.K. Barrett, Editor, pps 34-36.

There are notes as well. If you have any particular questions I may be able to dig out more info on it.

 

[Plotinus]

Very interesting stuff, jonatas, thanks! I think any text that contains the words "I adjure thee" has to be good. It's interesting to see how the same sort of things crop up again and again in magical texts of this nature - just think of the Lacnunga, for example, as something similar from a completely different milieu.

Yes, Plotinus was indeed a sort of pagan theologian as well as a philosopher (although he was less a theologian than those he influenced, such as Proclus and Iamblichus). You're right that he didn't much like the Christians and especially didn't like the Gnostics. However, Ammonius Sacchas wasn't a Christian - in fact very little is known about him - I think you're thinking of the (probable) fact that Ammonius Sacchas also seems to have been the teacher of Origen Adamantius. If it's true that Ammonius taught both Plotinus and Origen, the two greatest minds of the third century (east or west, in my opinion), then he must have been something pretty special himself.

 

[Verbose]

Interesting stuff!

Is this part of your studies Plotinus, or a new interest in intellectual history?

Personally I've always found it fascinating how in Renaissance Florence Cosimo di Medici upon the discovery of the Hermetic Writings, ordered Marsilio Ficino to immediately halt all work on rendering Plato into Latin to get a translation of the Hermetic texts out ASAP, as they were considered much more important.

You've read Frances Yate's classic on Giordano Bruno btw?

 

[Plotinus]

Not really part of my studies, Verbose, although I'm going to be researching Leibniz and he was very influenced by the Kabbalah. It's actually what my girlfriend has been studying recently (which is why there are sixteenth-century spellbooks lying around the living room!).

Not read the Yate book. I'm really very much a beginner when it comes to the Renaissance. I just like all those mysterious spells...

 

[Kyriakos]

Very interesting post Plotinus

In this country there had been a sort of popular neo-paganism in the mid 90s, based on one part on a atavistic relation with ancient Greece, and on the other on a general background of a still not entirely diminished orthodox church.
Personally i havent read many metaphysical thinkers. I am more interested on the general aspects of any metaphysical system, and its formation in one's consciousness, ie where it is based upon, on what thought undercurrents. However of the occult i have read some theosphists, like Blavatchky, who interested me also because she was a novelist on the side
As literature in my own view her stories arent well written, but she mentions the idea/method of "automatic writing", which is a way of writing where the writer is not fully conscious of what he is writing, or isnt fully accepting that he is the one writing it. Automatic writing (there is also the method of 'automatic thinking, but it is more complex due to the absense of any action, unlike in writing) is also used in magic, and in psychology. It is interesting because it is like falling inside one's consciousness, and this ofcourse can be very dangerous- the onset of schizophrenia can be linked also to such attempts of automatic thinking in some people.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Excellent post: Covers both theology and history

 

[jonatas]

Blavatchky, who interested me also because she was a novelist on the side
As literature in my own view her stories arent well written, but she mentions the idea/method of "automatic writing", which is a way of writing where the writer is not fully conscious of what he is writing, or isnt fully accepting that he is the one writing it. Automatic writing (there is also the method of 'automatic thinking, but it is more complex due to the absense of any action, unlike in writing) is also used in magic, and in psychology.

The most well known proponents of automatic writing in literature were the French Surrealists in the early 20th C, especially circa 1920's. Robert Desnos, the prodigy of the surrealists who would die in a concentration camp, was the greatest automatic writer, even admitted so by the leader of the group Andre Breton. Desnos is said to have spent a whole year in a waking dream state. He is probably the best known automatic writer in the true literary sense, certainly one of the greater 20th C French poets.

The Surrealists, as time went on, grew more interested in the occult. Conversely they also lost their most talented members (like Desnos) and importance as a literary group. Automatic writing for early Surrealists like Desnos was more of attempt to create a true visionary literature (a la Arthur Rimbaud's Visions) where one writes from a dream state, rather than an occult literature persay or writing purely for psychological reasons.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Great reading material Plotinus!

But is there any place (site) where i could see the enochian alphabet please.
(Who knows when i want to summon some angels. )

No really, i am curious how it looks like ...

 

[Plotinus]

[Heretic Cata] Have a look here or here. And amazingly, it looks like you can get Enochian fonts!

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Preety nice. But the alphabet i invented to cheat on some tests looks cooler.

 

[Steph]

[Heretic Cata] Have a look here or here. And amazingly, it looks like you can get Enochian fonts!

This site is cool, it also includes Tengwar and Cirth