The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage
The Book of Abramelin tells the story of an Egyptian mage named Abraham, or Abra-Melin, who taught a system of magic to Abraham of Worms, a Jew in Worms, Germany, presumed to have lived from c. 1362–c. 1458. The system of magic from this book regained popularity in the 19th and 20th centuries partly due to Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers' translation, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.
The work was translated into English by Samuel L. MacGregor Mathers and more recently by Georg Dehn and Steven Guth. Dehn attributed authorship of The Book of Abramelin to Rabbi Yaakov Moelin (1365–1427), a German Jewish Talmudist. This identification has since been disputed.
The book exists in the form of twelve manuscripts and an early printed edition. The provenance of the text has not been definitively identified. The earliest manuscripts are two versions that date from about 1608, are written in German and are now found in Wolfenbüttel. Another two manuscripts are in Dresden, and date from about 1700 and 1750 respectively.
The first printed version, also in German, is from 1725 and was printed in Cologne by Peter Hammer. A partial copy in Hebrew is found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, dating from around 1740. An 18th century manuscript copy exists in French in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris, an institution founded in 1757. Another 17th-century manuscript in Italian exists in the 'Legato Martinengo' of the Queriniana Library in Brescia, Italy. The manuscript was unknown for centuries until 2009 when it was found by academic researcher Maria Elena Loda in the esoteric section. It is currently the only known manuscript translation in Italian of the Abramelin grimoire.
All German copies of the text consist of four books: an autobiographical account of the travels of Abraham of Worms to Egypt, a book of assorted materials from the corpus of the practical Kabbalah (including some which is duplicated in the German-Jewish grimoire called "The Sixth and 7th Books of Moses") and the two books of magic given by Abramelin to Abraham. The well-known English translation by S.L. MacGregor Mathers from the French Manuscript in Paris contains only three of the four books. The ritual as described in the Mathers manuscript lasts six months. Newer compilations and translations contain all four books and describe a duration of 18 months for completing the ritual. The Hebrew version in Oxford is limited to Book One, without reference to the further books.
Of all the extant sources, the German manuscripts in Wolfenbüttel and Dresden are taken by scholars to be the authoritative texts. According to respected Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem, the Hebrew version in Oxford was translated into Hebrew from German. An analysis of the spelling and language usage in the French manuscript indicates that it dates to the 18th century and that it was also likely copied from a German original. Although the author quotes from the Jewish Book of Psalms, the version given is not from the Hebrew; rather, it is from the Latin Vulgate, a translation of the Bible employed by Roman Catholics at that time.
The German esoteric scholar Georg Dehn has argued that the author of The Book of Abramelin was Rabbi Yaakov Moelin (1365–1427), a German Jewish Talmudist and posek (authority on Jewish law).
The text was originally written in German. A German edition was published under the fictitious name, Peter Hammer in 1725, Reprinted by J. Scheible, Stuttgart, ca. 1853. This edition was based on one of the earlier, more complete German manuscripts from the 17th and 18th century. What is absolutely mind blowing is that the Peter Hammer text was entirely unknown, not only to Mathers, but to all the other members of the Golden Dawn, who between them had noted and collected just about every occult and esoteric work ever published.
All German copies of the text consist of four books: an autobiographical account of the travels of Abraham of Worms to Egypt, a book of assorted materials of the practical Kabbalah and the two books of magic given by Abramelin to Abraham. The well-known English translation by S.L. MacGregor Mathers from the French Manuscript in Paris contains only three of the four books. The ritual as described in the Mathers manuscript lasts six months. Newer compilations and translations contain all four books, and describe a duration of 18 months for completing the ritual. The Hebrew version in Oxford is limited to Book One, without reference to the further books.
Of all the extant sources, the German manuscripts in Wolfenbüttel and Dresden are taken by scholars to be the authoritative texts.