Monday, February 15, 2016

Liber Salomonis: Sepher Raziel, Now Available




At long last one of the most important grimoires is here; the infamous Liber Salomonis, the so-called Sepher Raziel (which doesn't have much in common with the actual Kabbalistic text of the same title.)

As aforementioned on this blog it is arranged into seven treatises, all subjected to astronomical and Lesser Keys-style angelic names and powers. Like many grimoires, it arranges things into categorical systems using numbers like 24 (the hours of the day), 7 (the days of the week), and so forth. It contains thus a list of 24 sacred stones like topaz and sapphire, a list of 24 sacred beasts in four elemental categories, a list of 24 herbs and their powers, seven types of incense used as fumigation, seven angels, and such, all subject to the four elemental classifications.

A great proportion of this work dwells upon calling, expelling, or securing answers from "airy spirits" and devils of various kinds- not exactly a diabolical work per se, as all of these workings and enchantments are in turn subject to the practitioner remaining "clean and chaste" and fasting while praising the various names of the judeochristian deity. Interestingly, it alludes as well to transfigurations and other workings popular at the time- such as the use of a simple enchantment which is able to make a building seem flooded by water using only a squid and a bucket of sea water, the same being true of snow, blood, or apparently any other fluid.

I have modernized the text without changing its meaning and have left much of the invocation material in old english for continuity- elsewhere I have attempted to translate sometimes unused, archaic terms to their modern equivalent. For example, most of the herbs and animals are referred to either by their old-time name or even in Latin (like psyllium.) I have removed the Latin headers which once existed there because they merely echo the english in the subsequent paragraph for no reason.

82 pages.

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