Book Discussion The book of the sacred magic of Abra-Melin the mage

[Angelkesfarl]

The book of the sacred magic of Abra-Melin the mage
In this book: I found that it speaks, of course, in the language of its time about very important movements—let’s explore them. The book tells the story of a person in the Egyptian desert who was given knowledge??
Local legends in Egypt and Northwest Africa vary, but they all mention the “Crypts of the Sorcerers”—a series of underground passages connecting the northern countries, starting in Egypt and ending in the mountains of Morocco. These crypts are said to have been hidden away and are opened only once a year to receive groups of trainees and learned scholars who come to conduct special retreats of which no one knows—or except by those who belong to them...1

The book then discusses the first seven years of magical training.

This corresponds to the theory of spiritual pilgrimage in the service of the planets, as outlined in the teachings found in books such as al-Razi’s The Hidden Treatise on the Arts and Sciences.

It states that the practice begins with standing under the moon and continues until the completion of the seven stations—which span seven years—representing a life cycle and the formation of the magician during those closely spaced periods and within the legacy of those successive ancient civilizations. what caught my attention were the accounts in the book and in Eastern culture regarding similar methods and similar timeframes; yet what is most peculiar is the difference in the method of training the sorcerer.
This Jewish tradition has cloaked the entire science in a priestly, philosophical, and intellectual mantle, through which its author shaped it as he wished and instilled the method, though it is rooted in Hebrew traditions. Is this not the only method or path to magical truth?


Can we discuss these aspects? Is this arduous, seven-year journey really no easy feat? Is it the only path and an inescapable destiny? Or are there other paths????

 

[Wintruz]

A difficulty here is that you are cross-reading local ideas into Abramelin which are not in the text itself. The idea of attributing magic to Egypt is extremely old as a fact, certainly, but also as a literary device. That is, the author is drawing on the old motif of "travelling in search of wisdom". Egypt as a symbol is often used in this way, especially in older magical texts (the Egyptologist Erik Hornung wrote an excellent book on the use of Egypt as a symbol called The Secret Lore of Egypt: Its Impact on the West). In all likelihood, the author of Abramelin probably never left the German town he was living in. This is the Renaissance equivalent of Blavatsky saying that she studied with masters in Tibet.

The root of Abramelin's central idea of contact with the Guardian Angel is in first century Hebrew Merkavah traditions around Enoch transforming into Metatron (Sefer Hekhalot/Enoch III). It is essentially that same process refracted through the grimoire magic that was popular in Germany in the late 1500s.

 

[Angelkesfarl]

A difficulty here is that you are cross-reading local ideas into Abramelin which are not in the text itself. The idea of attributing magic to Egypt is extremely old as a fact, certainly, but also as a literary device. That is, the author is drawing on the old motif of "travelling in search of wisdom". Egypt as a symbol is often used in this way, especially in older magical texts (the Egyptologist Erik Hornung wrote an excellent book on the use of Egypt as a symbol called The Secret Lore of Egypt: Its Impact on the West). In all likelihood, the author of Abramelin probably never left the German town he was living in. This is the Renaissance equivalent of Blavatsky saying that she studied with masters in Tibet.

The root of Abramelin's central idea of contact with the Guardian Angel is in first century Hebrew Merkavah traditions around Enoch transforming into Metatron (Sefer Hekhalot/Enoch III). It is essentially that same process refracted through the grimoire magic that was popular in Germany in the late 1500s.

Now, my friend, you’re drowning me in symbolism. But the book—with its magic squares and even its historical, coherent narrative—doesn’t need us to write a book about a man who admitted himself that he learned it in Egypt, does it?
Why can’t it simply be that he learned it? And, for the record, his method of elucidating the human psyche is beyond reproach—it is a method that was intended to exist and has a historical background. Even with my utmost respect for the theory of the guardian angel, it shares the same concept in Eastern philosophy, inspired by the Platonic school itself, when discussing perfect temperaments, detachment from them, and spiritual ascension to reach and converse with them—and what immense benefit this has brought, making him an integral part of Eastern magical literature and even a goal for many of its scholars.

I want to go beyond this: the book, when viewed from a practical perspective—after all that has been said about it and within it—brings us back to square one once again, where demons are harnessed or summoned to serve the magician—exactly as the Key of Solomon states: “The Egyptian is also the source.” You will pray a lot, but in the end, will you summon a demon?

I have never seen a sorcerer fly, but I have seen sorcerers move inanimate objects and bring magic from its source to your location in order to nullify it, and I have seen with my own eyes those who command snakes and vipers with their gestures—not as part of magic tricks or illusions, but as a real reality; you can see it for yourself…!!

That is why I am speaking here: Do ancient rituals indicate established methods, no matter how scholars later reinterpret them?”

In the book The Source of the Principles of Wisdom by Al-Buni, he states in the course of his discussion that the students of the Aristotelian, Platonic, Hermetic, and Pythagorean schools swore an oath to keep wisdom secret and pass it down among themselves through codes? Strange. Do you remember Steganography as a book? And our book as well. Here, we say that it is the guardian angel, and have we lost all this momentum by straying from the original, so that it has all become mere psychological phone calls? I don’t like to bring this up.