Grimoires: A History of Magic Books.

Owen Davies. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 384 pp. $17.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-19-959004-9.

Reviewed by Adam Jortner (Auburn University)
Published on H-Albion (June, 2011)
Commissioned by Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth

The Magic Words

 

Owen Davies begins his latest history of the uncanny by quoting Richard Kieckhefer’s observation that “‘a book of magic is also a magical book’” (p. 2).[1] A history of grimoires, therefore, must not only recount the contents and ideas found in self-proclaimed spell books, but also uncover how those books were used. Such a problem, however, is one Davies has met in previous works on ghost stories and witchcraft--which also exist both as theories and tools.

Grimoires represents the broadest chronology Davies has yet attempted. Magical books date back almost to the invention of writing; this volume stretches from Moses and the Hebrew Bible to Anton LaVey and The Satanic Bible (1969). Practically, however, the story begins with medieval efforts to appropriate and interpret ancient magic, through the fifteenth-century rise of hermeticism, and into the democratizing effect of the printing press. Davies makes much of the expanded reach print gave to grimoires, and hence most of this account deals with the early modern and modern use of printed magical books by esoteric gentlemen and treasure-seeking rabble alike. Even if, as Davies argues, print did not eliminate handwritten grimoires, the print revolution created more grimoires and more stories about grimoires--the intellectual back and forth and anecdotal evidence that provide the two evidentiary supports of this study.

Rather like a magus himself, Davies weaves telling details from grimoires throughout his narrative, vignettes of magic or advice that convey a sense of the work and the context under consideration. Medieval Christian grimoires often used Hebrew characters in the belief that Hebrew letters had magical properties, and if authors did not know how to write Hebrew, they simply made up letters that looked close enough. Icelandic rune books featured curses that inflicted ceaseless farting on victims. Nineteenth-century American oneiromancy manuals advised those who dreamed of ants to bet on the numbers two, seven, and forty-one.

Davies handles the vast scope of the book well, moving chronologically by chapter and geographically within each era. Britain (and its grimoires) do not figure prominently in the text, perhaps because England seems to have preferred astrological texts to practical spell books. Nevertheless, Davies weaves several English thinkers (Reginald Scot in particular) into the broader debates on magic. Indeed, the scope of Davies’s work suggests that it is in the Americas where the grimoire tradition thrived in the twentieth century. Chicago--the home of William Delaurence’s publishing empire--was the center of grimoire publishing and esoteric practice in the modern age. Kardecism--one of Brazil’s enduring religious traditions--derived from grimoire hermeticism coupled with Spiritualist teachings. Mexico provided a home for Spanish grimoires during the interwar years, which in turn transformed the local healing traditions of curandismo (folk healing). The number of examples and stories from the former colonies of Europe (rather than Europe itself) underscores Davies’s contention that whereas the history of the grimoire in the modern West has often focused on “the esoteric philosophies, personal relations, and internal tensions” of a small number of Western occultists, “certain products of the Revival reached far beyond the parlors of Paris and London” (p. 185).

None of these stories are, in themselves, new discoveries; indeed, almost the entire book is synthetic, as any broad study must be. Certainly as regards Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Davies has debts (which he acknowledges) to Ronald Hutton and Alex Owen. But most readers will search in vain for any extended historiographical quibbling, except for a well-argued aside on the sensitive topic of the grimoire tradition and life of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith Jr. Grimoires is not necessarily written for the layperson, but neither is Davies writing for academics alone. The book could well form the foundation for an upper-level collegiate class on grimoires and magic. Rather than posit transhistorical theories about “the” nature of magical books, Davies seems content with extensive documentation--but documentation is not explanation.

And yet, if showing the number and influence of magical books in Western history is Davies’s objective, then in showing volume, he makes an implicit argument: fully two-thirds of his world history of grimoires involves books published after the onset of the Enlightenment. The rise of printing, the spread of literacy, and the rediscovery of ancient Near Eastern cultures led to the creation (and re-creation) of many more grimoires in the years since 1700 than had ever before existed. Davies’s nineteenth-century predecessor, Arthur Edward Waite--who wrote an extended history of magic books in addition to designing tarot cards--noted the “remarkable bibliographic fact that such texts were issued, and on so great a scale, in the last decade of the nineteenth century” (p. 181).[2] Seen from the perspective of the grimoire, magic is a thoroughly modern phenomenon--not a survival or a retention.

This latter point represents an important piece of the argument for those who study magic, witchcraft, and esoterica; unlike many other subfields, historians of the supernatural often need to demonstrate the ubiquity and extent of their subject matter to convince colleagues and committees of the validity of their work. Several works in the last decade (some of them by Davies) have shown that magical, mystical, and esoteric thought thrived in the modern age, yet an older sociological predilection still persists that treats magic and miracle as exclusively premodern ideas that existed only as holdovers in the twentieth century. If Grimoires is correct, however, the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries provided the ideal environment for magical thinking. Magic is very modern. Other books have made a similar point, but it is a point worth hearing more than once, particularly when written with Davies’s élan.

Note

[1]. Richard Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 4.

[2]. Arthur Edward Waite, Shadows of Life and Thought (London: Selwyn and Blount, 1938), 137.

Ship as Monster

Miniature of Noah’s Ark, Old English Hexateuch (London, British Library, MS. Cotton Claudius B. IV, f. 15v).

Living as they did, at the edge of the inhabitable world, the medieval English were very concerned with limits and boundaries. Their texts and images demonstrate a focus not only on the borders of the earth, of towns, even of individual bodies, but also on the borders of images and pages, which would result in the eventual English efflorescence of visual marginalia. Now, at the final boundary of this text, one frame seems of particular significance. On folio 14r of the Hexateuch—one of the most significant works to survive the Anglo-Saxon period, with approximately 400 images and “one of the first extended projects of translation of the Bible in a European vernacular”—we find an image of Noah’s Ark. Above, God explains to Noah the specifications of the ark. It must be three hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, with a window at the apex and a door and three decks, all of which are clearly present in the image, below.

This ark is, however, no mere boat. The illuminator has added particular touches that localize the ship, tying it to his own region. From the prow springs a lively dragon-head, with a curling blue mane and its mouth open wide. The stern has been transformed into a broad, flat tail, perhaps more like that of a fish than a dragon. As a result, the whole boat has become animate. Karen Olsen notes that “the depiction of the ship as a beast” in Old English and Old Norse poetry is quite common, with the sea-horse as the most frequently used metaphor. The term more frequently used in the Old English compounds is hengest (horse) which, it will be recalled, was also the name of the mythical founder of Anglo-Saxon England. This visual image, like many others, does not present a sea-horse but rather, a mighty seadragon, though it is somewhat equine in its features.

C. R. Dodwell and Ruth Mellinkoff argue that Scandinavian influences may account for the serpent-head on the ark. Surviving examples of actual Scandinavian ships of the Early Middle Ages feature dragon carvings at their prows, and on separate posts and copper vanes, “decorated with zoomorphic figures, which would also have been set at the ship’s prow.” Dodwell rightly notes that “it needs little perception to see that [the Hexateuch’s] ships, decorated with dragon-heads at the bow and stern, reproduce those used in northern Europe in the 11th century.” Still, Olsen notes regarding animate ships in Old English and Old Norse poetry that while “the Anglo-Saxon scop worked under sociocultural conditions very different from those of the Norse poet . . . of course, sea-travel was an important aspect of Anglo-Saxon society as well.” It ought be recalled that the Anglo-Saxons were, like the Scandinavians with whom they shared much of their mythology, a sea-faring culture. Boats played vital roles not only in their commerce and warfare, but also in their poetic works, such as “The Seafarer” and “The Wanderer,” as well as their spiritual life; boats as burial structures, such as were found at Sutton Hoo, indicate that these vessels were more than simple conveyances to their owners.

Da Vinci Mona Lisa Mystery; Real Secret Codes Discovered

Leonardo Da Vinci’s mysterious Mona Lisa has just gotten even more intriguing. The Italian genius apparently painted tiny numbers and letters into the eyes of the enigmatic painting, but their meaning is unclear.
The 500-year-old Renaissance masterpiece has long puzzled art historians, from Mona Lisa’s wry smile to the identity of the woman in the painting. Some believe it is Da Vinci himself, painted as a woman.
As for Da Vinci, he was a fan of riddles and secret codes and his paintings formed the basis of the best selling fictional work “The Da Vinci Code.”

The book by Dan Brown and the 2006 movie based on it starring Tom Hanks claimed the Mona Lisa contained secrets about the life of Jesus Christ.
The book postulated that Christ had a child with Mary Magadelene and established a blood line that exists to this day.
The real codes in Mona Lisa’s eyes may not be quite so consequential, but they are mystifying, nonetheless, not only for what they may mean, but also because of that fact that Da Vinci was able paint them so small.
The letters and numbers cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Italy’s National Committee for Cultural Heritage said the symbols were detected through high resolution images of the painting.
“To the naked eye the symbols are not visible, but with a magnifying glass they can clearly be seen,” said Committee President Silvano Vinceti.
“In the right eye appear to be the letters LV which could well stand for his name Leonardo Da Vinci, while in the left eye there are also symbols, but they are not as defined,” he said.
“It is very difficult to make them out clearly but they appear to be the letters CE or it could be the letter B. You have to remember the picture is almost 500 years old so it is not as sharp and clear as when first painted,” he added.
In the arch of the bridge in the background the number 72 can be seen or it could be an L and the number 2, he said.
The clue to the codes was found in a 50-year-old book about the painting that was discovered in an antique shop. It mentions the codes and symbols, Vinceti said.
“It’s remarkable that no-one has noticed these symbols before and from the preliminary investigations we have carried out we are confident they are not a mistake and were put there by the artist,” Vinceti said.

Naqsh-e Rustam (Panorama view).

Naqsh-i Rustam (also Naqsh-e Rustam; in English, the Throne of Rustam) was considered a sacred mountain range in the Elamite periods (early first millennium BCE). The façades of Naqsh-i Rustam became the burial site for four Achaemenid rulers and their families in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, as well as a major center of sacrifice and celebration during the Sasanian period between the third and seventh century CE.

Achaemenid tombs
Four tombs belonging to Achaemenid kings are carved out of the rock face. They are all at a considerable height above the ground.

The tombs are known locally as the 'Persian crosses', after the shape of the facades of the tombs. The site is known as salīb in Arabic, perhaps a corruption of the Persian word chalīpā, "cross". The entrance to each tomb is at the center of each cross, which opens onto to a small chamber, where the king lay in a sarcophagus. The horizontal beam of each of the tomb's facades is believed to be a replica of the entrance of the palace at Persepolis.

One of the tombs is explicitly identified by an accompanying inscription to be the tomb of Darius I the Great (c. 522-486 BC). The other three tombs are believed to be those of Xerxes I (c. 486-465 BC), Artaxerxes I (c. 465-424 BC), and Darius II (c. 423-404 BC) respectively. A fifth unfinished one might be that of Artaxerxes III, who reigned at the longest two years, but is more likely that of Darius III (c. 336-330 BC), last of the Achaemenid dynasts.

The tombs were looted following the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great.

Sassanid reliefs
Seven oversized rock reliefs at Naqsh-e Rustam depict monarchs of the Sassanid period.
    The investiture relief of Ardashir I (c. 226-242):
    The founder of the Sassanid Empire is seen being handed the ring of kingship by Ahura Mazda. In the inscription, which also bears the oldest attested use of the term 'Iran' (see "etymology of 'Iran'" for details), Ardashir admits to betraying his pledge to Artabanus IV (the Persians having been a vassal state of the Arsacid Parthians), but legitimizes his action on the grounds that Ahura Mazda had wanted him to do so.
    The triumph of Shapur I (c. 241-272):
    This is the most famous of the Sassanid rock reliefs, and depicts Shapur's victory over two Roman emperors, Valerian and Philip the Arab. A more elaborate version of this rock relief is at Bishapur.
    The "grandee" relief of Bahram II (c. 276-293):
    On each side of the king, who is depicted with an oversized sword, figures face the king. On the left stand five figures, perhaps members of the king's family (three having diadems, suggesting they were royalty). On the right stand three courtiers, one of which may be Kartir. This relief is to the immediate right of the investiture inscription of Ardashir (see above), and partially replaces the much older relief that gives Naqsh-e Rustam its name.
    The two equestrian reliefs of Bahram II (c. 276-293):
    The first equestrian relief, located immediately below the fourth tomb (perhaps that of Darius II), depicts the king battling a mounted Roman soldier.
    The second equestrian relief, located immediately below the tomb of Darius I, is divided into two registers, an upper and a lower one. In the upper register, the king appears to be forcing a Roman enemy from his horse. In the lower register, the king is again battling a mounted Roman soldier.
    Both reliefs depict a dead enemy under the hooves of the king's horse.
    The investiture of Narseh (c. 293-303):
    In this relief, the king is depicted as receiving the ring of kingship from a female figure that is frequently assumed to be the divinity Aredvi Sura Anahita. However, the king is not depicted in a pose that would be expected in the presence of a divinity, and it hence likely that the woman is a relative, perhaps Queen Shapurdokhtak.
    The equestrian relief of Hormizd II (c. 303-309):
    This relief is below tomb 3 (perhaps that of Artaxerxes I) and depicts Hormizd forcing an enemy (perhaps Papak of Armenia) from his horse. Immediately above the relief and below the tomb is a badly damaged relief of what appears to be Shapur II (c. 309-379) accompanied by courtiers.

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Volcano - Pyroclastic Surges and Blasts

Risk assessment. An ultimate goal of volcanologists is to minimize loss of life and property from explosive eruptions. Risk assessment, which accounts for both the probability of an event and its consequences, is an important step in attaining that goal. The ability to recognize pyroclastic surge events in the geologic record of a volcano is key in establishing probabilities of surge events. An area that needs particular focus is constraining the effects, or consequences, of pyroclastic surge events. This will involve predicting the dynamic conditions within surges and the responses of structures and people to those conditions.

Glossary

base surge A turbulent density current that flows outward from the base of a partially collapsing vertical eruption column derived from a hydrovolcanic (phreatomagmatic) eruption; a type of pyroclastic surge.
bed form (or bedform) The surface configuration of a bed; also the three-dimensional configuration of groups of strata having geometric shapes that repeatedly occur in nature such as ripples, dunes, and plane beds.
bedset (or bedding set; also bed set) A sequence of beds with distinct internal structures, textures, colors or compositions that sets them apart from other sequences, usually bounded by unconformities, or by fallout layers.
blast A sudden, violent, overpressured explosion projected laterally or vertically. At Mt. St. Helens the blast was directed laterally and produced a high-velocity dilute pyroclastic density current, or pyroclastic surge.
blocking Deflection of the lower, denser parts of a pyroclastic density current (PDC) by a topographic barrier while the low-density upper parts of the PDC continue to travel over the barrier.
flow regime Hydraulic conditions of noncohesive flow of sand and silt that develop ripples, dunes, plane parallel beds, and antidunes. Progressive changes in bed forms occur as flow regime increases. Low-flow regime conditions form small scale ripples that progress to dunes; high flow regime conditions form plane beds and then antidunes.
flow transformation Reversible changes (in sediment gravity flows) between turbulent and steady flow related chiefly to particle concentration, thickness of flow, and flow velocity.
hydrovolcanic All volcanic activity resulting from the interaction between meteoric or connate water and lava, magmatic heat, or gases at or near the earth’s surface (also phreatomagmatic).
pyroclastic surge Low concentration, turbulent pyroclastic density currents (PDCs). Two kinds of pyroclastic surges are wet surges, having temperatures less than 100*C where steam condenses and the surge is a three-phase system with water drops, solid particles, and gas; and dry surges, which have mean temperatures greater than 100* C and form by (1) hydrovolcanic eruptions with a low water/ magma ratio, or (2) by magmatic eruptions that are driven solely by volatiles. Also see base surge.
transport and depositional system The transport system carries particles from source to area of sedimentation. The depositional system deposits particles and includes local movement of particles, such as movement of a mass of particles down a steep slope, after being carried to a particular locality by the transport system.

Volcanism and Biotic Extinctions

Extinction Events are increasingly seen as important factors in the history of life on Earth, and recent studies suggest catastrophic causes for at least some biotic mass extinctions. Two catastrophic processes that have been invoked are impacts of asteroids or comets and series of large volcanic eruptions. On one hand, the end-Cretaceous (65 Ma) mass extinction (the Cretaceous/Tertiary or K/T boundary) has been convincingly correlated with the impact of a 10-km-diameter comet or asteroid, and evidence of impact has been found close to the times of several other extinction events. On the other hand, the coincidence of the eruption of the Siberian flood basalt lava flow province and the even more severe end-Permian extinctions (250 Ma), and the near-coincidence of the Deccan flood basalt province (India) and the K/T extinctions, fostered speculations that flood basalt eruptions have contributed to a number of mass extinctions. Several workers compared the dates of extinction events of various magnitudes with dates of flood basalt episodes and found some significant correlations, supporting a possible cause-and-effect connection. Thus, it could be that extreme events of both extraterrestrial and terrestrial origin are responsible for many of the punctuation marks of the fossil record.

A major question regarding any possible relationship between flood basalt lava eruptions and extinction events involves the nature and severity of the environmental effects of the eruptions and their potential impact on life. Although the correlation between some flood basalt episodes and extinctions may implicate volcanism in the extinctions, it is also possible that other factors lead to the apparent association. Flood basalt episodes have been related to the inception of mantle plume activity, and thus may represent one facet of a host of geological factors (e.g., changes in seafloor spreading rates, rifting events, increased tectonism and volcanism, and sea-level variations) that tend to be correlated, and may be associated with unusual climatic and environmental fluctuations that could lead to significant faunal changes. It has also been suggested that a coincidence of both a large impact and a flood basalt eruption might be necessary in causing severe mass extinctions, and some workers have even proposed that large impacts might in some way trigger or enhance the volcanism.