grimoires – Page 2 – The Book of Faustus

Updates & Walpurgisnacht

This blog has been somewhat slow this month, due to school deadlines and lack of free time. However I’m pleased to announce upcoming content about:

My recent experiment with a vision potion
New art history posts
Updates on the Greek magical papyri project
Book reviews from my recent readings

And finally I’m happy to say I will be hosting my first Black Mass on Walpurgisnacht, 2018. This invite-only ritual will be based on my current research of Medieval and early modern accounts of the Black Mass in history, using a ritual based on an inversion of the Ordo Ritus of the Christian Mass as it was around 1570. This Messe Noire is going to be fantastic, with a full retinue of ministers and dis-sacramental ornamentations, expertly accompanied with moving heavy metal sounds, culminating in a fun host desecration. I might even have fireworks, we’ll see.

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Hermetically Open

Very soon, 3500 manuscripts from the Ritman Library will be digitally available, thanks in part to the support of Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown. This project is going to be a huge resource for research and new historical perspectives of Magic.

This part of the Hermetically Open Projects is aimed at digitizing the available sources in the library, both text and image. Part of the added value of this project lies in the online availability of works that are not generally accessible, easy to find or share, and are exclusively kept in a physical form. In the following years, the online catalogue of The Ritman Library will be upgraded, and all digitized content will be made available via our online catalogue.

Learn more at the Ritman Library

Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros

Well ain’t this some heavy shit. An 18th century illustrated magical anthology, written in macaronic Latin and German, reads like the dream journal of the love child of Salvador Dalí and Edward Kelly. Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros, or “A most rare summary of the whole Magical Art by the most famous Masters of the Art”, features wildly imaginative and detailed pictures of conjurers, demons and their qualities, and even wild Gorgons receiving reptilian cunnilingus. This is the kind of bedtime story book I wish I had had.

Reader Beware You’re In For a Scare