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Des Abraham von Worms Buch der wahren Praktik von der alten Magie. Ein als jüdisch fingierter Magietext des frühen 17. Jahrhunderts. Band 1 – Edition
- Editor(s):
- Rick-Arne Kollatsch
- Date:
- 2020
- Subject(s):
- Culture, Seventeenth century, Magic, Manuscripts, Occultism, Europe
- Item Type:
- Book chapter
- Tag(s):
- Early Modern Age, Early Modern High German, 17th-century culture, Manuscript cultures, Manuscript studies, Western esotericism
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/bsqa-s816
- Abstract:
- Edition of "Abraham’s of Worms Book of the True Practice of the Old Magic" (ISBN: 978-3-347-18305-6). With its four parts – the history of the protagonist’s life and travels, the 154 "mixed cabalistic“ recipes for mastering various situations in life, the detailed discription of a one and a half years lasting magical initiation, and the collection of 257 magic squares which are used to make subservient 417 named evil spirits – "Abraham’s of Worms Book of the True Practice of the Old Magic" is a remarkable magical text not only in a quantitative respect. According to the fiction, the Jew Abraham of Worms wrote it for his young son Lamech in the first half of the 15th century, but in fact, the author has to be supposed as a Lutheran, who lived at the beginning of the 17th century. The present edition reproduces the magical text following a manuscript that presumably originates from the years 1609 to 1613 and that nowadays is preserved in the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. This manuscript is the oldest complete textual witness that survived and, beyond that, offers a text nearly free from any corruption. Editions publicated so far use younger and more corrupt textual witnesses and do not meet sientific standards; they are mostly unhistorical textual patchworks whose creators belong to the esoteric and occultist scene. In the English-speaking areas, the magical text is primarly known by Samuel Liddell Mathers’ translation (published under the title "The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage") of a french 18th century manuscript that heavily redacted its german master copy and has a lot of fatal corruptions, especially in the magic squares. From now on, the present new edition opens up a suitable access to "Abraham’s of Worms Book of the True Practice of the Old Magic" as to an eminent magical text of the Early Modern Age.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Book
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 2 years ago
- License:
- Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
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