It can definitely seem
like a barrier to those approaching it. Not only does it feel like there are a
ton of books to read, things to learn, and tools to make and buy…
…but the books and the
tools are expensive.
Especially when folks
insist that you need proper gold implements, custom parchment from a sacrificed
virgin goat, and sticks cut in a single stroke on a certain hour on a certain
day with the moon in the right phase and the stick not having grown more than a
year.
Seems daunting, and if
you want to buy the parts, it’s expensive.
There is also always
someone willing to sell it to you. Those folks willing to sell it to you will
also tell you that you can only get the success they have if you exactly follow
all the steps and exactly have perfectly created tools. They might even say
that folks doing it other ways are, ironically, just trying to sell you
something…the idea that anyone can do this.
The reality is the
textual history, and what survives of material evidence shows pretty clearly
that people did things with a lot of variance and alternatives historically.
People innovated. People used simple methods to call on spirits and had the spirits
teach them more personalized magical work. With the amount of treasure finding
magic out there, magicians who had nice stuff may have even did simpler cheaper
magic to get money to get that nice stuff.
You can go the purist
route, or not. Either way, if you’re looking to get started and you’re pressed for
cash you can still begin working within the grimoire tradition without spending
money. You can begin contacting spirits, building relationships, obtaining
means to contact them outside of ritual to accomplish magical goals. You can even
taking the Jupiterian prosperity gospel of magic approach – use magic to get your
financial and material life in order so you can focus on your magical life.
So how do we go about
this?
Well, the first thing to
remember is that the grimoire tradition mostly exists in a medieval and
Renaissance Catholic context…later on in a sometimes Catholic sometimes
Protestant context. In that worldview, natural permissible magic existed alongside
the more legally restricted magics often recorded in the grimoires.
Angels, and some other
spirits, could be contacted without circles, without seals, and without complex
rituals. Some of these you could encounter just through prayer and appeal to God,
some you could call upon by going to places they resided, or gathering natural
items during the right times. In terms of prayer to God, some of the simpler
methods presented in books of magic pretty much boil down to that approach.
There are a ton of
resources you can read for free online. Many of the ones that you should be
checking out are available at Joseph H. Peterson’s excellent site, www.esotericarchives.com. Once you’ve
conjured some money by working with less expensive methods and free online
copies of grimoires…spend some of it on his excellent print editions.
So, where do we get
started in the free approach to the grimoire tradition?
Trithemius's Art of
Drawing Spirits into Crystals can be used with minimal equipment and is free to
read online. You can get it at JHP’s site, or my site. There will be some
additional resources for using it on my site also. In my blog, I’ve talked
about that approach to working with angels and presented an alternative version
of that kind of crystallomantic conjuration from Scot’s Discouerie of Witchcraft.
The main thing you’ll
need is the crystal sphere. Other elements can be helpful, but God can send an
angel to speak to you in a crystal ball, or even a bowl of water if he so
choses. Prepare yourself, purify yourself, truly devote yourself, and you can
get started…quite literally on a wing and a prayer.
You might look at that
and say, “is this really grimoire magic?” If you look at handbooks that
collected magic people actually did, or look at surviving accounts of magical
practice, this definitely fits in. We can look at a grimoire example that
confirms that though…
The Arbatel is perhaps
the simplest approach and can provide insight into other angel magic than just
work with the Olympic spirits. It’s also free to read online.
In the Arbatel, the
magician is given a series of Aphorisms to study, mostly about how to lead a
good life. A section of those Aphorisms provide seals, names and descriptions
for a group of angels called the Olympic spirits. There is a prayer provided to
call upon the spirit you desire. There is an additional prayer that is useful
to go with it. That’s about all you need. Several people have even encountered
the Olympic spirits and asked about using more tools or materials and they
generally don’t seem super interested in that. With them you can keep it simple…and
keeping it simple keeps it in line with the text’s instructions.
The Arbatel provides us with
a grimoire example of working with angels with just a name, a sign, and a
prayer. You can easily use that approach with other angels. The Olympic spirits
also provide familiars, so you can use this approach and still work one of the
important components of grimoire magic. A grimoire magician does not always use
complicated grimoire rituals to conjure spirits. Spirits with whom the magician
has a relationship should provide means to easily call upon them to help the
magician with magical tasks. If that spirit provides a familiar, the familiar
should – more or less – remain with the magician and aid the magician and teach
him additional magic.
This kind of work with
angels will be easier if you’ve been cultivating a relationship with the
angels, working on purity, and engaging in devotional prayer.
The seven penitential psalms could work as a daily prayer and meditation practice to help build the
devotional element of your work and bring you more into a place for the angels
to be provided for you.
The Seven Orisons from
the Enchiridion of Pope Leo provide magical prayers which the magician could
pray daily at sunrise, or nightly before bed in order to build on that
devotional practice. You can read those prayers for free here.
While looking at sets of
seven daily prayers, we shouldn’t slouch on the ones from the Heptameron. The
Heptameron of Pietro D’Abano has a prayer for each day of the week which
conjures the angels. Several magical sources encourage the magician to use
these prayers or prayers like them as a daily practice. On any day where he
intends to do magic, the magician should recite the appropriate prayer in the
first hour (at sunrise) of the day. It’s advisable for the magician to make
this a regular practice even on days where he isn’t doing other magical work.
Doing this can help keep the magician’s focus on angelic work and bring the
angels into the magician’s orbit.
For one last example of a
daily devotional prayer, Reginald Scot provides a conjuration through which God
binds spirits to obey the magician. I’ve presented the prayer in one of my
books, but you can also read it for free in my blog here.
We talked about purity.
Obviously, living a solid good life is a big part of that. Ritually speaking,
fasting, bathing, anointing, things like that help prepare the magician.
Attending religious services is an option too. If you want something simple,
ritually bathing and praying the psalms is a good start. Several grimoire
provide psalms for this purpose. Joseph Peterson has provided a list of
purposes assigned to psalms in the grimoires. You can find psalms for your
cleansing bath, psalms to consecrate your candles, psalms for putting on
special ritual clothes, and for a host of other purposes. You can peruse thathere and select psalms for your various needs.
As you save a bit of
money, or get some from calling on angels to aid you, you can start acquiring
tools and exploring more deeply through the grimoires. You can approach them in
a purist approach or an idiosyncratic approach.
The Heptameron is one of
the simplest ones. You can use it for angels, for aerial spirits, and also for demons.
If you want an approach with few tools that builds a lifetime of practice,
there is the Abramelin. It will involve a lot of time and devotion but it doesn’t
need a lot of tools and will give you access to spirits and magic that don’t
need a lot of tools. The French version adds a lot of things…things the system
seems intended to avoid…and so it will involve more tools, but the German
version keeps it simple. You’ll need a few things but not a ton. It’s also the
one book we’re mentioning that you’d need to buy. You don’t really need classes
or instruction or other books to learn how to do it, just trust your guardian
angel to guide you.
So, there you have it. I’m
not telling you to buy my books or anyone else’s books or take my classes or
anyone else’s. You can learn and do grimoire magic with no cost if you really
put your mind to it. There are some great books and some great classes out
there too which can help you…but don’t think that’s the only way to get
started. Once you get started, you can always jump deeper and explore those
options…but don’t let the cost of books, classes, and tools keep you away if you
feel this is what you should really be doing. Don’t let apparent complexities
keep you on the bench either. Jump in. Doing is learning.
Like most of my posts,
stuff I offer will be linked at the end. Those are standard links, they aren’t
an answer to “how can I do this if I can’t afford much.” The actual content of
the blog post answers that question.
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