Mathers’ Abramelin Manuscript

As much for my own benefit as anyone else’s reading this site…

S L MacGregor Mathers

The Manuscript which Mathers famously found at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal and translated into English as The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, and which was for almost a hundred years thought to be the only manuscript extant – which gave birth to the much over-used and abused phrase “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel” – is available online. It has been scanned and made digitally available here:

Ms-2351 . « La sacrée magie que Dieu donna à Moyse Aaron, David, Salomon, et à d’autres saints patriarches et prophètes, qui enseigne la vraye sapience divine, laissée par Abraham à Lamech son fils, traduite de l’hébreu. 1458 »

Despite the shortcomings of the manuscript – yes the word squares really do have big gaps in them – the handwriting is actually the best quality of all the Abramelin Mss I’ve seen so far – i.e. a lot nicer than the crabbed scrawl of the Dresden and Leipzig versions.

First page of book three of the Mathers Abramelin manuscript

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