The Western Gate

The Magical Art
Wellcome MS 983 : L’Art Magique
Aaman Lamba
Hadean Press

Coming some time after the paperback edition the hardback version of The Magical Art~ with reference to the manuscript held by the Wellcome Library viz: MS 983.
It appears to be “Volume 1” which I wasn’t aware of as I assumed it would be a standalone one off book, however it appears perhaps that there will be similar transliterations of various manuscripts. Its a damned nuisance, there is no means to sign up for the series, so one has to diligently watch for the emails where you can pre-order, or perhaps hedge your bets to catch one when the next in the series does get released, in which case I can testify calamity by experience, as certain books in a series I miss out on, and therefore have a gap. Luckily I’m not that OCD to worry, as although it is part of a series, the manuscript in question is dealt with in its entirety here. We don’t have to tune in next month to finish the next exciting and thrilling episode.
It is both a study of the manuscript as well as additional material being included where it is not represented, all these source notes or addenda discussed in the introduction.
But, anyway, it is alike the Grimorium Verum, and a pinch of Heptameron grimoires with a little seasoning of SheHampHorasch. There are seals aplenty and rituals and concerns regarding the making of tools and their use. Inevitably bats blood or pigeons brains will be required and bits of the elder tree or hazel will need to be cut at dawn on the requisite day with the swoop of a knife edge… good luck there, I’ve never managed a clean cut from a handmade penknife except where the twig is green. Or except with a decent set of secateurs… I wonder why these cannot be utilised, instead of the penknife, can we not carve the sacred sigils into a pair of secateurs and be sure that its use to cut that virgin branch at sunrise will be swift and sure.
I love grimoires, for all the reasons of both curiosity and pleasure and admittedly for the smiles they raise, whether or not they are all tosh fabricated from eager priests to confirm the existence of demonic legions, and thus satisfy their next years priestly budget. In the main, of course it will all be Abrahamic demons, and thereby Solomonic, ’tis being the subject matter of most ‘western’ grimoires.
The signatures of the demons, the sigils, will always be in fancy little doodles and squiggles, as demons apparently don’t write in script, John Dee’s Enochian- angelic script is not fancied and certainly not before Dee and Kelly created it, nor is Hebrew nor any cuneiform or hieroglyphic.
Rituals are explained, chants to canter and incense to waft, magic circles with barbarous and sacred names etched within. It is beautiful theatre and regalia. In the modern age of course, budding dabblers and conjurors can film their rites of Solomon for all to see and testify to the validity and proof of these rites, but … of course…you wont find them on tikTok or Utibe or anywhere, not one candle flame dancing strangely or invisible knocks or groans heard. Instead you can rely on the keyboard incognitos who will shout at any sceptic or naysayer, and demand they are proof that such things happen, because they’ve done it, they’ve raised Beelzebuth and Lucifer and had a chat with them. And dare you to call them a liar or at best a fantasist. But the pudding isn’t for tasting and we all cry, “proof!”
Let me stop the sarcasm here. There is psychology in this, there is a means, there is, ‘something’ that happens. By means of focusing will and intent, by the obsessive nature of preparation and the incantations alike a sacred chant, there is movement in the psyche, there is a tangible atmosphere apparent in the room used to carry out the ritual. And no, even if the iPhone is filming, it wont be able to pick up the subtle sensory probing of an ethereal curtain, perhaps. Do the ears hear or is the mind interpreting, and therefore the mind will hear in this liminal ritual, not the sqwawky condenser mic on the smartphone. So here I am, one moment mocking the would be Hellraiser’s and the next telling you there’s something in this game.
What I want however is verifiable facts on the sources, actual evidence that Ol’ King ‘Sol has a hand in this, or at least his priests, or at least that Ms.Sheba of the Sabaean Pagans were in fact those to whom Solomon grovelled for knowledge and this is what she gave him. We can to quantifiable extent draw history in the funeral texts and spells of the Egyptians, the prayers and songs of the Veda/Sanskrit and the legends born from the earliest civilisations when they first etched script onto a clay tablet. But of the grimoires “Solomonic”, they seemed to appear allegedly, and apparently anywhere from the first century, but definitely from the 15th onwards, I don’t know, I’m guessing, there’s potted history and dates of this manuscript and that book and this bit of parchment…. For what its worth even with objective and open minds its obscure, its witty and peculiar. The book is well presented, all the sigils clear and circles visibly laid out, no photocopied blurry and sketchy images that some books choose to use.
The author then teases at the end that all the preparation and tedious work beforehand, to grab some goose feather at a certain time to make a quill to scribe on another carefully impossible trial found parchment, is not actually required and presents a snippet of his own adaptation. Unfortunately doesn’t go into much detail when stating easy to adapt to modern settings, but doesn’t expand on that. More importantly doesn’t actually tell us what happened? Are wishes demanded granted? In fact few grimoire books ever go into detail about what happened, just how to do things, which, fair enough is what a grimoire does.

There is a lot of text and tables familiar to anyone who has even a minimal collection of grimoires, time could be spent comparing and analysing, researching, but as grimoires go it is a very nicely laid out volume, shame it appears to be in a series but I’ll cross that bridge if I decide to venture forth in the next bone chilling adventure.