The Western Gate

A Complete system of magic
(of) William Dawson Bellhouse
Edited and Introduced by Daniel Harms
Troy Books

I love Grimoires reproduced from a persons personal journey, notable examples being A Book of shadows-Pan Zos Pagarus, Born to be king-Alex Sanders so was excited to receive this current book from Troy Books, the grimoire of William Dawson Bellhouse – Galvanist, Cunning man, Scoundrel. Mr Bellhouse wasn’t from the affluent end of middle class as so many from the privileged and notable personalities in the esoteric and occult corridors. He were but a humble entrepreneur , sometime racanteur , ducking and diving, someone from the proles, the oiks and runts-ala -the majority of the people.
A complete system of magic then, denotes that used by William Bellhouse. “Complete” would always raise a suspecting eye. Can anything ever be complete? One of the formative books I read was a book- A complete book of spells, ceremonies and ritual- Miguel Gonzales-wippler. I loved that book and sketched in it making notes and referred to it long after it had been superseded by other books. To say complete indicates concise and a means to include all that is relevant about the subject matter. In this case the work-arte of William Bellhouse. Ones things for sure, his work differs, or is it full of errors from the accepted and traditional knowledge. Let’s hope that is the case and not that the publisher of this book has made the errors. Bellhouse uses copper for works of Jupiter and tin for works of Venus, the rest of the world reverses this? In planetary daily conjuration Bellhouse displays the sigils of sachiel and zebul on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday? It’s at times like this that alike the aforementioned book of shadows-pagarus, where I wish we are given the actual facsimile from which the book is based on. I have no idea if these and other ‘errors’ are Bellhouse or publishers, though there are indications it is bellhouse.
For the main part Bellhouse used material gathered from Agrippa’s fourth book of philosophy, the Heptameron and also Magus by Frances Barret. All these worthy of study and plagiarism, so why the errors from those books to the resultant? Was Bellhouse busily scribbling notes from the library in a hurry?
It is all distraction of course. Is the east the domain of air or fire, the south – fire or air? And people will debate and contradict and condemn. Natural philosophy is always at the heart of the solution yet we cannot help but pour our beaks and beady eyes over these books.
In between the lofty titbits from the heptameron &c there are short little ‘wives tales’ and cures, curse-alls and spells. There’s not much in the way of how to focus, be it by mantra or knotting knots or through the medium of art or poetry, just the meat and bones of the spell.
I am not sure, because of the confusions and conflicts in some of Belhouse’s work it will catch on, the Bellhouse method doesn’t ring true, but it’s a mighty distracting cacophony.
More facsimiles, not translations- though admittedly we don’t know the state the original material was in and if online facsimiles of census reports or village church documents are anything to judge by then full marks to the author here for interpreting.
It’s a ‘Troy books’ book, need you know any more.