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Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition


No. 26, Vol. 3. Vernal Equinox 2014

An Introduction to the Book of Magic, with Instructions for Invoking Spirits, etc.,
ca. 1577-1583, Folger Shakespeare Library MS. V.b.26
by Teresa Burns

Folger Shakespeare Librarys manuscript V.b.26, the Book of Magic with Instructions for
Invoking Spirits, etc., is without doubt the most eclectic collection of maledictions,
invocations, conjurations, tables of correspondences, lists of offices of spirits, magic
squares, magic circles, sigils, illumined swirls, directions for unpleasant animal acts, recipes
for fairy potions, unexplained ciphers and drawings of dragons, demons and angels that Ive
ever seen. Every section seems to contain some sort of mystery cloaked in a non-sequitur,
as if challenging lovers of old
grimoires to go over each page
just one more time, to try to
understand this one little section
before going on. The Fairy King
dares you, it seems to say.

All right, then. Game on.

But for today, a short introduction


will have to get things started.
We lovers of old manuscripts talk
a more daring game than we
actually play.

Its a toss-up whether MS V.b.26


is best known for its
pan-European mix of spirits, for
using fairy magic within a Goetic
structure or simply for the lengthy
series of conjurations culminating
with one for the Fairy King
Oberion at the end of the second section.

Even if a reader has world enough and time to struggle through relatively neat early modern
English handwriting and knows enough about Renaissance Hermetic magic to set herself up
for whats in effect a necromantic quest for the philosophers stone, that same reader might
sense that something is more than a little odd, the way a thought experiment feels when
its different solutions take one in totally different directions. Who put this lengthy
document together, one wonders, and why? The final section seems more like a practice
session for solving simple ciphers than anything else; could the whole working just be a
ruse for something else? Or (more likely), is it that the working itself must be clandestine?

Thought to date from the late 1500s and of unknown origin, the Book of Magics 235
handwritten pages have passed through the hands of British antiquarians and occultists
ranging from Robert Cross Smith (Raphael) to Frederick Hockley. Over time it wound up

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broken into three separate parts, two of which are rejoined as V.b.26 and one of which
remains lost.

The entire manuscript has been digitized and available here for the past several years, so one
can freely look through the whole manuscript without having to worry about the wear on a
450 year old text. The manuscripts provenance and other cataloguing information are also
on-line. A more rapidly perusable book reader view is also set up for each of the two
sections, V.b.26 (1) and V.b.26 (2).[1]

Different parts of the


Book of Magic have
been copied from the
17th century on.
Within the last few
years, many of these
partial and/or
reworked copies
have become
available in printed
form; for instance,
two works edited
and introduced by
David Rankine, The
Book of Treasure
Spirits, a grimoire of
magical conjurations
to reveal treasure and catch thieves by invoking spirits, fallen angels, demons and fairies
and The Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet: a 17th century London cunningmans book of charms,
conjurations and prayers[2] both draw upon 17th century copies of sections of V.b.26.

By the 19th century, occultist Frederick Hockley at one point copied a copy of part of V.b.26
(which he called a Folio Manuscript on Magic & Necromancy Written by John Porter,
1583) before he became the owner of the original years later.[3] The manuscript had by
then been separated into parts, and while Hockley wound up owning the largest section of
about 190 pages, its almost certain he never saw the first section and what he saw of the
final section may have been someones copy.

Hockley also worked different parts of this grimoire and many others into his own magical
repertoire.[4] Some of his magical papers which have stayed for years in private collections
have come out in print recently and at least two show sections drawn in part or in whole
from V.b.26.[5] At some point, Fred Hockly also created a handwritten, illustrated
manuscript which among other things provides a conjuring of Oberion.[6]

An Oberion /Oberon/Auberon/Alberich by any Other Name Might not be the Same

Well take a look at Hockleys Oberion later in this article. First, lets try to find the context
for the one we have in the Book of Magic.

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Figure 3: V.b.26 (1), p. 185 and p. 190 Folger Shakespeare Library used with permission

To start with the most obvious observation, the Book of Magics Oberion/Oberyon looks
more like a genie than like the Fairy King Oberon of Shakespeares Midsummernights
Dream or the dwarf Auberon of the French medieval romance Huon of Bordeaux or the
dwarf Alberich from the Middle High German Nibelungenlied. Hes turbaned and when
not floating in the air seems to perfectly command all of the elements with his sword. We
might wonder, just in terms of time and place, why he appears this way. Now, for the
obvious problem in interpreting any of this: the handwriting which explains how to invoke
him is extremely difficult for most of us in the 21st century to read, even if we look at it
on-line and zoom in as much as we can. and that assumes weve understood the 189 pages
before it. Were barely going to be able to touch how the Book is structured before this
article ends, so much of the exploration will be left to the reader.[7]

Page 80 of the manuscript describes his office thus:

he appeareth like a kinge with a crowne one his heade. he is


under the govermente of the [sun] and [moon]. he teacheth a
man knowledge in phisicke and he sheweth the nature of stones
herbes and trees and of all mettall. he is a great and mighty
kinge and he is kinge of the fayries. he causeth a man to be
Invissible. he showeth where hiding treseuer is and how to
obtain the saime. he telleth of thinges present past and to come:

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and if he be bounde to a man he will carry or bring treasuer out


of the sea. . .

The Oberion in this manuscript might be thought of as the master alchemist of an age that
worshipped power. In the description of his office and in his placement between the Sun
and Moon, we also notice the nod to thrice-great Hermes. Oberions reputation as a
powerful spirit who can show the Operator where to find buried treasure on land and under
the sea had already appeared in earlier texts (as do references to him being conjured by a
skilled Operator with a magic book, often by being evoked from a crystal or magic mirror).
A quick search on-line using Oberion, treasure and related variant spellings should take
readers to several examples from the late 1400s or early 1500s. Oberions ability to make
the Operator invisible will become the subject of another section well look at in a moment.
But first, lets indulge in some historical gossip.

During the popular early years of Henry VIIIs kingship, when the young King relied so
heavily upon Cardinal Thomas Wolsey for advice, it was rumored that Wolsey, the richest
and most powerful man in the country besides Henry himself, had Oberion bound to him.

The most oft-repeated story comes from 1529, when a Sir William Stapleton (a truant
monk and unsuccessful magician[8]) wrote to Cardinal Wolsey to tell him about a group that
had tried to conjure Oberion to help them find buried treasure. Stapleton admits that while
in the monastery hed been given a magic book called Thesaurus Spirituum, and, after that,
another called Secreta Secretorum, [and] a little ring, a plate, a circle, and also a sword for
the art of digging. Since treasure hunting without royal license was illegal (and since hed
found no treasure trove himself anyway), Stapleton apparently wanted to inform on others
while at the same time seeing if the rumors about Wolsey were true. In his letter, he tells
Cardinal Wolsey that the nearby parson of Lesingham had bound a spirit called Andrew
Malchus and had called up of late Andrew Malchus, Oberion, and Inchubus. Stapleton
wrote that after theyd conjured up these spirits, Oberion refused to speak. When the parson
demanded that the spirit Andrew Malchus tell him why Oberyon refused their command,
Andrew Malchus said that was because the Oberion was bound to Cardinal Wolsey.

Stapleton continues with his story for pages, claiming that the plate that they were using to
call Oberion was now in the hands of Sir Thomas Moore, another of King Henry VIIIs
advisors. . (Apparently the Fairy King didnt bother with the less than totally rich and
powerful.) Stapleton said he wound up in prison, but as soon as he was out, the Duke of
Norfolk (Wolseys rival, Anne Boleyns uncle, and Lord Treasurer of England) wanted him
to find out if Cardinal Wolsey had a spirit; i.e., if Oberion was still bound to him (which
would then presumably explain how Wolsey had gotten so wealthy.)

Were not told what Cardinal Wolseys response to this letter was.

If, as you listen to this story and hear Andrew Malchus, you hear it as a variation of
Andromalius, the goetic spirit who helps to find lost things including hidden treasure,
then youre sliding back into the 16th century context very nicely. By the way, the best
contextual introduction to MS Vb26 is still Barbarba Mowats 2001 article Prosperos
Book,[9] and Mowat points out these same things. If one keeps in mind that Dr. Mowat is

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setting a context for Shakespearean scholars to understand magic books rather than for
western esotericists to understand Fairy Kings, one will find her article a helpful stage-
setter, all puns intended.

Mowat is at pains to separate the Oberion/Oberyon of the grimoire from the Oberon/
Auberon/ Alberich of medieval romances and Grail quests, and says that the Oberion of
MS Vb26, though in part Oberon, is also a spirit of another sort with a quite different
history.[10] While those histories overlap, its easier to keep them separate when first
getting acquainted with the manuscript. On the other hand, if you already know medieval
literature and have grown up on the magic of King Solomon, then you know that both the
romances and the magical operations are quests (for the Grail, for the philosophers stone,
for true love, true Kingship, etc.). Maybe then you can draw your own conclusions about
Huon of Bordeauxs Auberon, like the Book of Magics Oberion both being from the
mystical east and appearing foreign.

Conjuring Oberion after conjuring all the other powerful spirits which precede him in the
Book of Magic seems pretty clearly an operation likely constructed to help the Operator gain
wealth in some form. Yet the final ten pages of prayers and conjurings conclude with the
simple exhortation for the Operator to Then demaund of him [Oberion] what thou wilt.[11]

Before going any further, its really worth the readers time to try and see if you can read
some of the text yourself. An opening oration occupies the first pages (and remember, V.b.26
starts on page 15 because the first part of the manuscript is missing); by page 17 the first of
the colorful calligraphy letters added two hundred years or more later by owner Robert
Cross Smith appears, along with a few marks in the margin. Often times, throughout the
manuscript, one will see a W in the margin one place and a cross in another.

The text is mainly in English with the exception of some Latin words like Oremus (Let
us pray) and magical terms. (On page 17, for instance, the Tetragrammaton is written in
Hebrew, but most non-English words are written phonetically in Roman letters.) One may
want to try reading a particular section that has already been transcribed and printed in
modern type so its easier to slowly teach yourself by checking against whats already been
done.[12] For several years different writers have planned to come out with printed editions;
perhaps it was a more difficult project than anyone imagined!

In any case, before we reach Oberion or any of the long conjurations at the end, theres
whatever is missing in the first fifteen pages, followed by the writers long letter and
defense of Catholicism, then over 150 pages of religious exhortation, lists and lists of
offices of spirits, maledictions, suffumigations and the days of the week to use them, lists of
Greek and Roman and other gods and goddesses and tables of correspondences for different
celestial intelligences, lists of helpful plants that can be used to see and control spirits, a
series of rather nauseating discussions about how to kill and drain blood from lapwings and
swallows for particular spells and how to create particular oils to be used on particular days
of the week to see spirits in the air, how to consecrate the Seals and Circles, how to call the
spirits, then pages and pages of conjuring and binding spirits.

Occasionally in the margins a later hand will have noted where something correlates to a
spirit in a work by Reginald Scot or Agrippa or Peter de Abano, or something will be

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marked and renumbered. Then the highlight of the work begins: illustrations and conjurings
of the spirits Bilgall, Asassiell, Bethalar, Annabaoth, Ascariell, Satan, Baron Bareth,
Romulon, and Mosacus. By the time the writer gets to the conjuring of Orobas, the Prince
of the Gates of Hell, one suspects that much may be demanded of the Fairy King when he
appears.

Early on, the Fairy Queen Micob is also listed, and on one of the blank pages in the middle a
later owner has noted Mycob is queen of the fairies, (i.e. Mab). Queen Mab or Mauve,
about whom Mercutio gives a long speech in Romeo and Juliet, is the Irish Queen of the
Fairies; her court of seven fairy sisters are to shewe and teache a man the nature of hearbes
and to instruct a man in phisicke. Also they will bringe a man the ringe of Invissibillity.[13]

Figure 4: V.b.24 p 7: detail of the names of the seven fairy sisters. The colorful lettering was done by Robert Smith, a later
owner of the manuscript. Folger Shakespeare Library used with permission

The lists of non-fairy spirits doesnt fit neatly into any previous grimoire Im aware of.
Theres even a note at the beginning of the second section that suggests that the scribe didnt
know proper forms of Hebrew, and points out that on the seals and diagrams the
six-pointed Star of David is in almost every case replaced with a cross.[14] Sothebys 2007
listing for the second part of the manuscript said:

This manuscript is not. . .a copy of the Key of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis),


but rather an eclectic and personalized anthology drawing on a range of
Solomonic and other sources. Manuscripts of the Clavis Salomonis from the
period vary considerably and elements taken from the Solomonic tradition
include the use of a sword in ritual magic and the conjuration of elemental
spirits. Traces may also be found of the Lemegeton (including the Goetia), and
the Liber Juratus. Other spells, such as the ritual eye, seem much more
idiosyncratic. Much of the text is set within a Christian framework - in line with
reform of the occult arts proposed by John Dee and others. The Trinity and
saints are frequently invoked, crosses often replaced stars, and the text is
interspersed with Biblical passages (including Peter 5:8 and John 1:1). There
are also a signs of an older and darker tradition in the use of blood rituals and,
on one occasion, a reversed pentacle.

Curiously, while the Solomonic spirits dont completely correspond to other grimoires, the
Book of Magics seven fairy sisters seem to have more than an incidental connection to
several other manuscripts, including those in Reginald Scots 1584 Discoverie of Witchcraft
and to the list in another Folger manuscript, Spell to Bind the Seven Sisters of the Fairies to
you for ever or X.d..234 (ca. 1600), a one page sheet of spells which Frederika Bain
summarizes as spells to summon, supplicate, control, and copulate with the seven Sisters of

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the fairies.[15] If the goal of the Operator in this ritual is most likely to gain wealth, the goal
in the four spells transcribed by Bain seems to be to gain a submissive fairy sex slave.
Notably, this one page sheet of spells, also viewable on-line, is in a hand very similar to that of
Vb.24, and one of the smaller spells

Tracking the names of particular fairy sisters in different texts could show us much about a
less-frequently studied part of the western mystery tradition. Bain notes that Two other
spells, in MSS 3824 (1649) and Sloane 1227 (ca. seventeenth century), give as the names
of the seven sisters of the fairies to be summoned several that are identical or similar, but
none [but X.d. 234] makes any mention of copulation, and they are almost certainly more
recent.[16] That is true enough, though much is left for inference. For instance, one of the
smaller spells described in the second section of Vb.24 tells how to "cause a spirit to appear
in thy bed chamber."

As the Operator begins invoking celestial energies, it seems fairly clear that most of the time
the spirits are summoned into a crystal. (Ascaryell/Ascariell, who appears in Vb.24, is the
same spirit summoned in Sloane MS 3848 to see most excellent & certainlye in a Christall
stoune what secret thou wilt.")

By page 139 of the Book of Magic, a


group of Sibilis appear, so instead of
Queen Micob and her court of Lillia,
Restillia, Fata, Falla, Africa, Julia, and
and Juliana (who elsewhere is called
Venalla,) we have Julia, Hodelfa,
Juafula, Sedamylia, Reaina, Segamex
and Delfornia join the valiant prince
Arthur.

One aspect of the Book of Magic that


Ive so far ignored are the ciphers.
Much of the final 19 pages are filled
with ciphersobvious, easy
ciphersbut why they are there is
anyones guess. However, its only from
a cipher that some later person deduced,
perhaps incorrectly, that the manuscript
was written by an unknown John
Porter.

On page 135 (figure 5), notice how a later writer has added colorful calligraphy but also
made some notes on the page in pencil. (The red italic letters on this page are in the same
hand as most of the rest of the manuscript, but the green P and the serpentine flourish next
to An Experiment were both added later.)

On the Folger site, its easy to zoom in on page 135. If one does, one sees that someone has
read the red letters nh4z retr4p anagrammatically as a simple backwards cipher for John
Porter, and then for reasons left unexplained, written John Weston under John Porter to

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the lower right of the red letters. This seems the only empirical basis for naming the
unknown John Porter as the original author or even as the original copyist.

If one does zoom in on that cipher, that part of the page, the deduction that John Porter is the
writer seems even stranger:

Now, it looks like a close reader, almost certainly Robert Cross Smith, has written that John
Porter equals John Weston, and next to Westons name has written 142, when is the
page number where Weston appears in the text. On page 142 (see below), in the same
handwriting, someone has written a vertical line next to the part of the text that says I Iohn
Weston gent. Its hard to read that below, but if one looks at this transcription of page 142,
at line 43, it should be easier to follow. Similarly, on the transcription one sees many places
where the writer refers to a Mr. W, and each time, the penciled hand has moved to the
margin and written a W.

Figure 7: A modern writer pencils "John Weston" into the margins of page 142.
Folger Shakespeare Library used with permission

If one follows the rather fantastic story told on page 142, it seems that the writer is
beginning by telling how to have a spirit vision by taking a lapwing, killing it, letting it turn
to worms, making a paste with it and so forth. (I hope the reader has already eaten before
reading this section.) This process continues for ten or twelve days more, he claims, and the
paste will turn into a worm then into a lapwing then with the blood of that lapwing, one can
well, those who want can read over that on their own. The point is that by line 20, the
writer shifts to a story of how he saw this wort of ointment made by a learned Turk who
was for some time the companion of Mr. W.

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He continues. When the Turk was in Alexandria, he says, the Sultan of Egypt asked him to
reveal how to make this particular ointment, and when the Turk wouldnt do it, he was
ordered to be slain. The Turk wanted to talk with the said Mr. W. and so and here the
writer shifts to first person we conferred together. At that point, it seems that the writer
is Mr. W.

When they are going to depart (Mr. W. to leave, and the Turk to be slain), Mr. W. kisses the
Turk, and the Turk gives him a ring so he becomes invisible. Having given the ring, Mr. W.
becomes visible and the Sultans men seize him. The invisible Turk then announts Mr. Ws
eyes, at which time he (Mr. W.) sees a huge number of spirits, and charges them to
minister to me their help. Then suddenly:

there hapened a greate tempest a greate tempest [sic] & soe greate thvnder &
lyghtninge
that the Sarasins which leade me eed & were soe dispersed, that they leffe me
alone
& I seeinge them in such feare that they Ranne awaye, & as men dismayed
eade, then
I eed to my fellowe the Turcke, & soe he & I wentto his house both speedely
& quietly,
from whence the same night wee ead seecrettly & went to wardes Ierusalem
& Lvmbardy, & leavinge our goods behinde vs the which goods were brought
vnto vs
afterwardes by the spirrites with mvtch more/

He says that since then, hes used the ointment many times. (Well, wouldnt you?) But
there are only three people in the world who could make the ointment: him, the Turk, and
someone else that he doesnt name. He does say that the Turk was named Joseph, both a
greate philosopher, & very Riche, and taught him:

to the end I should not forget it , & heere I doe write the same for Learned men
to solace them selves withall & that as occassion is offered they might put it in
pactise, least I should be accompted with the vnpofftable servant , whoe hidd
his talent in the earth /

Then the writer positively identifies himself, and adds even more onto his already incredible
story:

I Iohn Weston gent beinge in thenowaye in a cittie


there called dowway, & in the companie of a channon a very honest & godly
man
whoe Ioyninge with me & others wee entered in league & attempted a seecrett
worcke

Were not told what year this is, but dowway is probably Douai, France. If John Weston
is English and its after 1561 (and if there is any shred of truth to the hallucinatory story),
that puts him at the English College in Douai, which was a Catholic seminary founded by
William Allen. Between 1577 and 1583, it would have been high treason for Mr. W. to be

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teaching or studying there. When he says that he and the Chanon attempted a secret work, it
sounds like a hint of becoming a spy for the Catholic League.

Of course that doesnt mean that the story is true. But it does seem that the writer of the
manuscript, on this page, wants someone reading it to think it was written by John Weston.

There was a John Weston associated with Renaissance occultism, or several of them, but
none of these Westons would have been known at all to a 19th century reader of the
manuscript. Whatever is going on here, one suspects this might not have been the safest
manuscript to have, unless the person carrying it was himself a spy, and/or not in England.

Lets take a brief look at what was happening in England during the dates (1577-1583)
mentioned in the Book of Magic. Only a few years in the future, 1588, the Spanish Armada
would sale to England. What significance might the years 1577-1583 have to English
magicians?

In 1577, people across Europe and the British Isles saw the Great Comet of 1577 in
Cassiopeia. Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe was among those who carefully recorded the
event. England and the Netherlands formed an alliance that year, and the first seminary
priest executed under Elizabeths reign, Cuthbert Mayne, was killed. The situation for
English Catholics like the author of V.b.26 would get quickly worse. For reasons
unknown, in 1577 John Dee started his diary (really notations in an ephemeris). The latter
year, 1583, is perhaps best known to occultists as the year that Polish nobleman Albert
aski came to England, as did Dominican friar Giordano Bruno. aski, Philip Sidney, John
Florio and others watched Bruno debate with scholars at Oxford, defending Copernicanism
and mocking the Aristotelian logic of his hosts. By that fall, John Dee and Edward Kelley
had left with aski for the continent. The 1577-1588 time period might be best thought of
as a huge build-up to war.

The year 1583 is a sort of cut-off point for much tolerance of non-state supported magical
activity in England. Works like Reginald Scots Discovery of Witchcraftpublished in
1584, the year John Dee and Edward Kelly left for Poland England and the year an
arch-Puritan, John Whitgift, became Archbishop of Canterbury and chief censor of printed
textsmanaged to attack highbrow Hermeticism like Dees and the charismatic religions
more popular among the poor at exactly the same time. Protestant conservatives, most
notably Archbishop Whitgift and Sir Christopher Hatton, cracked down on radical
Protestants (Presbyterians, ironically) who believed in spiritual illumination.

Perhaps the most famous early 16th century grimoire, Cornelius Agrippas De Occulta
Philosophia, was not really considered objectionable reading early in Elizabeths reign, and
thus one can find a record of it in places like John Dees library as well as several
contemporaneous libraries at Oxford and Cambridge. But by the 1580s, while one might
already own old compilations like that of Agrippas, one might not want to write anything
new or at least not write it and have anyone else know about it. Had someone compiled and
tried to print the same material after 1584, at the very least the work would have not
received ecclesiastic approval (unless it is worded, like Scots Discovery of Witchcraft, as an
attack, particularly an attack on Catholics). Because of this political climate, its no wonder
that we dont know what happened to the Book of Magic from 1583 until someone copied

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part of it in the 17th century. It was not a very safe manuscript to have, especially given
what the writer says on page 142.

To return to the manuscript itself, after John Weston gent finishes telling his story about
the magic ring, were treated to more pages of conjurations of spirits including Bilgall,
Asassiell, Bethalar, Annabath, Ascariell, Satan, Baron Beryth, Romulon, Mosacus and of
course, Oberion. Each of these have antecedents, just as the list of seven sisters and the
name of the Fairy Queen can be found elsewhere, or names similar can be found. What is
most unusualother than that the Book survived at allis the lengthy collection of spirits
that at first seem like a mish-mash of many traditions.

Given the role of angelic magic throughout the piece, one cant help but wonder if this
John Weston is somehow associated with the Westons who became Edward Kelleys
step-family. There are a few problems with jumping to that conclusion, though. First of
all, the story told on page 142 might strike some peoplemost people?as more than just
slightly unbelievable. Second, who would this John Weston be? Edward Kelleys
step-son John Francis Weston, who grew up in Bohemia and briefly attended the Catholic
Clementium school in Prague, was likely Catholic for much of his life but he wasnt born
yet in 1577. Could it be his father, who was likely also named John Weston ? No, that
person died in 1582 (which is how Kelley was able to marry his widow).

Dr. John Dee also happened to have a business partner named John Weston for a time, or at
least was involved in a business venture with someone named John Weston who could not
have been either Edward Kelleys step-son or Kelleys wifes deceased husband. But that
John Weston also is dead before 1583.

More speculating about John Porter or John Weston will have to wait for another day. Lets
take a quick survey of who owned the two extant parts of the Book of Magic between the
1580s and the dates when each section was purchased by the Folger Shakespeare library.
From the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First

As mentioned, the manuscript in the Folger Shakespeare library is missing the first 14
pages, and the remaining 220 pages were once divided into two parts. Much more is known
about the first, longer section.[17] Early owner Robert Cross Smith (aka Raphael) wrote
his initials and a date ("R.C.S., 1822") on page 15, which suggests that even by the time that
Smith owned the book in 1822 the first 14 pages were missing. Much of what we know
about the history of the largest part of the manuscriptthe 205 pages listed in the Folger
catalog as V.b.26 (1) comes from notes written down by a later owner, Frederick Hockley,
over 250 years after the original was written.

If one cares to dig through the truly fascinating history of V.b.26 (1), one learns that
Hockley copied part of the second section of the magic book many, many years before he
owned it. Moreover, what he copied was, as noted earlier, itself a copy made by a man
named John Palmer, which either Hockley or Palmer or someone else called a Folio
Manuscript on Magic & Necromancy Written by John Porter, 1583.

We have no way of knowing if either of these men also inherited a story about where the
manuscript came from or who created it, or who located the cipher on page 135. Weve

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seen how one owner of the manuscript, almost certainly Smith, went through much of
V.b.26 (1) with a pencil. Its this modern hand that locates Porters name as an anagram,
and who writes W in the margins when John Weston identifies himself. That hand has
also sketched out some planned calligraphic touches that were never finished, and we do
know that the colorful letters on some pages were added in by Smith, just as we know
E.H.W. Meyerstein added in the fairy poem at the end.

That part of the Book of Magic, the 205 pages of V.b.26 (1), was acquired by the Folger
Shakespeare Library from Days (Booksellers) Ltd. in 1958, and then reunited with the
final section in 2007. An article on the Folger site describes the magic that brought two
of the three pieces of the Book of Magic back together again. The museums curator of
manuscripts, Heather Wolfe, apparently glanced at the cover of a Sothebys auction catalog,
and as the Folger article reports:

[The cover] featured the image of a late-16th-century manuscript page, and she
thought it had a familiar look. The Sothebys page was one leaf of a grimoire, a
book of magic spells and conjurations. Heather noticed, in the upper left corner,
the pencil notation 206. She immediately went to the Folger manuscript
archives and pulled out Folger Ms. V.b.26, a grimoire in our collection, and
noted with mounting excitement that its last leaf was numbered 205. As she
compared the handwriting in V.b.26 with that of the Sothebys image, it became
evident that the two manuscripts had once been part of the same book.[18]

Within only a couple years of purchasing the final section of Ms. V.b.26, the Folger
Shakespeare Library had made all of the pages available on-line. Since then, the fun of
trying to figure out more about V.b.26 has really begun.

Before concluding this introduction to the Book of Magic, Id like to take one more swing
back through the nineteenth century.

By sometime in the mid to late 1800s, Frederick Hockley, the last occultist to own the Book
of Magic before it wound up in the Folger, produced his own hand-drawn manuscript which
included an invocation to Oberion. Dan Harms, who has produced a modern facsimile of
that manuscript, notes that it might serve as a coda to the collaborations of two major
figures of the occult world, John Denley (1764-1842) and Frederick Hockley.[19]

In the early 1800s, John Denleys London bookshop on 13 Catherine Street near Covent
Garden was a center of British occultism, and Fred Hockley apparently worked there from
his teens on, occasionally hand-producing works for Denleys patrons and transcribing
manuscripts. Many who study Hockleys manuscripts notice Hockleys liberal use of
writing and techniques from Frances Barretts The Magus, and thats no surprise, given that
Frances Barrett was a patron of John Denleys bookstore and that Hockley used the
engraving plates purchased by Denley when he (Hockley) produced the 1875 edition of The
Magus.

Other patrons of Denleys shop included Edward Bulwer-Lytton, whose Rosicrucian novel
Zanoni is a treasure-trove of esoterica and dark-and-stormy-night sentences; Romantic poet

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and members of the Mercurii, a secret magical society whose
members included several apparent owners of parts of V.b.26.: Robert Cross Smith
(Raphael), John Palmer (Zadkiel until the death of Smith, when he became Raphael),
and George Graham. Celebrated miniaturist painter Richard Cosway (1742-1821), the
earliest known owner of V.b.26, was also likely a member of the Mercurii.[20]

Apparently John Denley bought the manuscript from Cosway on behalf of Greene; from
Greene it passed to Smith, copies were made by Palmer then Hockley copied Palmers copy
before winding up with part of the manuscript himself.[21] But all of these men knew each
other for many years, and from somewhere among this group came the history of the
manuscript that Hockley wrote down in the private manuscript which was recently edited by
Colin Campbell and printed by Teitan Press. Ill return to that manuscript, Hockleys copy
of Palmers Folio on Magic & Necromancy Written by John Porter, 1583, in a
moment.

No one knows where or from whom Richard Cosway obtained the Book of Magic.
Considering the miniaturists eventful life, he could have as easily bought it on the
European continent as in England. For that matter, given Thomas Jeffersons famous love
affair with Richard Cosways wife Maria (who Jefferson knew in Paris in the 1786 while
serving as ambassador to France), the Book of Magic could have wound up in the colonial
U.S. and been transported to Paris by Jefferson and sold to Cosway.

That last suggestion is only meant in fun: the point is that we have no idea who owned the
Book of Magic before Cosway, but we might suspect that there was a particular history that
Cosway and the younger Mercurii were interested in, because both parts of the manuscript
stayed with a member of this group for years.

If that history concerned someone named Weston or Porter, theres not much likelihood that
any of the Mercurii would know anything about them unless they connected to some other
occultists that the Mercurii cared about. Fred Hockley, the youngest of the group, was
particularly interested in scrying. He was interested in John Dees Enochian materials,
(Most readers will know already that the original Golden Dawns Enochian materials most
likely came from Frederick Hockley via Kenneth MacKenzie; by now it should not surprise
us that Hockley obtained many of those materials from John Denley, R.C. Smith, and John
Cosway.

While there is good reason to believe that some of the Enochian materials were
experimented with in London during the century before the Mercurii,[22] I have yet to see
such a history of connections with the Book of Magic. Most assume that the Book of Magic
originated in England, but all we really know is that whoever wrote it could write in English
with a neat Elizabethan secretary hand that (to this reader) shows some characteristics of
Welsh influence.

Incidentally, one finds this illustration of Oberion in R.C. Smiths Astrologer of the 19th
Century just before instructions to Invoke or Raise the Spirit of Oberion:

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Figure 8: Oberion in Astrologer of the 19th Century


The conjuration which follows is attributed to an ancient MS. in the possession of Raphael.
(That ancient manuscript was doubtlessly the Book of Magic ! )

Its hard to know whether any of the Mercurii used the Book of Magic as practitioners, but
not hard at all to tell that Smith didnt expect his readers to. Smiths magic circle didnt
come from the same ancient manuscript at all:

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Figure 9: Oberion's Circle, 19th Century

When the author began reading through the Book of Magic a number of years ago, I was
sure that if any of the Mercurii had tried to invoke Oberion, it would have been Frederick
Hockley. After all, Hockley was immersed in the work of John Dee and Edward Kelley,
collected Enochian material, and had spent hours and hours conjuring spirits with his
teen-aged scryer, Emma Louisa Leigh.

Im less and less inclined to think thats the case unless it was a Rite he tried before R.C.
Smith died in 1832. For one thing, if one takes a look at the drawing of Oberion in
Hockleys handwritten, multi-colored manuscript produced for Denley, one notices that its
almost exactly the same drawing as Figure 8 above, just more dramatically colored in. In
Hockleys version, Oberion appears ghostly white instead of dark skinned and his clothing
has been colored so he appears to have a green gown and purple cape, but otherwise its just
the same basic image, colored in.

By 1858, when Emma Louisa Leigh died, Hockley had all but stopped copying old
manuscripts, and began writing about his work with Emma. His spirit contacts generally
involved contacting Emma.[23] Though Hockley lived until 1885, the other Mercurii were
dead, and it seems that at this point in his life he would have not likely have spent time
correcting a mistaken identification he or John Palmer had made on a manuscript decades
before.

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For another half century, the Book of Magic, with Instructions for Invoking Spirits, etc.,
would quietly wind up in semi-storage.

Now, once again, the Fairy King has started to awaken. Maybe in the next few years hell
tell us what he knows.

Index

Notes

1. The entire manuscript is at http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/s/9van1w ; the catalog details at


http://shakespeare.folger.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=228887; V.b.26 (1) in book reader view
at http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/s/v82j34 ; and V.b.26 (2) in book reader view at
http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/s/nfg47p .

2. David Rankine, (London: Avalonia Press, 2009, 2011). The Book of Treasure Spirits
cover announces it as a a partial transcription of Sloane MS 3824, dated 1649, containing
material originally bound together with part of Sloane MS 3825, including a conjuration of
the spirit Birto said to have been performed at the request of Edward IV, King of England,
while The Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet is a transcription of Sloan manuscript 3851.

3. Frederick Hockley, as edited by Colin Campbell in A Book of the Offices of Spirits (York
Beach, ME: Teitan Press, 2011), xviii.

4. For a discussion of how one of Hockleys copies mixes from a variety of sources, see
Alan Thorogoods Addendum and Silens Manus introduction to Abraham the Jew on Magic
Talismans by Frederick Hockley after a work of Frances Barrett (York Beach, ME: Teitan
Press, 2011), then note in #5 below how Hockley does the same thing with V.b.26.

5. Ive mentioned these in more detail in a review here (http://www.jwmt.org/v3n23


/hockley_review.html) but they include Hockley as edited by Campbell, op. cit.; Silens
Manus, Occult Spells, (York Beach, ME: Teitan Press, 2009)with on-line Addenda et
Corrigenda by Alan Thorogood.

6. Frederick Hockley, (scribe and artist) Experimentum, Potens Magna, with an introduction
by Dan Harms, (Society of Esoteric Endeavour 2012). Harms notes that this carefully
presented, hadwritten, multicolored work may well have been for a special client of
Denleys, and seems to have been assembled for a collector rather than a practicioner
(1-2).

7. For any readers who are interested, Id love to continue this conversation, which will
continue on my blog until I get tired of it. Until one gets the hang of reading early modern
writingand that is an acquired talent that takes a fair amount of timeits a good idea to
check against the transcriptions others have done. This is where the many copies of copies
that have floated around come in handy. Rankines Arthur Gauntlet has a similar invocation
with only a few words changed (which is as it should be, since hes transcribed a copy made
less than 100 years after the original.) Working with this manuscript is much easier than
with most, so Ill leave that project to the reader except for a few suggestions in the notes

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below.

8. Katharine Briggs, An Anatomy of Puc: An Examination of Fairy Belief Among


Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (London: Routledge, Keagan Paul, 1959), 114. The
lengthy letter written by Stapleton to Wolsey is in Briggs appendix, 255-261.

9. Barbara A. Mowat, Prosperos Book, Shakespeare Quarterly volume 42 number 1,


spring 2001, 1-33.

10. Ibid 18

11. Folger 199

12. The writing is a plain secretary hand from the time period with some italic words written
in red. It may take some time and eye strain to get used to some of the archaisms.
Remember that i and y are interchangeable during this time periods (hence
Oberyon/Oberon) as are i and j (iohn/john) and u and v (euer/ever). Long s will
look like and f except an f; will have a cross on it, and so forth. A th will be written
as a thorn () which in this manuscript will look more like a looped y. The writer writes
& for and almost exclusively.

If you spend much time doing this sort of thing (and it does take a lot of time), you may
want to use some of the paleography resources that are on-line. If youd like to read of
another scholars adventures in transcribing early modern English, Sienna Latham will take
you through her transcription of V.b.26 page 55 here.

13. Folger 81 corroborated with Mowat 14.

14. This note can partly be explained by V.b.26 (2) being bound as the Key of Solomon.

15. Frederika Bain, The Binding of the Fairy: Four Spells, in Preternature, vol. 1 no. 2
(University Park, PA: The Pennsylvanis State University Press, 2012).

16. Ibid. 333.

17. To recap: V.b.26 is the entire manuscript as currently catalogued by the Folger, two
long-separated parts of an entire old text which were rejoined by the 2007 purchase
described above. Of the two manuscripts comprising V.b.26, the first-- V.b.26 (1)-- is by far
the longer manuscript: 205 pages, of which the first 14 are missing. R.C. Smith
(1795-1832) owned both fragments; Frederick Hockley (1808-1885) owned V.b.26 (1). The
second manuscript, V.b.26 (2), adds an additional 29 pages, but it is not clear whether these
were ever in Hockleys possession. However, as Alan Thorogood points out in his notes to
Occult Spells (op. cit.) some of Hockleys papers seem to come almost directly from V.b.26
(2), so we know that Hockley either had the second part or the manuscript or a copy of parts
of it. V.b.26 (1) seems to have gone from Smith to Hockley to E.H.W. Meyerstein
(1889-1952) to Southbys to the Folger library; V.b.26 (2) went from Smith to an
intermediate owner to Robert Lenkiewicz (1941-2002) before being purchased by the
Folger.

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18. https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/magazine/issues/2008_winter/folger

19. Dan Harms, introduction, in Frederick Hockleys Experimentum, Potens Magna.


(Society of Esoteric Endeavour 2012)

20. Jocelyn Godwin, The Theosophic Enlightenment (New York: SUNY Press, 1994), 144.

21. For further discussion of this, see Campbell op. cit. and Thorogood op. cit. Hockley
apparently copied an older copy that John Palmer, had made in 1832. Palmer, a chemist,
astrologer and friend of R.C. Smith, would have likely made his copy from Smiths
manuscript, since Smith seems to have had it from 1822 on. Fortunately Fred Hockley
wrote down the known chronology of the manuscript that he was copying a part of a copy
of. According to Colin Campbells recounting of Hockleys chronology, the Book of Magic
disappeared for some 200 years, only to re-emerge in the possession of artist and libertine
Richard Cosway (1742-1821), then was purchased by London bookseller John Denley
(1764-1842), then by George Graham (1784-1860?) on behalf of a small occult fraternity,
The Society of the Mercurii, which later included Smith then Palmer. Hockley, the
youngest of the group and the transcriber and producer of many manuscripts, would wind
up in the position of inheritor and preserver of a particular occult tradition..

22. For more on this, see Alan Thorogoods recent research in the introduction to Dr. Rudds
Nine Hierarchies of Angels (York Beach, ME: Teitan Press, 2013). Thorogoods research
showed that this Enochian material came to Hockley via Cosway, and he also casts some
much-needed light on odd Dr. Rudd stories spun by copyist Peter Smart. Smart appears
to have been an older and somewhat removed relative of Cosways fellow miniaturist, John
Smart

23. Alan Thorogood, introduction to Frederick Hockleys Clavis Arcana Magica, (York
Beach, ME: Teitan Press, 2013).

Index

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