Its prominence as a source of popular rural Pennsylvanian and Appalachian " folk magic" spells has been recorded as late as the mid-20th century.
de Laurence, helped the work gain popularity outside German communities. The growth of inexpensive paperback publication in the 19th century, like those of Chicago occult publisher L. While versions of The Sixth and Seventh Books were likely passed around German immigrant communities from the late 18th century, the 1849 Leipzig copy was followed by a New York printing, in German, in 1865, and an English translation in 1880. One of the earliest American grimoires is John George Hohman's Pow-Wows or, Long Lost Friend, a collection of magical spells originally published in 1820 for Pennsylvania Dutch spiritualists known as "hexmeisters". In the early 19th-century European or European-American grimoires were popular among immigrants and in rural communities where the folk traditions of Europe, intertwined with European religious mysticism, survived. Anglo-Germanic American rural folk magic After circulating there, the work was popularized in the United States first in the communities of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Historian Owen Davies traces copies of the work from the 18th century in Germany. The work came to wide prominence when published as volume 6 of Das Kloster in 1849 in Stuttgart by antiquarian Johann Scheible. Elements of the "Seventh Book", such as “The Seven Semiphoras of Adam” and “The Seven Semiphoras of Moses” appear to have come from the seventh book of the earlier European copies of the Sefer Raziel HaMalakh. No first version of this work has been established, but early versions began to appear as inexpensive pamphlets in Germany in the 18th century. 1.3 Folk magic and spirituality in Anglophone West Africa.1.2 African American folk magic and spirituality.1.1 Anglo-Germanic American rural folk magic.Īn older magical text, a fourth-century Greek papyrus entitled Eighth Book of Moses otherwise unrelated to the Sixth and Seventh Books, was found in Thebes in the 19th century and published as part of the Greek Magical Papyri. It influenced European Occult Spiritualism as well as African American hoodoo folk magic, and magical-spiritual practices in the Caribbean, and West Africa. It contains "Seals" or magical drawings accompanied by instructions intended to help the user perform various tasks, from controlling weather or people to contacting the dead or Biblical religious figures.Ĭopies have been traced to 18th-century German pamphlets, but an 1849 printing, aided by the appearance of the popular press in the 19th century, spread the text through Germany and Northern Europe to German Americans and eventually helped popularize the texts among African Americans in the United States, the Caribbean, and Anglophone West Africa. The work contains reputed Talmudic magic names, words, and ideograms, some written in Hebrew and some with letters from the Latin alphabet. Self-described as "the wonderful arts of the old Hebrews, taken from the Mosaic books of the Kabbalah and the Talmud," it is actually a grimoire, or text of magical incantations and seals, that purports to instruct the reader in the spells used to create some of the miracles portrayed in the Bible as well as to grant other forms of good fortune and good health. The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses is an 18th- or 19th-century magical text allegedly written by Moses, and passed down as hidden (or lost) books of the Hebrew Bible. 88 Biblia Arcana Magica Alexander: Tradition of The Seventh Book of Moses, "Diagram Illustrating the Symbols Employed by the Israelites in Their Laws of Magic".