The Secret of Secrets. A sixteenth century English grimoire.

Auteurs: (edited by) Dr. Stephen Skinner & David Rankine

Jaar: 2019

Druk: 3e

ISBN: 9780738760728 / 0738760722

Taal: Engels

176 pagina's

Uitgeverij: Golden Hoard Publishing

Hardcover met stofomslag, nieuw.

Achterflaptekst:

Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic Volume 9.

This manuscript is sometimes referred to as the “Secret of Secrets” because this title was written on one of its early unfoliated leaves. Despite that, this manuscript has no relation to the Secretum Secretorum of pseudo-Aristotle, which was one of the most widely read texts in the Mediaeval period. It seems very unlikely that anyone would have confused the present text with that classic of kingly advice. It is instead a grimoire, a manual of practical magic, a real sorcerer’s handbook. 

Despite this title, it also does not contain the ultimate secrets of grimoire magic, but is in fact a composite grimoire drawn from a number of different sources. It is not the sort of grimoire which has a complete method for calling up a set register of spirits, like the Goetia, nor does it have a wide range of pentacles or talismans like the Key of Solomon. 

It is however quite special as it was also a practising Cunning man's grimoire, an interesting blend of learned magic and local village magic. It also contains a lot of critical astrological information (including its own set of astrological tables) which are an important part of magic, but which don’t feature to a large extent in other grimoires. It goes way beyond Planetary days and hours, to detailed aspects of timing which would have been more a part of Astral/Image magic rather than Solomonic magic. It contains magical operations connected with the 28 Mansions of the Moon, which were usually absent from Solomonic grimoires. The 28 Mansions of the Moon belong to a different magical tradition which owes its origins to Arabic and Indian roots, rather than the Greek roots of Solomonic magic. 

This manuscript therefore literally stands at the crossroads of several different magical streams.

Dr. Stephen Skinner began his career as a geography lecturer at what is now the University of Technology in Sydney. He wrote, with Francis King, the classic Techniques of High Magic in 1976, and later The Oracle of Geomancy and Terrestrial Astrology: Divinatory Geomancy, which is now the standard work on Western divinatory geomancy. He edited Aleister Crowley's Magical Diaries and Astrology. Highly illustrated books on Nostradamus and Millennium Prophecies followed from his prolific pen. 

Stephen was responsible for originally stimulating interest in John Dee and Enochian magic by first re-publishing Meric Casaubon’s True and Faithful Relation... in 1973 and subsequently publishing a fully corrected edition as Dr John Dee’s Spiritual Diaries. 

He also produced two substantial reference books: The Complete Magician's Tables and Guide to the Feng Shui Compass. More recently he published Techniques of Graeco-Egyptian Magic and Techniques of Solomonic Magic. 

He is also the author of more than a dozen books on feng shui, including the first one in English in the 20th century. In all he has written more than 46 books, translated into more than twenty different languages. 

David Rankine is the author of a number of books exploring the magical practices of the Western Mystery Tradition, including Wicca: Magical Beginnings, Becoming Magick, Climbing the Tree of Life, Heka: The Practices of Ancient Egyptian Ritual & Magic and Practical Planetary Magick. He has been studying magic since the 1970s.

David has also written prolifically for magazines, with many hundreds of articles and essays on esoteric subjects printed in a variety of international magazines. Since 2003 David has been working with Stephen Skinner on the Source Works of Ceremonial Magic series. He is the author of 27 books on magic, and currently lives in Glastonbury with his partner, where he researches and writes about magic and the development of the Grimoire tradition.

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