Those of you who know me, will know I’ve spent the past 30 years picking apart magical systems and taking notice of what’s wrong with them as well as what’s right. One such long-running complaint I’ve had is the so-called “Barbarous names” found in the Grimoires.
Of course I’ve long known most of those names to be bastardized theological or liturgical terms, so I didn’t give it much thought since I wasn’t using them. On the few cases I found a use for them, usually I would just either restore the name to its actual Hebrew or Greek, or just translate the name into Latin depending on my mood. Everything still worked out just fine, so “no harm no foul.”
I started to reevaluate my position when researching historical texts for A Handbook of Exorcism and Deliverance, which brought me into contact with the Enchiridium Quadripartitum (“four-part handbook”) of Vincentius Von Berg. Sure, it’s often mentioned on the internet in an “I quoted this from a website that quoted this from another website” sort of way, but when I got my hands on a copy of the actual text, I was floored! Not only did this book contain exorcism formulae for almost every imaginable situation, and herbal remedies, and recipes for suffumigations against demons, and talismanic formulae, this book also includes several prayers and conjurations using Barbarous Names! Continue reading
THAVMA: Christian Occultism and Magic in General 