ABRAHAM THE JEW ON MAGIC TALISMANS: TO BE ENGRAVEN ON THE SEALS OF RINGS MADE OF VARIOUS METALS, UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE FIXED STARS AND THE TWENTY-EIGHT MANSIONS OF THE MOON
Book Details + Condition: The Teitan Press (York Beach, Maine). First, Limited, Numbered and Signed Copy, 2011. Book is unread and has been on a shelf: it has firm binding and a clean interior. From a manuscript by Frederick Hockley, and with an Introduction by Silens Manus (of Weiser Antiquarian). Signed by Manus on the front free endpaper. Hardcover. Small Quarto. xvi + 46pp (vi), MS 40pp. (80 pages: 40 with text, and the remainder with scans of Hockley’s manuscript.) Bound in high quality black cloth, with a gilt talismanic design stamped on the front cover, blind rules, and gilt title etc. on the spine. Printed on acid free paper, sewn, and with color frontispiece. Edition is limited to 650 numbered copies, of which this is #64. The work is a previously-unpublished manuscript by Frederick Hockley, probably transcribed by him circa 1850 from an earlier work. The manuscript deals with the creation of talismans, and is divided into two parts, the first of which details methods for their manufacture “under the fixed stars” and the second “under the twenty-eight mansions of the moon.” Both sets of concepts were popular in mediaeval and later European astrological and magical practice, having apparently been incorporated into them from Arabic astronomical and astrological treatises composed during the “Golden Age” of Arabic science from the middle of the eighth to the middle of the thirteenth centuries. This first published edition comprises an Introduction in which Silens Manus explores the history of the manuscript, and its relationship with other early magical works, notably those of Cornelius Agrippa. It is followed by a typeset transcription of the text of the manuscript, with explanatory footnotes, etc., and a reproduction of various relevant passages from the 1651 edition of Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. The final section is a facsimile of the original manuscript, printed on special coated paper that gives a photograph like quality to the reproduction.
Frederick Hockley (1809-1885), was an occultist and Freemason with an interest in Spiritualism who in later life was associated with the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Hockley’s peers considered him to be one of the great occult scholars of his time in fact he was held in such high regard by one of the founders of the Golden Dawn, W. Wynn Westcott, that he posthumously claimed Hockley as one of the Order’s most outstanding Adepts.
