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History

Anglo-Germanic American rural folk magic

African-American folk magic and spirituality
Folk magic and spirituality in Anglophone West Africa
Elsewhere

Contents

Introduction
The Sixth Book of Moses
The Seventh Book of Moses
The remainder of Volume I
Volume II
Names and psalms
Astrology, cures, and amulets
Editions
See also
References
Bibliography
External links

Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Title page of the 1880 New York edition
The seal from the Sixth Book of Moses, "The Sixth Mystery: The Seal of the Power-
Angels seu Potestatum ex Thoro VI. Bi- bliis arcaiiorum, over the Angels and
Spirits of all the Elements", from the 1880 New York edition
Figure from Vol.II, Formulas of the Magical Kabala of the Sixth and Seventh Books
of Moses, "The Spirit Appears in a Pillar of Fire By Night". From the 1880 New York
edition.
Figure from Vol.II, p. 26 Biblia Arcana Magica Alexander: Tradition of The Sixth
Book of Moses, "Figure 81. Breastplate of Moses". From the 1880 New York edition.
"Circle Written On Parchment In The Blood Of White Young Doves" (Fig. 24, Vol II,
p. 40). From "Citation of the Seven Great Princes in The Tradition Of The Sixth And
Seventh Books Of Moses", in the 1880 New York edition
Figure from Vol.II, p. 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". From the 1880 New York edition.

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. 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 work contains reputed Talmudic
magic names, words, and ideograms, some written in Hebrew and some with letters
from the Latin alphabet. 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.

Copies 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. It influenced European Occult Spiritualism as well as
African American hoodoo folk magic, and magical-spiritual practices in the
Caribbean, and West Africa.[1]

An 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.[2]
History

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] 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.[3] The work came to wide prominence when published as
volume 6 of Das Kloster (The Cloister) in 1849 in Stuttgart by antiquarian Johann
Scheible.

Historian Owen Davies traces copies of the work from the 18th century in Germany.
[1] After circulating there, the work was popularized in the United States first in
the communities of the Pennsylvania Dutch.[1]
Anglo-Germanic American rural folk magic

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. 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".[4]

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. The growth of inexpensive paperback publication in the 19th century, like
those of Chicago occult publisher L. W. de Laurence, helped the work gain
popularity outside German communities.

Its prominence as a source of popular rural Pennsylvanian[5] and Appalachian "folk

magic" spells has been recorded as late as the mid-20th century.[6]
African-American folk magic and spirituality

The boom in inexpensive publishing, and the interest in Spiritualism helped the
work gain popularity in the African-American population of the United States, and
from there, the Anglophone parts of the Caribbean.

From 1936 through 1972, the folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt interviewed 1,600
African-American Christian root doctors and home practitioners of hoodoo, and many
of them made reference to using this book and other seal-bearing grimoires of the
era, such as the Key of Solomon. When Hyatt asked his informants where such books
were purchased, he was told that they could be had by mail order from hoodoo
suppliers in Chicago, Memphis, or Baltimore.[7]

In the West Indies, the book became one of the central texts of Jamaican obeah and
was counted among the founding works of the "Zion Revivalist" Christian movement
and the Rastafari movement of the early 20th century.[1] The influential Jamaican
musical group Toots and the Maytals, for instance, released in 1963 the song "Six
And Seven Books Of Moses": its lyrics list the accepted books of the Old Testament,
ending in "... the Sixth and the Seventh books, they wrote them all."[8][9]
Folk magic and spirituality in Anglophone West Africa

In early 20th-century British West Africa and Liberia, The Sixth and Seventh Books
was adopted widely. It served as a source for "Christian Magic", both by West
African spiritualist Christian cults and "assimilated" Africans. In colonial Gold
Coast and Nigeria, it was seen as a "western" form of magic that might be used by
educated Africans seeking access to Britain or its power, much like Masonic ritual
or Rosicrucianism. The Nigerian press in the 1920s regularly featured
advertisements for copies of The Sixth and Seventh Books and other Christian occult
books.[10]

It was also influential in Christian occult movements in Anglophone West Africa,[1]

and West African religious movements which blended Christianity and traditional
magic made use of the work. Josiah Olunowo Ositelu's seals and mystical written
incantations, used in the Nigerian Church of the Lord (Aladura) were likely derived
from the Sixth and Seventh Books.[10]
Elsewhere