The Book of Abramelin: A New Translation - Revised and Expanded Hardcover – August 1, 2015

Hi everyone. I know my review will not mean much in the grand scheme as there are many more in depth reviews on the subject both here and elsewhere. That being said i would like to mention that this is the very first review i have ever put online and i do so because i firmly believe that this work deserves its proper credit.Its not just dehns extensive interpretation that deserves credit here, it is the operation itself. It is pure and genuine. Regardless of its true origins or any theories one may have on the work, i suggest any individual considering the operation take it for what it is.All that one needs for its success is simply to be fully convinced that you will succed and find peace with your personal god. If you feel convicted with your god then you will fail. If you feel convicted with yourself you will fail.I want to say for anyone considering the actual operation a few simple things that will help you achieve your goal. I do not say these things in order to give you a confliction and cause confusion, but i say it so you will see the true simplicity of the operation. So here is the truth. Any person that is going to do the operation and succeed was always going to do the op and was always going to succeed. Everyone else in the world who is going to do whatever thing they are going to do has always been meant to do that thing and succeed or fail in their own right.You who are undertaking this operation, are more fortunate than most because already just by being here you have decided not to just sit by and tale the world as it seems. You have either or we for that matter have begun to look both inside and outside ourselves for something that is greater than what we were told existed.While i believe in a god and it is easier to succeed if you believe in a god it is not necessary to do so. You must just have a belief in soul and spirit and that you will prevail. This is for two reasons the first and supreme is that while each religeon may say this is our god and he is this, all we are really doing is describing characteristics and principles of this thing we call god. I would consider myself a christian however i also understand the other religeons and that all of their gods are also my god. God is god and is everything. It does not matter which you believe in. Just believe. Do not let anyone tell you how your faith has to be. Therefore simply believe in belief.The second is that you must believe in soul and spirit (or gods angels i suppose) because these are those which we are really contacting. I will of course not explain the principles of the soul as their are many resources online or in mainstream literature one the nature of the soul and spirit to help you become well versed in the subject. I only want to inform and assure you that it is these you are seeking knowledge and conversation from.Further i want to point out a specific truth about the operation which is passively noted in the book but not stressed enough to relieve you of your doubts. This is a ritual, and as such it has a procedure. Abraham of worms clearly communicates to his son that if there be anything which he does wrong in the work that his angel will still appear but will then inform him of what he did wrong and how it should have been done. A potential student of this work need not be overly concerned about a perfect execution, all a ritual is is a stressed symbolism of imagery that serves to communicate in a "psychic" fashion with your spirit. In this regard it can be said that imagery and smell and your other senses such as feeling are the best way to communicate with your innerself.I would further like to say that a ritual is developed for the first reason of sending a clear sense of communication and NEED to your spirit, letting it know you wish to talk. Moreover, a ritual with its exactness and elaborate semi expensive procedures is meant to keep both the immature and the POOR from achieving greatness. I do want to strees that no matter what you want or do or ritualized, if you do not have a clear sense of self and are thus immature, it doesnt matter how rich or poor or how well you are familiar with the procedure, you will fail. This is why abraham suggests you be atleast 25 to start. It is one thing to say you will figure out who you are in the year and a half of the operation, but why not find yourself and even truly realize what your intention is towards the operation before you begin? If you do this you will surely be more content as you conduct so and have a better chance of success. In addition; this is where the difference really lies between the 6 month and 1.5yr op. You can do either. Honestly you can even contact this hga in many other ways. But if you are going to pursue this op, either the 6 month or 1.5yr guidelines should be followed. Do not worrie if your timeline is right, and do not worrie about whether the operation began after the passover and ended at the tabernacles, simply say to your god you appologise for this MINOR divergence and that it had to be so for the reasons of life. He will understand.Simply do not worrie. At all. Ever. When it comes to the alter, the robes the wand, the crown and all of the items you are supposed to have and use and a censor of brass and a silver lamen... i will say do not stress over these specifics either. These are traditional implements and methods that worked for some in old days and would absolutely work for modern people who believe that these objects will gain them their ends. I want to stress this thing i am about to say to you because it is important for your understanding so please keep reading and seeing. Whether you believe this or me or not i am just stating what i understand and have seen. So here is an important key. All of the items and incense and so forth do not need to be physical. If you are gifted of mind and imagination (meaning that you are actually already far more connected with your spirit than you might think) you can literally conduct this operation anywhere any time. This is because you could simply imagine yourself to be in a clearing somewhere and imagine the oratory as it is depicted in the book. You can imagine yourself washing your feet (though you really should be clean first) imagine yourself entering the oratory, see the layout as it should be, then imagine yourself doing each and everything the book describes each and everyday at each time prescribed.I should say here that if you are well acquainted with the basics concepts of quabbalah and the book of abramelin you will see here that what i say is true. The quabbalah kabbalah or whatever you shall call it is in its simplist terms a SYSTEM of symbolic VISUALIZATION which when followed shall convey greater powers than found here. Also abraham advocated this quabbalah over his own work. Furthermore he tells his son that the manifestation of the angel and the evil spirits is something decided by the imagination because their true forms may be to terrifying for the individual leading them to falter. If this is true then can it not be surmised that what i say about the imaginary conduction of the op would be effective? Understand if you have the ability to do the op in reality the way it is described because you have the space and the wealth, you should do so. Spending a little money in order to gain this gift is no real sacrifice, but if you are poor, just explain to the lord that you do not have the means to do otherwise. The lord is all hearing and he will understand.I want to give you an idea of the way in which i had to conduct my operation and indeed i have reached my goal. So look and learn. I was poor, my mother was poor. I had no place to lay my head and thelace in which my mother and sister laid there heads was not acceptable to me. By divine providence or god as it is most commonly called i was granted a small amount of steady income which allowed me to convince my mother to get a far nicer place with me than we could afford seperately. While the conditions were much nicer, it came with the chaos of having someone else in your space. Also you have less space to yourself. I have always been i suppose a little more connected with my soul and god than i originally thought. A time ago, a voice did speak to me and told me to wake up and begin my work. I remembered then the book of abramelin by mathers i had read when i was sixteen and just knew that was where i should start. You see i had not thought of that work in over ten years. The fact that it immediately came to my mind then and there truly does mean it was put there from above... trust that is how it works.... anyway: i went back to that work and as i continued to pour over it i became sad. Because of the commitment i made to family my initial thought was i cant do this for sometime because i must live with them and have to contribute most of my resources in such a way. Moreover because of the small blind abraham gives us saying that our angel may not show because he may be amphitrion (exhaused and worn) i first thought oh of course with my bad luck my angel would be the one who is amphitrion.But then the voice came back and it said SEEK and FIND. So i continued to seek with the intention of finding truth. I started with the quabbalah because it was mentioned by abraham and i had heard many different things about it before in passing. A difficult thing with the qbh is that those who claim to have mastered it do not wish all peoples to have access to its power. As such they are selfish hiding the keys of god and therefore are not true masters. Well a very small few are and while it may seem that they do not give you the keys in their writing, they do, just in a cryptic way hoping those who really NEEd the gift for the reasons of LOVE will think upon what they read and translate what they know into understanding, thus blocking the immature from success. That is fine. However most of these professed masters say that it is far to difficult to communicate with words how to succed because it is mostly symbolism and they are bound by some oath to not give the truth. So ill say now to get the understanding that i eventually came to read the works of Dion Fortune and Franz Bardon...After reading these and during i began to feel fully convinced i could do this operation only in my mind. This time i did not need to hear the voice of guidance, rather i had the feeling of realization... i also found that with this understanding came an idea of how to start. I decided to set first out to accomplish the first four steps outlined in franz bardons initiation into hermetics. It is a book written by a very sincere master who wished to make the quabbalistic arts to any who would really do the work. It might take more than a year to master his first four steps depending on the individual or a couple months. Time is not important, understand it is your success that matters. Relax... it is these four steps and what comes with them that will truly improve your chance of success in the abramelin ritual regardless of whether you conduct it with all the materials physically or mentally with the imagination. Moreover, the mastery of these four steps will teach you how to conduct the op in your mind by fostering your creative talents. After true mastery of these steps you can not only see your oratory in your mind but you will be able to smell the incense even if you do not have the incense with you. In this regard you are training not your physical senses, but the senses of your soul and spirit. You will understand upon reading the works, so i will not go further in this aspect.Listen here to what i did then upon mastery of these four steps which took me one year. I, in my attic simply constructed a tent of white, shaped as a simple square 15ft on all sides. I did construct a simple alter in which to store only a few of the abramelin squares (i did use silver because you should so i could only afford so many) the ones which i believed i would use in the beggining especially to gain the initial fidelity of the spirits. Instead of purchasing a crown and robes and so forth, i purchased some very cheap sack cloth and wore that for the operation in the physical world. I did this because it was affordable and i wished to show my humble heart to the lord that he might grant me success. After the setup was complete, i mentally blessed the tent and impregnated the space with a permanent peace and power that i learned from bardon. I did this by mentally constructing a temple to the lord, setting it upon the tent, and imbueing it with power. Where an individual would begin the operation by going into his oratory everyday i would begin entering my tent. I would then sit down in a meditative position in which i was comfortable with facing east and then in my mind i would see myself prostrated before the lord in the regular robes described in the book. I would see myself lighting the lamp of the quality described in the book and would continue in my mind to watch myself doing all the things neccesary. In reality the only time i physically did what i was required to do was towards the very end where i was to keep a permanent light lit before the lord so kept the lamp burning and incense burning for real all day. At the end i summoned all spirits in my mind and commanded them to swear fealty to me in my mind and to the squares i had with me. I in my mind was wearing the robes of power and had the wand and crown and so forth also in my mind.This is all i wanted to relate to you at this time about this operation. This is because these are the only things you need to know. If you conduct yourselves in the way i have laid out success is gauranteed very simply. Understand that the one god of all people who is percieved in this way or that by every individual does not care what faith you are or how you have worshiped. He only cares about who you really are and what your intentions may be. If you become purified and well balanced and of the right intention you will succeed. How do i know this? Because he has granted us in these days a true period of awakening. In the days to come, from now on, any who are righteous will be bestowed great power if only they seek. Believe me for i have seen this thing to come. I ask you all who read this and have seen the same future to verify what i have said here. Is tomorrow not the day of our awakening??? Good day seekers!

Awesome book. This is supposed to be the best available translation

Really, try it. It works.

If you read this and find that at the end, you’re interested in the rite—DO IT! Get both versions and read them side by side daily for six months prior as the texts dictate, learn to make Abramelin oil and incense, the six month version is adequate if practiced whole-heartedly. You need a few items—a dedicated space, some special robes, an olive oil lamp, an pine altar with a cabinet built underneath it, a wand of almond, a silver censer, a silver skrying mirror, some odds and ends—but it’s totally doable. Start on Passover or Easter, it’s important to align you rite with the proper solar symbolism. If you’re crazy enough to do this, remember: ultimate effort for ultimate reward. Good luck!

First let me say that I have, as many students have done, poured over the Mathers edition of "Sacred Magic" and for the better part of my life, took for granted that I was well versed in the Art of Abramelin, planning only to wait until my kids were grown to see it through to completion. It was well I waited, as the translation of the original German texts show where the French version Mathers worked with, was lacking in more than a few places.The underpinnings remain the same. The ultimate goal of Abramelin's Art is to gain direct conversation with your Holy Guardian Angel. There is also the book Abraham writes to his son, as an explanation of how the Treasure and the Art came into his hands. Anyone familiar with the Mathers version will also recognize the last book. It consists of magical squares that produce sundry effects by way of the spirits that are bound to them.If it sounds like too much is the same to bother purchasing this book, let me counter by listing the things that are different.* There is a fourth book, in addition to the three Mathers translated from the French edition. This book deals with what Abraham calls the "mixed kabbalah". It is in effect a formulary of folk cures, charms, and nostrums that are not to be found at all in the Mathers edition.* Instead of six months, the operation detailed here, is a much more complex 18 months.* The squares from the final book that mesmerize so many students are completely different in the original German, than they are in the manuscript Mathers had worked from. Instead of 242, mostly incomplete squares, the German manuscripts show 251 squares, and every single one of them is completely filled in. That is to say, the Mathers version gave not only an incomplete list of squares, but out of the ones that are listed, two thirds are not completely filled in. What lines in the squares are filled in, you quickly discover, are misspelled, out of order, and almost wholly in disagreement with the original sources the present author uses.In addition to the above, the author goes to great lengths retracing the steps of Abraham, making a case for his historcal reality, as well as the hermatage of Abramelin the "old father" himself.In all, I am very pleased with this addition to my library. If you are familiar with the original Mathers translation, you owe it to yourself to take a second journey with Abraham to Egypt, and look anew at the teachings of Abramelin the Mage.This Art takes a loftier place in Western Tradition than most tomes of its time and kind. Rather than idols, pentacles, and babarous names, the Operation draws its power from the exercist being virtuous. That is, god-like power is granted on the condition of piety. It is important to note that there is an 18 month initiation involving fasting, prayer, study of the Holy Books, and doing good deeds, culminating in a union between the prospecive Magi and the Divine, completing both in the process.This is just one example of the Western Tradition aspiring to lofty spiritual goals, usually thought of as Eastern in nature. Another good book along that same line is a book discussing the art of Mandala Meditations in the west, also edited and compiled by mathers. "The Grimoire of Armadel "

I believe that the days of hardbound quality books are a thing of the past. There was a time when you could count on having hardbound books that contained at least some color pictures of historical items discussed in the text. Once again I was disappointed when I received my copy of this new expanded text and found all pictures were black and white. Thank you IBIS.