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ABRAHAM DE WORMS AND THE SACRED BOOK
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2026-06-26

To specify my writing, I need to say that I do not come here to teach, nor to
make an apology for anything, and even less to ask anyone to believe what I
write. What I come to do is tell the history of occultism. Beliefs are personal
treasures, just like perceptions. And you will never see me expose an opinion on
what I believe to be fact or fiction. Everything here is based solely and
exclusively on my work upon the rough stone.

Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas

That said, let us talk about S. L. MacGregor Mathers, who is said to have
translated, in 1897, a work that would become the best-known and most famous
one, and that would have a great influence on the Golden Dawn. We are talking
about The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, one of the best-known
and most influential grimoires in ceremonial magic.

Ceremonial magic is a structured and disciplined form of ritual magic, typical
of Western esotericism, in which the practitioner uses formal ceremonies,
symbols, divine names, consecrated instruments, invocations, evocations,
circles, astrological and Kabbalistic correspondences, and very specific rules
in an attempt to contact or work with spiritual forces. Unlike a simpler “folk
magic,” it is usually intellectualized, full of method, and connected to
grimoires, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, alchemy, the Golden Dawn, Thelema, and similar
traditions. In simple terms: it is magic treated almost like a technical liturgy
— less improvisation, more ritual, hierarchy, discipline, and symbolism.

Another famous figure said to have carried out the translation would have been
Aleister Crowley, together with the Thelemic tradition. But there is an
important detail that deserves to be highlighted: Mathers’ translation is
incomplete.

For example, Mathers’ translation has only three books and describes a six-month
operation, while more modern translations, such as those by Dehn and Guth, have
four books and the operation lasts around eighteen months. These more modern
translations work from more complete German manuscripts.

The book is attributed to Abraham of Worms, a German Jew who is said to have
traveled in search of magical wisdom and found, in Egypt, a master named
Abramelin. Abramelin then transmits to him a system of “sacred magic,” which
Abraham later leaves as instruction to his son. The real origin of the text is
uncertain, but the oldest German manuscripts are generally placed around the
beginning of the seventeenth century, with a complicated textual tradition
involving German, French, Hebrew, and Italian versions.

The ritual is this: the practitioner does not begin by trying to command
spirits, demons, or natural forces. First, he must submit himself to a long
process of inner reform. The goal is to come into contact with the Holy Guardian
Angel, understood in many later traditions as a kind of supreme spiritual guide,
inner divine voice, higher principle of the individual, or mediator between the
human and the divine. Only after this contact would the operator, in theory, be
authorized to deal with inferior spirits.

Abramelin is not demonology first; it is theurgy first. In other words, before
“commanding entities,” the person must align himself with a divine order. The
book begins from a very religious, moral, and hierarchical view of the universe.
God is at the top, the angel is the intermediary, the magician must purify
himself, and only then can the inferior spirits be subjected. It is not “draw a
circle, light a black candle, and summon a demon.” That is cheap modern
aesthetics.

After the contact with the Holy Guardian Angel comes the more “grimorial” part:
the submission of the spirits. The book presents hierarchies of spirits and also
the famous magical squares of words. These squares are talismans formed by
letters, not numbers, and each one would be connected to a specific magical
purpose. Later tradition became fascinated by them, but within the logic of the
book, they are not independent toys. They would only make sense after the main
operation and the spiritual authorization obtained through the angel.

The most interesting point, to me, is that Abramelin reveals a central tension
in Western occultism: the desire for magical power is only legitimized after a
radical spiritual submission. The practitioner wants to operate upon the
invisible world, but first he must be crushed by routine, obedience,
cleanliness, prayer, and moral vigilance.

It is important to say: the book is not “pagan occultism” in the modern sense.
It is deeply marked by a Judeo-Christian, Kabbalistic, and monotheistic vision.
Even when it speaks of demons, spirits, and magic, the logic is one of
submission to divine authority. Magic there is not presented as rebellion
against God, but as sacred knowledge granted by God and operated within a
spiritual hierarchy. This is very different from the pop image of satanic
occultism.

Its influence was enormous. The Golden Dawn absorbed the idea of the Holy
Guardian Angel into its initiatory structure, and Crowley made it a central
piece of Thelemic magic. The very concept of “Knowledge and Conversation of the
Holy Guardian Angel” became one of the great goals of modern ceremonial magic.

Abramelin is less a book about “doing magic” and more a book about becoming
someone capable of doing magic without being destroyed by it.


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