Sunday, September 18, 2016

Pages from Spellbooks (part II)

As a continuation of last week's post, here are nine more spellbook pages.  All of these images are adapted from 'real world' sources.  Again, Thoul's Paradise bears no responsibility for magical complications caused by its readership.

The Watchtowers of the Order of the Golden Dawn (such as the Great Western Quadrangle of Water, below) remind me of circuit board diagrams – as though a wizard could use such a talisman to trace a thought process for fashioning various magical effects.

The Great Western Quadrangle of Water


Similarly, the 'spirals' below might indicate the required sequence of concepts for casting a given spell.

The Dragon-Book of Essex (collage)


Spellbooks would likely provide information regarding the identification, cultivation, and preparation of material components.

Voynich manuscript


In the French role-playing game Rêve de Dragon, the spells that a magician may cast are limited by which “dreamland” the magician's astral body occupies.  For game purposes, there is a map of the Dreamlands where each dreamland is represented by a hex.  The so-called Zoroaster's Telescope reminds me of the Rêve magic system.

Telescope de Zoroastre (collage) and Enochian characters

Here are a variety of images for which I do not have particular commentary.

Magia Naturalis et Innaturalis (collage)


Sefer Raziel HaMalakh


Crowley's Goetia


Sphinx Mystagoga (collage)


Tabula Smaragdina


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