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This recent academic book is causing some hand-wringing, but it need not.
Dr. Sofer’s ‘Solomonic Magic’ tome -
Dr. Sofer’s Academia page: -
Why even bother, team? This is very dry material.
Dr. Gal Sofer's work examines Solomonic magic (which does not really exist) texts in multiple languages including Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, analyzing key manuscripts and the historical influence of Hebrew texts on later traditions.
We've known for some time that the grimoires are a synthesis of four intertwined main root branches: Jewish, Christian, Arabic, and Greek pagan threads. Each of these traditions contributed distinct approaches, cosmologies, and ritual technologies that wove together over centuries of transmission, translation, and transformation.
When I first started my evocation practice in the mid 1990's, I originally edited the grimoires to remove the Catholic threads and "re-Judaize" them, in my view. The work of the late, great Jake Stratton-Kent (go read him!) re-emphasized the Greek roots. We Gen-X magicians jumped on it after we had emphasized the Christian and Jewish sources, whose language is a bit more "spirit-hostile" and takes a more adversarial stance than we suspected was useful. (You get what you bring).
Jake went a long way in reviving this lost thread—and for anyone who was around in the 1990s, it was non-existent, and everyone took a more Orthodox Christian stance. After exposure to "the demons," we learned their manifestations are often kind and mentoring (if not altogether safe). I have some pet theories and UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis) why this is, which I won't bore you with here.
Dr. Sofer's work and other shows the synthesis wasn't neat and tidy . It happened through the very messy cultural contact, manuscript copying, translation errors, and deliberate syncretism.. and as Jake attemps to map, a thriving continental Cyprianic folk magic culture.
Magic (and the observable universe, I'd say) is made of stories, and each practitioner has to find their way through which story or combination of stories they prefer. This isn't just a matter of aesthetic preference or cultural appropriation concerns, the framework you bring to the work—the cosmology you operate within, the narrative structure you impose on your experience—fundamentally shapes what happens when you do the work, and the type of theopanies and spirt manifestations you will experience. So what do you want to experience? Who do you want to be?
This more detailed documentation of history is causing some magicians a certain amount of stress and doubt as they still seek "The Singular Authentic Truth" which is a fool's errand, because even if an archangel or demon lord appeared with a bang and flash of light , and delivered to you a book of "The Objective Truth," it would do you no good. Your little toxic ego brain would grab onto it and shut out The Mystery., and you will stay a sad, miserable, little asshole. . The very act of possessing "the Answer" (tm) would close you off from the living, breathing, ever-unfolding nature of magical reality. The ego wants certainty, wants to be right, wants to possess truth like a trophy. But magic—real magic—lives in the uncertainty, in the creative tension between different stories, in the willingness to hold multiple truths simultaneously without needing to collapse them into one "correct" version.
Dr. Sofer’s ‘Solomonic Magic’ tome -
Dr. Sofer’s Academia page: -
Why even bother, team? This is very dry material.
Dr. Gal Sofer's work examines Solomonic magic (which does not really exist) texts in multiple languages including Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, analyzing key manuscripts and the historical influence of Hebrew texts on later traditions.
We've known for some time that the grimoires are a synthesis of four intertwined main root branches: Jewish, Christian, Arabic, and Greek pagan threads. Each of these traditions contributed distinct approaches, cosmologies, and ritual technologies that wove together over centuries of transmission, translation, and transformation.
When I first started my evocation practice in the mid 1990's, I originally edited the grimoires to remove the Catholic threads and "re-Judaize" them, in my view. The work of the late, great Jake Stratton-Kent (go read him!) re-emphasized the Greek roots. We Gen-X magicians jumped on it after we had emphasized the Christian and Jewish sources, whose language is a bit more "spirit-hostile" and takes a more adversarial stance than we suspected was useful. (You get what you bring).
Jake went a long way in reviving this lost thread—and for anyone who was around in the 1990s, it was non-existent, and everyone took a more Orthodox Christian stance. After exposure to "the demons," we learned their manifestations are often kind and mentoring (if not altogether safe). I have some pet theories and UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis) why this is, which I won't bore you with here.
Dr. Sofer's work and other shows the synthesis wasn't neat and tidy . It happened through the very messy cultural contact, manuscript copying, translation errors, and deliberate syncretism.. and as Jake attemps to map, a thriving continental Cyprianic folk magic culture.
Magic (and the observable universe, I'd say) is made of stories, and each practitioner has to find their way through which story or combination of stories they prefer. This isn't just a matter of aesthetic preference or cultural appropriation concerns, the framework you bring to the work—the cosmology you operate within, the narrative structure you impose on your experience—fundamentally shapes what happens when you do the work, and the type of theopanies and spirt manifestations you will experience. So what do you want to experience? Who do you want to be?
This more detailed documentation of history is causing some magicians a certain amount of stress and doubt as they still seek "The Singular Authentic Truth" which is a fool's errand, because even if an archangel or demon lord appeared with a bang and flash of light , and delivered to you a book of "The Objective Truth," it would do you no good. Your little toxic ego brain would grab onto it and shut out The Mystery., and you will stay a sad, miserable, little asshole. . The very act of possessing "the Answer" (tm) would close you off from the living, breathing, ever-unfolding nature of magical reality. The ego wants certainty, wants to be right, wants to possess truth like a trophy. But magic—real magic—lives in the uncertainty, in the creative tension between different stories, in the willingness to hold multiple truths simultaneously without needing to collapse them into one "correct" version.
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