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[Surrender]

Hey guys!

I LOVED the episode!  This is so fun!

I actually work with this on a regular basis, sigils and runes and such.  I just wanted to share something with you all, that Michelle and Chris sort of brought up when discussing how the old grimoires were hand-copied.  It's from the Viridarium Umbris, one of my favorite modern Sabbatic Grimoires:

With all books of paper beware: Let the Wise of Art also behold therein the verity of dead remains- for the respective vessels of Letter, Word, and Page each hold their own empty-hearted glamours, not the least of which is mummification; voice deprived of breath, body without blood, fuel well-lit for the funeral pyre.  For verily, a relic of Art recorded in text becomes but frozen in impress of mortal matter, and the fascination binding it to both Scribe and reader rests in the morbid fallacy of eternal preservation.  Thus, let Dead Letter give rise to the Living Word, and in power beget the Living Deed, the Deed to weave the living Web of Art.

And so on and so forth.  Yeah, it kind of goes on like that... it's certainly inspiring, if a bit thick to read.

But the gist is that one shouldn't allow the mummified corpse of a book to rule one's Work, but rather to use it as a prop of necromancy, giving life to the dead.  People who call upon grimoires, according to the Sabbatic philosophy apparently, should instead of working with the Powers as if they were the Living reality, but a Dead one waiting for Resurrection.

So literally, the concept is: the lore in those books are all dead, so if yer gonna work with it, ye have ta bring it back ter life!

*grins*

Isn't that interesting?

[Gesigewigus]

So literally, the concept is: the lore in those books are all dead, so if yer gonna work with it, ye have ta bring it back ter life!

It's an interesting take, I'm just wondering (as I don't have the full context of reading the Viridarium Umbris) how literal or figurative that concept is.  Is it about the technique, or the entities (though depending on your beliefs in magic the technique may be the entities, or their cause)?  It also depends on how real/objective/individual one considers the entities involved.

Personally I've had to fudge things when working with older texts, but then again, most people I know have.  With the Goetics for example, most of us don't have room for a full summoning circle, or the lamb skin, and whatnot; so many people go without, or find personally equivalent substitutes.

I just loved this episode, because though I use very little classical western magic like what most of those grimoires contain, I do keep myself sorting through them, looking for what I can that is interesting, and useful.

[Surrender]

I'm afraid I don't understand the question, and I feel a little dumb, having not seen this post months ago.  I've been really lax in posting.

GOMEN NASAI!  *bows*

But I'm a little confused... it seemed like a fairly straightforward statement to me... so when you ask how literal or figurative it is, I don't really know what you're asking...

[Gesigewigus]

You say about having to bring "dead lore" back to life.  I'm not sure to what aspect though.

Bringing an old book back to life could be updating the techniques, like using paper instead of goatskin, or candles made from wax, not fat, etc.

Though I could also see it applying to the entities.  If they are created for the tomes, and not used, they could "hibernate" in order to survive and save energy, and in order to work with them you have to wake them up, bring them back to life, give them enough energy and attention to get them functioning again.

[Surrender]

Ah...

Ok, now I see where the clarification comes in.  According to old Greco-Roman myth, a book was said to be inhabited by a spirit known as an agrippa (remember old Cornelius Agrippa?  That's where he stole his name from!), a spirit which held all the knowledge and wisdom of the book.  Agrippae were able to aid in bibliomancy, a divination practice which uses the random opening of a book of wisdom.

These spirits were independent entities: each copy of a grimoire had its OWN agrippa, and the master-copy of a book, the original, was said to be the head of the family of resultant agrippae.  When a book was copied, an agrippa was spawned inside the book, and slept until it was 'awakened.'  The master Agrippa was said to always be awake, and was supposedly more powerful, the more children it had, which is why original copies were so special to the scholars of Greece, and consequently Rome.

Anyway, Middle-Age sorcerers borrowed and altered that tradition when translating the various Qabalistic grimoires into French: the seals of Solomon were sigils that were said to grant access to spirits sealed all over the world, in places like mountains and objects of beauty.  These spirits were the key to Solomon's wisdom and power, according to legend.  Medieval sorcerers used those same sigils to do their own magicks, but as even the strongest spirit-sigil was still just a sigil, they believed that by awakening the spirit of the grimoire via some sort of spell, they could gain its aid in calling forth the various demons and angels whose names were written in the book.

Once witches managed to join the 'grimoire' movement (right around the mid 1600's), they turned the tradition into something even more interesting: many began crafting their 'black books' as a deliberate attempt to make a vessel for a familiar agrippa, taking great care in the usage of inks (another old art used by various Middle Eastern cultures) and artistic embellishments to transform an ordinary book into a fetish of magic.

So, that's what I meant about bringing the dead to life.  The agrippa sleeps, according to the lore, and only will wake when needed.  And, if you manage to get ahold of one of those old grimoires that had doodles or extra pieces of writing in the margins and on the blank pages... you're really lucky.  You've got your hands on an authentic agrippa, one that has a history.  Use it well!

Thus ends my narration, now back to the show!  LOL

[Gesigewigus]

These spirits were independent entities: each copy of a grimoire had its OWN agrippa, and the master-copy of a book, the original, was said to be the head of the family of resultant agrippae.  When a book was copied, an agrippa was spawned inside the book, and slept until it was 'awakened.'  The master Agrippa was said to always be awake, and was supposedly more powerful, the more children it had, which is why original copies were so special to the scholars of Greece, and consequently Rome.

That's fascinating, I've actually not come across that before.  I've come across similar ideas, but it was always intentional, like the Azoetia, each book had a spirit bound to it on purpose. 

The idea makes a lot of sense to, based on my philsophy, now I'm off to ponder the implications it could have.

[Surrender]

That's what I said!  Isn't that fun?  And it totally makes sense to me, especially considering the lore I was given by one of my teachers about the 'crafting of the book of shadows to be a living partner in 0ne's magic...' *inserts overly-emo dramatic music*

Anyway, hope that inspires you!

[Katt]

Interesting...

So, what  do you think happens if a grimoire is burned, or buried for a very, very long time?

It's a hypothetical question, as I'm unsure of the current condition of a grimoire that was in my family, I'm not even sure it was real. My family has a difficult time talking about that particular black-sheep relative. 

[wentlow]

That is just two cool...
I had to copy your post into my documents for safe keeping.
Really makes one think.
Too bad that didn't make it on the podcast.
wentlow

[Surrender]

*thinks*

Well, the spirit wouldn't have an anchor here anymore if the grimoire were destroyed, but it could probably be brought back, if you remade it.

And, if the book were connected to the bloodline of a family somehow, like by being an inheritance or something, the spirit might linger in the family, almost like a family ghost.  That's a theory, sort of, because I've never encountered that situation before.

Burial would just put the grimoire to sleep: destruction or damage is really the only way to break a spirit anchor naturally.

[Katt]

I was wondering that particular question since that podcast.

However, the family grimoire could be a total fake. I have no idea, there's none to be found, and the person who made it is long since deceased.

The knowledge, if the grimoire is or was real, is totally lost. It was a teaching thing, the adult would teach his or her child and then it would be passed on when the child reached adulthood, so on and so forth.

But it ended with my great-great grandmother, which is when the supposed grimoire was either buried or burned. I have no idea, although if it existed, it was destroyed, so says my family.

I know this is awfully confusing, I'm trying to sort it all out.

[Surrender]

*shrugs*

If it ever existed, or even the legend existed, you could probably build upon it by writing new things.  Do a conjuration of the agrippa, and see if you can wake it up.

I've never tried that, but I have worked with "fictitious" books before, both in the "I found it during a guided meditation" kind and the "someone made it up for a fiction series/Necronomicon" variety.

Don't know if that'll help you, but you might try it.