Witch, Warlock, and Magician
Witch, Warlock, and Magician by William Henry Davenport Adams was first published in 1889. Magic and the occult have a long history in Britain, with alchemists such as Roger Bacon, astrologers such as William Lilly, and occultists such as John Dee (a favourite with Queen Elizabeth I). Of course, there is also the less savoury side of that history - the witch hunts and trials of the 16th century. This book explores a select few notable figures in the world of magic, as well as discussing the history of witchcraft. Chapters include: Roger Bacon: The True And The Legendary; The Story Of Dr. John Dee; Dr. Dee’s Diary; Magic And Imposture: A Couple Of Knaves; The Last Of The English Magicians: William Lilly; English Rosicrucians; Early History Of Witchcraft In England; Witchcraft In England In The Seventeenth Century; The Decline Of Witchcraft In England; The Witches Of Scotland; and, The Literature Of Witchcraft.
A Collection of Rare & Curious Tracts on Witchcraft & the Second Sight
"[...]detestable dealings of those witches, shee confessed, that upon the night of Allhallow Even last, shee was accompanied as well with the persons aforesaide, as also with a great many other witches, to the number of two hundreth, and that all they together went to sea, each one in a riddle or cive, and went into the same very substantially, with flaggons of wine, making merrie and drinking by the way in the same riddles or cives, to the Kirke of North Barrick in Lowthian, and that after they had landed, tooke hands on the lande and daunced this reill or short daunce, singing all with one voice, Commer goe ye before, commer goe ye, Gif ye will not goe before, commer let me. At which time shee confessed, that this Geillies Duncane did goe before[...]".
Viridarium Umbris: The Pleasure Garden of Shadow
An extensive grimorium of Wortcunning, or herb-magic, the Pleasure-Garden treats of the secret knowledge of trees and herbs as delivered by the Fallen Angels unto mankind. The book’s principal concerns are the sorcery and gnosis of the Greenwood, as arising from the varied luminaries of the Eternal Gardens of the Arte Magical. As a grimoire of Spiritual Botany, the Book is a Hortus Conclusus of text and image intended for the indwelling of these plant-spirits. The work encompasses magical practices, formulae, and mystical exegesis, all treating the respective arcana of Nature-Spirits and the powers of individual plants. Magical foci are on devotion, purity, humility, silence, solitude, and the hieros-gamos of wortcunner and plant as a tutelary relationship, in conjunction with the Mysteries of Cain, first tiller of the soil. The whole is intended as a textual reification of occult herbalism within the context of the Sabbatic Craft Tradition.
