Stephen Skinner

Michael Constantine Psellus (1018-1178 C. E) was one of the most notable writers and philosophers of the Byzantine era. The Byzantine domain was effectively the eastern Greek speaking part of the Roman Empire centred on Byzantium (Constantinople, modern Istanbul) which split off from the Latin West in 364 C. E. Its intellectual legacies helped lay the foundations for the Italian Renaissance. It was the fall of Constantinople in 1453 that released a tide of Greek reading scholars into Western Europe, particularly Venice. With them came much of the magical and Hermetic knowledge which the Greeks in their turn had inherited from the Egyptians. The Key of Solomon was one such text. It is therefore essential to the understanding of such magical texts that one understands exactly how the Byzantines understood the nature of daemons. Psellus forms the bridge between the ancient world, Byzantine Greek, and the grimoire conception of the nature of daemons. Hailing from Constantinople, Psellus' career was an illustrious and practical one, serving as a political advisor to a succession of emperors, playing a decisive role in the transition of power between various monarchs. He became the leading professor at the newly founded University of Constantinople, bearing the honorary title, 'Consul of the Philosophers'. He was the driving force behind the university curriculum reform designed to emphasise the Greek classics, especially Homeric literature. Psellus is credited with the shift from Aristotelian thought to the Platonist tradition, and was adept in politics, astronomy, medicine, music, theology, jurisprudence, physics, grammar and history.

A superb collection of private occult libraries with full lists of their magical manuscripts. The key to private stores of unpublished grimoires and other manuscripts assembled by private noble collectors.

This deluxe hardcover grimoire features one of the most beautifully drawn sets of the seven planetary spirit, sigil, angel, and intelligence seals and their meanings. These seals are carefully drawn from the planetary squares rendered both in Hebrew and numerically. Edited and annotated by Dr. Stephen Skinner and Daniel Clark, this impressive book reveals how the seals and characters fit exactly over the cells of the Planetary Table of Hebrew letters. W. H. Ibbett provides examples of specific spirits, such as Barzabel, and he shares more detailed astrological information within a magical context. The Master Key presents drawings and interpretations of the fifteen Behensian fixed stars, including the talisman for the Head of Algol. Other talismans are also featured and explained, such as Characters of the Nine Chambers and a selection of talismans owned by famous men. Although little is known about author W. H. Ibbett, the amount of usable magical information in his grimoire is truly astonishing. Written in 1854, this text is a complete course in magic, a master grimoire that stands head and shoulders above others.

This grimoire dating from 1346 is the root of many other grimoires, and contains much practical magic that has been lost from later grimoires. It was owned and treasured by Trithemius and Dr John Dee, and was the root of Shemhamphorash, Solomonic and Enochian magic.

A revised and expanded new edition of this classic biography of a legendary American fighter pilot. Frank Luke was the first American airman to be awarded the Medal of Honor. He was the second-highest-scoring American fighter ace of the First World War, just behind Eddie Rickenbacker. Unlike the jovial Rickenbacker, Luke is an enigma. On the basis of his unmatched rate of aerial victories, including many heavily defended balloons, Luke was likely one of the bravest and most gifted fighter pilots of the war. On the other hand, the young Arizonan was almost universally disliked and doubted by his peers. Frank Luke was shot down and killed on September 29, 1918; he was 21 years old and had been in combat for just over a month. The details of this exceptional pilot's death were murky, heavily shrouded by rumor and mythos. Author Stephen Skinner changed that. Skinner immersed himself in the life and death of Frank Luke. Fifteen years of research, including archeological digs, dozens of interviews, nine trips to France, and the review of 2,000 pages of unpublished archival material, produced the definitive work on a truly legendary figure in US military history. This new edition combines new content and revisions with a refreshed presentation and format.

A record of all the books in Trithemius' secret library of grimoires and books of practical magic in 1508 and what happened to them. Effectively an almost complete catalogue of the classics of magic written by Trithemius, the mentor and teacher in magic of Henry Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelcus.

Ars Notoria: the Method is the practical key to the Ars Notoria. This key brings all the parts you need together so this ancient system can now be used to memorise and master subjects in the shortest space of time. Each 'operation' has its own chapter which brings together the prayers, orations and nota needed for each subject. The Ars Notoria is a unique Mediaeval grimoire designed to assist monks (or anyone) to learn whole subjects in as short a time as a month, through the intervention of angels. It has procedures for vastly improving memory, learning speed and understanding, such that a single reading of a complex text will enable it to be absorbed and understood. The procedure consisted of orations or invocations which will assist the aspirant in these feats of memory. These are read or chanted whilst the aspirant looks at a "nota", a complex design which encapsulates the essence of the desired subject. The oldest manuscript of the Ars Notoria dates from 1225. This volume allows you to actually use this amazing system.

Ars Notoria: the Method is the practical key to the Ars Notoria. This key brings all the parts you need together so this ancient system can now be used to memorise and master subjects in the shortest space of time. Each ‘operation’ has its own chapter which brings together the prayers, orations and nota needed for each subject. The Ars Notoria is a unique Mediaeval grimoire designed to assist monks (or anyone) to learn whole subjects in as short a time as a month, through the intervention of angels. It has procedures for vastly improving memory, learning speed and understanding, such that a single reading of a complex text will enable it to be absorbed and understood. The procedure consisted of orations or invocations which will assist the aspirant in these feats of memory. These are read or chanted whilst the aspirant looks at a “nota,” a complex design which encapsulates the essence of the desired subject. The oldest manuscript of the Ars Notoria dates from 1225. This volume allows you to actually use this amazing system.

Geomancy - divination by earth - ranks alongside the tarot, astrology and the I Ching as a major form of divination. Since the Renaissance it has largely fallen out of favour for want of generally available information on its practice. This is the first and most comprehensive book in English to cover the full historical background and practice of divinatory geomancy, and will therefore be invaluable to all those interested in divination, magic and astrology. It is the only complete history in any language, covering geomancy's various manifestations in different cultures, as well as being a practical manual showing how to cast and interpret geomantic figures. Drawing on material from Latin, French, German and Arabic manuscript and book sources, Stephen Skinner explores the roots of geomancy in the Islamic raml divination of northern Africa, which lead to Fa, Ifa and voodoo divinatory practices on the West Coast and sikidy in Madagascar. He examines the impact Islamic geomancy had on medieval Europe, where it rose to prominence and became, after astrology, the prime method of divination. It even resulted in the creation of an amazingly complex brass 12th century geomancy calculator. The part it played in Renaissance thinking and in the great astrological revival of the nineteenth century is followed by an examination of its use in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its declining influence in the twentieth century only to be revived again in the last decade. This western geomancy is not, and has nothing to do with, feng shui.

An exploration of the 93 spirits or "star demons" as revealed in the medieval grimoires and classical esoteric texts, and their correspondences in magic and astrologyStellas Daemonum offers an in-depth analysis of the spirits that appear in several late medieval and early modern grimoires. The book unravels these texts' mythical, etymological, magical, and religious meanings, and draws out their astrological correspondences. The author shows how the spirit entities featured in these Goetic grimoires can be best understood by studying the celestial nature apparent in the ancient concept of the daimon and through an extensive study of 93 of spirits featured in medieval and renaissance texts. The book also explores how traditional Judeo-Christian religion ultimately demonised such expressions due to their polytheistic roots and made punishable by death any attempts to reconnect with them. The nature of this work is strongly influenced by the author's own magical practices, but its presentation does not resort to subjective or personal experiences, having a style that is more formal and research-based.

This practical book shows you how to use Geomancy to tell the future, find out hidden things and answers to perplexing questions, as well as helping in everyday decisions and solving of major life-changing dilemmas. Like the I Ching, geomancy gives counsel concerning the right action or the most profitable action. As long as the initial figure is derived from earth, then the answers will be sound. This means that pencil dashes on paper are not enough, the initial figure must be generated with a wand used with a bed of earth or sand. Astrology divines by the stars, geomancy by the earth. Taken together as astro-geomancy (see chapter 10) they form a unique practical system for delving into the configurations of the present and their likely outcomes in the future.

The Ars Notoria is a mediaeval grimoire, or magician's manual, which was widely distributed and very popular in the 13th-16th century, but virtually unknown today. It is however still very relevant in the 21st century because it contains detailed techniques to enable the practitioner to absorb whole subjects very rapidly, and to understand very complex subjects on first reading, as well as remembering whatever has been read. Of all the grimoires attributed to the Solomonic tradition of magic, one of the oldest and most enigmatic is the Ars Notoria. Like the many magic manuscripts this work was pseudepigraphically attributed to several famous individuals ranging from Solomon (who reputedly received the book directly from God via the hand of the angel Pamphilius), through its supposed translation by the magician Apollonius of Tyana who called it Flores aurei, or the Golden flowers, to Euclid of Thebes. The Ars Notoria stands alone in its own category of angel grimoires, for while most other Solomonic grimoires are concerned with the evocation of spirits or demons, the Ars Notoria instead was concerned only with memory and the ability to understand and absorb whole subjects rapidly. It offered to grant almost instant proficiency in any of the seven Liberal Arts, making it a veritable student's grimoire, a key to obtaining knowledge rapidly. Yet despite its popularity and enduring history the Ars Notoria has never been printed in its complete form. From its early published Latin appearance in Agrippa's Opera Omnia to the first and only English translation by Robert Turner in 1657, all published versions of this work have omitted the most vital component of its operation, the notae, a set of complex pictorial illustrations that are the heart of its system. That is however until now. The present edition contains all the notae which have always been left out of other printed editions, without which the system just does not work. For the first time ever the Ars Notoria is presented in its complete form. In this edition we present not just one but five complete sets of notae taken from various manuscripts, alongside a corrected edition of Turner's English translation. We also present a complete facsimile of Yale University's Beinecke MS Mellon 1 in full colour, the earliest known manuscript of this work, with a complete copy of the 1620s printed Latin text. Detailed commentary is provided on its origins, content, possible authors, owners, methods of use, and practical considerations as well as comprehensive tables of the almost 100 notae variants. The progress of the Ars Notoria is traced from its Greek origins, via its flourishing 13th century monastic life to its supposed inclusion in the Lemegeton.

In its case law on the use of lethal and potentially lethal force, the European Court of Human Rights declares a fundamental connection between the right to life in Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and democratic society. This book discusses how that connection can be understood by using narrative theory to explore Article 2 law’s specificities and its deeper historical, social and political significance. Focusing on the domestic policing and law enforcement context, the book draws on an extensive analysis of case law from 1995 to 2017. It shows how the connection with democratic society in Article 2’s substantive and procedural dimensions underlines the right to life’s problematic duality, as an expression of a basic value demanding a high level of protection and a contextually limited provision allowing states leeway in the use of force. Emphasising the need to identify clear standards in the interpretation and application of the right to life, the book argues that Article 2 law’s narrative dimensions bring to light its core purposes and values. These are to extract meaning from pain and death, ground democratic society’s foundational distinction between acceptable force and unacceptable violence, and indicate democratic society’s essential attributes as a restrained, responsible and reflective system.

The Ars Notoria is a mediaeval grimoire which was widely distributed and very popular in the 13th-16th century, but virtually unknown until recently. Version B (MS Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 9336.) is a commentary on the Method which has never been published in English before. The present text is a reorganisation of that commentary into subject order without the loss of any practical detail. All the notae and the full invocations/orations are included, but most of the Latin prayers have been omitted as they do not contribute to the methods effectiveness. The Ars Notoria is still very relevant in the 21st century because it contains detailed techniques to enable the practitioner to absorb whole subjects very rapidly, and to understand very complex subjects on first reading, as well as remembering whatever has been read. Like many magic manuscripts this work was attributed to famous individuals including Solomon (who reputedly received the book directly from God via the angel Pamphilius), which was translated into Greek by the magician Apollonius of Tyana, along with input from Euclid of Thebes, the father of Honorius of Thebes the author of The Sworn Book of Honorius (Liber Juratus) and Mani, the prophet. Solomonic grimoires are concerned with the evocation of spirits or demons, but the Ars Notoria stands alone as angel magic concerned only with memory and the ability to understand and absorb whole subjects rapidly, making it a veritable student's grimoire, a key to obtaining knowledge rapidly. Despite its popularity and enduring history the Ars Notoria has never been printed in its complete form. After its early Latin appearance there was only one incomplete English translation by Robert Turner in 1657, and that omitted the most vital component for its operation, the notae, a set of complex pictorial illustrations, without which the system just does not work. It also abbreviated most of the orations/invocations. The present edition contains all the notae matched with all the complete invocations/orations, and instructions for their use.