Book of Magical Charms
The Book of Magical Charms, also known as Newberry 5017, is a handwritten occult commonplace grimoire composed in England in the seventeenth century and currently in the holdings of the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois.
The original volume has no title, but "Book of Magical Charms" is the title assigned to it by the library staff who acquired it in 1988 along with a bundle of medical texts.
Author
Although the book's principal author is not named, he was identified in 2017 from his handwriting as a London lawyer named Robert Ashley. Ashley likely composed the book over the course of his lifetime. There is a 27-page section of the text in a distinctly different handwriting not written by Ashley.
Composition
The book is written in the style of other Solomonic texts, such as the Key of Solomon and was Ashley's private notebook compiling spells, invocations, and other ritual magic techniques from multiple sources. This is borne out by the numerous blank pages between sections, as though the author was leaving space for additional entries at a later date.
Its pages were written using iron gall ink and likely a quill pen using both Latin and archaic English.
Content
The Book of Magical Charms contains numerous passages regarding charms for things such as healing a toothache or recovering a lost voice. The creation of talismans and the invocation of spirits are a major theme of the magic found in the book. Nearly half the text is devoted to techniques of natural magic.
The book was intended to be read from the back to the front as demonstrated by the inscription (attributed to early Christian author Lactantius) on the final page: "The first step toward knowledge is to distinguish what is false."
When opened from the front (which was actually the back), the opening passage includes an invocation calling upon three spirits:
- Asazel (Azazel)
- Raphan (Archangel Raphael?)
- Oberion
Some of the spells would have been viewed as black magic during the time the book was written:
- Proke a person into an unlawful love.
- Destroy, waste, or impair the goods of another person.
- Hurt or destroy the body of another person.
Publication
As the original text was more or less a private journal of Robert Ashley, the text was never intended to be published, and no copies were ever made. In 2017, the Newberry Library digitized the book's 153 pages and made them available to the public.
The original volume is a pocket-sized text of 285 leaves of paper measuring 16 x 11 cm (6.2 x 4.3 in) bound in dark cloth over boards. At one point, the book was owned by Sir Richard Grosvenor, 1st Baronet, who was a politician and member of the House of Commons from 1621 - 1629.