Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses

18th or 19th century magical text allegedly written by Moses

The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses is an 18th or 19th century magical text allegedly written by Moses, and passed down as hidden (or lost) books of the Hebrew Bible. Self described as "the wonderful arts of the old Hebrews, taken from the Mosaic books of the Kabbalah and the Talmud", it is actually a grimoire, or text of magical incantations and seals, that purports to instruct the reader in the spells used to create some of the miracles portrayed in the Bible as well as to grant other forms of good fortune and good health. The work contains reputed Talmudic magic names, words, and ideograms, some written in Hebrew and some with letters from the Latin alphabet. It contains "Seals" or magical drawings accompanied by instructions intended to help the user perform various tasks, from controlling weather or people to contacting the dead or Biblical religious figures. Copies have been traced to 18th century German pamphlets, but an 1849 printing, aided by the appearance of the popular press in the 19th century, spread the text through Germany and Northern Europe to German Americans and eventually helped popularize the texts among African Americans in the United States, the Caribbean, and Anglophone West Africa. It influenced European Occult Spiritualism as well as African American hoodoo folk magic, and magical spiritual practices in the Caribbean, and West Africa. An older magical text, a fourth century Greek papyrus entitled Eighth Book of Moses otherwise unrelated to the Sixth and Seventh Books, was found in Thebes in the 19th century and published as part of the Greek Magical Papyri.

No first version of this work has been established, but early versions began to appear as inexpensive pamphlets in Germany in the 18th century. The work came to wide prominence when published as volume 6 of Das Kloster (The Cloister) in 1849 in Stuttgart by antiquarian Johann Scheible. Historian Owen Davies traces copies of the work from the 18th century in Germany. While versions of The Sixth and Seventh Books were likely passed around German immigrant communities from the late 18th century, the 1849 Leipzig copy was followed by a New York printing, in German, in 1865, and an English translation in 1880. The growth of inexpensive paperback publication in the 19th century, like those of Chicago occult publisher L. W. de Laurence, helped the work gain popularity outside German communities. Its prominence as a source of popular rural Pennsylvanian and Appalachian "folk magic" spells has been recorded as late as the mid 20th century.

The boom in inexpensive publishing, and the interest in Spiritualism helped the work gain popularity in the African American population of the United States, and from there, the Anglophone parts of the Caribbean. From 1936 through 1972, the folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt interviewed 1,600 African American Christian root doctors and home practitioners of hoodoo, and many of them made reference to using this book and other seal bearing grimoires of the era, such as the Key of Solomon. When Hyatt asked his informants where such books were purchased, he was told that they could be had by mail order from hoodoo suppliers in Chicago, Memphis, or Baltimore. In the West Indies, the book became one of the central texts of Jamaican obeah and was counted among the founding works of the "Zion Revivalist" Christian movement and the Rastafari movement of the early 20th century.

In early 20th century British West Africa and Liberia, The Sixth and Seventh Books was adopted widely. It served as a source for "Christian Magic", both by West African spiritualist Christian cults and "assimilated" Africans. In colonial Gold Coast and Nigeria, it was seen as a "western" form of magic that might be used by educated Africans seeking access to Britain or its power, much like Masonic ritual or Rosicrucianism. The Nigerian press in the 1920s regularly featured advertisements for copies of The Sixth and Seventh Books and other Christian occult books. It was also influential in Christian occult movements in Anglophone West Africa, Although these are allegedly Kabbalistic in nature, there is very little or no influence of Kabbala within the pages. Most texts are reputed to be Hebrew, passed to the editors through European Talmudic scholars or Christian Medieval ecclesiastics who were privy to secret Biblical texts. Some of the texts are allegedly translated from a text written by Canaanite magicians and keepers of the Samaritan Pentateuch in the "Cuthan Samaritan language", a language considered extinct since the 12th century. No complete manuscripts older than Scheible's 1849 printing are extant, and the claimed origin must be regarded pseudepigraphic and spurious. It is rather of a school of European Medieval and Enlightenment grimoires, such as The Key of Solomon, The Red Dragon, Petit Albert and others. The vast majority of the printed works of 1849, a New York German printing of 1865, and the first English public printing of 1880 are additions to the reputed biblical books. In the 1880 edition, for instance, "the Sixth Book of Moses" and "the Seventh Book of Moses" run only from page 6 to 28, making up 23 of the 190 pages. The vast majority of the work is appendices, restatements of similar seals and incantations, reputedly from those Kabbala teachers to whom this knowledge was passed. Finally, there are sections including lists of the powers associated with each of the Hebrew "Names of God", the powers and use of reciting each of the Psalms and each Hebrew letter.

Scheible also inserted an introduction, "The Magic of the Israelites", taken from Joseph Ennemoser's 1844 Geschichte der Magie. The introduction to the 1880 New York edition explains the genesis of the books.

The Sixth Book includes an introduction along with seven chapters, known as "The Mystery of the First Seal" through "The Mystery of the Seventh Seal". The included pictures of the "seals" consist of various stylized symbols surrounded by pseudo Hebrew and pseudo Latin phrases and letters. Each "Seal" or "Table" (in the Seventh Book) is paired with an incantation (reputedly Hebrew) and a very brief description of its powers.

In the New York Edition this is followed by "The Magic of the Israelites", used in the 1849 version as the introduction.

The second volume of the work collects a series of works claimed to be "in the tradition of" the original two books. In the New York edition, this begins with "Formulas of the Magical Kabala of the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses", which again demonstrates seals and incantations, these said to be the Magic used by Moses himself at various points in the Biblical stories, such as how to turn his staff into a snake or conjure the pillar of fire. They include other incantations, such as the one labeled "These words are terrible, and will assemble devils or spirits, or they will cause the dead to appear." This is followed by works of only a dozen or so pages, all giving similar "Seals" and incantations (often with identical titles, such as "the Breastplate of Moses"). These include "Extract from the True Clavicula of Solomon and of the Girdle of Aaron" (a version of the Key of Solomon grimoire), the "Biblia Arcana Magica Alexander, According to the Tradition of the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, Besides Magical Laws", and the "Citation of the Seven Great Princes in the Tradition of the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses" which contains similar seals and incantations with more or less Biblical connotations.

These are followed by a long section reputing to explain the powers associated with each of the Hebrew "Names of God", other seals which are to be used with these incantations, the Schemhamphoras of King Solomon (The Semiphoras and Schemhamphorash a 1686 occult book attributed to King Solomon printed by Andreas Luppius), and the powers and use of reciting each of the Psalms and each Hebrew letter. For example:

A copy of an 1880 English translation of the Johann Scheible version, originally from the Harry Houdini Collection at the Library of Congress is available as: The sixth and seventh books of Moses: or, Moses' magical spirit art, known as the wonderful arts of the old wise Hebrews, taken from the Mosaic books of the Cabala and the Talmud, for the good of mankind. Translated from the German, word for word, according to old writings". s. n., 1880
Joseph H. Peterson (ed., with critical commentary). The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses: Or Moses' Magical Spirit Art Known as the Wonderful Arts of the Old Wise Hebrews, Taken from the Mosaic Books of the Kabbalah and the Talmud, for the Good of Mankind. Ibis, (2008)