The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses

The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses claim to contain secret magical books revealed to Moses beyond the five books of the Torah. The work is a German compilation that first gained wide circulation when the Stuttgart publisher Johann Scheible printed it in 1849 in his multi-volume series of magical and curious literature, Das Kloster; earlier German manuscripts with related material were already circulating. Its core consists of seals or tables in pseudo-Hebrew characters with accompanying conjurations of spirits, angels and the 'Seven Great Princes', much of it derived from the pseudo-Jesuit Verus Jesuitarum Libellus and German Faust literature. Around this the editions add an introductory essay on the magic of the Israelites, the Breastplate of Moses, excerpts from practical Kabbalah and the Key of Solomon, the Tabellae Rabellinae, Semiphoras and Schemhamphoras, and the magical uses of the psalms. An English translation appeared in New York in 1880, and cheap American printings from the early twentieth century spread the book throughout the United States, the Caribbean and West Africa. It became a central text in hoodoo, in Pennsylvania German powwow and in African and Caribbean religious practice, and in Jamaica possession of it was long illegal. Joseph Peterson's 2008 edition corrected the English against Scheible's German and restored the plates, giving the first reliable text. The book is a key case study in the global popular diffusion of European grimoires.

What it contains

• Introductory essay on the magic of the Israelites
• Seals and tables of the sixth and seventh books with conjurations
• Citations of the Seven Great Princes
• Breastplate of Moses and variant versions
• Extracts from practical Kabbalah and the Key of Solomon
• Semiphoras, Schemhamphoras and Tabellae Rabellinae
• Magical use of the Psalms