This is another article on the Grimoire Armadel, which I have been fascinated with ever since I bought the hard cover edition back in the 1980's. I have already written a few articles in the past about this subject, and this article mirrors some items that I have already written in my first article on the subject, and you can find it here. There are some new concepts and refinements in this article compared to the previous one, but you can read that article to get a broader idea about my approach to this wondrous grimoire.
The name Armadel, used for a specific grimoire, is often confused with Almadel and Arbatel. The Almadel is a scrying table made up of beeswax candles and a small table inscribed with sigils and a shew stone in the center. Arbatel is the name of a Paracelsian system of planetary magic that uses the seven Olympian spirits and their associated seals. Both of these systems predate the Grimoire Armadel, which was likely composed in the mid 17th century. So, these three similar names represent very distinctly different systems of magic, although the Armadel system does borrow some attributes from both the Almadel and the Arbatel.
An obvious question is to figure out what Armadel means, if it has any meaning, or whether it is a proper name for an individual lost to time, or if it is a process or type of magic. I think it is a process or type of magic, but there is evidence for other perspectives. What we need is a definitive definition, and that might not be available to us, since whether a name or a process, it was an obscure word that had a limited use by occult practitioners well over four hundred years ago.
Some authors have speculated that the name Armadel refers to an individual, whether legendary or actual. Since there are no famous individuals named Armadel, but there obviously are for Solomon, Faust, Saint Cyprian, or Albertus Magnus, then if we consider it to be a name we might be making an erroneous assumption. A version of the Key of Solomon in the British Museum has the title “The True Keys of Solomon by Armadel,” which could infer that Armadel was the pseudo name of a legendary author, or the “by Armadel” could be interpreted as “by means of” instead of indicating the author. Still, the idea that there was someone named Armadel has persisted. There are a few other 17th century anonymous grimoires whose authorship is attributed to Armadel, which only confuses the matter to properly identify what or who Armadel actually is.
I have used my rudimentary linguistic skills and I cannot find any kind of definitive word combination in Hebrew, Latin or Greek. So, it is word that exists without an actual meaning, or one that can’t be easily derived. It is likely some kind of a name. I had proposed in my previous article that Armadel was from the Hebrew A’arum Mod EL ערום־מאד־אלָ, which loosely means “God’s Powerful Skill”, but that was a weak translation. What I have gotten from translating that Hebrew phrase is “Naked from God.” Another approach could be Armata El, where the ‘t’ in Aramata became a ‘d’ like the word ‘armada’, and in Latin it means army, so it would be the “Army of El,” but this is also weak. It might simply be Arma di El, or “weapon of God” in Italian. None of these pseudo translations help to define what Armadel is from a magical perspective.
According to William Keith, in his introduction to the 2001 edition of the Grimoire Armadel, he states that the earliest published use of Armadel is to be found in a work written by Gabriel Naude, in 1625. In that book, which was a thorough study of the occult works at that time, he wrote about an author who had summarized the art of magic into five distinct categories. These were outlined as the following:
- Art of Trithemius - for invention,
- Art of Theurgy - for elocution,
- Art of Armadel - for disposition,
- Art Pauline - for pronunciation,
- Art Lullian - for memory.
According to Keith, all these categories had a body of work associated with them except for the Art of Armadel. These five different categories seem similar to the five disciplines used to teach students the basic skills needed to be considered educated, and these were grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic and geometry. Theurgy is a form of magic that is closely related to thaumaturgy, doing the work of the Deity on the material plan, and thereby causing miraculous changes. I don’t know how that would fit with elocution, and the Pauline Art is based on a grimoire that is part of the Lesser Key of Solomon, and works with the angels of the hours and days of the week using a table of practice, thereby sacralizing any calendric event with angelic magic. It doesn’t seem to involve any kind of the development of pronunciation. Invention, disposition and memory seem to adequately define the Trithemian, Armadel, and Lullian arts. There are examples of four of these methodologies, but according to Keith, there is nothing to be associated with the Art of Armadel. I believe that Keith is wrong about Armadel having no examples or body of practice.
I believe that we can determine what the author meant when describing the Art of Armadel as “for disposition” if we examine that word carefully, since it has at least three different meaning contexts. There is the disposition of the self, which is the mood that we are in at the moment or our habitual emotional state. There is also the business disposition of a product or service (how it is disposed), and the legal disposition of a case, or its status or ending. I think that the meaning of disposition in regards to the Art of Armadel fits the business disposition, which would make it a kind of transaction between spiritual entities and the magician. Disposition of the self could also be employed if we would stipulate that the Art of Armadel has a transformative impact on the individual working it.
So, I think that what is transacted in this kind of magic is a form of knowledge or an inspiring insight or vision, or even to gain an intellectual skill. The later has representations in various grimoires and forms of magic, especially the Ars Notaria of Solomon, which is the perfect example of the Art of Armadel. However, the Ars Notaria has the accompanied verba ignota or words of power to go along with the prayers, the rigorous schedule of operation, and the powerful images; Liber Armadel only has the elaborately colored seals and a vague theological context without any kind of magical schedule for working them, nor any kind of magical language to empower them. These extra tools are omitted from the version of the grimoires that we presently possess. Despite the dissimilarities between the Ars Noteria and the Liber Armadel grimoire, I think that they are a part of the same kind of magical technology. The Ars Noteria is one of the earliest grimoires, and Liber Armadel is one of the latest grimoires. Yet there is a long line of these kinds of magical works from the 13th through the 17th centuries that infrequently appear. Thus, Armadel can be considered one of the disciplines of magic that has a provenance going back to medieval magic and even earlier.
One of the most powerful and profound systems of magic espoused in the middle ages was called scholastic image magic. It is defined by scholars as a system of magic that focuses on a three dimensional object or a two dimensional icon, such as a talisman or an elaborate magical seal in order to invoke or evoke a heavenly body or a powerful spirit to imbue it with power. The empowered object then acts as an instrument to inspire the operator, who then channels its effect into the material plane, or internalizes it into their mind. This kind of magic typically worked with astrological imagery and correspondences, but could also include angels, whether classical or of unknown origin; but the result was to powerfully alter the mind of the operator, and to empower them to change the material world, either directly or indirectly.
This type of magic emerged from Arabic and Jewish sources, and was utilized to build a body of magic in Europe, beginning in the 12th century. When we consider the Art of Armadel, we are examining this category of image magic where astrological symbols and correspondences or magical icons and seals of spirits in certain theological contexts were used to transform the operator and then through them, to alter their material or intellectual situation. Thus the Art of Armadel has a long history in the annals representing the various stages of image magic, and it is still important today. It is my belief that we can link the magical techniques of the notary art with image magic and correctly define what the Art Armadel is as a system and its importance and relevance today.
My most recent inspiration is that because the Grimoire Armadel lacks an invocative language or verba ignota to conjure and empower the various seals, I realized that because the Art Notaria of Solomon is closely related as a type of magic, and that it is focused on certain mastery of specific intellectual practices and disciplines, I might borrow the powerful verba ignota from that grimoire to use with the Armadel. It was like a significant piece of the puzzle dropped into my lap to combine some elements of the Ars Noteria with the Armadel. Since there are other purloined magical technics from other grimoires in the Armadel, why not add one more to fully empower it as a completed grimoire. I suspect that there is no precedence for doing this, but the idea seems inspired to me, so I will comb through the Ars Noteria and find those sections of powerful invocations that would match up with the theological based seals in the Armadel. I think that this is a fascinating approach, and I intend to follow through on it.
Overall, I believe that giving the title to a grimoire the name that represents an entire antique tradition of magic might be considered presumptuous or even hyperbolic; but examining the seals in this book reveals that it could be considered the final and powerful exemplar of that magical discipline. After the end of the 17th century, magic and even alchemy in the 18th century started to become labeled as fraudulent by the various legal systems of Europe and then by the intelligentsia, thereby being replaced by the empirical sciences. Thus, magicians lost the meaning of the discipline of Armadel and its associated magical arts. So, when this grimoire in two forms was found by Mathers in the Arsenal Library in the late 19th century, they were considered novel and mysterious. The colored seals certainly had an inspiring effect on Mathers when he perused these manuscripts, and he wisely saw them as very remarkable, which is why he translated and produced his English language version.
Even though Keith, in his introduction to the 2001 edition of the Grimoire Armadel, wondered why Mathers would have wasted his time translating this work, I think that anyone who has worked with these seals or realizes their provenance would know why Mathers engaged in translating them. I have found the Grimoire Armadel to be one of the most mysterious but also the most powerful grimoires that I have ever worked with. Keith said that this grimoire was a late and unremarkable version, unoriginal and derivative because it borrowed from other systems of magic. However, all grimoires are, for the most part, derivative; but they stand as a part of an evolving discipline. Each grimoire has something unique and empowering to offer the operator. Whether it is the Grimoirum Verum, the Greater or Lesser Clavicles of Solomon, Liber Juratus, the Ars Notaria, the Heptameron, the Almadel, the Arbatel, the Grimoire of Pope Honorius, the Grand or Petite Albert, the Red or Black Dragons, or many others, the Grimoire Armadel is a remarkable part of that history of grimoires and stands equally with them throughout the medieval period to the modern.
Frater Barrabbas
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