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Clavis Arcana Magica and A Book of

the Offices of Spirits (review)
26-33 minuti

Clavis Arcana Magica, Frederick Hockley, with an

Introduction by Alan Thorogood. Teitan Press,
2012. 78 pages. $50.00
A Book of the Offices of Spirits: The Occult Virtue
of Plants and Some Rare Magical Charms & Spells
Transcribed by Frederick Hockley from a Sixteenth
Century Manuscript on Magic and Necromancy,
John Porter, with an Introduction by Colin D.
Campbell. Teitan Press, 2011. 102 pages. $50.00
Addenda to two other works in the same
[1]

Frederick Hockley series: Abraham the Jew on

Magic Talismans: (To be engraven on the Seals of
Rings made of various metals, under the influence
of the Fixed Stars and the Twenty-eight Mansions
of the Moon) by Frederick Hockley, after a work by
Frances Barrett, with an Introduction by Silens
Manus (York Beach, ME: Teitan Press, 2011) and
Occult Spells, compiled by Frederick Hockley with
an introduction by Silens Manus,  (York Beach, ME:
 Teitan Press, 2009)
reviews by Teresa Burns
Since custodianship of the Teitan Press imprint was taken over by

Weiser Antiquarian Books in 2006, they’ve released several works that

are transcriptions (some also including facsimile reproductions) of

manuscripts once owned by “Rosicrucian Seer” Fred Hockley that were

until recently held in private collections.  The two most recent— Clavis
Arcana Magica and A Book of the Offices of Spirits-- caught this

reviewer’s eye, as did recently posted Internet addenda for two

previous publications in the same series.

Taken together, these manuscripts and the context surrounding them

as described in the introductions and recent addenda from the two

previous works open a plethora of questions about Frederick Hockley’s

occult interests, particularly as they connect to crystal-gazing,

necromancy, and alchemy. 

The addenda to A Book of the Offices of Spirits and to the 2009

Occult Spells also reveal thought-provoking connections between

Hockley’s manuscript collecting and an enigmatic grimoire owned by the

Folger Shakespeare Library, [catalogued and viewable as Book of

magic, with instructions for invoking spirits, etc., ca. 1577-158 , aka

[2]
Folger Shakespeare Library MS. V.b.26 (1) with a list of owners which

includes Frederick Hockley.]

As the reader may already know, many of Hockley’s manuscripts once

held in private collections have been made public in the past few years

(both by Teitan Press and others), and quite a few more seem slated

for publication.  The contexts of these manuscripts and the questions

they raise make existing biographies of Frederick Hockley obsolete. 

One of the works reviewed here, A Book of the Offices of Spirits… also

shows some rather dramatic cutting and rearranging of a sixteenth

century grimoire, perhaps by the nineteenth century copyist John

Palmer, whose work Hockley transcribed.   Both are what might be

considered, by Hockley’s own definition, works of “black magic.”

Clavis Arcana Magica , the most recent Teitan publication, is an

unfinished manuscript which, according Alan Thorogood’s introduction,

appears to have been copied into this form in 1856. It gives instructions

for a series of magical workings obtained by Hockley via his teen-aged

scryer, Emma Louisa Leigh, who would live only until 1858 and was

eulogized by none other than Kenneth Mackenzie.  Thorogood notes

that “in contrast to his habits of copying older texts, the surviving

manuscripts compiled by Hockley after 1854 are largely concerned with

the fruits of his collaboration with Emma.”  The few third-party accounts

we have suggest that Emma Leigh both hated scrying and was very

good at it.

The first operation provides an “unusual” method of calling the spirits of

five material substances (Water, Earth, Plant, Animal, and Vegetation);

the second concerns restoring flowers and “revivifying” plants and

animals; the third concerns the construction of a talisman which, when

used with a particular opium-laced drink (other ingredients are

cinnamon oil, wine, and aniseed)  will allegedly “allow the operator to

enter the ‘spirit state’ while awake.”  

The final working Hockley calls a “Necromantic Spell of marvelous

power and force,” and Thorogood observes that it “hints at the

Crowned Angels’ doctrine concerning the posthumous ascent through

the spheres.”  The operator is instructed to exhume a corpse, though

this time in a “non-narcotic” state.   After noting that Hockley himself had

advised Revd. C. M. Davies never to use  “black magic” spells of this

sort, Thorogood observes that the whole operation seems of “suspect

virtue,” and quotes the manuscript’s own statement regarding the quid
pro quo exacted by lower spiritual intelligences: “They fulfill your

wishes—and when the time of payment comes you have to fulfill theirs.”

That rather dry observation in the introduction’s close is perhaps the

 closest Thorogood comes to editorial commentary.  Given that the

intent of the individual workings is unclear and Hockley himself

considered them dangerous, it is quite delightful to note that this book,

like other recent works in this series but markedly unlike a few other

recent small-press publications, does not purport to give magical

instruction about a ritual whose significance is unclear. 

Thorogood’s introduction is certainly one of the most well-researched

and clearly written of Teitan’s Frederick Hockley series.  Just as a point

of comparison, I’ve considered R.A. Gilbert’s introduction to the 2010

transcription/facsimile reproduction of Hockley’s Invocating by Magic

Crystals and Mirrors the scholarly high point of this excellent series

until this work came out; now I’d say the two together are the high

points.  Both works are also arranged in a format likely to be much

appreciated by readers, in that they contain: 

1. an introduction that sets a clear context for the manuscript while

simultaneously establishing that the writer of the introduction is fluent

enough with the material and context surrounding it that we might trust

his analysis;

2. a type-set transcription of the manuscript; and

3. a facsimile reproduction of the same manuscript.

As one who has spent an inordinate amount of time reading, mis-

reading, re-reading and correcting mis-transcriptions of old manuscripts,

I can declare unequivocally that this is the form in which I’d prefer to

read reprints of old texts, at least when no facsimile has yet been

made  available.  Even the best copyists make mistakes, so it is helpful

to see the facsimile; yet having the facsimile alone (even one

handwritten in script as comparably modern and legible as Hockley’s)

generally just encourages anyone really interested in the subject to

make his/her own modern transcription.  The difficulty most of us have

in accurately reading the imperfectly preserved handwriting of someone

from another time is what has delayed the printing of many, many occult
records, from the Folger MS. V.b.26 mentioned above to the remaining

writing of John Dee, even though (thanks to the Magickal Review in

the latter case) we’ve all been able to “view,” if not quite “read,” the

facsimiles for many years now. 

In this reviewer’s opinion, the price of a small press facsimile

reproduction and transcription like Clavis Arcana Magica is more than

worth the cost in terms of the time loss and eye strain prevented.   But

more to the point, having such works readily available and cross-

referencing them with each other and with on-line facsimiles has rapidly

sped the time it takes to connect the contexts for different works; that

observation brings me rather circuitously to the second work reviewed,

whose entire title and by-lines read thus:

A Book of the Offices of Spirits:

The Occult Virtue of Plants and Some Rare Magical Charms & Spells
Transcribed by Frederick Hockley

from a folio manuscript on Magic and Necromancy by John Porter. A.D.

1583

with an Introduction by Colin D. Campbell

This work, no doubt in part due to its length, does not include a facsimile

reproduction, and I dearly hope a future edition includes one, as it might

help answer the many questions I have about Hockley’s copy of

Palmer’s copy. 

In the interest of full disclosure, the reader should know that I

purchased this work for a now-delayed article on a related manuscript,

the one mentioned above currently held by the Folger Shakespeare

[3]
library and once also owned by none other than Fred Hockley.   As I

read Campbell’s introduction and watched him trace the provenance of

this manuscript backwards using the “Introduction” to it written by

Hockley in 1864, it became clear that Campbell was not actually writing

about the entire 1583 (?) manuscript attributed to some by “John

[4]
Porter, ” but to a tiny rearranged fragment of the whole.  Yet the title is
Hockley’s, not Campbell’s.  (Thorogood, in the “Addendum” which

follows Campbell’s and Hockley’s introductions observes that while

Hockley did own the longer manuscript—MS. V.b.26 (1)—he may have

purchased it after this copy was made, since his marginalia references

the longer work.) 

In any case, I soon realized that Colin Campbell seemed as unaware of

the manuscript I was researching as I was unaware of the particular

history surrounding this work, which after all was touted by its publisher

as the first-ever publication of this “grimoire… as well as a variety of

magical rituals for their conjuration and other purposes.”  The

manuscript I was interested in seems to have spent some time on the

European continent and was somehow connected to an untraceable

“John Weston” as well as John Porter (and also contains names like

“Friar [Roger] Bacon” familiar in much alchemical pseudepigrapha.). In

his brief introduction, Hockley tells us his manuscript is actually a copy

of a copy.  A more accurate but less compelling attribution might be:

“transcribed by Frederick Hockley from an 1832 copy made by John

Palmer of some rearranged sections from a folio manuscript which

contains in cipher form the name of John Porter and several dates the

latest of which is 1583.”

Now Campbell is no slouch (for instance, his work   The Magic Seal of
Dr. John Dee   had a reasonably helpful introduction), so I read through

this book’s opening with no small amount of confusion, assuming that he

was a decent enough researcher that he hadn’t simply made a huge

mistake.  That turned out to be true.  However, his introduction makes it

clear that he did not himself know what context to put this manuscript in

until his book was almost finished, and the result is that we as readers

are simply invited to share in the not-knowing.

Apparently, sometime after the book was completed, he (as had Silas

Manus, author of the 2009 Occult Spells and 2011 Abraham the Jew
on Magic Talismans ) learned some rather important material about the
context of this manuscript.  Campbell does the best he can to

incorporate new material into his introduction at the 11th hour, rather

than pretending that material doesn’t exist, and even thanks the other

researchers (Thorogood and Joseph Peterson) who pointed out his

omissions and, as mentioned, adds in a printed addendum to his

introduction.   Kudos to Campbell and Teitan Press for allowing added

scholarship even at the last minute.   Yet it is strange indeed that, with

such added information, Campbell wasn’t simply asked to revise his

introduction or recheck his footnotes to see what the new information

might show him about the document he was working with.

Much of the added material came from Alan Thorogood (author of the

introduction for the previous work reviewed), as did the material which

Teitan Press has posted on-line as downloadable addenda in .pdf

[5]
form for the two Hockley books by Silens Manus.  Seeing a press

strive for accuracy rather than scurrying to save face is much

appreciated by this reader … though I do wish they’d taken the desire a

bit further.  To be fair, though, this work, like many in the Hockley series

before it, suffers from a problem that no modern writer or editor of old

occult manuscripts can currently overcome without help.  That is:  how

do you set a context if you aren’t sure what the context is, when so

much new material is coming to light so fast? 

It isn’t as though we know exactly why Hockley collected the

manuscripts he did, or why he performed the rituals he did—especially

when he advised others not to.  What we do know is that he exerted an

enormous influence on societies whose main works were… hidden .  For

example, many people suspect that much of the Enochian material used

by the original Golden Dawn came in via MacKenzie via Hockley.  We

know Hockley owned a John Dee-and-Edward Kelley style scrying

apparatus.  We “see” him in the first work reviewed using a "magic

mirror" for operations that seem like black magic and with a young girl

whose parents presumably approve of the whole thing.  Forthcoming

publications are likely to expand what we know about Hockley’s work

with angelic magic as practiced by Dr. John Dee andlater by a “Dr.

Rudd”; recently published work has also shown his fascination with

alchemical works attributer to Edward Kelley.  He was in contact with

every major British or continental occultist of his day, including Eliphas

Levi.  It’s disingenuous, any more, to say we don’t know much about

Fred Hockley… now, the “what we don’t know” is what to make of the

many occult texts he copied or produced himself with scryers like

Emma, and what context Hockley himself put them in. 

That said, it might behoove all of us to be aware of what research has

already been done. 

A few of the earlier Teitan Press Hockley titles, for instance, show little

awareness of books that are not easily available for net-searching,

even such well-known books as Jocelyn Godwin’s  Theosophical

Enlightenment (SUNY Press, 1994).  Perhaps one might claim

information oversight/overload even among books from the same

publisher: for instance, the addendum to Teitan’s 2011 Abraham the

Jew sets up a broader context by including references to Teitan’s 2009

reprint of John Hamill’s 1986 Rosicrucian Seer, a collection of

Hockley’s writings previously printed as part of the Roots of the Golden

Dawn series and easily downloadable and searchable from multiple

sites on the Internet. Yet that this new on-line addenda to Abraham the
Jew alone (in its footnoting of the same press’ reprint of what is still

one of the most authoritative collections of Hockley’s writing) shows

either 1) how rapidly the context for Hockley’s work is changing … but

wait, weren’t these letters from 25+ years ago ?… so might it instead

show  2) how unaware that book’s editor was of other readily available

material?  (Actually one suspects it’s a combination of the two.)   The

visually striking and fascinating Occult Spells, also by Manus, has a

wonderful introduction discussing the relation of this collection of

Hockley’s to earlier work in the Agrippan magical tradition…the writer

again  simply neglected to check out some of the more immediate

contexts and found Alan Thorogood had already done so for him. 
Perhaps Thorogood’s name might serve as an instructive pun on the

whole matter. 

Now, to return not-so-briefly to A Book of the Offices of Spirits…

Campbell points out that he first became aware of The Offices of Spirits
(the title, not this particular manuscript) while researching “the

ubiquitous Solomonic magic text Goetia ,” and notes a winding path back

to the German abbot Trithemius.  After a year of searching in vain for

connections, he is given access to two private manuscripts both of

which contain the Offices of Spirits —this one, and another which is

“most unusual in that it appears to have been transcribed by a female

copyist.”  I can’t help but wonder whether or not there is any possibility

this female copyist could be Emma Louisa Leigh.

Following this, Campbell takes us through his research--and it is

substantial--in trying to connect this catalog of spirits and spells to

others.  He details some of the similarities of names between this and

other works, and fortunately avoids drawing too many conclusions.  He

even includes two appendices: the first, from Sloane MS 3824, has a

number of “experiments related to spirit conjuration” which parallel

those in the text of Porter’s as copied by Palmer and then copied by

Hockley.  The next, from Sloane MS 3853 gives “an initial listing of ten

spirits whose attributes closely match those of the first ten of the Porter

text.” 

It’s not totally clear from either of the appendices, nor from the main

manuscript itself, what the larger framework is that holds the rites and

the lists and offices of spirits together beyond each being part of

someone’s (John Palmer’s?) Goetic practice, though the discussion of

the Four Kings of the Air in the main manuscript and the particular

spells they’re spliced together with provide some fairly large clues. 

However, and again to his credit, Campbell avoids speculating, so I

shall do the same at least for now.  After all, as he’s shown in his

introduction, this is not exactly a typical catalog of the offices of the

spirits, and the list of animals dispensed with during various spells don’t

exactly compel this reader to seek magical instruction.  The curious

amalgam of names and practices clearly comes from a synthesis of a

variety of Goetic traditions.  For instance, one might wonder why the

Queen of the Fairies and her seven sisters are ordered, seemingly

oddly placed, after the three necromantic devils and four Kings of Air

and various other spirits, and just before the Offices of the Four Kings. 

It’s an unusual placement, but far from the most unusual of the text.

Having had a similar experience in tracing, or attempting to trace, some

of the spirits cataloged in the Folger MS. V.b. 26 —the one Campbell

learns about just as his book is going to press—I can sympathize.   Not

only that, after doing all of this work, he reports that he’s learned about

this other, longer, and likely original version of the same manuscript

preserved at the Folger Shakespeare library.  How does he learn this? 

Not surprisingly, through “the scholarship of Alan Thorogood.”

Now, while it’s true that Thorogood is an excellent scholar with a long

and exemplary history of generously helping out other occult

researchers, including yours truly, one suspects he may have been

simply too polite to point out that the Folger manuscript has been online

and easily available for several years now, hidden in plain sight; the

non-digital version of the first section, the section Hockley definitely

owned, actually went on “tour” as part of a traveling exhibition

concerning “Shakespeare: the Globe and the World” back in

1979-1981.  Its just hard to find unless you already know its there, at

least until recently.

In non-digital form, Folger MS. V.b. 26 has been fairly well known among

Shakespearean scholars, historians studying the history of magic and

wanna-bes in either category for about a decade.   In her article on it

back in 2001, Barbara Mowat noted the connection between

“Oberion/Oberyon” King of the Fairies and Shakespeare’s Oberon in

Midsummer Night’s Dream, and traces him back through the French
romance Huon of Bordeaux and before; she too mentions the Queen of

the Fairies and their seven sisters.  Certainly the many references to

and drawings of Oberon/Oberyon/Oberion in the original manuscript are

likely a major reason the Folger purchased this “magic book” in the first

place!  The final portions of the first manuscript in V.b.26 (not included

in the transcription of the work reviewed perhaps because they were

not in Palmer’s copy) include a rather long conjuration of Oberion.  One

might even speculate that that this is the climax, puns intended, that

much of the entire strange work leads up to. 

Another recently released work shows it is very likely that Hockley

performed some part of the whole operation or his own modified

version of it, including conjuring Oberion; still other works offer much

more context, comparative manuscripts, and commentary on the Fairy

[6]
Queen and her seven sisters.

The downloadable “Addenda et Corrigenda” to another work in this

series, Occult Spells (introduction by Silens Manus, 2009),  posted

September 2012, shows another Hockley manuscript based heavily on

the  Book of magic, with instructions for invoking spirits, etc aka Folger

MS. V.b.26.  That longer manuscript, divided several centuries ago into

at least two and perhaps three sections, has been reassembled by the

Folger Shakespeare library with the exception of the first fourteen

[7]
pages.   Perhaps copies of those first pages will show up some day in

someone else’s private collection of unpublished manuscripts.

For the past several years I’ve been hoping someone would transcribe

the whole thing, all 200-plus pages of it, and apparently a couple of

attempts are currently underway.  As a researcher, I’m grateful that

parts of that manuscript, or Hockley’s copy of rearranged sections of

parts of it and his own redaction of the main invocation, have been

transcribed.  

Knowing that the older manuscript is out there and on-line, most

researchers will still want this transcription… this one, the ones in Occult
Spells , and any other fragments which make it into print.   (Just try to

read the original yourself!).  Even if it were easily decipherable, the

older manuscript is one of the most enigmatic texts in the western

occult tradition, written mainly in very old and seemingly forced English

mixed with occasional Latin and less Hebrew, perhaps second only to

the Voynich Manuscript (which is “occulted” even in its unidentifiable

cipher) in terms of the mystery surrounding it. 

No one has yet identified who “John Porter” even was, if he was a real

person at all.  Of note (if you recall English religious politics during the

years mentioned in the original text, 1577-1583), “John Porter” or

whomever the writer of the original manuscript is presents himself as a

dedicated Catholic even as he instructs the reader in his necromantic

treasure-hunt for the philosopher’s stone.  In that original, another

name—“John Weston” —is written into the margins as well, by a more

modern hand.  Hockley’s?  Who knows.  Where were any sections of

the manuscript between 1583 and 1822, when astrologer R.C. Smith

aka “Raphael” wrote his name on page 15?  No one knows, so far. 

(Smith’s name in page 15, incidentally, suggests that even by 1822 the

first 14 pages were missing.

As you read Hockley’s copy of Palmer’s copy, note that you will already

be working with more information than Colin Campbell had when he

began the transcription.  In particular, since he didn’t know about MS.

V.b.26 (1), he’s not able to notice how parts of that text have been

omitted or rearranged, and so the footnotes of Hockley’s that he

includes will be more helpful to you than they were to Campbell at least

until he finished.  For instance, when he transcribes Hockley’s copy of

Palmer/Porter instructing us that “Myeob” is Queen of the Faeries, he

notes that Hockley has written in the margin “Theurgia MSS fo. 81,” but

states he has been unable to locate that manuscript.  In fact, this is the

very manuscript Thorogood points out in the addendum to the

introduction, a manuscript now on-line, and if one looks at page 81 on-

line courtesy of the Folger there is indeed a reference to Mycob, later

spelled Micob, and presumably copied by Palmer as “Myeob.”  Quite a

few Hockley footnotes cross reference this copy to “Theurgia MSS,”

which is the same as Folger MS. V.b.26 (1) once owned by Hockley,

and Hockley’s footnotes are all correct (as Thorogood points out in his

addendum).

While the fragment Campbell transcribes seems mainly a list of offices

of spirits and listing of spells, Folger MS. V.b.26 (1) places all of these

things within the overarching context of achieving the philosopher’s

stone (a quest one would not ordinarily assume would be supported by

necromancy.)  It’s a rite to, among other things, attract and create

treasure via the conjuring into a crystal of a variety of interesting albeit

dangerous spirits. 

This fragment was not simply copied by “John Palmer” in 1832, but

totally rearranged and many sections cut (if this transcription is that

entire copy, and that’s never clearly stated), particularly those involving

angel magic, prayers, and lengthy invocations. 

The first part of Palmer’s copy as copied by Hockley is actually page

44/73 of the older document, and the both are loosely the same for

several pages, through 49/84.  The next section of MS. V.b.26 (1),

which appears to be an angelic working involving a magic mirror, is

omitted, and we jump in again on page 93, which after the first six lines

loosely matches the “Of suffumigations” section.

The footnotes from here on show both how Palmer is skipping around

and how Hockley is trying to check his copy against the older

manuscript.   The very next section, on the magical properties of herbs,

includes Hockley’s marginalia “Theurgia manuscipt 56”-- page 33/56 of

V.b.26 (1)--which comes before the “Offices of Spirits” in V.b.26 (1). 

Following this, we skip back over those “Offices of Spirits” and assorted

other material and jump ahead almost 90 pages to page 143, landing

mid-ritual: skipping that rite’s invocation and conjuring of angels on the

preceding pages, we’re now reading how and why to slay a lapwing on
Wednesday.  I can’t identify where the next section on swallows comes

from, but soon Palmer’s copy has jumped back to page 61/138 and has

loosely copied the section telling us how to make precious oils to aid in

seeing spirits of the air, by sacrificing a variety of animals on various

days and mixing the ingredients, and calling upon the seven fairy

sisters (the same seven named earlier), writing their names on four

hazel rods, taking a vessel with this particular elixir and placing it upon

the fairy throne, etc.   Let’s say this is not exactly neo-pagan fairy magic

but pretty straight-up necromancy.  I’ll leave it to you to either order this

book or try to read the older version on-line if you seek greater detail.

The redaction, skipping as it does much of the main manuscript, seems

to be Palmer’s personal guide for a rather unpleasant ritual.   One

suspects, given his stated beliefs, that Hockley did not actually perform

these spells.  Yet one also suspects he did perform some sort of

invocation to Oberion, and in the larger manuscript [V.b.26 (1)] these

offerings to and bindings of the spirits of air all precede the main

invocations.  They also appear to require a scryer.

To return to the introduction of the first work reviewed, Clavis Arcana

Magica,  and Thorogood’s observation that the manuscripts compiled

by Hockley after 1854 largely concern his collaboration with scryer

Emma Leigh (who died in 1858), one wonders – and can perhaps 

speculate, given the entire text of V.b.26 (1) – what role his scryer

played in the use of this text. 

How did this fit in, if it does, with the other manuscripts Hockley

collected, some of which are just being published for the first time? 

Frederick Hockley’s fascination with the grimoire now held by the Folger

Shakespeare library becomes even more intriguing and problematic.