Liber Quattuor Experimentorum – Frederick Hockley (Ninth Circle Press)

Liber Quattuor Experimentorum
Or the Four Experiments of the Spirits
Birto, Agares, Bealpharos and Vassago
Frederick Hockley
Transcribed and Reformatted by A.D. Mercer

Liber Quattuor Experimentorum is a practical grimoire written to enable the adept to summon and communicate with the four spirits Birto, Agares, Bealpharos and Vassago.

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Liber Quattuor Experimentorum (The Four Experiments) is based on the manuscript held in the Wellcome Collection – MS 2842 (with additional material drawn from MS 3203)

For the first time, this manuscript has been published in its entirety.
The book contains a full-colour reproduction of Frederick Hockley’s original handwritten manuscript, A verbatim transcription of the original text and a complete transcription in modern English with all missing text and imagery included in order to make this a fully workable grimoire, making this the most complete edition of the manuscript published to date.
Also included are studies of the four spirits, examining their origins and development, together with a history of the Four Experiments and the different versions found in related manuscripts.
The volume also includes the version of the Four Experiments contained in Wellcome MS 3203, Henry Dawson Lea’s Five Treatises upon Magic, reproduced in full alongside a new transcription, with the illustrations redrawn for clarity.
The final section reproduces The Experiment of Bealphares from Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft, which appears to preserve the source material from which the Bealpharos experiment later developed.

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Contents

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Introduction

Hockley – A Brief Introduction

The Many Versions of the Four Experiments

 

The Four Spirits or Demons.

Birto

Agares

Bealphorus

Vassago

 

 

Hockley MS 2842 – The Four Experiments

Introduction to the Transcription

Full Transcription of MS 2842

Facsimile of the Original MS 2842

Full Transcription in Modern English.

 

 

Lea MS 3203 – Alternate Edition of The Four Experiments

Introduction

Full Transcription of MS 3203

Facsimile of the Original MS 3203

 

Appendix

An Experiment of Bealphares from Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft. Original Text.
An Experiment of Bealphares from Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft. Modern Transcription.