Jewish Kabbalah and practical magic

Abraham of Worms

Abraham ben Simeon of Worms is the purported fifteenth-century German Jewish author of The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, a Hebrew text internally dated to 1458 that describes a system of Kabbalistic magic taught to him by an Egyptian mage named Abra-Melin. His historical identity is debated — scholars suggest the text may be a later pseudepigraphical composition, possibly compiled in the seventeenth century — and his birth and death dates cannot be established with certainty. The Abramelin system, centered on an eighteen-month preparatory ritual to attain conversation with one's Holy Guardian Angel, became one of the most influential magical texts in Western esotericism after S.L. MacGregor Mathers translated it in 1898.