Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating reading, but not completely reliable
Review: This interesting grimoire was published by S.L. Mathers in 1898, based on a flawed French manuscript. The elaborate and lengthy method it describes for attaining magical knowledge and power is considerably different from the Solomonic grimoires, which it disparages. The flamboyant occultist Aleister Crowley considered it of great importance and underwent the magical operation described. The noted occultist Franz Bardon was familiar with and used the 1725 edition of Peter Hammer.The text was evidently originally written in German, and a German edition which compares the known manuscripts has been published recently by Georg Dehn. (Abraham von Worms. Buch Abramelin. Ed. G. Dehn, Saarbrücken 1995.) Although Dehn was impressed by how closely Mathers rendered the French text, it is clear that Mathers' exemplar did not fully understand the text it was based on, so cannot be entirely relied upon. These older German manuscripts have additional material, and reflect a more elaborate operation. One notable difference is that the operation lasts a year and a half, not six months as described in Mathers' text. Dehn's edition also contains an additional book (mostly a collection of recipes) not found in Mathers' edition. Another problem with Mathers' text is that it did not fill in most of the letters in the magical squares, so many of Mathers' comments on the same are irrelevant. Note that with the corrections, there is a close connection between the lists of spirits and the magical squares. Dehn regarded the name "Abraham of Worms" as a pseudonym for the well known scholar Rabbi Jacob ben Moses ha Levi Moellin, more commonly known as "The MaHaRIL." However, see comments by Gershom Scholem in Kabbalah (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House: 1974, p. 186) who was not impressed with it. According to Scholem, the author, although possessing an uncommon knowledge of Hebrew, was not in fact Jewish. He sums it up thus: "It shows the partial influence of Jewish ideas but does not have any strict parallel in kabbalistic literature." Although Mathers' edition will give a good idea of Abramelin's methods, Dehn's German edition must be considered indispensible until an English translation based on his texts is available.
Rating: 
Summary: fake, false, wrong
Review: this is an incredible work............ of fiction that is. if you think your really going to fly, turn invisible have the spirits serve you meat cheese and wine, get real!. this book preaches holiness until you get to those fun fun squares where then you discover the authors true alience those functions are mainly controlled by evil spirits and "devils" guess what unlike solomonic magic your not controling them they are controlling you through those supposed functions every time you use most of those squares your giving yourselves to them. the only thing this book is good for is burning
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