A 1575 manuscript, rediscovered in a Swiss library, changed how European magicians thought about spirits. The Arbatel of Magick is a Renaissance grimoire that survives in a single Latin manuscript, and its nine volumes were never completed: only the first, Isagoge, or “Introduction,” reached us. You can download the full English translation freely from the Sacred Texts archive, and the Latin original is digitized at the University of Basel.
The Arbatel is not a long book. It is a short one, roughly forty pages in translation, and that brevity is part of its reputation. It is also the most practical, least threatening entry point into Renaissance ceremonial magic, which is why it has been reprinted continuously since the nineteenth century and why modern practitioners still argue about its instructions.
What exactly is the Arbatel?
The Arbatel of Magick is a sixteenth-century Latin grimoire, a manual of angelic and planetary magic attributed to a shadowy figure named “Arbatel of Magick.” The name is not a person. It is a title, possibly derived from the Hebrew arba, meaning four, a reference to the fourfold structure of its cosmology.
The book’s full title is Arbatel De Magia Veterum, “Arbatel: On the Magic of the Ancients.” It was first printed in 1575 in Basel, Switzerland, as part of a larger collection of occult works. The text claims to be the first of nine volumes, each covering a different branch of magic. Only the first volume, the Isagoge, survives. The other eight, covering subjects like “Olympic” spirits, “Pegana” magic, and “Sermones” or prophetic speech, were either never written or lost.
The Arbatel’s core claim is radical for a grimoire: magic is not a dangerous art requiring years of ritual training. It is a natural gift, given by God, and the magician’s job is to cooperate with that gift through prayer, fasting, and ethical living. This made it controversial in its own time and beloved in ours.
Where did the Arbatel come from?
The Arbatel appeared in print in 1575, published by Peter Perna in Basel. Perna was a known publisher of heterodox and occult works, and the Arbatel was bound together with other magical texts, including works by the German physician and alchemist Theophrastus Paracelsus. The manuscript itself, now held at the University of Basel, is the only known copy.
The text’s authorship is unknown. The title page attributes it to “Arbatel of Magick,” a pseudonym that has never been convincingly identified. Some scholars have suggested it was written by a Swiss or German physician trained in the Paracelsian tradition, but the evidence is circumstantial. The book’s theology is Protestant, its cosmology is Neoplatonic, and its magic is angelic: a combination that fits the intellectual ferment of Basel in the 1570s.
The Arbatel was not widely read in its own century. It was reprinted in 1655 in a German edition, and then again in 1675 in a Latin edition that circulated among English antiquarians. The English translation that most readers know today was made by Robert Turner in 1655, and it was this version that influenced later occultists. Turner was a translator of alchemical and magical texts, and his Arbatel was included in his Four Books of Philosophy.
The nineteenth-century occult revival brought the Arbatel back into print. It appeared in the Collectanea Hermetica series, edited by W. Wynn Westcott, a founding member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, in 1893. Westcott’s edition was based on the 1575 Latin text, and it remains the standard reference for scholars.
The Arbatel’s magic is built on a simple cosmology. The universe is governed by seven “Olympic” spirits, each ruling a sphere and a day of the week. These spirits are not demons. They are described as “good” and “holy” beings, created by God to govern the natural world, and they respond to prayer, not coercion.
The seven spirits are named and described in the text. Aratron rules Saturn, Bethor rules Jupiter, Phaleg rules Mars, Och rules the Sun, Hagith rules Venus, Ophiel rules Mercury, and Phul rules the Moon. Each spirit has a seal, a character, and a list of powers. Aratron, for example, can turn base metals into gold and grant invisibility. Phul can control the tides and cure disease.
The practice is correspondingly simple. The magician is instructed to pray, to fast, and to call upon the spirit by name, using its seal. There is no complex circle, no blood, no threat. The Arbatel is explicit that the magician must be “a good man, and of a clean life,” and that the spirits will not respond to anyone who is not.
This ethical emphasis is the Arbatel’s most distinctive feature. It is also its most misunderstood. The book is not a moral treatise. It is a practical manual, and its ethics are functional: the spirits are holy, so the magician must be holy to approach them. The consequence is human, not abstract. A magician who is not clean will simply fail.
The Arbatel is often compared to the Key of Solomon, the Goetia, and the Picatrix, and the comparisons are instructive. The Key of Solomon is a complex ritual system requiring elaborate tools, precise timing, and a full ceremonial apparatus. The Goetia is a catalogue of seventy-two demons, each with its own sigil and evocation procedure. The Picatrix is an Arabic astrological text, dense with planetary images and talismanic magic.
The Arbatel is none of these. It has no elaborate rituals, no demanding schedules, no dangerous spirits. It is the only major grimoire that tells the reader to start with prayer and fasting, not with a circle and a sword. It is also the only one that explicitly says the spirits are “good” and that the magician’s own virtue is the primary tool.
This is why the Arbatel is often recommended as a first grimoire. It is short, it is safe, and it is ethically coherent. But it is not simple. The text is dense with Neoplatonic philosophy, and its instructions assume a working knowledge of astrology, numerology, and the Hebrew alphabet. The reader who comes to it without that background will find it opaque.
The Arbatel also differs in its structure. The nine volumes it announces are a complete system of magic, covering everything from the Olympic spirits to the “science of the prophets.” The single surviving volume is an introduction, and it reads like one: it explains the principles, gives the names and seals, and then stops. The reader is left to fill in the gaps, which is perhaps why the Arbatel has inspired so much commentary and so little consensus.
What do people get wrong about the Arbatel?
The most common misconception is that the Arbatel is a book of demonic magic. It is not. The text is explicitly Christian, and its spirits are angelic. The confusion comes from the word “magic,” which the Arbatel uses in its broadest sense, and from the book’s association with the Goetia in later collections. The two texts are often bound together, but they are not the same tradition.
Another misconception is that the Arbatel is a complete system. It is not. It is the first volume of a nine-volume work, and the other eight are lost. The reader who expects a full course in magic will be disappointed. The reader who expects a framework, a set of principles, and a few practical exercises will find exactly that.
A third misconception is that the Arbatel is easy. It is short, but it is not simple. Its Latin is dense, its philosophy is demanding, and its instructions assume a background that most modern readers do not have. The English translations help, but they cannot supply the missing volumes.
Finally, there is the misconception that the Arbatel is a medieval text. It is not. It was written in the sixteenth century, during the Reformation, and its theology is Protestant. This matters because it explains the book’s emphasis on individual prayer and direct access to the divine, which is a Reformation theme, not a medieval one.
The Arbatel is in the public domain, and the full text is available from several free sources. The most reliable is the Sacred Texts archive, which hosts the 1655 Robert Turner translation in HTML format. The same translation is available as a PDF from the Internet Archive, which also hosts the 1893 Westcott edition.
The Latin original is digitized at the University of Basel, where the manuscript is held. The library’s digital collection includes high-resolution scans of the 1575 print edition, and these are freely accessible. For readers who want a modern English edition, Joseph H. Peterson’s The Arbatel: On the Magic of the Ancients is available on his website, Twilit Grotto, in both HTML and PDF formats. Peterson’s edition includes the Latin text, a new translation, and extensive commentary.
Printed editions are also available. The 1893 Westcott edition has been reprinted by several publishers, and the 1655 Turner translation is available in facsimile. For a critical edition, the 2020 Arbatel: A Modern Introduction by the scholar and practitioner Jake Stratton-Kent is the most thorough, though it is a commentary rather than a translation.
FAQ
Is the Arbatel safe to read? Yes. The Arbatel is a book, not a ritual. Reading it has no effect beyond informing the reader. Practicing its instructions is another matter, and the text itself warns that the magician must be of clean life.
Is the Arbatel the same as the Goetia? No. The Arbatel deals with seven Olympic spirits, described as good and holy. The Goetia deals with seventy-two demons. The two texts are often bound together in modern collections, but they are separate works from separate traditions.
Do I need to know Latin to use the Arbatel? No. The English translations are reliable, and the 1655 Turner translation is the one most practitioners use. The Latin is useful for scholars, but it is not required for practice.
Can I practice the Arbatel’s magic without a teacher? The text says you can, and it is one of the few grimoires that does not require initiation or a master. But it assumes a background in astrology, numerology, and prayer, and it is honest about the difficulty.
The Arbatel is not a relic. It is a working text, and it has been in continuous use for four and a half centuries. Its ethics are demanding, its cosmology is strange, and its instructions are incomplete. That is precisely why it rewards rereading. The book asks you to supply what it leaves out, and in doing so, it teaches you what a grimoire is for. If you are new to this tradition, start with the grimoires hub to see where the Arbatel sits among its peers. Then read the guide to the Key of Solomon to understand what the Arbatel is not. And if you want to trace the Olympic spirits through later traditions, the glossary entry on planetary angels will show you where they went.