“Making Abramelin Holy Oil | Ananael (The Secrets of Wisdom)”

Ananael (The Secrets of Wisdom) Welcome toAaron Leitch's Blog

Making Abramelin Holy Oil 17 comments

According Unto the Art of the Apothecary:

Making the Oil of Abramelin

Moreover the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of puremyrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fiftyshekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels, and of cassia five hundred shekels,after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive an hin: And thou shalt make it an oil of holyointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil. [Exodus 30: 22-25]

In the Book of Abramelin, a recipe is given for the creation of a powerful holy oil. This oil is used toconsecrate the altar, the vestments, the wand and even the aspirant himself before any attempt is madeto invoke the Guardian Angel or command the spirits. It is based, nearly exactly, upon the recipe givento Moses by Yahweh for the holy oil used in the Tabernacle (and later, in Solomon’s time, the Temple). It,too, was used to anoint the tools and furnishings, the altars and the priests who would work in thesacred sanctuary.

The original recipe for the holy oil is quoted from Exodus above. The Book of Abramelin, meanwhile,comes in two versions. The most popular has been the French version, translated into English byMacGregor Mathers in 1893. This is actually a recension of a German original, but it was the onlyversion available in English for over one hundred years. Finally, in 2006, the German manuscripts weretranslated by Steven Guth and used to create a new English edition of the grimoire by Georg Dehn. Boththe French and the German manuscripts have different recipes, with the German version providing theclosest approximation of the Exodus recipe:

Making Abramelin Holy Oil | Ananael (The Secrets of Wisdom) https://aaronleitch.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/making-abramelin-ho...

1 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

German Version:

1 pt Myrrh1 pt Calamus*1 pt Cassia1/2 pt Cinnamon

1/4 total weight of the above in Olive Oil

French Version:

2 pt Cinnamon1 pt Myrrh1/2 pt Calamus*


(* – Note: in both Mathers and Dehn’s translations, Calamus is given as Galangal. However,academic opinion seems to be that the original German indicates Calamus. This would make sense,as Calamus is listed in Exodus.)

The primary difference between these recipes is that the French author excluded the cassia anddoubled-up on the cinnamon. This is understandable once you know that cassia is a cinnamonsubstitute. The less expensive “cinnamon” you buy in the store is usually cassia. If you want realcinnamon, you have to pay extra for it. Apparently the French author felt the two spices were similarenough to simply drop the cheaper substitute and use more cinnamon in its place.

I also note the French author halved the amount of calamus – perhaps attempting to mimic the Exodusrecipe. He also doubled the amount of olive oil, which does make sense for practical purposes – you getmore oil in the final result.

You might think it would be easy to gather the above ingredients and whip up some holy oil. However,once you get started you’ll quickly discover it isn’t so easy. When I made my very first batch, I simplymixed together the powdered plant materials, weighed them, then weighed out half that much olive oil. When I poured the oil into the powder, I found there wasn’t enough to even wet all the dry ingredients! I mixed and mixed and mixed, and finally got a gritty blood-colored mud that smelled heavily ofcinnamon and olive oil. It was usable, but definitely not a proper oil.

Apparently, this is an issue that has long been debated. How does one create an herbally-infused oilwith more plant material than carrier oil? The answer lies in this cryptic instruction (found in Exodusand both versions of Abramelin):

The which aromatics you shall mix together according unto the art of the apothecary, and shall makethereof a balsam… [Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, French Recension]


2 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

The phrase “art of the apothecary” makes it clear that some kind of process must be run on the plantmaterial before adding it to the olive oil carrier. This would be a fundamentally alchemical process bywhich the essential oils of the plants are extracted, then finally mixed with the olive oil. The debate hasbeen over exactly which process should be used.

Essential Oil of Abramelin

Let me start with the most common type of Abramelin oil. This is the version you will likely get if youbuy it from a store. It was invented by Aleister Crowley, and has therefore been used ever since byThelemites. From there it spread into Golden Dawn practices, Neopaganism and even Hoodoo folkmagick. It has become a well-established tradition by this point in time, though keep in mind it is notproper Abramelin oil.

Crowley used the French recipe, but decided to begin with essential oils rather than using plant materialto extract his own. This would not have been a bad idea, actually – except Crowley made two errors:

First, he didn’t increase the measurement of the olive oil. Raw plant materials weigh much more thantheir extracted oils, and thus half the weight of the plants is heavier than half the weight of the oils. Crowley added the mixed essential oils to half the amount of olive oil, meaning the olive oil became aminor ingredient rather than the carrier.

Second, Crowley appears to have measured the oils (essential and olive) by volume rather than byweight. This, once again, results in much less olive oil in the mix than there should have been. Both ofthese errors combined produce an oil that is primarily cinnamon extract, and very dangerous to use onthe skin! I have heard horror stories about people anointing their foreheads in a ritual, only to havesweat wash it into their eyes as the ritual progresses. Some others find that the oil burns and evenblisters their skin upon contact.

Thelemites consider this a spiritual ordeal, and it has become an integral part of their overall system. Meanwhile, the Book of Exodus describes this oil being poured over the heads of Aaron and the otherpriests until it dripped from their beards. That was obviously not the Crowley version of the oil, or elseYahweh would have been served by a blind and disfigured priesthood.

Following is a recipe that will work with purchased essential oils, and will not be as dangerous asCrowley’s version. Make sure to measure by weight rather than volume!


3 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

Essential Oil of Abramelin (non-Thelemic version):

1 pt Myrrh Oil1 pt Calamus Oil or Galangal Oil1 pt Cassia Oil1/2 pt Cinnamon Oil

7 times the total weight of the above in Olive Oil

(Note: Kudos to Denise Alvarado, who gives this exact recipe in her Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook. It is thefirst time I’ve seen it in print!)

Cone-Extracted Oil of Abramelin

Of course, the best thing to do is gather the plant material and extract the oils yourself. Some Biblicalscholars have suggested that a curious form of decanting was the method used by Moses and thepriesthood. It is not my preferred method, though I see no reason why it shouldn’t work. Here it is:

– Gather a large amount of plant material. You can either get them in powder form, or reduce rawplant material to a powder with a mortar and pestle. Combine them and weigh them.

– Form a cone from a material that can withstand contact with oil, such as leather or cellophane. Prop the cone upright so its smaller point is downward, then fill it with the plant material. Makesure it doesn’t pour out from the point of the cone.

– Place a jar beneath the cone. Then pour a small amount of olive oil into the cone on top of thepacked plant material. Don’t drown it, just cover the top.

– Wait a while, and you’ll find the powders have absorbed the oil. So now add the same amountagain. You might be able to do this two or three times within a day. Continue this every day until:

– Eventually, olive oil infused with the plants’ essence will begin to drip from the point of the cone. Continue adding a little more oil into the cone each day, until enough infused oil collects in the jar. The amount you want should weigh exactly one-half the weight of the original plant material. Oncethat is achieved, dispose of the cone and its remaining contents.

To be honest, this sounds a bit like cheating, because it uses much more than the required amount ofolive oil – not to mention wasting a large amount at the end of the process. Still, the resulting holy oilwould be proper for all intents and purposes.

(A great article on this subject is called The Anal-Retentive’s Guide to Oil of Abramelin(http://horusset.com/RIKB/abramelin.pdf) by Frater RIKB.)


4 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

Steam-Extracted Oil of Abramelin

Today, professional oil extraction is done via steam distillation. You need specialized equipment for thisprocess, and it is unlikely to have been the method used by Moses. It is less clear if the author ofAbramelin might have intended it when he said “art of the apothecary.” I will outline the process in asimple fashion here:

– In a steam distiller, the plant material (not reduced to powder!) is placed on a grate over heatedwater. The water is transformed to steam and forced through the grate and over the plants, wherethe heat vaporizes the plants’ essential oils.

– The still condenses and cools the steam and essential oils and collects them in a separator. Theseparator then separates the oil from the water.

– The essential oil is placed in a jar and sealed. The water, now called hydrosol, can also be saved. This is where we obtain waters infused with plant essences – such as rose water or lavender water.

– Once you have extracted the necessary oils, gently stir them into olive oil weighing 1/2 of what theoriginal plant material weighed.

Though I would love to have access to all of this wonderful equipment, my means are more humble. Therefore, I decided to go with an alchemical process with which I have previously experimented:

Alcohol-Extracted Oil of Abramelin

My preferred method begins with the creation of a tincture. It is a relatively simple process, and youlikely already have most of the tools you need in your kitchen. To begin with, let’s take a look at therecipe I use:

Leitch Version:

1 pt Myrrh1 pt Calamus1 pt Cassia1/2 pt Cinnamon


This is a synthesis of the German recipe for the plant material and the larger amount of olive oil calledfor in the French version. You can also choose to replace the calamus with galangal if that is theAbramelin tradition you wish to follow.


5 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

(https://aaronleitch.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/imag0204.jpg)

Ingredients for Alcohol Extraction

In the above picture you can see the materials needed for the initial extraction. There is 1/4 oz ofcalamus, so I will also use 1/4 oz of myrrh and 1/4 oz of cassia. That leaves just 1/8 oz of cinnamon. Also pictured are the grain alcohol (you want the highest proof you can get – Everclear is always a goodchoice) and the sealable glass jar that will hold everything. (A mason jar would work just as well orbetter.)

(https://aaronleitch.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/imag0205.jpg)Myrrh in the Mortar and Pestle

The ingredients are reduced to a powder in a mortar and pestle.


Abramelin Oil Raw Ingredients in Jar


6 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

I then combine all four ingredients – which alchemy calls the prima materia – together in the jar. In total,there is about .88 oz of material here. Some have suggested running an extraction on each ingredientseparately, but I choose to do them all at once. There may be chemical reactions taking place betweenthe plants that are necessary in the final result. (However, this doesn’t mean you can’t choose toexperiment with individual extractions on each plant.)


Cover Ingredients with Alcohol

Pour in enough of the grain alcohol to completely cover the prima materia. The alcohol willimmediately take on a red tinge.

(https://aaronleitch.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/imag0210.jpg)Macreate in Warm Dark Place

Mix the concoction well and set in a warm dark place to macerate. I chose to start this process on theday of the first crescent Moon, and continue for one complete lunar cycle. This phase marks thebeginning of the first two weeks.


7 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

(https://aaronleitch.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/imag0239.jpg)The Plant Material Forms Sediment in Bottom of Jar

As you can see above, the prima materia will soon collect in the bottom of the jar as a sediment. This iswhy you want to agitate the mixture two or three times every day, so every particle is bathed repeatedlyin the grain alcohol.


Material needed to complete the oil

Pictured above is what you’ll need to complete the oil of Abramelin. There is the macerated primamatera, cheese cloth for straining, extra grain alcohol and the necessary amount of olive oil. (Because Ibegan with .88 oz of plant material, I have measured .44 oz – or half the weight – of pure olive oil.) You’ll also notice the old fashioned stove-top tea kettle and glass bowl – also pictured below:


A simple Bath of Mary – or Double Boiler


8 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

This is my Bath of Mary – which is an alchemical term for a double boiler. I simply removed the handleand lid from the tea kettle and placed a bowl on top. Fill the kettle with water and bring to boil, and itwill gently heat whatever you place in the bowl. The spout on the side is quite useful – it not onlychannels steam out and away from the bowl, but also allows you to easily add water as needed.


The Remains of the Prima Materia – or Dead Head

After allowing the plant material to macerate in alcohol for two weeks, I strained it through cheesecloth. Above, you can see what is left over in the cloth – the plant matter from which all of the life hasbeen taken. What remains is called the Dead Head in alchemy, and it contains nothing but the essentialSalt of the compound.

I was performing a rather “quick and dirty” process in this case, because I wanted to keep the entireprocess within a lunar month. However, it would not be a bad idea to replace the Dead Head into thesealable jar, cover it with fresh alcohol and repeat the maceration process. Continue to macerate, strainand repeat until the alcohol ceases to take on any color from the plant material – thus ensuring you haveextracted every drop of the essential oils. If you do this, you only need to macerate for a week at a time,quite likely for about a month.

Whichever way you decide to go, you will finally end up with a quantity of darkly colored liquid thatsmells heavily of alcohol and the plant materials (especially the cinnamon):


Squeeze every drop of tincture from the plant material

Above, you can see the resulting liquid – I am squeezing every last drop I can get from the plant materialthrough the cheesecloth. (Notice my bare hands – I never had any burning sensation or negative skinreaction to this substance.) The dark liquid is called a tincture in alchemy. A tincture is a purealchemical extract held in an alcohol carrier. If these plants were medicinal, this tincture would be amedicine. If you use aromatic plants, you get a perfume. In fact, you could pour this tincture of


9 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

Abramelin into a bottle and use it “as is” for magickal purposes. Rub it onto an object or your skin andthe alcohol will quickly evaporate, leaving a pleasant cinnamon scent behind.

Meanwhile, in order to turn this into actual oil of Abramelin, we will need to employ the Bath of Mary toget rid of the alcohol:


Reduce the Tincture of Abramelin in the Bath of Mary

Here is the Bath of Mary up and running – you can make out the steam rising from the spout on theside. The tincture is gently warming in the glass bowl so that the alcohol will evaporate. This is called areduction.


Tincture Reduction 1


Tincture Reduction 2

In the two above pictures, you can see the level of the tincture is lowering as the process continues. Youhave to babysit this process! Keep adding water to the Bath of Mary, and don’t let the heat get too high –it only needs to be just high enough to keep the water in the kettle gently boiling. You’ll also want to do


10 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

something about the oils that collect on the sides of the bowl:


Clean sides with q-tips

I just keep a handful of q-tips on hand. Soak the tip in fresh grain alcohol, then use it to clean off thesides of the bowl. The fresh alcohol will dissolve the oil and carry it back down into the warmingtincture.


The resulting oil: Sulfur and Mercury

For this amount of tincture, you can expect the reduction to take a couple of hours. The result ispictured above – a thick, sticky, tar-like substance. Alchemy would refer to this as the Sulfur (or oils),which happens to contain the Mercury (or pure spiritual essence) of the plant. (Remember that the Saltis contained in the Dead Head, and is not used in this process.)


Add the Oils to Olive Oil Carrier

At long last, we have reduced .88 oz of plant material to a volume that will fit into .44 oz of olive oilcarrier. There will still be some alcohol content, so:


11 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM


Gently Remove the Remaining Alochol

After vigorously shaking the oils together, I placed the small jar into the Bath of Mary. Notice that I putsome warm water into the bowl, so the warming would be even gentler than before. This will allowmost of the remaining alcohol to evaporate.

After you are comfortable that you have removed as much of the alcohol as possible, seal the jar, agitatevigorously and put it in the same warm dark place where you macerated the tincture:

(https://aaronleitch.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/imag0275.jpg)Unmixed Oils


Mixed Oils

You can see in the above two pictures, the plant oils (Sulfur/Mercury) do not immediately like to mixwith the olive oil. However, after a day or two of agitation (two or three times a day), it permanentlytook on the appearance of the second picture. After about a week, I stopped agitating and allowed themixture to brew for the final week mostly undisturbed.


12 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

(https://aaronleitch.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/imag0320.jpg)Finished Holy Oil

When you finally open the jar to see the completed product, you will find the thick tar-like Sulfur is stillthere, but a small quantity of saturated olive oil has collected on the surface. In the above picture, I putsome of both substances onto a spoon for illustration. The thick balsam is obvious, and next to it youcan see the true oil of Abramelin. (It looks rather brown in the picture, but actually has a somewhatredder tinge.)

To use, dip your finger lightly into the surface of the oil and gently rub off the sticky substance. Whatremains on your finger is the oil you want. It should not burn your skin at all – however, still usecaution when first handling either the oil or the tincture. You may be allergic to one of the ingredientswhere I am not. You should not, in any case, be burned by the cinnamon content of this oil.

Plans for the Future (See 11-2012 Update below!)

Like any alchemist, I certainly feel I can improve the above process over time. While it is certainly aviable process for producing proper Abramelin oil, it is not yet the substance described in the Torah. The thick tarry plant oils macerating in the olive oil would have made it quite unpleasant if poured intothe hair and beards of priests!

Without a doubt, I will explore methods of separating the Sulfur and Mercury of the plant material. Thiswould do away with the tar-like substance (the Sulfur) and leave only the Mercury – that is, pureessential oil like I could buy in the store. This would then be stirred into the olive oil carrier, resulting inmuch more of the pure reddish holy oil without all the goop beneath it.

Of course, you don’t use this holy oil very fast – so you’ll have to stay tuned for future updates onsimilar alchemical experiments. I hope this has been informative, or at least entertaining, for all of you.

In LVX

Aaron


13 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

UPDATE 11-2012

As many of you know, I was given the honor of attending Florida Pagan Gathering Samhain 2012(http://www.flapagan.org/photos.html) this year as a headliner. While there, and between lectures, Ihad the opportunity to speak with an herbalist with a lot of experience making oils. I described myprocess to her – and she recognized every bit of it, so I asked if she might be able to help me figure outthat missing last step to remove the “sludge” from the final product. She could, and she shared with mean extremely easy method!

In the above post, you’ll note that after I boiled down the tincture I simply poured the resulting sludgeinto the olive oil carrier and let that sit for a few days. (And, in fact, it remains in that state to this day.) However, to do it properly I only lacked one item: a cloth tea bag. Like these:

(https://aaronleitch.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/cloth_bags.jpg)

I was told to look for one with a fairly loose weave. It should be enough to allow the oil itself through,but should keep the sludge from passing through.

After boiling down the tincture, you just pour the sludge into the tea bag, tie it up and submerge the baginto the olive oil carrier. Seal up the jar and let it sit in a warm dark place for a long while, agitating itfrequently. You can even open the jar every now and then and gently press down on the bag tosqueeze more of the extract into the olive oil – just be careful not to force out any of the sludge when youdo so.

In time, the olive oil will absorb the essential oils of your extract. When you are satisfied with the result,just take out the tea bag and throw it away. You will be left with pure – sludge free – Abramelin Oil. I’lltry this process (likely on a non-Abramelin oil of some type) and update this post with my results.

Also keep an eye on this blog for a future post where I will describe a method of using a simple refluxerto make your oil. It is not as ‘simple’ as the method described here, but it is much faster and efficiant.


14 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

Posted August 18, 2011 by kheph777 in alchemy, grimoires, hoodoo / witchcraft, magick

Tagged with abramelin, oil, tinctures

17 responses to “Making Abramelin Holy Oil”

Subscribe to comments with RSS.

Very informative. Thanks!

!Like

Replymagus72August 18, 2011 at 12:52 amThank you I have just started to work with Incense’s, and this will be one of my upcoming projects.As I want to use this in the consecration of my Holy Work table.Thanks againAffa AmNick

!Like

ReplyAffa AmAugust 18, 2011 at 7:40 amThanks for sharing this, this was really interesting to see someone go through the steps.

!Like


15 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

ReplyruneworkerAugust 18, 2011 at 2:23 pmThanks for posting this, Frater Aaron. The pictures will help a great deal. I was looking for a recipeand I am so glad you provided this information =D

!Like

ReplyPhoenixAngelAugust 18, 2011 at 5:29 pmVery nice!

A while back I tried my hand at Abramelin oil, and had some moderate success. I made a type ofdouble-boiler setup by putting a glass measuring up in a saucepan filled with water. I put the plantmaterial and the olive oil in the measuring cup and set the heat just high enough to continuallysimmer the water. I let it macerate like that for 2 hours. The final product had a smell similar to whatyou described, and like yours it doesn’t burn the skin.

On a somewhat amusing sidenote, the smell honestly reminds me of cinnamon-sugar toast.

!Like

ReplyOcean DelanoAugust 18, 2011 at 7:46 pmPingback: Oil of Abramelin Recipe « Ex Libris Hieronyma

Isn’t Cassia oil taken from the inner bark of the cinnamon tree is this why in some mixtures thecinnamon is bumped up. Yes I am new and am probably wrong but I will at least ask. I was lookingthrough my herbs and didn’t see it and after searching found that reference.And I appreciate you putting this out I am looking forward to the finale outcome.

Affa Am

!Like

ReplyAffa AmAugust 19, 2011 at 7:54 pmAnd roger I re read the article and you explained that nicely thank you. Some times I get wrappedaround the axle and thrown out the other side, sorry for a really dumb question.Affa Am

!Like


16 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

ReplyAffa AmAugust 19, 2011 at 7:57 pmVery interesting and helpful. Thank you very much.

!Like

Replysatyr magosAugust 24, 2011 at 1:15 pmThat is exactly how I made mine in 1992. the results were similar. I agrre with the idea of simplybuying ready-made essential oils to add to the Olive oil. If it were possible to find them.

!Like

ReplyDesiree Regine NtoloSeptember 3, 2011 at 8:37 pmPingback: Fall Lineup « The Digital Ambler

Pingback: witchy [master] links « Kiki Wanderer

Pingback: Abramelin Oil | Journey Through The Obsidian Dream

My first attempt was kind of ‘a failure’, because I just had a list of ingredients, but not a descriptionof the method.Will try again, of course!

!Like

ReplyTarot CirkelFebruary 5, 2013 at 12:16 pmCrowley made no errors in his recipe. The oil is meant to burn on the skin for Thelemic ritual work.This is why he called his oil Holy Oil rather than Abramelin oil.

!Like

ReplyMetronomicMarch 15, 2014 at 4:14 pmPingback: witchy [master] links | Kiki Wanderer


17 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

FYI: Your link for ‘The Anal-Retentive’s Guide to Oil of Abramelin’ is working again

!Like

ReplyPhineas GraycloakJune 12, 2014 at 1:43 pm

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. The Andrea Theme.

" Follow

Follow “Ananael (The Secrets of Wisdom)”

Build a website with WordPress.com

:)


18 of 18 9/17/15 11:17 PM

Date post:	10-Dec-2015
Category:	Documents
Upload:	trancegodz
View:	49 times
Download:	10 times

“Making Abramelin Holy Oil | Ananael (The Secrets of Wisdom)”

Documents