The Key of the Psalms

About this book

The manuscript reads like the private notebook of an eighteenth-century practitioner. Psalm after Psalm it says what the Psalm was believed to do and how: write it with its Intelligence and character on clean parchment and carry it on you; engrave it on a plate of fine tin on the day and at the hour of Jupiter and set it by the door of your shop, «and your trade will prosper» (Psalm 113); write it on a laurel leaf on Sunday and Wednesday for an answer in a dream; sew it into a piece of taffeta and hang it round the neck for protection. Enemies, protection, prison and lawsuits, the favour of princes, love and marriage, journeys, thieves and lost things, evil spirits: all are here, in the manuscript's own words. At the end come the 72 Names of God, each with the Psalm verse that answers to it.

Translated into modern English by BlusaBooks, directly from the French manuscript; the text of 1787 is in the public domain. Every entry, not a summary, in the voice of the original. The first verse of each Psalm is given in the Douay–Rheims version with its Latin opening. No manuscript images are reproduced: all 150 characters are our own redrawings, set under each Psalm.

What is inside

• All 150 Psalms: number (Vulgate and Hebrew), Latin opening, first verse, the secret use, the name of the Intelligence and its character.
• 150 secret characters, redrawn by us after the manuscript.
• The 72 Names of God with the Psalm verse for each.
• An Index of Wishes: which Psalms the manuscript gives for love, favour, wealth and success, lawsuits, protection, journeys, dreams and more.
• A foreword, notes on the page, a commentary in plain words, an index of the Intelligences and a Bible-number table.
• PDF, A5 page size (148 × 210 mm), 204 pages, readable on phone, tablet and computer.

Who it is for

Readers of Psalm magic and related traditions such as the Shimush Tehillim, of the Key of Solomon and grimoires, of talismans and seals, and anyone curious how people of the eighteenth century used the Psalms for protection, love and success.

A historical source: the book gives an eighteenth-century text and what historians know about it. It shares old knowledge and promises no results. Uses for illness are translated as historical beliefs, not medical advice; a few entries aim to force a person's love or to harm, and are translated as history with neutral notes. Digital PDF, delivered for download after payment.