The Red Church cont.

[k_a_nitz]

Continuing from my previous post on this book, having got a bit further, it looks even more amateurish in its production (even though it has an index, which is usually a sign of some professional involvement). There is a reference to a non-existent figure, and the absolute classic: a figure with the text below it of "[Need better figure of lunar phases]"! Some of the full page tables are obviously scanned images as they have that fuzzy quality.

The publisher has a number of books in its catalogue, and does not appear to be a vanity publisher, so I'm not sure what the deal is there.

 

A pity really, as the practical content on Pennsylvania German Braucherei (which only starts at p.147 of 479 excluding index and biblio) is quite good. The basic standard procedure, the circuit, is very reminiscent of Karl Spiesberger's instructions on working with personal magnetism and probably has a common origin in 18th and 19th century work on animal magnetism following Mesmer. Though some of the instructions look quite difficult - like kneeling in front of someone who is seated in a chair and reaching over their head with your hands without touching them - no advice is given for working with someone who is a lot taller than you!

Those first 140-odd pages were mostly history mixed in with the author's polemics against heathenism and devil worshippers. I don't think he really understands heathenism. Note that this is a very Christ-centric book - as the author states many times, practitioners do not heal, only God heals. But at the same times there are instructions on timing for moon-phases, basic affinities of astrological signs with parts of the body and names of archangels. There is also a basic discussion of Kabbalah as a tool for Braucherei. Some of the sympathetic magic seems quite animist too, which is just a reminder that the spiritual is not to be judged by modern rational logic - it has its own logic which seems in most cases to be personal to the practitioner: "whatever works for you".

Comments

[jprussell]

Braucherei is a field I have on my very long "to get to" list, but so far, other things have taken precedence. That said, just in case it's not already on your radar, one work that might provide a link between what's in this and the earlier sources you speculate on here is The Long Lost Friend.

Of course, ironically enough, my primary interest in such works is possible heathen survivals kept alive in folk practice, so the denunciations you mention are especially funny to me :)

Cheers,
Jeff

[k_a_nitz]

Yes, the Long Lost Friend is one of the sources cited (and apparently was itself largely plagiarised from earlier works). He also mentions that many of those printed works sometimes omitted necessary steps and claims the practices he details from them have been amended to tidy up errors and improve the explanations.

[jprussell]

That sounds like about what I'd expect for a popular publication of folk magical practices!

I also figured you were already familiar, but as I said, thought I'd mention it just in case.