«Liber Volantis»: the magic book that teaches how to levitate and fly

«Liber Volantis»: the magic book that teaches how to levitate and fly.

He Liber Volantis -either Flying Book— is one of the strangest and most fascinating banned books that exist.

It is not a grimoire per se, nor an ordinary medieval book, but rather a compilation of ancient texts about occultism and esotericism that circulated during the Victorian period. We can see it as a kind of anthology about the possibility of flying using magic.

He Liber Volantis It is the only book on magic that is specifically dedicated to the art of flying; We insisted, gathering in its pages all the information that existed about it in other damned books; among them: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis (or Lesser Key of King Solomon), and the Formicarius.

These books cover an ambitious list of possibilities: satanic pacts, magic mirrors, curses, talismans, amulets, love potions, creation of familiar spirits, homunculi, but they also reveal certain secrets of what today we would call superpowers.

In this sense, the Liber Volantis It is responsible for gathering, classifying and detailing all the information available about a special superpower: flying without the use of physical and/or mechanical means; that is, flying using magic.

At this point it is worth clarifying that, at least for the esoteric tradition of the Middle Ages, the act of flying did not constitute a major mystery; in fact, it was considered a simple entertainment, even a distraction, that the necromancer had to avoid if he really wanted to obtain more elegant superpowers, since flight in magic is rarely understood as an end in itself but rather as a secondary effect; for example, levitation.

But while the legitimate necromancer dedicated himself to raising the dead from their graves, passing through walls or summoning infernal armies, the magician with worldly aspirations often took advantage of flight as a means to commit minor misdeeds.

We owe them a good part of the spells to fly from the Liber Volantis.

The Clavicula Salomonis, for example, cited in the Liber Volantis, alerts the officiant about the dangers of using the sixth and last pentacle of the moon as a levitation and flight spell; and immediately afterwards he clarifies that the magical act of flying is one of the most dangerous:

…and when man breaks the laws of the universe to favor vile plans, all of nature turns against him.

In this context, the Liber Volantis deduces that through the magical act of flying or levitating the natural laws established for our plane of existence are broken; Consequently, nature reacts violently against the offender.

In other words: flying with magical means is not a great challenge; the real risk is surviving the flight.

Storms that suddenly break out, lightning, winds, even flocks of birds that rush at the magician, constitute some of those violent reactions that nature directs towards those who dare to break its laws. It is for that reason that flying spells only have an extremely short duration.

Still, using magic to fly or levitate carries risks beyond nature’s retaliation. The Liber Picatrix, for example, maintains that levitation spells use the same ingredients as impotence spells, with all the dangers of ineffective manufacturing.

To combat this type of adversity, Liber Volantis recovers an old flight spell from the Book of Abramelin, by which the magician had to wear a robe embroidered with raven feathers and in this way deceive nature.

The book also adds certain formulas that allow, among other things, to fly hidden inside a black cloud.

He Liber Volantis subscribes to the Greek tradition about the possibility of flying using magic without this referring us specifically to black magic. However, within medieval tradition, and even during the Renaissance, flying using magical means necessarily required the intervention of demons, like any other activity contrary to the laws of the universe established at creation.

In short, flying has nothing to do with white magic, black magic or red magic: it is the means by which the magician obtains that superpower that defines his spiritual affiliation.

There are numerous cases of people who have been seen levitating, or even flying shamelessly, as a result of a rapture of faith. In these cases, the flight is not something sought by the subject, but rather a secondary effect, temporary and without consequences for third parties.

Only when the act of flying is premeditated, above all, and articulated through magical means, is it considered an action coming from evil; not in absolute terms but rather the misunderstanding understood as a rebellion against what is established.

He Liber Volantis recounts a long list of anecdotes of unsuccessful flights, such as those recorded by the Inquisition in 1641, Italy, where members of the Donna di Fuora sect flew in flocks towards Benevento, generating several aerial accidents produced by daring maneuvers whose purpose was to impress the village girls.

The use of magic potions to fly used to bring all kinds of unfortunate events. In 1560, also in Italy, a witch belonging to the Malandanti anointed herself with an excessive amount of magical herbs to fly to the Sabbath, instead achieving an unfortunate trajectory towards the papal apartments.

In summary: the Liber Volantis He maintains that there is nothing wrong with flying, but there is nothing good either. In any case, good and bad are not determined by the act of flying itself, but by who flies and for what.

If it is a saint, the flight is the product of a divine blessing; if he is a necromancer, of dark satanic pacts. There are no grays in that Manichaean classification.

However, there are unclear regions regarding this differentiation. Whether the act of flying with magical means is a hallucination, or directly a fraud, it is uncertain whether certain regions of the world are completely devoid of counterfeiters. For example, if we take all the records of witch trials organized in England and certified in works such as the Malleus Malleficarum, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, and the Demonolatry, among others, we will not find a single case of someone who has been tried for the crime of flying. .

In fact, the only person accused of magical flying in England did not require a trial at all. It was about a magician who crashed into the Thames in 1736, without generating a measly contravention act with the accident.

Finally, let’s move on to the most important thing: the flying spells of the Liber Volantis; which require some of the most dangerous ingredients in magical cooking.

In medieval Europe, bread was usually made from rye; A grass rots quickly and generates fungus. Consumed in high doses, these mushrooms are lethal, but in the exact amount they become powerful hallucinogens. Unbearable conditions such as choreomania, or Saint Vitus Dance, are attributed to them: outbreaks of subjects who danced madly, babbling meaningless words and foaming at the mouth, until they finally collapsed from exhaustion.

The person responsible for these collective abductions was ergot, or claviceps purpurea, a parasitic fungus of rye. Its effects, very similar to psychedelic trip, were quickly identified by medieval necromancers; and fused with other devastating ingredients extracted from belladonna, henbane, mandrake and jimsonweed.

The result of this fusion is the ointment used by witches to fly. He Liber Volantis He does not clarify it, preferring instead a magical explanation of flight, but the truth is that the witches’ brooms were as important as their potions for flight to actually occur.
.

The flying potion was fatal if consumed orally. In the best of cases, it produced vomiting, convulsions and horrible pustules and pimples, which could already be used as evidence of pagan practices. However, by the 14th century, witches had already discovered a way to use these ingredients without suffering their side effects by absorbing them through the skin. The most sensitive areas of the body allowed adequate absorption, for example, through the armpits or the mucous membranes of the genitals.

Thus, witches took advantage of these psychoactive properties by applying them to the vaginal mucosa. The medium used was, furthermore, a phallic symbol, representative of the oppression of men and the reduction of women to servitude, ultimately transforming it into a vehicle of freedom.

On the eve of the Sabbath the witches anointed their broomsticks, mounted them and performed what evidently appears to be a type of ritual masturbation. Hence they are always represented as transfigured females, riding on a phallic symbol and laughing grotesquely. Enjoyment, when observed from repression, is always seen as a symptom of madness.

Pleasure, in any of its variants, is an act of communion with divinity, even when it has horns, lives in hell, and promotes a wise Eucharist that is libated through orgasm.

Banned books. I Strange books and extraordinary readings.

More gothic literature:

Article: «Liber Volantis»: the magic book that teaches how to levitate and fly was made by . For reproduction, write to us at