A translation with extensive commentary of the Livraria Económica edition of O Grande livro de S.Cypriano ou thesouro do feiticeiro, present in the Portuguese National Library in Lisbon — a book so dangerous it needs to be kept in chains.
"In this book you will not find the evocations of glamorous demon princes or mighty and powerful angels. There is no high or low magic to be found here. This is a book of the ground, of the dirt, it is not of the mind, it is not of the spirit, it is not of the heart, it is of the viscera. It is the book of the empty stomach, of the bare feet of poverty, the broken heart, the foolish ambition, the maddening envy, the hard cock, the unwashed hands of labor, the agonizing afflicted and all the follies of the world of men." –José Leitão
An extensively commented translation of one of the most complete Portuguese grimoires attributed to St Cyprian of Antioch. A labyrinthic unveiling and re-veiling throughout the history of Western Iberian Bruxaria and Feitiçaria, Catholicism, the blood war of Old and New Christians, the slave trade and the Empire.
In this work, The Book of Saint Cyprian is revealed as a manifestation of vaster and pre-existent magical and folkloric traditions and is inserted into its proper cultural background, providing the reader with the keys to its unwritten content including the Book’s connection to the vast mythical corpus of the Mouras Encantadas.
An essential read for all those interested in folk magic, be it diabolical or saintly, fey traditions, the largely unknown West Iberian magical current and its various traces and manifestations in the modern Ibero-African-American cults of Brazil.
