76 – Egg spell or ‘The Black Egg Experiment’

Physical description:

Egg on cushion of material in a metal bowl with a glass cover. Destroyed in 2004 flood.

Museum classification:

Spells & Charms

Information:

Referred to by Cecil Williamson as the 'Black Egg Experiment'.  When whole it comprised an egg upon a cushion set in decorative brass bowl covered with a bell-shaped glass cover.  We do not know what the exact purpose of this object was – it was severely damaged in the 2004 flood and several accounts of its use exist.

The best interpretation of this object is that Williamson made this item based upon a description from the famous French grimoire, The Black Pullet (c. 1740). In this text, a French officer meets a magician who inhabits the precincts of a pyramid in Egypt. After rendering the magician a service, the officer is given the secret of how to acquire the Black Pullet or Black Hen, a treasure-hunting fowl with a predilection for gold.

The officer was given the following instructions: burn aromatic woods and incense and place the cinders within a golden egg receptacle; place this under a black cushion.  A chicken egg should be put on top of the cushion and covered with a ‘faceted rock-crystal bell’. The words ‘oSanataper, Ismai, Nontapilus, Ertivaler, Canopistus’ are incanted and the sun penetrates the bell making it the ‘colour of fire’, and lo and behold the Black Hen appears. In another form of the ritual, a prosaic black hen (plucked of any lighter coloured feathers) is kept in a box, starved of light and encouraged to incubate a spotless egg from which will hatch the magical gold-hunting bird (sometimes called a demon).

This materialization of a grimoire ritual is further augmented by other caption texts written by Williamson.  Elsewhere ‘black eggs’ are displayed in the Museum as distinct products of malefic witchcraft.  Williamson writes: “…To be revenged upon another, ask a witch to provide you with three black eggs in the name of the person who has caused you the harm or hurt. Lay them in a secret place and as the living germ within the egg withers and dies so shall too all the sunshine fade from that person’s life.”[1] In this vein, the egg under glass may well be a kind of curse – could this egg set-up be related to a caption found in the Archive wherein Cecil writes of a “year-long operation” in which “the egg [was] set and prepared for dedication to the devil”?[2]

Another reading of the egg is suggested in an enigmatic paragraph extracted from Williamson’s notes:

“A final question … what of the sorcerers of today? For the most part they work steadily and quietly on immersed in the study of their books, engaged in endless experiments and exercises whereby ways may be found for a closer union with the world of shadows. Of recent date there has been a breakthrough, frightening and uncontrollable, perplexing and of meaning unknown. But as in the past, so today the sorcerer's watchword is persevere for ever onwards. The glass covered black egg experiment seen here is both old and yet again it is new. For the sorcerer one of the dimensions or state of being is that of ‘timelessness’.”[3]

[1] Cecil Williamson Object Label Collection (CWOLC) 7961, ‘Retribution Magic’, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic Archive

[2] CWOLC 7974, ‘Invoking the devil by means of the ritual of the black hen’, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic Archive

[3] CWOLC 7833, ‘A final question’, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic Archive

 

 

Resource:

Object

Materials:

Metal, glass, cloth, egg

Copyright ownership:

Copyright to The Museum of Witchcraft Ltd.

Referred to by Cecil Williamson as the 'Black Egg Experiment'.  When whole it comprised an egg upon a cushion set in decorative brass bowl covered with a bell-shaped glass cover.  We do not know what the exact purpose of this object was – it was severely damaged in the 2004 flood and several accounts of its use exist.

The best interpretation of this object is that Williamson made this item based upon a description from the famous French grimoire, The Black Pullet (c. 1740). In this text, a French officer meets a magician who inhabits the precincts of a pyramid in Egypt. After rendering the magician a service, the officer is given the secret of how to acquire the Black Pullet or Black Hen, a treasure-hunting fowl with a predilection for gold.

The officer was given the following instructions: burn aromatic woods and incense and place the cinders within a golden egg receptacle; place this under a black cushion.  A chicken egg should be put on top of the cushion and covered with a ‘faceted rock-crystal bell’. The words ‘oSanataper, Ismai, Nontapilus, Ertivaler, Canopistus’ are incanted and the sun penetrates the bell making it the ‘colour of fire’, and lo and behold the Black Hen appears. In another form of the ritual, a prosaic black hen (plucked of any lighter coloured feathers) is kept in a box, starved of light and encouraged to incubate a spotless egg from which will hatch the magical gold-hunting bird (sometimes called a demon).

This materialization of a grimoire ritual is further augmented by other caption texts written by Williamson.  Elsewhere ‘black eggs’ are displayed in the Museum as distinct products of malefic witchcraft.  Williamson writes: “…To be revenged upon another, ask a witch to provide you with three black eggs in the name of the person who has caused you the harm or hurt. Lay them in a secret place and as the living germ within the egg withers and dies so shall too all the sunshine fade from that person’s life.”[1] In this vein, the egg under glass may well be a kind of curse – could this egg set-up be related to a caption found in the Archive wherein Cecil writes of a “year-long operation” in which “the egg [was] set and prepared for dedication to the devil”?[2]

Another reading of the egg is suggested in an enigmatic paragraph extracted from Williamson’s notes:

“A final question … what of the sorcerers of today? For the most part they work steadily and quietly on immersed in the study of their books, engaged in endless experiments and exercises whereby ways may be found for a closer union with the world of shadows. Of recent date there has been a breakthrough, frightening and uncontrollable, perplexing and of meaning unknown. But as in the past, so today the sorcerer's watchword is persevere for ever onwards. The glass covered black egg experiment seen here is both old and yet again it is new. For the sorcerer one of the dimensions or state of being is that of ‘timelessness’.”[3]

[1] Cecil Williamson Object Label Collection (CWOLC) 7961, ‘Retribution Magic’, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic Archive

[2] CWOLC 7974, ‘Invoking the devil by means of the ritual of the black hen’, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic Archive

[3] CWOLC 7833, ‘A final question’, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic Archive