Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses

The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses is a German-language grimoire first published in Stuttgart around 1849, presenting itself as the lost continuation of the five books of Moses in the Hebrew Bible. The conceit places the text within the tradition of Mosaic authority and divine secret knowledge, a framing device common to the German and Central European grimoire tradition. Despite the biblical presentation, the text is a nineteenth-century composition, and its content draws on earlier Kabbalistic texts, magical name-lists, and the Solomonic grimoire tradition rather than genuinely ancient sources.

The book”s remarkable reach comes not from its origins but from its reception. Carried to the United States by German immigrants, particularly into Pennsylvania Dutch communities where folk magick practice was already established, it crossed cultural lines in the American South and became a cornerstone text in African American Hoodoo, where it is still consulted and sold today.

History and origins

The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses appeared in the mid-nineteenth century at the peak of a wave of popular occult publishing in German-speaking Europe. The form of pseudepigraphical biblical continuation had precedent in texts like the Book of Enoch, but the specific Moses framing gave the text broad appeal in communities where Moses was revered both as a prophet and as a powerful spirit worker, a tradition with deep roots in African American religious culture as well.

The text”s content is eclectic. It incorporates the names of angels and spirits from Kabbalistic sources, particularly the Shemhamphorasch (the 72-fold name of God), alongside planetary seals reminiscent of the Agrippa tradition, and a system of seven “tables” or seals attributed to the seven classical planets and to Moses himself. Each seal is provided with specific virtues: healing, protection, commanding spirits, gaining favour, and similar traditional goals.

By the early twentieth century the text was circulating in the American South in English translation, sometimes sold in the same shops and catalogues that sold roots, oils, and other Hoodoo materials. Its Mosaic authority resonated strongly in African American Protestant communities where Moses held particular spiritual significance. Hurston documented knowledge of the text in her 1930s fieldwork. The scholar Carolyn Morrow Long has written extensively on the text”s reception in American folk practice.

In practice

Within Hoodoo and Southern folk practice, the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses functions primarily as a source of named seals, divine names, and formulas that practitioners incorporate into their working. A seal from the text might be copied onto paper or parchment during an appropriate time, anointed with relevant condition oil, and carried as a talisman or placed in a mojo bag. The divine names extracted from the text are used in spoken formulas and inscribed on candles. The Psalms that accompany many sections serve their own purposes in Psalm magick.

The text also contains explicit spell instructions, though these are often presented in heavily symbolic or elliptical language that requires contextual interpretation. An experienced practitioner with knowledge of Hoodoo practice will read the instructions as part of a living tradition rather than as a standalone recipe.

The seals of Moses

The most consistently used elements of the book are its named seals: the Seal of the Sun, the Seal of Mars, and so on through the planets, plus the “Great Seal of Moses” and several spirit-specific seals. Each is a geometric figure inscribed with Hebrew letters, divine names, and sometimes astrological symbols. These seals have been reproduced in numerous Hoodoo resource books and are widely available.

In practice, a seal is drawn as accurately as possible, ideally in the colour associated with its planetary or spiritual correspondence. It is then consecrated by passing it through appropriate incense smoke and speaking its attributed purpose with clear intention. The seal may then be carried, placed in a mojo bag, or fixed to a surface, depending on the working.

Legacy

The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses is a living text in a way that many purely historical grimoires are not. It remains in print, widely sold, and actively used in Hoodoo, African American Spiritual Baptist churches, and related traditions. Its journey from German Protestant folk religion to African American rootwork is itself a story about how magickal materials travel across cultures, accumulate new meanings, and become fully integrated into traditions very different from their origins.

In myth and popular culture

The legendary figure of Moses as a master of divine power and secret knowledge is one of the foundational archetypes of the Western esoteric tradition. In the Hebrew Bible, Moses commands plagues, parts the sea, and descends from Sinai radiating divine light. In the African American religious imagination documented by scholars including Zora Neale Hurston, Moses was understood as the greatest conjurer who ever lived, a figure whose access to divine names gave him power over both natural and supernatural forces. This understanding, encoded in the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, made the text credible and potent in Hoodoo communities in a way that a purely European grimoire might not have been.

The broader theme of secret books attributed to biblical figures runs through Jewish, Islamic, and Christian tradition. The Testament of Solomon, the Book of Enoch, and the various books attributed to Adam in Kabbalistic literature all reflect the same impulse: to claim ancient, revealed authority for a body of practical knowledge by connecting it to a sacred figure. The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses belongs firmly to this tradition of pseudepigraphy as a strategy for legitimacy.

In popular culture, the text has been referenced in novels, documentaries, and films touching on African American spiritual traditions. The 2015 documentary Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun touched on Hurston’s fieldwork in which practitioners of Hoodoo and related traditions mentioned the text as a resource. The book appears in Ishmael Reed’s novel Mumbo Jumbo (1972) as part of the novel’s extended meditation on African American occult tradition and its relationship to Western esoteric culture.

Myths and facts

Several misconceptions circulate about the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.

• A widespread belief, encouraged by the text’s own framing, holds that the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses are genuine ancient documents lost from the biblical canon. The text is a nineteenth-century German composition; it was first published in Stuttgart around 1849, and no manuscript tradition predating the nineteenth century supports the claim of ancient origin.
• Some readers assume the text is specific to African American traditions. It originated in German-speaking Europe, was used by Pennsylvania Dutch communities in North America, and crossed into African American Hoodoo practice through a historical process of cultural contact; it is not a text with origins in African tradition.
• The seals in the text are sometimes described as genuinely ancient Jewish magic. While the text draws on Kabbalistic divine names and the Solomonic grimoire tradition, the specific seals in the published text are not found in earlier sources and appear to be nineteenth-century compositions drawing on those older materials.
• Practitioners sometimes treat all editions as equivalent. The text has a complex publishing history and various versions contain different content; some editions are more reliable than others, and Carolyn Morrow Long’s scholarly work provides useful context for evaluating the text’s history.
• The book is occasionally described as purely a Hoodoo text. Its use in Hoodoo is its most significant contemporary application, but the text also circulates in German-American folk magic communities, Latin American espiritismo contexts, and among ceremonial magicians interested in the grimoire tradition.