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101: Aldaraia sive Soyga vocor

The Book of Soyga is an anonymous 16th century magical treatise that is first mentioned by Dr. John Dee during one of his initial encounters with the angels of the skrying stones. "Oh, my great and long desyre hath byn to be hable to read those tables of Soyga," Dee said to Uriel. "Et haec revelantur in virtute et veritate non vi," Uriel replied, deferring any further conversation about the Book of Soyga to the archangel Michael who "est Angelus, qui illuminat gressus tuos."

When Dee flees to Europe in the last few years of the 16th century, he is forced to leave behind his immense library which is pillaged. Presumably Dee took the Book of Soyga with him (records indicate that there were a number of crates shipped along his route to Eastern Europe and back) which meant that the manuscript wasn't necessarily one of the ones that was surreptitiously purloined. Though, between 1583 and 1595, Dee had misplaced his copy of the Book of Soyga. There are two copies of the manuscript in existance now: one in the Bodleian collection at the University of Oxford (Bodleian 8) and one in the Sloane collection at the British Museum (Sloane 8). Jim Reed, in his discussion of the Soyga manuscript, argues that Sloane 8 is Dee's personal copy.

How the manuscript hid in plain view for nearly four hundred years is a simple matter of the title page which bore the inscription "Aldaraia sive Soyga vocor" (the manuscript was catalogued as being the Book of "Aldaraia" and, well, there are lots of books catalogued out there). While portion of the Book of Soyga deals with the fairly standard fare of the era (tables of names of angels and demons, astrological charts, conjurations and invocations), a good portion of its emphasis is on the permutations and combinations of letter values, including the heretofore undeciphered tables in the back. (It is Reed who cracks the code by which these tables are generated, though no one has been able to explain the use of these tables. Reed connects them with the spreading fascination in that era with Cabala -- the Catholic version of Kabalah.) Eight of these tables show up in Dee's Book of Enoch (Sloane 3189), a clear demonstration of the Book of Soyga's influence on Dee's Enochian system.

One of Reed's arguments is that, due to the transcription errors which appear in Sloane 8 and Bodleian 308, the existent copies of the Book of Soyga are generation "C" removed from an original "A." Reed's formula for the tables -- X = N + f(W) where f(W) is taken modulo 23 -- demonstrates errors in the existing tables and his comparison reveals enough common errors to argue that both versions were copied from the same "B" iteration (with the divergent errors in Sloane 8 and Bodleian 308 arising from their transcription).

So, we've got an anonymous 16th century manuscript that appears without any antecedents and with no authorial attribution and which concerns itself with the essential combination and re-combination of language and which is based on an even more mysterious manuscript that is still unknown. Most of the commentary I've been able to find on the Book of Soyga concerns itself with the contents of the manuscript and not its history. Or its use.

Well, gee, I've got a few ideas.

Posted by Teppo at September 13, 2004 08:04 AM

Comments

Damnit, I never thought I'd have to learn Latin in order to converse with angels.

There goes that plan . . .

This is a question and response posed to Jim Reeds regarding the Book of Soyga and the Necronomicon.

Hi Jim,

I have a silly question that I think I already know the answer to, but I'll pose to you anyhow. Not knowing much about Soyga, I am assuming that it is a medieval text, but just the same I am curious if the book has connection to the fabled neconomicon. Legend has it that a copy this Arabic text was in the hands of Dee, and he does refer to Soyga as his Arabik booke. Is this actually an Arabic book, or is there some other reason Dee called it that. I'm really not familiar with the history Soyga and its contents. You have probably been asked this question already, so thank you for entertaining my curiousity.

David
Subject: Soyga

Dear Mr Almeida,

Well, there is a lot of astrology in the Book of Soyga, with Arabic or
Arabic-sounding names of stars, so that might have been why he called it
his "Arabic book". The book itself is in Latin, but since I have not
actually read it, I don't know if (somewhere in it) it purports to be
of Arabic origin.

As for the Necronomicon. I would rather own a copy of the "Junior
Woodchucks' Manual", but alas, both are fabulous. The Book of Soyga
really exists, and can be read in the library.

All the best,

Jim

I recall reading that Dee allegedly possessed a Latin copy of the Necronomicon. I don't know if this really means anything. Only good research will produce the truth.