The Cunning of Adam: Folklore & Sorceries of the First Man with Dr Alexander Cummins

A class exploring the mythology and magics associated with Adam, First  Father and First Magician.  

Beyond the mysteries of the Book of Genesis, the various Apocrypha of Adam and Eve detail their post-Eden (mis)adventures and offer valuable insights into how the First Father and First Mother have been understood and celebrated across time.  

In delving after the magics most associated with Adam, this class will  especially celebrate the mythic origins of the Sepher Razielis as a  guidebook of practicable cunning granted the First Man by a sympathetic angel of God’s secrets. It will explore myths around Adam’s reading of magical texts contained in or received from stones, his divinations, and his continual interactions with angels, aerial spirits, and the dead.  

This class will also pay close attention to the magical speech of the First Man: from his use of the Angelical language, to the Semaforas by which Adam performed his miracles and sorceries, as well as the  conjurations of proper naming and pacting with the beasts and birds of  Eden. 

We will consider the long history of appeals to Adam (and to Eve) in conjurations of love and benedictions of protection, as well as  egalitarian appeals to the classless utopia of the Garden before the Fall.