The Black Pullet
A French grimoire of black magic supposedly first printed
in 1740, but probably much later. La Poule Noire actually bears
the imprint of Egypt, 740, and the year 740, but this is manifestly
false. It has been reprinted in Paris from time to time in
editions for collectors, but without any indication of its true origin.
The full title translates as The Black Pullet; or, the Hen with
the Golden Eggs, comprising the Science of Magical Talismans and
Rings, the Art of Necromancy and of the Kabalah, for the Conjuration
of Aerial and Infernal Spirits, of Sylphs, Undines, and Gnomes, serviceable
for the aquisition of the Secret Sciences, for the Discovery of
Treasures, for obtaining power to command all beings, and to unmask
all Sciences and Bewitchments. The whole following the Doctrines of
Socrates, Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Son of the Grand Aromasis, and other
philosophers whose works in MS. escaped the conflagration of the Library
of Ptolemy. Translated from the Language of the Magi and that
of the Hieroglyphs by the Doctors Mizzaboula-Jabamia, Danhuzerus,
Nehmahmiah, Judahim, and Eliaeb. Rendered into French by
A.J.S.D.R.L.G.F. It purports to be a narrative of an officer who
Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology 5th Ed. The Black Pullet
191
was employed in Egypt. While in Egypt the narrator fell in with
an occult magician to whom he rendered considerable service,
and who at his death left him the secret of manufacturing a
black pullet that would be skillful in finding gold.
Probably a nineteenth-century concoction, the story seems
to be based on the the seventeenth-century volume Comte de
Gabalis (see Elementary Spirits). The whole work, if interesting,
is distinctly derivative. It contains many illustrations of talismans
and magical rings. The procedure for bringing the
black pullet into existence describes that a black hen should be
set to hatch one of its own eggs, and that during the process a
hood should be drawn over its eyes so that it cannot see. It is
also to be placed in a box lined with black material. The chick
thus hatched will have a particular instinct for detecting the
places where gold is hidden.
Sources
The Black Pullet Science of Talismanic Magic. New York Samuel
Weiser, 1972.
