The British Harley Library was founded in October 1704, when Robert Harley (1661-1724) purchased more than 600 manuscripts from the collection of the antiquary Sir Simonds d’Ewes (d. 1650). Some volumes were supposedly written by Dr Rudd, such as a version of “Lemegaton,” under the title “Liber Malorum Spirituum seu Goetia”. Dr Rudd’s works are archived under the titles “Harley 6482” and “Harley 6843”.
“Harley 6482” includes: sections about the Schemhamphorash angels, the hierarchies of fallen angels, the images of the Moon Mansions, the nature spirits, John Dee’s Enochian system of Angel conjurations, and Dr. Rudd’s Treatise on the Nine Hierarchies of Angels.
“Harley 6483” consists of a version of “Heptameron” and some other magical tracts, but most importantly begins with Dr. Rudd’s “Lemegaton”, in which he included the seals of 72 angels of the Shem angels, alongside with the seals of 72 spirits of the Goetia. This book book does not describe The Shem angels, but it gives their names and seals with related Psalms’s verses. Both Shemhamphorash and Goetic seals are drawn in circles, and although none are labelled “front” or “back”, it is reasonable to presume that they were intended to form the same lamen, but the manuscript does not actually say anything about this.
Modern magicians have different opinions about this script. Some of them say that Dr. Rudd’s 72 Shemhamphorash angels are a balancing force against the 72 Goetic spirits of the “Ars Goetia”. They explain that in Dr Rudd’s system, the Shem angels were intended to protect the magicians and control the demons they evoked. According to those magicians, Rudd’s method included the binding of a Goetic spirit with its relevant Shem angel. They argue that each of 72 angels controls and counters a specific demon of the same number. When making the seal of a demon for its conjuration, those magicians write the name of the angel and a verse from a Psalm on the opposite side. They say that this system’s aim was to allow a more stable procedure, as they have an angel backing them up for each demon.
A Christian magician, who would not otherwise evoke Goetic spirits due to his faith, was actually encouraged to do that thanks to Dr Rudd. Another magician tried Dr. Rudd’s method and found it very effective, observing that Goetic spirits are then very obedient. The third magician had never worked with the Shem angels before, but ever since he applied Dr. Rudd’s system in his Goetic evocations, he had the success with it. He now thinks that it is a very important addition to getting the Goetia to work. The fourth magician argues that you can simply put either #71, #72, or even angel #65 on the back of all the Goetia seals, and get the same effects. According to his experiences, all three angels do “a fantastic job of warding off the potentially malicious influence of the spirits while also rendering them cooperative”.
Magicians who belong to other school of thoughts and practicing, do not think that this system is genuine at all. They say Dr Rudd noticed that the number of demons matched the number of angels and got creative. They dismissed this system observing that Shem angels are strictly 72, while the Goetic spirits are more or less than 72 in many lists. They say that maybe it may work well, but that does not prove the theory that the Shemhamphorash angels and Goetic spirits are a balancing force to each other. A magician said that the Shemhamephorash angels are not necessary for practicing Goetic magic. In fact, he suggests it is antithetical in that it straight away sets up an adversarial dynamic. Another magician argues that there is no relationship between the Shem angels and the Goetic spirits and that the seals of the angels were probably just added by a copyist for no special purpose.
In fact, it has not still been solved who Dr Rudd, the alleged author was. Some writers, like Skinner and Rankine, have identified Dr Rudd with Thomas Rudd (1583?–1656), an English military engineer and mathematician. The objection has been, however, raised that there is little evidence that Thomas and Doctor Rudd are the same person. Some experts say that that there are a number of grimoires attributed to Dr Rudd, so they think that either Rudd didn’t exist, was merely a copyist, or was a cover name for a group of people engaged in the same work. There are 8 or 9 different manuscripts in the Harley collection which refer to “Dr Rudd” in some way, all of which were written by Peter Smart from about 1712. Alan Thorogood has offered in his introduction to Frederick Hockley’s copy of “Dr Rudd’s Nine Hierarchies of Angels” (2013) another, maybe better candidate for “Dr Rudd”: John Rudd, who died in the late 1680s and whose name appears in a collection of magical records held in the British Library (Sloane 3624-8).
