This book consists of two parts. The first six pages are a brief biography of Abbe Julio, the healer who began his career as a Roman Catholic priest and ended it as a friend of Papus and Bishop of the Free Catholic Church of France, the ecclesial body associated with the Order of Martinists, at the turn of the twentieth century. This part of the book ends with a proclamation of canonization by Terje Dahl Bergersen. The book ends with a two-page confession of faith for the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica with which Bergersen is affiliated and which claims descent from Abbe Julio's Church. The biography is very interesting, given how little is available in English about Abbe Julio. It is also available online in its entirety on Bergersen's blog, here: https://terje.bergersen.net/2004/03/labbe-julio-3-march-1912/

The rest of the book is a collection of pantacles, symbols said to have magical or spiritual power. Each pantacle has its own page. Underneath each pantacle is a statement about its magical use a or a reflection on its meaning. Beneath the statement is a picture that (in someone's mind) is linked to the pantacle. These pictures range from reproductions of Orthodox icons to images lifted from magical and alchemical texts to a picture of a medieval knight to an image lifted from a book by or about Feliksa Magdalena Kozłowska, foundress of the Mariavites. These pictures are clearly later than Abbe Julio.

Robert North claimed to have translated and compiled this book. However, the translation reads as though it was made by a non-English speaker. He may have used an early online translator, but I am guessing he actually lifted not only the text but also the translation of the biography from Bergersen. As I said, the biography is very interesting, but I was somewhat disappointed that the biography was not by North himself. One of the reasons I bought this book was because I was curious what the Visible Head of the infamous sex cult the New Flesh Palladium had to say about Abbe Julio. It remains a mystery.

The pantacles section is also rather disappointing. Despite the relative expense of the book, the pantacles are badly reproduced, as though North blew up low resolution images for the book. Some of them are of such poor resolution that I wonder if they are useful. Meanwhile, aside from the roughly one-sentence statements there are no prayers or directions of use with the pantacles. Maybe North did this so he could orally instruct his followers as to their use and meaning, but more likely it's just because of the cost of printing the book in color. Comparing them with his works in the original, these short sentences do seem to be attributable to Abbe Julio.

Abbe Julio's books have been slow to be translated into English, but now, more than a century after his death, there seems to be new effort to bring his work to the English-speaking world. Tau Phosphoros of the Apostolic Church of the Pleroma and K. Oteng-Gyang of the ABCD Institute of God have begun translating his writings. Tau Phosphoros has promised to bring all of Abbe Julio's books into English. If the reader cannot wait until Abbe Julio's Pentacles et Prières are brought into English by one of these translators then it may be better to learn enough French to read his work in the original rather than use this book. But if you want to read it yourself you can acquire it on Lulu.