While there have been grimoires as long as there has been magic in the world the word itself is quite recent. Generally, they contain instructions on how to make talismans and invoke spirits. Preserved through history by churchmen and intelligentsia, the invention of the printing press made them more available and today’s practitioners can download copies from the internet. Also called a Book of Shadows they are indispensable props on shows like Charmed and Buffy. But owning one does not mean you can tap its power without sufficient training. Modern eclectic practitioners are making their own digitally or as works of art.

Summary

A Grimoire is not simply a book of Magic spells but a text containing occult knowledge to alter one’s reality…

Learn more about the history of Grimoires, the Grimoire tradition, and its modern developments by watching this episode.

Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and a Religious Studies Scholar and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Esotericism, Paganism, Shamanism and all things occult.

It is mainly believed that the term Grimoire originated from the Old French word grammaire, which was initially used to refer to all books written in Latin. By the 18th century, the term had gained its now common usage in French and had begun to be used to refer solely to books of Magic.

So, a Grimoire is a relatively recent term, and that’s why scholars of ancient and medieval literary Magic generally refrain from using the term, precisely because the word was not used in those periods. (Davies, 2016)

The term Grimoire only entered the English vocabulary in the nineteenth century. Now the term is widespread and numerous works of fiction and guides to modern Pagan practice include it in their titles and their content. The term was adopted due to the Anglophone occult interest in a range of manuscripts and cheap print books of Magic and conjuration that were illegally published in eighteenth-century France, most notably the Grand Grimoire and the Grimoire of Pope Honorius.

One of the early members of the Order of the Golden Dawn, Arthur Edward Waite (1857–1942), was influential in spreading knowledge of these French Grimoires through publishing extracts in his compendium of Western literary Magic, The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts (1898). Another text that helped popularise the term was a 1936 collection of short stories entitled The Grimoire, and Other Supernatural Stories, by Montague Summers (1880–1948), the famous historian of witchcraft that condemned the evil influence of Grimoires in his History of Black Magic.

Today, the widespread acknowledgement of the Grimoire depends partly on the birth and growth of modern Pagan witchcraft after the Second World War, and the representation of modern witchcraft in movies and TV shows such as Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and so on.

What’s a TV show on witchcraft without a Grimoire or a secret book of Magic spells, right?

But what is a Grimoire?

We know that it’s a book of Magic, but not all books of Magic are Grimoires. For instance, some Magic books cannot be seen as Grimoires because they strictly tackled natural Magic, namely, the discovery and understanding of the occult or secret properties of plants, animals and stones. This is a tradition of literary Magic that dates to antiquity, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, written in the 70s of the common era, laid out the foundations for numerous other volumes of the same type that would be produced in the medieval and renaissance, Islamic and Christian worlds. Yet, these books of natural Magic are not Grimoires. Because of their lack of engagement with entities outside of the natural world.

The term Grimoire conjures images of old books bearing the title in print or manuscript containing guidance on how to create protective talismans and to conjure spirits – as in the famous Grand Grimoire, where you find instructions to call upon the Devil himself. Grimoires also often contained a mix of Christian prayers, exorcisms, astrological information, lists of lucky days, remedies, and mundane household tips.

So, to offer a definition, a Grimoire is an instruction manual that allows human beings to manipulate the world through Magic using rituals, different types of symbols, and working with various entities.

The sheer possession of a Grimoire was not deemed enough to unleash its power. Grimoires could only be unlocked by experts who were thought to have special powers due to their learnedness, possession of innate powers bestowed through birthright, their association with the spirit world, and/or their association with the mystique of foreignness. While being literate was essential to the reputations of many cunning folks, their education was often insufficient to understand the Latin words and sentences, occult symbols and references contained in the Grimoires they possessed. Even so, they would still use these Grimoires to create bricolage charms that consisted of various passages, or signs and symbols which looked magical. The result was a new form of literary Magic that made no intrinsic sense from a learned perspective but had a clear purpose for the clients who bought them. Such written talismans were often folded, sealed or placed in receptacles by cunning folk, so the client had no idea what they contained anyway: what was important was that they derived from books of Magic that clients could not access. This is interesting as it may mean that Grimoires were believed to have some intrinsic magic power or even a power related to the inaccessibility of the information and that power could be exercised regardless of whether the content was fully or partially understood.

Now, in Christian Europe, the monasteries were the primary producers of these Grimoires, just as in medieval China Buddhist or Daoist (Taoist) monks seem to have been the main compilers of occult works. That’s because the clergy were the very few people who were literate at the time. This, however, begs the question, how could the monasteries be so central to the diffusion of Grimoires when the Churches had for centuries condemned Magic literature?

Well, as is often the case, things are not that clear-cut.

The intellectual milieu of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries hosted fascinating debates about the definition and categorisation of Magic. The pursuit of natural Magic, seen as a scientific exploration of the occult properties of God’s natural world – was argued by some to be an honourable, devout task. Some even argued that seeking dialogue with the angels through ritual invocations for the same ends was likewise a godly exercise. Hence why angelic communication became so central to the medieval Grimoire.

The counterargument was that to call upon the celestial spirits was presumptuous and heretical. And that such an endeavour would necessarily involve the Devil and his demons. And let’s not forget the Grimoires that instructed on how to conduct ‘pagan’ rites or conjure demons for corrupted and carnal purposes. – who would want that?

During the fifteenth century, these types of Grimoires corroborated the institutional concern that Grimoires were a tool of an increasingly powerful Satan. And here we are, at the dawn of the age of the witch trials. The Renaissance part of the fifteenth century saw the juxtaposition of two contrasting cultural elements, the persecution of witches on the one hand and the humanist movement on the other. Indeed, the fear of a satanic conspiracy conducted through the agency of witches and magicians began to generate localised persecutions in central Europe, while the Humanist movement inspired a renewed interest in the mystical and occult literature of the ancient ‘pagan’ world.

Influential in the formation and development of the Grimoire tradition were Italian and German philosophers who followed in the footsteps of open-minded medieval theologians. They drew inspiration from ‘newly’ found texts, such as the Corpus Hermeticum, attributed to the ancient man-god Hermes Trismegistus, and translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) in 1471.

Kabbalah was also introduced to new audiences through the Three Books of Occult Philosophy by the German Humanist Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535). Agrippa’s name would become one of the most referenced in future Grimoires, not only thanks to his own writings but also because of magical works that were later attributed to him, especially the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, which got notoriety throughout Europe. Agrippa was not the only one who got posthumously attributed to Grimoires whom he would have abhorred and yet got him notoriety.

In the early modern period, manuscripts circulated that were ascribed to the renowned medieval scientists, Roger Bacon (c. 1214–94) and Michael Scot (1175-c. 1232), while various medieval popes amassed gathered a reputation as magicians swiftly spread by Protestant propagandists. The early ninth-century Pope Leo III became the author of a late seventeenth-century French Grimoire, and around the same time, Pope Honorius III (1148–1227) usurped his ancient Theban homonymous claiming to be the creator of the Grimoire of Pope Honorius.

By the seventeenth century, the print had a profound impact on the nature of Grimoires, their use and dissemination. As a technology, the print was perceived as reducing the magical potency of the Grimoire due to the standardisation that it entails. The printing press and the rag paper were seen as depersonalising the production of literary Magic, limiting the diversity of inks and writing surfaces, for instance, with the vellum, which had become integral to the medieval Grimoire tradition.

Yet the printed Grimoire simply became the source material for a continuing, vibrant and democratic manuscript Grimoire tradition that is evidenced by the prosecution records of the early modern period. When popular print and manuscript Grimoires interacted in the late eighteenth century, new regional Grimoire traditions emerged based upon false attributions.

We already mentioned some French examples while in Germany and Scandinavia famous were the Grimoires attributed to the semi-legendary sixteenth-century magician Dr Faustus. A book that would have global outreach was the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.

In Scandinavia, the genre of ‘black books’ included the Grimoires under the pseudonym of Cyprianus. Interesting to notice that Saint Cyprian, a legendary third-century Bishop of Antioch, was the inspiration for the attribution of these nineteenth-century Black Books. In the folklore, and that proves the variability of the Grimoire tradition, Cyprianus was either an evil Danish or a humble student.

As Davies explains, the age of the American Grimoire began with the arrival of a German immigrant named John George Hohman in 1802. He made part of his living by publishing cheap religious, medical and occult tracts in German for the Pennsylvania Dutch population.

When his most influential text appeared in English with the title The Long Lost Friend, his work became influential far beyond the Pennsylvania Dutch and into African-American popular Magic.

Later, in the early twentieth century, an Ohio huckster named William Lauron Delaurence became a legend in parts of the Caribbean and West Africa thanks to his astute advertising in foreign newspapers, marketing techniques and mail order distribution. He got a reputation as a master of Magic by plagiarising several books of ritual Magic compiled by nineteenth-century British ritual magicians and repackaging the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.

The democratisation and spread of Grimoires across social levels and cultures increased during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, generating a revived interest in ritual Magic and its sources. Books such as Francis Barretts’ The Magus: Or Celestial Intelligencer, which didn’t get notoriety when he was initially published in 1801, was now getting the attention of Magic practitioners and occultists.

Throughout the Enlightenment, solitary and small fraternities of intellectual occultists continued to practise ritual Magic, and Freemasonry provided a conducive environment, ritual structure and means of networking. Later, in the late nineteenth century, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn prompted a new golden age for the Grimoire in intellectual and artistic circles. One of its members, Arthur Edward Waite, was particularly influential thanks to his publication of the Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, containing extensive conjurations collected from early modern printed texts, eighteenth-century manuscripts and French chapbook Grimoires.

Another member of the order who was influential in this respect was Samuel Liddell Mathers (1854–1918). While Waite was not using those Grimoires to inform his ritual practice, Mathers drew inspiration from them for both his and the Golden Dawn’s rituals. We also owe Mathers the first English edition of the Key of Solomon, published in 1889, as well as an English translation of a late seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century French Grimoire, called the Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, which claimed to be the distilled knowledge of a fifteenth-century Kabbalist.

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) was also inspired by these sources in his conceptualisation of Thelema. An easy example would be the central role of acquiring knowledge and conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel that draws upon the just mentioned Abramelin’s text.

With the birth and rise of Wicca after the Second World War, and the consequent growth of the Pagan witchcraft movement, a new reformulation of familiar Grimoires emerged. How seen as the literary expression of an ancient Pagan fertility cult, leading to the birth of a new type of Grimoire – The Book of Shadows. Early Wicca didn’t intend, in its inception, to lead to the democratisation of Magic that it later prompted. In fact, the Book of Shadows was initially meant to be kept a secret known only to initiates and transmitted through manuscript copying. Yet, just as it happened with the Golden Dawn and its secret rituals, it only took a few decades for the ‘original’ contents of the Book of Shadows to appear in print.

For contemporary Pagans that don’t want to engage with the Judaeo-Christian Magic traditions, there are various ways to work with Grimoires. There are now new personalised ‘Grimoire guides’ for this diverse occult community. Inspired by the Book of Shadows, these provide systems of ritual Magic-working drawn from an eclectic mix of global traditions that feed off other practitioner-inspired texts and beliefs as well as recent work by anthropologists, sociologists, and historians. Thus, the contemporary Western Grimoire tradition has evolved to have its sources more accessible while the Grimoires used by practitioners – heavily influenced by the eclectic Wiccan version of the Book of Shadows – draw upon a wide-ranging mix of Western esoteric texts and concepts, oriental mysticism, and shamanistic practices.

Owen Davies remarks that it would be interesting to see the inclusion of more Islamic literary Magic by non-Islamic practitioners, as this is a cultural exchange that is yet to be seen in the eclectic, esoteric milieu.

And what do you deem to be the most influential Grimoire for contemporary practitioners? Or, indeed, which was the most influential for you? Let me know in the comments!

I’d love to make more videos on the Grimoire tradition and on specific Grimoires, but I can only do so – as well as make more content on the academic study of esotericism – if I’m granted the honour of your support. So, if you have the means and can help at all I would really appreciate it if you supported my work with a one-off PayPal donation, by joining Memberships, or my Inner Symposium on Patreon where you will get access to our Discord server, monthly lectures, a book club, one-to-one calls with me and all sorts of other perks depending on your chosen tier. And otherwise, I really appreciate any kind of support for our community. For instance, if you liked this video, don’t forget to SMASH the like button, subscribe to the channel, and share this video with your friends and family and everybody who might be interested in learning more about the Grimoire tradition. Activate the notification bell so that you will never miss a new upload from me and, as always, stay tuned for all the academic fun.

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PRIMARY SOURCES
The Grand Grimoire https://amzn.to/3GvUbWV
The Grimoire of Pope Honorius https://amzn.to/3TWPQz8
The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts https://amzn.to/3Enxr90
The History of Witchcraft and Demonology https://amzn.to/3tIfgWA
The Complete Book Of Natural Magick https://amzn.to/3gghYj7
The Corpus Hermeticum https://amzn.to/3XftY4V
Three Books of Occult Philosophy https://amzn.to/3TQbghl
Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy https://amzn.to/3Auz3N6
The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses https://amzn.to/3Xl20oz
The Book of St. Cyprian https://amzn.to/3ggii1j
The Magus by Francis Barrett https://amzn.to/3GBshJn
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage https://amzn.to/3tLp02w
The Gardnerian Book of Shadows https://amzn.to/3GsJ2q1

REFERENCE Davies, O. 2016. Grimoires In: C. Partridge, ed. The Occult World. London: Routledge, pp.603–610. Get the book here https://amzn.to/3tLoilS

First uploaded 20 Nov 2022