Occult Grimoire White Black Magic Book Magical Art Indian Occultism De Laurence

Volume of magic spells, invocations and talismans

A grimoire ( grim-WAHR ) (also known as a "book of spells" or a "spellbook") is a textbook of magic, typically including instructions on how to create magical objects similar talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination, and how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, deities, and demons.^[one] In many cases, the books themselves are believed to be imbued with magical powers, although in many cultures, other sacred texts that are not grimoires (such as the Bible) have been believed to have supernatural properties intrinsically. The only contents found in a grimoire would exist information on spells, rituals, the training of magical tools, and lists of ingredients and their magical correspondences.^{[2] [ unreliable source? ]} In this manner, while all books on magic could be thought of as grimoires, not all magical books should be thought of every bit grimoires.^[iii]

While the term grimoire is originally European—and many Europeans throughout history, particularly ceremonial magicians and cunning folk, accept used grimoires—the historian Owen Davies noted that similar books tin can be plant all around the globe, ranging from Jamaica to Sumatra.^[4] He also noted that in this sense, the world'southward starting time grimoires were created in Europe and the Ancient Near Eastward.^[5]

Etymology [edit]

It is most normally believed that the term grimoire originated from the Onetime French give-and-take grammaire, which had initially been used to refer to all books written in Latin. By the 18th century, the term had gained its now mutual usage in France, and had begun to be used to refer purely to books of magic. Owen Davies presumed this was because "many of them continued to circulate in Latin manuscripts".^[vi]

However, the term grimoire later developed into a figure of oral communication amongst the French indicating something that was hard to empathise. In the 19th century, with the increasing interest in occultism amongst the British following the publication of Francis Barrett's The Magus (1801), the term entered the English language in reference to books of magic.^[i]

History [edit]

Ancient period [edit]

The earliest known written magical incantations come from aboriginal Mesopotamia (modern Republic of iraq), where they have been institute inscribed on cuneiform clay tablets that archaeologists excavated from the urban center of Uruk and dated to between the 5th and 4th centuries BC.^[vii] The ancient Egyptians also employed magical incantations, which accept been plant inscribed on amulets and other items. The Egyptian magical system, known every bit heka, was profoundly contradistinct and expanded afterwards the Macedonians, led by Alexander the Great, invaded Egypt in 332 BC.^[eight]

Under the adjacent three centuries of Hellenistic Egypt, the Coptic writing system evolved, and the Library of Alexandria was opened. This likely had an influence upon books of magic, with the trend on known incantations switching from simple health and protection charms to more specific things, such as financial success and sexual fulfillment.^[viii] Around this fourth dimension the legendary figure of Hermes Trismegistus developed every bit a conflation of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek Hermes; this figure was associated with writing and magic and, therefore, of books on magic.^[9]

The aboriginal Greeks and Romans believed that books on magic were invented by the Persians. The 1st-century AD writer Pliny the Elder stated that magic had been first discovered by the aboriginal philosopher Zoroaster effectually the year 647 BC but that it was merely written down in the fifth century BC by the sorcerer Osthanes. His claims are not, however, supported by modernistic historians.^[ten]

The aboriginal Jewish people were frequently viewed as existence knowledgeable in magic, which, co-ordinate to legend, they had learned from Moses, who had learned it in Egypt. Among many ancient writers, Moses was seen every bit an Egyptian rather than a Jew. Ii manuscripts probable dating to the quaternary century, both of which purport to be the legendary eighth Book of Moses (the first five beingness the initial books in the Biblical Old Testament), present him as a polytheist who explained how to conjure gods and subdue demons.^[9]

Meanwhile, there is definite testify of grimoires being used past certain, particularly Gnostic, sects of early Christianity. In the Book of Enoch found within the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, there is data on star divination and the angels. In possible connexion with the Book of Enoch, the idea of Enoch and his keen-grandson Noah having some involvement with books of magic given to them past angels continued through to the medieval period.^[10]

"Many of those [in Ephesus] who believed [in Christianity] now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the full came to l yard drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power."

Acts 19, c. 1st century

Israelite King Solomon was a Biblical figure associated with magic and sorcery in the aboriginal globe. The 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian Josephus mentioned a volume circulating nether the name of Solomon that independent incantations for summoning demons and described how a Jew called Eleazar used it to cure cases of possession. The book may have been the Testament of Solomon just was more probably a unlike work.^[11] The pseudepigraphic Attestation of Solomon is one of the oldest magical texts. It is a Greek manuscript attributed to Solomon and likely written in either Babylonia or Egypt former in the beginning five centuries AD, over 1,000 years afterward Solomon's death.

The work tells of the building of The Temple and relates that structure was hampered past demons until the angel Michael gave the male monarch a magical band. The ring, engraved with the Seal of Solomon, had the power to bind demons from doing damage. Solomon used information technology to lock demons in jars and commanded others to practice his bidding, although eventually, co-ordinate to the Testament, he was tempted into worshiping "fake gods", such as Moloch, Baal, and Rapha. Subsequently, after losing favour with God, King Solomon wrote the piece of work as a warning and a guide to the reader.^[12]

When Christianity became the ascendant faith of the Roman Empire, the early Church frowned upon the propagation of books on magic, connecting it with paganism, and burned books of magic. The New Testament records that after the unsuccessful exorcism past the seven sons of Sceva became known, many converts decided to burn their own magic and infidel books in the city of Ephesus; this advice was adopted on a large scale later on the Christian ascent to ability.^[13]

Medieval period [edit]

In the Medieval period, the production of grimoires connected in Christendom, also every bit amidst Jews and the followers of the newly founded Islamic faith. As the historian Owen Davies noted, "while the [Christian] Church was ultimately successful in defeating pagan worship it never managed to demarcate clearly and maintain a line of exercise between religious devotion and magic."^[14] The use of such books on magic continued. In Christianised Europe, the Church building divided books of magic into ii kinds: those that dealt with "natural magic" and those that dealt in "demonic magic".^[xv]

The old was adequate considering it was viewed equally merely taking annotation of the powers in nature that were created by God; for instance, the Anglo-Saxon leechbooks, which contained uncomplicated spells for medicinal purposes, were tolerated. Demonic magic was non adequate, because it was believed that such magic did not come from God, but from the Devil and his demons. These grimoires dealt in such topics as necromancy, divination and demonology.^[fifteen] Despite this, "there is aplenty evidence that the mediaeval clergy were the chief practitioners of magic and therefore the owners, transcribers, and circulators of grimoires,"^[16] while several grimoires were attributed to Popes.^[17]

I such Arabic grimoire devoted to astral magic, the 12th-century Ghâyat al-Hakîm fi'l-sihr, was later translated into Latin and circulated in Europe during the 13th century under the name of the Picatrix.^[xviii] Withal, not all such grimoires of this era were based upon Arabic sources. The 13th-century Sworn Book of Honorius, for instance, was (like the aboriginal Testament of Solomon before information technology) largely based on the supposed teachings of the Biblical king Solomon and included ideas such equally prayers and a ritual circle, with the mystical purpose of having visions of God, Hell, and Purgatory and gaining much wisdom and knowledge as a result. Another was the Hebrew Sefer Raziel Ha-Malakh, translated in Europe equally the Liber Razielis Archangeli.^[nineteen]

A later volume also claiming to have been written past Solomon was originally written in Greek during the 15th century, where information technology was known as the Magical Treatise of Solomon or the Little Key of the Whole Art of Hygromancy, Found by Several Craftsmen and by the Holy Prophet Solomon. In the 16th century, this work had been translated into Latin and Italian, being renamed the Clavicula Salomonis, or the Key of Solomon.^[20]

In Christendom during the medieval age, grimoires were written that were attributed to other ancient figures, thereby supposedly giving them a sense of authenticity because of their antiquity. The German abbot and occultist Trithemius (1462–1516) supposedly had a Book of Simon the Wizard, based upon the New Testament figure of Simon Magus. Simon Magus had been a contemporary of Jesus Christ's and, like the Biblical Jesus, had supposedly performed miracles, merely had been demonized by the Medieval Church as a devil worshiper and evil individual.^[21]

Similarly, information technology was normally believed by medieval people that other ancient figures, such as the poet Virgil, astronomer Ptolemy and philosopher Aristotle, had been involved in magic, and grimoires challenge to take been written by them were circulated.^[22] Nonetheless, in that location were those who did non believe this; for instance, the Franciscan friar Roger Salary (c. 1214–94) stated that books falsely challenge to be by aboriginal authors "ought to be prohibited by law."^[23]

Early modern period [edit]

As the early mod period commenced in the tardily 15th century, many changes began to shock Europe that would take an effect on the production of grimoires. Historian Owen Davies classed the most of import of these as the Protestant Reformation and subsequent Catholic Counter-Reformation, the witch-hunts and the appearance of printing. The Renaissance saw the continuation of interest in magic that had been found in the Mediaeval menses, and in this period, there was an increased interest in Hermeticism among occultists and ceremonial magicians in Europe, largely fueled by the 1471 translation of the ancient Corpus hermeticum into Latin by Marsilio Ficino (1433–99).

Alongside this, there was a rise in interest in the Jewish mysticism known every bit the Kabbalah, which was spread beyond the continent by Pico della Mirandola and Johannes Reuchlin.^[24] The most important wizard of the Renaissance was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), who widely studied occult topics and earlier grimoires and eventually published his own, the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, in 1533.^[25] A like figure was the Swiss magician known as Paracelsus (1493–1541), who published Of the Supreme Mysteries of Nature, in which he emphasised the distinction betwixt good and bad magic.^[26] A third such individual was Johann Georg Faust, upon whom several pieces of later literature were written, such as Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, that portrayed him as consulting with demons.^[27]

The idea of demonology had remained strong in the Renaissance, and several demonological grimoires were published, including The 4th Volume of Occult Philosophy, which falsely claimed to having been authored by Agrippa,^[28] and the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, which listed 69 demons. To counter this, the Roman Cosmic Church building authorised the production of many works of exorcism, the rituals of which were often very like to those of demonic conjuration.^[29] Alongside these demonological works, grimoires on natural magic continued to be produced, including Magia naturalis, written by Giambattista Della Porta (1535–1615).^[30]

Iceland held magical traditions in regional piece of work every bit well, nigh remarkably the Galdrabók where numerous symbols of mystic origin are dedicated to the practitioner. These pieces give a perfect fusion of Germanic pagan and Christian influence, seeking splendid assistance from the Norse gods and referring to the titles of demons.^[31]

The appearance of printing in Europe meant that books could exist mass-produced for the first time and could reach an ever-growing literate audience. Among the earliest books to be printed were magical texts. The nóminas were 1 instance, consisting of prayers to the saints used equally talismans.^[32] It was particularly in Protestant countries, such as Switzerland and the German states, which were not nether the domination of the Roman Catholic Church, where such grimoires were published.

Despite the advent of print, however, handwritten grimoires remained highly valued, as they were believed to contain inherent magical powers, and they continued to be produced.^[33] With increasing availability, people lower downwards the social scale and women began to have admission to books on magic; this was oft incorporated into the popular folk magic of the average people and, in detail, that of the cunning folk, who were professionally involved in folk magic.^[34] These works left Europe and were imported to the parts of Latin America controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese empires and the parts of North America controlled past the British and French empires.^[35]

Throughout this menstruation, the Inquisition, a Roman Catholic organisation, had organised the mass suppression of peoples and behavior that they considered heretical. In many cases, grimoires were constitute in the heretics' possessions and destroyed.^[36] In 1599, the church building published the Indexes of Prohibited Books, in which many grimoires were listed as forbidden, including several mediaeval ones, such every bit the Key of Solomon, which were still popular.^[37]

In Christendom, there as well began to develop a widespread fright of witchcraft, which was believed to be Satanic in nature. The subsequent hysteria, known as the Witch Hunt, caused the death of effectually 40,000 people, well-nigh of whom were women.^[38] Sometimes, those found with grimoires, especially demonological ones, were prosecuted and dealt with as witches but, in most cases, those accused had no access to such books. Highly literate Republic of iceland proved an exception to this, where a third of the 134 witch trials held involved people who had owned grimoires.^[39] By the terminate of the Early Modern menstruation and the beginning of the Enlightenment, many European governments brought in laws prohibiting many superstitious beliefs in an attempt to bring an end to the Witch Hunt; this would invariably touch on the release of grimoires.

Meanwhile, Hermeticism and the Kabbalah would influence the creation of a mystical philosophy known as Rosicrucianism, which get-go appeared in the early 17th century, when two pamphlets detailing the existence of the mysterious Rosicrucian group were published in Deutschland. These claimed that Rosicrucianism had originated with a Medieval figure known equally Christian Rosenkreuz, who had founded the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross; nevertheless, at that place was no evidence for the existence of Rosenkreuz or the Brotherhood.^[40]

18th and 19th centuries [edit]

The 18th century saw the rise of the Enlightenment, a movement devoted to science and rationalism, predominantly amongst the ruling classes. However, amongst much of Europe, conventionalities in magic and witchcraft persisted,^[41] every bit did the witch trials in certain^{[ which? ]} areas. Governments tried to crack down on magicians and fortune tellers, particularly in France, where the police viewed them equally social pests who took coin from the gullible, frequently in a search for treasure. In doing and so, they confiscated many grimoires.^[42]

A new grade of press adult in French republic, the Bibliothèque bleue. Many grimoires published through this circulated amongst an ever-growing per centum^{[ citation needed ]} of the populace, in particular the G Albert, the Petit Albert (1782), the Grimoire du Pape Honorius and the Enchiridion Leonis Papae. The Petit Albert independent a wide variety of forms of magic, for instance, dealing in simple charms for ailments along with more than complex things such every bit the instructions for making a Hand of Glory.^[43]

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, post-obit the French Revolution of 1789, a hugely influential grimoire was published under the title of the One thousand Grimoire, which was considered^{[ by whom? ]} particularly powerful, because it involved conjuring and making a pact with the devil's principal minister, Lucifugé Rofocale, to gain wealth from him. A new version of this grimoire was afterwards published under the championship of the Dragon rouge and was available for sale in many Parisian bookstores.^[44] Similar books published in French republic at the time included the Black Pullet and the Grimoirium Verum. The Black Pullet, probably authored in late-18th-century Rome or France, differs from the typical grimoires in that it does not merits to be a manuscript from artifact merely told by a man who was a member of Napoleon'due south armed expeditionary forces in Egypt.^[45]

The widespread availability of printed grimoires in France—despite the opposition of both the rationalists and the church—soon^{[ when? ]} spread to neighbouring countries such as Kingdom of spain and Germany. In Switzerland, Geneva was commonly associated with the occult at the time, particularly by Catholics, considering information technology had been a stronghold of Protestantism. Many of those interested in the esoteric traveled from Roman Catholic nations to Switzerland to buy grimoires or to study with occultists.^[46] Shortly, grimoires appeared that involved Catholic saints; 1 case that appeared during the 19th century that became relatively popular, particularly in Spain, was the Libro de San Cipriano, or The Book of St. Ciprian, which falsely claimed to appointment from c. one thousand. Similar near grimoires of this period, information technology dealt with (amongst other things) how to discover treasure.^[47]

The title page of the 1880 New York edition of The 6th and 7th Books of Moses.

In Germany, with the increased interest in folklore during the 19th century, many historians took an interest in magic and in grimoires. Several published extracts of such grimoires in their own books on the history of magic, thereby helping to farther propagate them. Peradventure the most notable of these was the Protestant pastor Georg Conrad Horst (1779–1832), who from 1821 to 1826, published a six-volume drove of magical texts in which he studied grimoires as a peculiarity of the Mediaeval mindset.^[48]

Some other scholar of the fourth dimension interested in grimoires, the antique bookseller Johann Scheible, outset published the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, two influential magical texts that claimed to have been written by the aboriginal Jewish effigy Moses.^[49] The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses were among the works that later spread to the countries of Scandinavia, where, in Danish and Swedish, grimoires were known every bit black books and were commonly institute amidst members of the ground forces.^[l]

In U.k., new grimoires connected to be produced throughout the 18th century, such every bit Ebenezer Sibly's A New and Complete Illustration of the Celestial Science of Astrology. In the terminal decades of that century, London experienced a revival of interest in the occult that was further propagated when Francis Barrett published The Magus in 1801. The Magus contained many things taken from older grimoires, peculiarly those of Cornelius Agrippa, and while non achieving initial popularity upon release, gradually became an influential text.^[51]

One of Barrett'due south pupils, John Parkin, created his own handwritten grimoire, The Grand Oracle of Heaven, or, The Fine art of Divine Magic, although it was never published, largely because Britain was at war with France, and grimoires were commonly associated with the French. The only writer to publish British grimoires widely in the early 19th century, Robert Cantankerous Smith, released The Philosophical Merlin (1822) and The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century (1825), but neither sold well.^[52]

In the late 19th century, several of these texts (including The Book of Abramelin and the Key of Solomon) were reclaimed by para-Masonic magical organisations, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis.

20th and 21st centuries [edit]

The Secret Grimoire of Turiel claims to have been written in the 16th century, but no re-create older than 1927 has been produced.^[53]

A modernistic grimoire, the Simon Necronomicon, takes its name from a fictional book of magic in the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, inspired by Babylonian mythology and past the "Ars Goetia", a section in the Lesser Key of Solomon that concerns the summoning of demons. The Azoëtia of Andrew D. Chumbley has been described by Gavin Semple as a mod grimoire.^[54]

The neopagan faith of Wicca publicly appeared in the 1940s, and Gerald Gardner introduced the Book of Shadows as a Wiccan grimoire.^[55]

The term grimoire commonly serves as an alternative proper name for a spell volume or tome of magical cognition in fantasy fiction and office-playing games. The virtually famous fictional grimoire is the Necronomicon, a creation of H. P. Lovecraft.^[55]

See besides [edit]

• Table of correspondences, a type of reference piece of work used in formalism magic

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} Davies (2009:1)
2. ^ "Grimoire vs Book of Shadows".
3. ^ Davies (2009:2–3)
4. ^ Davies (2009:ii–5)
5. ^ Davies (2009:vi–7)
6. ^ Davies, Owen (2009). Grimoires : a history of magic books. Oxford: Oxford Academy Press. ISBN9780199204519. OCLC 244766270.
7. ^ Davies (2009:eight)
8. ^ ^{a b} Davies (2009:8–9)
9. ^ ^{a b} Davies (2009:ten)
10. ^ ^{a b} Davies (2009:seven)
11. ^ Butler, E. M. (1979). "The Solomonic Bike". Ritual Magic (Reprint ed.). Cup Annal. ISBN0-521-29553-X.
12. ^ Davies (2009:12–13)
13. ^ Davies (2009:18–20)
14. ^ Davies (2009:21–22)
15. ^ ^{a b} Davies (2009:22)
16. ^ Davies (2009:36)
17. ^ Davies (2009:34–35)
18. ^ Davies (2009:25–26)
19. ^ Davies (2009:34)
20. ^ Davies (2009:15)
21. ^ Davies (2009:16–17)
22. ^ Davies (2009:24)
23. ^ Davies (2009:37)
24. ^ Davies (2009:46)
25. ^ Davies (2009:47–48)
26. ^ Davies (2009:48)
27. ^ Davies (2009:49–l)
28. ^ Davies (2009:51–52)
29. ^ Davies (2009:59–threescore)
30. ^ Davies (2009:57)
31. ^ Stephen Flowers (1995). The Galdrabók: An Icelandic Grimoire. Rûna-Raven Press.
32. ^ Davies (2009:45)
33. ^ Davies (2009:53–54)
34. ^ Davies (2009:66–67)
35. ^ Davies (2009:84–xc)
36. ^ Davies (2009:54–55)
37. ^ Davies (2009:74)
38. ^ Patrick, J. (2007). Renaissance and Reformation. Marshall Cavendish. p. 802. ISBN978-0-7614-7650-4 . Retrieved 7 May 2017.
39. ^ Davies (2009:70–73)
40. ^ Davies (2009:47)
41. ^ Hsia, R. Po-chia (15 Apr 2008). A Companion to the Reformation Globe. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-1-4051-7865-5.
42. ^ Davies (2007:95–96)
43. ^ Davies (2007:98–101)
44. ^ Davies (2007:101–104)
45. ^ Guiley, Rosemary Ellen (2006). "grimoire". The Encyclopedia of Magic and Alchemy. Infobase Publishing. ISBNane-4381-3000-7.
46. ^ Davies (2007:109–110)
47. ^ Davies (2007:114–115)
48. ^ Davies (2007:121–122)
49. ^ Davies (2007:123)
50. ^ Davies (2007:134–136)
51. ^ Davies (2007:123–124)
52. ^ Davies (2007:135–137)
53. ^ Malchus, Marius (2011). The Secret Grimoire of Turiel. Theophania Publishing. ISBN978-i-926842-80-6.
54. ^ Semple, Gavin (1994) 'The Azoëtia – reviewed past Gavin Semple', Starfire Vol. I, No. 2, 1994, p. 194.
55. ^ ^{a b} Davies, Owen (iv April 2008). "Owen Davies's top x grimoires". The Guardian . Retrieved 8 April 2009.

Bibliography [edit]

• Davies, Owen (2009). Grimoires: A History of Magic Books. Oxford Academy Press United states. ISBN9780199204519. OCLC 244766270.

External links [edit]

Look up grimoire in Wiktionary, the costless dictionary.

• Media related to Grimoires at Wikimedia Commons
• Net Sacred Text Archives: Grimoires
• Digitized Grimoires
• Reidar Thoralf Christiansen; Pat Shaw Iversen (1964). Folktales of Norway . University of Chicago Press. p. 32ff. ISBN978-0-226-10510-nine.
• Scandinavian folklore

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimoire

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