Grimoires Explained: Manuals of Magic

books of magic called grimo are a common Trope in pop culture there's the darkhold in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Disney version of the classic fairy tale Snow White the evil queen turns to a shelf of scary looking books for just the right spell to enchant Snow White and HP lovecrafts fictional grimoire the Necronomicon has been terrifying readers both in his stories and in real life since its first appearance in 1924 though of course grimoire are not merely the products of pop culture and in fact these examples from the fantasy genre can actually give us a distorted picture of magical practice today grimoire are most visible among contemporary witches many of whom use a book of shadows to record their workings and preserve their traditions for posterity but living in an era of mass literacy and mass media this is a fairly recent development in the history of grimoire practitioners of magic have been writing copying and using literary magic practically since the invention of writing itself and we can find grimo in many cultures all over the world so today we'll be discussing what are grimo but also why are grimo what is the motivation to create compendia of literary magic and what do grimoire reveal about the changing nature of magical knowledge in practice first the basics a grimoire is a book that contains magical rituals especially instructions for Conjuring Spirits or making magical objects like amulets some use the analogy of a textbook of magic we don't exactly know where the word comes from it may derive from the French word gr which technically originally referred to books published in Latin but by the 1700s referred to books of magic specifically possibly because these were the sorts of books that were more likely to be circulating in Latin instead of French and by the 1800s the word grimoire had entered the English lexicon broadly to describe many kinds of magical books some of the most popular and influential Grims have included the key of Solomon the black pulet the book of St cyprien and the long lost friend all of which you can still find and use today now for most of History most people couldn't read or write no matter of the culture writing and reading complex literature like these books was only possible for a small group of literate Elite Specialists so the first aspect we'll explore here is that grimoire emerged as a specialized intellectual Pursuit among Elite practitioners serving as a means to preserve systematize and regulate esoteric knowledge within educated circles a great example of this is a collection called the Greco Egyptian magical papy a vast collection of magical texts preserved in the dry climate of Egypt you're looking at a few examples I filmed at the Coptic Museum in Cairo they date roughly from the 1st Century BCE to the 6th Century CE and they're composed mostly in Greek and the Egyptian languages of CTIC and demoic Egyptian now we're looking at just a few fragments here but these texts did originally circulate in larger Scrolls and Cotes that we could properly call grimoire these papy contain a range of smallscale personal rituals calling upon various Spirits gods or the dead to help with a range of problems sickness bad luck conflict Romance you name the issue you can probably find a spell addressing it they include curses protective spells and formulas for divination and Visions as an example here's a formula for a migraine headache take oil in your hands and utter the spell Zeus sewed a grape seed it Parts the soil he does not sew it it does not Sprout here's another one for a fever on the shiny side of an olive leaf write this symbol and On the Dark Side write this symbol and wear it as an amulet many of these formulas are practical spells like these though other examples are lengthy poetic hymns and incantations like the so-called mithis liturgy this is a text from the great magical Papyrus of Paris a 36-page Papyrus grimoire with over 3,000 lines of text the text is basically an elaborate purification right to gain immortality and meet the god Helios mithis face to face which brings us back to grimoire being all about the elite preservation of knowledge at least in the premodern period tell me who in late Roman Egypt was capable of composing and copying something like the mythis liturgy Egyptian Priestly scribes specialized expertise was required to produce these texts these spells are often multilingual weaving together Greek or Coptic intermingling the cursive writing system known as hieratic only a scribe trained in an Egyptian temple scriptorium could have produced these texts moreover these spells reflect the concerns of scribes like what kind of writing surface or ink should you use for a spell really not the sort of thing your average illiterate farmer cared about in late Roman Egypt but definitely something something that preoccupied your mind if you were a literate priest also like I mentioned a lot of these texts contain hymns or prayers that look a lot like what was performed in official cultic contexts like during a procession or a sacrifice for example in the mithis Liturgy we see possible parallels with rights of purification in Egyptian temples when priests purified themselves before entering the divine presence in the sanctuary so in a sense a lot of these magical formula may have been privatized practices borrowed from public Temple institutions also grimoire throughout history often emphasize The Importance of Being passed down through a recognized chain of authenticity and Authority the key of Solomon is attributed to King Solomon another ancient text is called the eth book of Moses dating to the 4th Century CE and it mentions other books of magic attributed to Moses like the key of Moses and the secret Moon book of Moses linking grimoire to revered figures like Solomon or Moses highlights the importance of legitimacy when it comes to magical texts where Authority is derived not just from the rituals themselves but also from the legendary lineage of these texts we see this in the Greco Egyptian magical papy as well the scribes apparently were self-aware that they were part of a rarified lineage of copyists and they mention that sometimes claiming Divine or mythical Origins for example one spell says there is nothing greater than the procedure it was tested by Mano who received it as a gift from Osiris the greatest god perform it successfully and silently this is a claim of divine Authority and authenticity the copyist claims that this spell came from Osiris himself who passed it on to the famous Egyptian priest Mano so the greo Egyptian magical papy are a striking example of how grimoire emerged as a way to safeguard and transmit specialized knowledge for most of human history before widespread literacy grimoire were primarily the domain of elite Specialists educated scribes like Egyptian priests who positioned themselves as custodians of esoteric knowledge it's a pattern that we see in many different cultures across history a consistent link between literary magic and Elite specialization now as we'll see later this is completely upended in contemporary witchcraft with the Advent of widespread literacy but first let's turn to another reason for the development of grimo the ritual power of writing and books grimoire contain magic sure but they also function in and of themselves as magical objects for example consider the Curious apocryphal story of Jesus in King abgar of adessa now the city of Shan leura in Turkey according to a very early Christian tradition King abgar got sick and so he sent a letter to Jesus to come and heal him Jesus wrote back saying sorry can't make it I'm busy in Jerusalem but I'll later send one of my Apostles to heal you now the story is not historical but notice something this is one of the very few examples in Christian literature of Jesus writing something early Christians noticed this and so they copied the letter as a magical object often as a protective Amulet the historian procopius mentions the people of Essa inscribing the words of the letter of Jesus on the city gates for protection an archaeologist even discovered a door lentil from the city of Ephesus inscribed with the entire letter someone wanted to protect the entrance of their house and so they decided inscribing the letter of Jesus was the best way to do that now we're a little far from the topic of grimor with this example but my point is that writing itself has been viewed as magical by countless cultures throughout history an object like a book or a piece of paper or a door lentil inscribed with the very symbols of writing on them are magical The Scholar of ancient Mediterranean magic David Frankfurter puts it this way in premodern semi- literate cultures writing was not primarily viewed as a tool for communication instead writing was first and foremost material and iconic symbols things and pictures think of it this way Global Literacy for us today is somewhere between 80 and 90% so for most of us today when we look at words on a page we immediately almost subconsciously recognize them as sounds and sentences but if you didn't know how to read like most people back then you'd encounter a book first and foremost as a physical object with iconic symbols rather than something that conveyed ideas or sounds this is a huge part of the magic of writing to quote DrFrankfurter again the cultural historical and magical significance of writing comes down to their material and iconic power The Authority the words bear what beings lie behind them how one shows manipulates or contains their power so to return to the letter of Jesus to abgar it didn't matter what the letter said What mattered is that Christians believe that these words came from the pen of Jesus himself the words themselves convey the miraculous healing powers of Jesus from his hand to the pen to the paper almost contagiously the words access and manipulate ritual power when inscribed we see this even with the Bible ancient Christians used Bible verses as magical amulets writing a verse on a fragment of Papyrus or inscribing one on their door lentils other Christians apparently viewed a Bible codex itself as a magical object St Augustine himself seems to allude to the practice when your head aches we praise you if you place the gospel at your head rather than running to an amulet not because it was done for this reason but because the gospel is preferable to amulets now Augustine doesn't seem to endorse the practice but apparently some Christians were known to put a copy of the Gospel by their head to cure a headache we see the ritual power of writing in Islamic cultures as well in his article drinking the Quran the Anthropologist Abdullahi Osman Alam studied a practice among the Muslim communities of the DAR for region in Western Sudan local scribes would write konic verses on a wooden slate they would then wash off the words into water which was then drunk by the scribes clients for healing and protection for these Christians or Muslims the words of the Bible or the Quran are believed to have inherent power even when dissolved in water it doesn't matter what the words mean or what they communicate what matters is the ritual power they can convey that's not to say that the Bible or the Quran are grimo in the technical sense I wouldn't say that but they are examples that the written word throughout history has been viewed as magical simultaneously a vehicle of communication and a vehicle impregnated with power to quote DrFrankford again a lentil inscribed with a Biblical passage now radiates the protective potency of that passage a prayer or invocation inscribed on some substance maintains its utterance its performative efficacy long after the moment of vocalization so returning to grimoire they emerged not only out of the elite preoccupation with preserving and transmitting magical knowledge but also out of this concept of the magic of the written word the concept of the magic of writing emerged in a predominantly oral culture in which the fixing of words names commands and invocations on substances using graphic symbols involves a fundamental mystique and throughout history we see grimo Wars possessing a fundamental Mystique with them functioning not just as books of magic but also as magical books believed to be objects imbued with ritual power now both of these aspects of grimoire have evolved over the centuries today grimoire is more likely to look like a three- ring binder of spells as it does a Papyrus scroll in the hieratic script with the rise of mass literacy and mass media literary magic has been effectively democratized so how did we get here the shift from handwritten manuscripts to the printed word marks a turning point in the accessibility of magical knowledge with the invention of the printing press you could print a bunch of occult books allowing an expanding literate public in early modern Europe to access what was once the domain of an elite few by the 1600s printed copies of medieval grimoires were finding their way into the personal libraries of educated Artisans and Tradesmen for example a london-based astrologer and physician Simon foran kept his own library of medieval grimoire like the RS notoria picatrix and Liber razio he even wrote his own book of necromancy so sure literary magic was still the domain of a relatively small slice of the population but nowhere near as exclusive as the ancient Egyptian priesthood and along with the democratization of literary magic came a backlash from religious authorities in the late 1500s the pope published the indexes of prohibited books which included all manner of magical texts including major grimoires like the key of Solomon though some historians actually think this backfired making these books even more popular for example the Kia of Solomon was super popular in early modern Italy which may have been sparked by being mentioned in the index of prohibited books moving into the 1900s one of the most influential developments in the history of grimoire was the emergence of the religion wiah in the 1950s the British civil servant Gerald Gardner began writing publicly about his involvement in modern witchcraft claiming membership in a surviving witch cult driven underground during periods of Christian persecution in Europe according to him witches operated in secretive initiatory groups called covens performing rituals out of the Book of Shadows a kind of cookbook that preserved both ancient occult secrets and a coven's practical magical techniques the phrase book of shadows is speculated to have originated with a Sanskrit divination manual the term appeared in a 1949 issue of the london-based newsletter the occult observer in an article by the palm reading specialist Meir Basher Basher tells of an encounter with a diner in India who could measure a person's Shadow to tell their Fortune whether or not such a book ever existed it's likely that Gardner read bashir's article and was inspired whatever the case the phrase book of shadows doesn't appear in relation to witches until Gardner developed his own magical book in the late 1940s The Book of Shadows went through a number of revisions and pulled from a wide variety of sources including older grimoire the work of more contemporary magicians like Alistar crley and a number of uncited literary Works dorine Valiente perhaps wi's most influential High Priestess ended up rewriting much of Gardner's original book of shadows to remove some of these influences and to create a greater sense of continuity in the Liturgy of this new religious movement between Gardner Valiente and a number of other witchcraft writers it didn't take long for some of the contents of the Book of Shadows to make their way into the public eye often in altered forms and as these materials became more widely available just about anyone could start practicing contemporary witchcraft no need to seek out a secretive coven maybe you can just become a witch by going to A well-stocked bookstore in the late 20th century popular witchcraft writers like Scott Cunningham silver ravenwolf Starhawk and Raven gasi encouraged witches to take an Eclectic approach to both wika and other forms of contemporary witchcraft they advised readers to experiment and be creative build a personal practice that feels right for the individual witch I talk about this in my intro to wika video but the move toward eclectic individualized practice highlights the two modes that we see in contemporary witchcraft one trending more toward traditionalism and one toward eclecticism we sometimes see a strong inclination toward traditionalism in modern grimoire an inclination to preserve a lineage and to preserve ancient knowledge more traditional forms of wika emphasize preserving a coven's book of shadows by copying it by hand and passing down knowledge and rituals between members of the priesthood at the same time other forms of contemporary witchcraft are characterized by eclecticism and ethos to find your own individualized path practitioners are encouraged to experiment to keep their own ritual notebook and to avoid religious power structures these two modes of traditionalism and eclecticism are sometimes at odds but they're key parts of contemporary witchcraft today New Traditions of contemporary witchcraft gave rise to their own magical guide books some are commercially available but others are privately passed on from teacher to student just like the first versions of the wiccan Book of Shadows contemporary witches both Wiccan and non-wic use their books to record their personal experiences working magic and Performing ritual they may copy their favorite spells collected from other sources or compose original ones they may also include interesting and relevant bits of folkore or history some books are fancy mysterious tomes reminiscent of what you might see in romanticized media but like I said today they're just as likely to be a plastic three- ring binder full of photocopied pages or spiral bound notebooks filled with Messy notes today the phrase book of shadows is prominent among many kinds of witches across Traditions but other terms have also been adopted and many variations on the personal magical book exist today a growing number of witches today prefer the older term grimoire and specifically distinguish between these types of books for them the term grimoire refers to a collection of spells and rituals something more like an instruction manual whereas a book of shadows is a personal diary or magical record at times the term may also be used interchangeably and some witches today no longer see the need to keep a personalized book and instead build extensive libraries from commercially available texts or spend more time exchanging information online so the grimoire has been thoroughly democratized but what about the other aspect of grimo that we talked about earlier the magic of writing itself in which we can conceptualize grimo as objects of power because with the rise of the internet and social media sometimes a book of shadows is not a book at all more and more witches maintain digital records organizing their materials on private servers or even creating social media sites where they can share spells is a PDF file of the Kia of Solomon a grimoire throughout history so much of magical writing relies on its materiality inscribing a door lentil with a symbol or incantation wearing an amulet with a few vers from the gospels an ancient Roman scratching a curse on a lead tablet these actions were thought to activate the spell in a sense and the object is a necessary part of the equation materializing the spell making it more durable and practical in her essay alandal grimoire the book as magical object The Scholar Janice Grill argues that the dematerialization of books the shift from physical to digital formats risks losing their magic because it strips away the sensory aspects that have historically imbued books with power she argues that the material ity of books their weight texture and materials have been crucial in making them more than just tools for communication these tangible qualities also allow books to function as magical objects believed to affect reality and enabling people to ritualize them however practitioners of magic are if anything very creative and continuously adapt over the centuries so whether the dematerialization of books will diminish their magical role or simply transform it into something new and unexpected is yet to be seen among contemporary witches hey everyone thanks for watching if you'd like to learn more about contemporary witchcraft we're offering an online lecture what does it mean to be a witch taught by religious study scholar Thorne money it'll be held on October 29th and you can register at religion for breakfast. eventbrite. com she'll describe four modes through which contemporary witches understand and articulate their Traditions as religion as spirituality as practice and as identity these modes intertwine and overlap giving rise to an Eclectic movement that challenges many of the assumptions we have about the boundaries of what counts as religion in the first place Mooney is an author and academic completing her PhD in religious studies at UNCC Chapel Hill you might have seen her around on her YouTube or Tik Tok channels or her interview on Anthony padia's show she studies the messy spaces between secularism magic and religion focusing on how these overlap and blur her latest book is witches Among Us understanding contemporary Witchcraft and wika and I'm super excited she'll be joining us just in time for Halloween we'll be holding the lecture on October 29th at 1:30 p.

m. Us East Coast time registration costs whatever you want starting at $1 and as usual we'll be recording the lecture and sending it out to everyone who registers so don't worry if you can't make the lecture live again to register go to religion for breakfast. eventbrite.