The word grimoire comes from the old French “grammaire”, which means “grammar”. It makes sense: to build sentences, you need to follow a series of grammatical rules for putting words together; and to do black magic it is necessary to join several elements following the manuals.
Almost all civilizations that used alphabets wrote books with prayers capable of summoning demons, recipes for cursing or poisoning people, creating amulets or contacting the dead. The oldest work (dated from 5 BC) was found intact in Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq, and included clay tablets scratched in cuneiform writing. Before that, Babylonians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans already knew magic tricks and made notes on texts.
Grimoires, as we know them in the West, are a creation of the Middle Ages. They mix knowledge from different religions, but always with Christian concepts – an angry god from Sumeria, for example, can be interpreted as a demon. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Europeans’ obsession with magic returned with a vengeance, and many of these books were translated (most of the originals were in Latin or Greek) and even rewritten. They all contained dangerous teachings, capable of giving a lot of power – so much that it could even get out of control.
Discover some of these works.
1) Pope Leo’s Handbook
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Origin – Rome
Date – 9th century
Author – 3rd lion
The author, a pope (yes, the leader of the Catholic Church), would have come to power resorting to the heaviest black magic, including the practice of necromancy, a ritual that invokes the dead (read more on page 32). Persecuted by the Vatican bishops who suspected his secret, he would have hidden a powerful book in France. The guardian of the work, King Charlemagne, would have used the grimoire to increase his power. The text, a kind of diary of the pontiff, teaches how to manipulate the forces of evil to achieve power.
2) Ghayat Al-Hakim
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Origin – Middle East
Date – 11th century
Author – Maslama ibn Ahmad al-Majriti
In general, grimoires are short, descriptive books. This one is an exception: it contains over 400 pages of teachings taken from the magical tradition of the Arabs. Republished in Spanish in the 13th century, it teaches how to win the love of a specific person, how to heal a person from snake and scorpion bites, and how to produce magical amulets made from blood or urine. The magician described in this book resorts much more to astrology than to demons.
3) The Book of Honorius
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Origin – France
Date – 13th century
Author – Unknown
One of the most influential grimoires of the Middle Ages would be the result of a conference of magicians. In 93 chapters, the text teaches to become invisible, to find treasures, to locate thieves, to conjure and control demons, to converse with God and to save one’s own soul from purgatory. The work is credited to Saint Honorius, a character from the origins of Christianity and of unproven existence. As he inspired the names of several popes, it is likely that he would have been a martyr.
4) The Key of Solomon
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Origin – Italy
Date – 14th century
Author – Unknown
This is perhaps the most famous grimoire of all. Elaborated during the Italian Renaissance, it brings together short texts on magic, supposedly written by Solomon, which circulated since the beginning of the Christian era. The book was so popular at the time it was released that it made the first list of prohibited works, the Index of the Catholic Church. The Key of Solomon describes the special garments (similar to priests’ cassocks), the mystical instruments (rings and swords) and the prayers (always in Latin) that should be used to invoke and imprison demons, who would become slave workers acting in favor of who invoked them.
5) The Book of Abramelin
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Origin – France
Date – 15th century
Author – Abraham of Wurzburg
The Author – describes his search for esotericism and his meeting with Abramelin, a magician who lived in Egypt. He would have taught Abraham to fly, travel the seas, create armies out of thin air, and raise the dead. To reach this level of power, he would have to go through a long purification process, which included eating as little as possible, going without sex, and reducing sleep to three hours a day. At the end of the step, the apprentice could imprison demons and force them to perform tasks. Republished in the 19th century, the book has influenced Wicca and contemporary magicians.
6) De Pythonicis Mulieribus
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Origin – Italy
Date – 15th century
Author – Ulrich Molitor
In the book, a law professor wrote a long article in defense of witches, claiming they were just female victims of the devil. To reinforce his point, he explained, in great detail, different ways to get in touch with demons.
7) Munich Handbook of Demonic Magic
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Origin – Germany
Date – 15th century
Author – Unknown
Written by an illusionist, the grimoire teaches how to conjure up evil forces to manipulate people’s minds and induce them to commit illicit acts, such as committing crimes. One of the spells even helps to deceive enemy armies, making them see more enemy soldiers than actually exist.
8) De Praestigiis Daemonum et Incantationibus ac Venificiis
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Origin – Switzerland
Date – 16th century
Author – Johann Weyer
Also known as The Tricks of Demons, one of the most popular demonology books of all time, is the work of a Dutch researcher also known as Wierus. He teaches to recognize demons, with the aim of escaping from their tricks. Wierus argues that infernal beings organize themselves with a rigid hierarchy and are divided into princes, ministers and ambassadors. The researcher lists an astonishing 745,926 demons, divided into 1,111 legions that answer to 72 princes. An appendix to the work, which circulated under the name Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, describes hundreds of these monsters and explains the power of each of them. It does not teach how to conjure them, but it does explain how to defend yourself from the evil influence on people – especially the seven deadly sins.
9) De la Démonomanie des Sorciers
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Origin – France
Date – 16th century
Author – Jean Bodin
The author, a respected jurist, describes a black sabbath – the sorcerers’ assemblies that pay homage to demons. The account, full of details, even explains how to summon incubi and succubi, demonic beings capable of having sex with human beings. It also teaches how to invoke a being of darkness and convince it to possess the bodies of living people.
10) The Great Grimoire
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Origin – Italy
Date – 16th century
Author – Antonio Venitiana del Rabina
The Vatican has the book, but does not allow any kind of access to it. This mystery alone justifies the interest in the work, also known by the names The Red Dragon and The Gospel of Satan. There are not many details about the author, who would have been a magician in Venice. He claimed to have had direct access to texts written by King Solomon. One of them, published in this two-part work, would teach how to make a pact with Satan himself – it would be the most malevolent and powerful connection a human being could aspire to. The book, which would be completely resistant to fire, would list a series of prayers in Latin and Hebrew, capable of invoking the chief of demons and convincing him to talk.
11) Book of Saint Cyprian
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Origin – Portugal
Date – 17th century
Author – Unknown
Saint Cyprian of Antioch, from the 3rd century, would have written this book of magical recipes: prayers, healing spells and to attract love. In fact, the collection of guidelines emerged in the Iberian Peninsula and still influences popular religions in South America today – especially Umbanda.
12) The Lesser Key of Solomon
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Origin – Netherlands
Date – 17th century
Author – Unknown
Inspired by a wide variety of sources, especially The Key of Solomon, it was published as if it were written by King Solomon himself. He teaches how to arrest demons, makes a list of the 72 he managed to defeat and warns of the dangers of dealing with beings from hell – the monarch says that he would have been induced to abandon God and worship demons. The first of the five chapters of the work, and also the most famous, is called Ars Goetia (read more on page 18).
13) The Black Chicken
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Origin – France
Date – 18th century
Author – Anonymous
Many grimoires were written at this time, but they presented themselves as if they were ancient manuscripts rediscovered. This text is authored by an anonymous military man who claims to have participated in Napoleon’s campaigns and had contact with ancient arts of creating rings and magic talismans.
14) Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses
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Origin – Germany
Date – 18th century
Author – Unknown
A very old tradition points out that traditional religious books, especially the Bible and the Koran, hold magical powers for those who know how to interpret them. Moses, capable of delivering the ten plagues on Egypt and parting the Red Sea, is considered by many interpreters to be a magician of great power. These two books would teach the backstage of the stories told in the first five texts of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Jewish tradition considers these texts to have been written by Moses. The sixth and seventh books would teach how to provoke plagues: making the waters of the rivers turn red, lice and locusts attacking everything, the sun disappearing from the sky – and, worst of all, causing the death of all the firstborn.
15) Oera Linda
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Origin – Netherlands
Date – 19th century
Author – Cornelis Over de Linden
Cornelis says he received his grandfather’s manuscript, a text that portrays knowledge from more than 3,000 years ago – including supposed documents from the mythological continent of Atlantis. Everything indicates that he was the author. The book became famous because it teaches rituals that Nazi mystics and occultists practiced.