Top Ten Grimoires

[death_worm]

According to Owen Davies, author and professor of social history, a grimoire is a book that contains a "mix of spells, conjurations, natural secrets and ancient wisdom." " Their origins date back to the dawn of writing and their subsequent history is entwined with that of the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the development of science

Comments

[malkhos]

Well, that list was pretty pathetic. Despite all of its grand talk of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian books, there is nothing there before the late middle ages and almost nothing before the decadent parlor game stage of the 18th century.

How about the Book of the Dead and the Maqlu series, just to cover the two oldest civilizations? Then, of course, there is The Greek Magical Papyri for Abraxas' sake (or is it Abrasax's?)! Ablanathanalba! how could they leave them out! Then how could they neglect the pre-Kabbalaistic Jewish Magic of the Sefer ha-Razim? And how exactly could one pass through all the demons of the upper air without The Three books of Jeu (Gardner is so much more important than the Bruce Codex, after all!)? Then we have perhaps the most interesting grimoire of all, the lost book criticized in the second chapter of the Refutation of all Heresies by the anti-pope Hippolytus, which may (or may not) have given detailed instructions on how to use prestidigitation to fool the rubes you were fleecing into thinking you were