The Magical History of Grimoires

If prostitutes seem unlikely practitioners of magic, even more surprising is soldiers. In the 1700s in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, there were a series of trials over young soldiers who were convicted of trying to make pacts with the devil. Afraid of dying in battle, the young men would seek out magic spells and rituals to summon the devil and swear their fealty to him in exchange for safety. In Sweden, 29 soldiers were convicted of devil worship between 1680-1789. 

If the written word is its own kind of magic, nothing altered and amplified the magic of grimoires quite like the printing press. As it did for all kinds of written material, the printing press democratized magical knowledge, making it more widely accessible than ever before. Davies writes, “While print drained power from the grimoire in terms of magical integrity, it also empowered it through growing social influence.”

In the 1820s, with the spread of the British Empire and globalization, ancient grimoires were being translated for the first time in human history. Egypt was a particularly popular location for occultists seeking to discover and translate ancient magical texts. The first translations of Cuneiform led to the Western world’s discovery of a grimoire widely known as The Evil Spirits Text. This grimoire, originally written on Assyrian-Babylonian cuneiform tablets, described spells and exorcisms used to ward off ghosts, demons, devils, and even the plague. Shortly after it was translated into English and German, and today you can find versions of this legendary grimoire in the mind, body, and spirit section of many major bookstores. 

19th-century magical practices in England were closely linked to the study of “Egyptology” as well as the study of Tarot, Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), and Rosicrucianism, a European spiritual movement that advocated for “a universal reformation of mankind” built on “esoteric truths from the past.” Many magical societies around these practices were formed, such as the Theological Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which boasted hundreds of members at its height, including actress Florence Farr and Irish poet W.B Yeats. 

The Theological Society was founded in England in 1875. This hugely influential occult movement was co-founded by Helene Petrovna Blavatsky, a Russian immigrant who wrote and published widely on her magical practices. Blavatsky’s grimoires drew from Rosicrucianism and Kabbalah before she shifted gears to magical practices from India and Tibet. 

Another influential figure of the period was Eliphas Levi. Levi was the son of a Parisian shoemaker. He initially trained to become a Catholic priest, but after his mother’s suicide became a figurehead of the occult movement in Paris. He drew from Kabbalah and Tarot, while still incorporating some of his Catholic teachings into rituals. Because of his Catholicism, he strongly condemned black magic. Levi’s most influential work was a French translation of the famed grimoire The Greater Key of Solomon, a magical document attributed to King Solomon himself, although Levi went to great lengths to remove anything he perceived as black magic from the translation. 

By the turn of the century, the wave of interest in occultism had made its way across the Atlantic, to a less rapt but still interested American audience. It was enough for some states to pass anti-magic legislation, such as Massachusetts's prohibition against “any person who by palmistry, cards, or otherwise, for gain, tells or pretends to tell fortunes, predicts or pretends to predict future events, or who practices as a trade, profession, or occupation the discovering or pretending to discover to others, for gain, where things lost or stolen are to be found.” A definition of magic that goes to great and poorly written lengths to avoid saying magic. 

While the widespread interest in the occult would decrease with the Industrial Revolution and the onset of modern medicine, in back alleyways and shadowy corners, homes, and small businesses, the tradition of occult practices and old traditions carried on. Today, there are communities who use the internet to reconnect with their magical roots. From pagan mythology, to Jewish mysticism, to Tarot and horoscopes, the desire to channel that which lies beyond our human understanding carries on. In these spaces, you will no doubt find a grimoire or two, old and weathered, but still powerful and rich in secrets. 

To learn more read…

Davies, Owen, Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Oxford University Press, March 26 2009.