Short answer
A grimoire is a book of magical instructions. Historically, grimoires collected procedures for ritual magic, such as how to make talismans, perform conjurations, or prepare the practitioner, together with lists of names, symbols and prayers. The word is now also used loosely for any magician’s notebook or “spellbook.”
Where the word comes from
“Grimoire” is French. It is generally traced to the Old French gramaire, a form of “grammar,” which once meant learned writing in Latin and so came to suggest obscure scholarly books. The word was used in French for books of magic by the eighteenth century and later entered English. Not everything we now call a grimoire was called one in its own time.
What grimoires contain
Contents vary, but common elements include:
- Rituals for summoning or commanding spirits.
- Instructions for making talismans, rings, circles and magical tools.
- Astrological timing, listing the best days and hours.
- Prayers and divine names, often from Jewish, Christian or Arabic sources.
- Lists of spirits with their offices and seals.
- Preparations such as fasting, bathing and purification.
Many are compilations that copied from earlier manuscripts, so they exist in multiple versions.
Famous grimoires
- The Key of Solomon (Clavicula Salomonis). Attributed to King Solomon, but its manuscripts date from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It covers conjuration, circles and tools. Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers published an English edition in 1889.
- The Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton). A seventeenth-century compilation in several parts, the best known being the Ars Goetia, a catalogue of spirits and the methods for evoking them.
- Picatrix. Originally an Arabic work (Ghayat al-Hakim) on astral magic, usually dated to the eleventh century, and translated into Spanish and Latin in the thirteenth century.
- The Heptameron. A short ritual text on angels of the days, attributed to Peter of Abano, though the attribution is questioned.
- Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. A synthesis of natural, celestial and ceremonial magic, published in the early 1530s. Discussed in natural magic.
- The Book of Abramelin. A work presented as the teaching of a mage to a German Jew called Abraham, which centres on a long process of preparation to gain contact with a guardian angel. Mathers published an English translation in 1898, and it influenced the Golden Dawn and later movements.
- The Grimorium Verum and the Grand Grimoire. Texts in the style of later European demonic magic, published in the eighteenth century and after, often with false dates and places.
- The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses. A nineteenth-century compilation that circulated widely in Europe and the United States.
Attribution and false authors
Many grimoires carry the name of a famous figure, such as Solomon, Moses, Honorius or Albertus Magnus. Scholars generally regard these attributions as pseudepigraphy: writing under a borrowed name to give authority. Dates claimed in the books themselves are often unreliable. Accept dates and authors with caution unless a historian has confirmed them.
Modern grimoires and Books of Shadows
In the twentieth century, new works took the grimoire form. The most familiar is the Book of Shadows, the term used in Wicca for a practitioner’s collection of rituals and notes. Modern ritual traditions, from the Golden Dawn to Thelema, also have standard texts. Individuals still keep personal grimoires, which may hold sigils (see how sigil magic works), correspondences, dreams and results.
Fictional books
Some famous “books of magic” are fictional. The Necronomicon is the invention of the writer H. P. Lovecraft, and although various books have been sold under that name, they are modern productions. Be cautious with any grimoire sold as ancient and secret.
Reading grimoires today
Most readers approach grimoires as historical documents. Scholarly editions and translations place the texts in context, whereas many popular reprints do not. Some practitioners use grimoire methods in ritual, while others are interested in them as a window on the history of belief and ideas, as discussed in the occult explained. Many of the rites involve invoking spirits and fasting or other ordeals, so anyone considering practical work should treat the texts with care and not take risks with their health.