Christopher Alan Smith > Quotes

“It should never be imagined that any grimoire contains everything involved in the performance of its listed spells. When reading them, it is wise to consider one’s own notebooks, jottings and address books: we record only the key information that we might otherwise forget, and a single, scribbled line is often intended to lead to a process of thought and memory that will evoke all the other necessary details. In that sense, we should view these magical books as the random notes of forgotten cooks rather than the published works of leading chefs.”
― Christopher Alan Smith, Icelandic Magic: Aims, tools and techniques of the Icelandic Sorcerers

“The tricky issue here is value judgement: are we to judge the intentions expressed in these grimoires by modern standards or by the standards of the seventeenth century? And if we are to attempt to judge them by the latter standards, through whose eyes in particular?”
― Christopher Alan Smith, Icelandic Magic: Aims, tools and techniques of the Icelandic Sorcerers