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The Book of Oberon: A Sourcebook of Elizabethan Magic
A fascinating addition to the magical literature of the Elizabethan era, this lavishly illustrated grimoire is a must-have for magic practitioners, collectors, and historians. The Book of Oberon is the meticulous transcription and translation of a sixteenth-century manuscript acquired by the esteemed Folger Shakespeare Library. Unlike the more theoretical magic books of the era, this collection of spells, secrets, and summonings was compiled gradually by unknown authors for working practical magic. Now published in a premium hardcover edition retaining the original's red lettering of significant words and holy names, The Book of Oberon includes rituals for summoning a long list of spirits and faeries (including Oberion, Fairy King and close relation to Shakespeare's Oberon); original drawings; common prescriptions used by cunning folk; instructions for dealing with Goetic demons that were censored in other texts; one of the oldest known copies of the magical manual The Enchiridion ; and much more. This is a significant contribution to the annals of magical history, bringing to light the kind of grimoire that was commonplace in its era but is rarely published today.
600 pages, Hardcover
First published April 8, 2015
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487 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Harms
23 books32 followersDaniel Harms is a writer, author and librarian living in upstate New York.
Harms is best known for the books The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana: A Guide to Lovecraftian Horror (which won an Origins Special Achievement Award), The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia, The Necronomicon Files (co-authored with John Wisdom Gonce III), and The Long-Lost Friend: A 19th Century American Grimoire.
Harms work has appeared in publications such as The Journal for the Academic Study of Magic, Abraxas, Fortean Times, Paranoia, and The Unspeakable Oath. He is the originator of The Shadow Over Usenet, a detailed online discussion of the works of H. P. Lovecraft. He is a lecturer on Lovecraft Circle literature and occult films and history, and his blog Papers Falling from an Attic Window provides commentary on these and other topics.
Harms is best known for the books The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana: A Guide to Lovecraftian Horror (which won an Origins Special Achievement Award), The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia, The Necronomicon Files (co-authored with John Wisdom Gonce III), and The Long-Lost Friend: A 19th Century American Grimoire.
Harms work has appeared in publications such as The Journal for the Academic Study of Magic, Abraxas, Fortean Times, Paranoia, and The Unspeakable Oath. He is the originator of The Shadow Over Usenet, a detailed online discussion of the works of H. P. Lovecraft. He is a lecturer on Lovecraft Circle literature and occult films and history, and his blog Papers Falling from an Attic Window provides commentary on these and other topics.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 5, 2015
This is a great grimoire. It contains the names and powers of quite a few spirits! It tells the powers of four guardians of the quarters ( Oriens, Amaymon, Paymon, and Egyn ), gives the powers and sigils of several fairy lords ( and lordesses ), and contains a lot of information and spells. Quite worth the purchasing!!
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November 2, 2015My review of this book is now live on Spiral Nature: http://www.spiralnature.com/reviews/b.... I want to write a dozen essays about this 16th century grimoire!
December 28, 2020
I've given this 5 stars for its content and its authentic representation of the notebook of an Elizabethan conjurer.
As a series of personal notes, its order is all over the place, with many repetitive parts, with sections copied from various grimoires and other notes. As such, this is not a book that anyone could pick up and follow a step by step process to put it into practice. It is the working notes of a practising magician who already knew what he was about.
As such, it will not tell you how to do magic, or what to expect. The information is thorough but was never organised to make it easy for other eyes. If you know what you're doing and already have a thorough practical background in magic, you will be equipped to painstakingly rearrange this into a working formula - or rather a series of working formulae, since the material assembled here is taken from several different sources. But you will need to know what you're doing and have a thorough grounding in the grimoire traditions as well as a coherent understanding of magic.
For those with the wit to work it (which presupposes the ability to arrange it properly), or those with a curiosity, this is a very welcome and illuminating addition to the library.
As a series of personal notes, its order is all over the place, with many repetitive parts, with sections copied from various grimoires and other notes. As such, this is not a book that anyone could pick up and follow a step by step process to put it into practice. It is the working notes of a practising magician who already knew what he was about.
As such, it will not tell you how to do magic, or what to expect. The information is thorough but was never organised to make it easy for other eyes. If you know what you're doing and already have a thorough practical background in magic, you will be equipped to painstakingly rearrange this into a working formula - or rather a series of working formulae, since the material assembled here is taken from several different sources. But you will need to know what you're doing and have a thorough grounding in the grimoire traditions as well as a coherent understanding of magic.
For those with the wit to work it (which presupposes the ability to arrange it properly), or those with a curiosity, this is a very welcome and illuminating addition to the library.
October 5, 2024
Not super practical but definitely interesting.
October 15, 2025
This is a beautiful and highly detailed edition. I am not Christian or Christopagan, though I used to be Christian, but my fiancé is Catholic and, I mean this as respectfully as possible, the prayers are very Catholic. They're obscenely long and personally degrading (think Catholic guilt). Every prayer goes something like this, "Oh you Lord, [insert nearly all known names of God] you are greater than anything that ever was or will be, all that you make is perfection and without flaw, except me, I am the scourge, he very plague, a blight on existence, but could you like give me dominion over this specific spirit, they're scum, but I could use them to do your great work, big fan by the way. All you do is great, except me of course, but everything else.."
This is a tremendous and phenomenal collection of Elizabethan era spell and ritual work. I give it slack, but they did a amazing job on this work. I especially love that each spell/ prayer is in both English and Latin. I also found it kind of funny how the list of God's names is literally up to 3 or 4 pages in some examples. I admire the dedication. It's a bit of a complex, or rather more advanced, work, but found it to be very insightful and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to further hone their craft or see other examples of spirit work.
This is a tremendous and phenomenal collection of Elizabethan era spell and ritual work. I give it slack, but they did a amazing job on this work. I especially love that each spell/ prayer is in both English and Latin. I also found it kind of funny how the list of God's names is literally up to 3 or 4 pages in some examples. I admire the dedication. It's a bit of a complex, or rather more advanced, work, but found it to be very insightful and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to further hone their craft or see other examples of spirit work.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews