Grimoires: A History of Magic Books

by Owen Davies

No books have been more feared than grimoires, and no books have been more valued and revered. In A History of Magic Books , Owen Davies illuminates the many fascinating forms these recondite books have taken and exactly what these books held. At their most benign, these repositories
of forbidden knowledge revealed how to make powerful talismans and protective amulets, and provided charms and conjurations for healing illness, finding love, and warding off evil. But other books promised the power to control innocent victims, even to call up the devil. Davies traces the history of
this remarkably resilient and adaptable genre, from the ancient Middle East to modern America, offering a new perspective on the fundamental developments of western civilization over the past two thousand years. Grimoires shows the influence magic and magical writing has had on the cultures of the
world, richly demonstrating the role they have played in the spread of Christianity, the growth of literacy, and the influence of western traditions from colonial times to the present.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Occult, Witchcraft, Magic, Religion, Esoterica

380 pages, Hardcover

First published March 26, 2009

About the author

Owen Davies is a reader in Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. His main field of research is on the history of modern and contemporary witchcraft and magic.

His interest in the history of witchcraft and magic developed out of a childhood interest in folklore and mythology, which was spawned in part from reading the books of Alan Garner. From around the age of sixteen, he also became interested in archaeology and began to get involved with field-walking and earthwork surveying. He then went on to study archaeology and history at Cardiff University and he spent many weeks over the next six years helping excavate Bronze Age and Neolithic sites in France and England, mostly in the area around Avebury. He developed a strong interest in archaeology in general, and the ritual monuments and practices of the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

From Cardiff, he went on to write a doctorate at Lancaster University, working on a thesis looking at the continuation and decline of popular belief in witchcraft and magic from the Witchcraft Act 1735 to the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 (1991-1994).

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books are magic. Some of them are veritable grimoires, others are timewasters, and yet others a pleasure or a point of interest. And most of them are a basis for a lifelong addiction: bibliophilia. Books are a source of some conflicts and a means to resolve many of them.

The Holy Bible was used as a grimoir occasionally. The individually known grimoirs widely notorious included Ars Notoria, Secretum Secretorum, Picatrix, Sefer ha-Razim, the Sworn Book of Honorius (not the Pope one, btw, but rather the Euklid's son), Clavicule de Penchiridion du Pape Leon, Thesaurus Spirituum, Heptameron, Lucidarius, the Boke of secretes of Albertus Magnus, Arbatel, Cabala Regnum, Centum Regnum, Clavicula Sa(o)lomonis, Secreti di Alessio Piemontese, Magia Naturalis della Porta, Daemonologie, The Occult Philosophie, the Enchiridion. Add to that all the leechbooks, nomini, teufelsbucher. Bibliotheque bleu and other 'almanacs' and we get quite a developed genre.

The readers also include quite an assorted bunch: clergy, courtesans, shepherds, guards, en and all kinds of students are just some of the users.

Q:
Take, for example, Gioanna La Siracusana, who had a relationship with the Maltese military engineer Vittorio Cassar, who, during the early seventeenth century, balanced his lay membership of the Order of St John with rakish behaviour and magical practices. Cassar possessed several prohibited magic manuscripts including the Clavicule of Solomon and a work by Peter d’Abano, which he said he had obtained from a brass-worker and friend in Messina. He had also learned Arabic from a Moorish slave who had oVered to teach him astrological invocations and necromancy. (c) Niice. These people definitely knew how to read diversely and have fun even in the dullest of times.
Q:
A slightly altered English version of Pseudomonarchia was published a year later by the Elizabethan sceptic Reginald Scot in his attack on the fallacies of witchcraft, magic, and the Catholicism he believed inspired them. Scot, a rather unusual demonological writer in that he was not a clergyman, lawyer, or physician, propounded a rationalist view of religion that went beyond Weyer’s own more cautious view on diabolic intervention. Yet Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft was a
treasure trove of magical information, providing spells, Catholic prayers, exorcisms, charms, talismans, and rituals on how to communicate with angels, demons, and the spirits of the dead. There were detailed instructions on conjuring up treasure and how to enclose a spirit in a crystal.
...
At the beginning of the book was the statement that it was ‘invented and devised for the augmentation and maintainance of their living, for the ediWeng of the poore, and for the propagating and inlarging of Gods glorie’. So Scot produced what amounted to the Wrst grimoire printed in the English language, and while he did so to prove the worthlessness of its contents he unwittingly ended up democratizing ritual magic rather than undermining it. Not long after its publication, the practical magic and protective Catholic prayers it contained were being transcribed and incorporated into manuscript grimoires. ...
As one historian has pointed out, though, these published Indexes were probably counter-productive in that they served to inform and excite public interest in the very books of magic they were meant to suppress. It is possible that the booming market for the Clavicule in early modern Italy was fuelled in part by its explicit mention in the Indexes. (c) The irony of it all!
Q:
the Index of Prohibited Books issued in 1564 had permitted the Talmud, albeit in an expurgated form and as long is it was not explicitly entitled the Talmud. (c)
Q:
The campaign against Jewish books was not only about the heresy of converted Jews secretly practising Judaism, but also about their perceived and real magical activities. For many Christians as well as Jews, Hebrew words were in themselves thought magical, and so for Catholic and Protestant theologians they were obvious pollutants of the Christian faith. In 1529 the Spanish Franciscan Martı´n de Castan˜ega warned,

It is vanity, lack of faith, superstition, and even a judaizing trick to use the
name of the ancient Hebrew in Catholic and Christian invocations as if
the old names were worth more than the new ones. They are especially
dangerous for those with little knowledge, because they may say other
unknown and diabolical words with those Hebrew and Greek ones.

In fact, to expunge potent Hebrew holy names from the Christian vocabulary would have required the censoring of many Catholic exorcisms. The Hebrew magic word AGLA, for example, which is an acrostic of the phrase ‘You are mighty forever my Lord’, was used in numerous Catholic exorcisms, including those of Menghi, as well as being a common magical name in grimoires. It was this synergy that inspired Martin Luther to lump together and denounce the ‘word magic’ of witches, Muslims, Catholics, and Jews. (c)
Q:
Suspicions about the use of Hebrew texts emerged in the early seventeenthcentury French court intrigue that led to the execution for witchcraft of Le´onora Galigaı¨, one of Maria de Medici’s ladies-in-waiting. Her friendship with a Portuguese Jewish doctor and occultist named Philothe´e Montalto was considered highly suspect. It was alleged that she had talked at length with him regarding the magic and talismans contained in Hebrew ‘grimoires’ that had been found at his home. She denied the charge but to no avail. (c)
Q:
In 1627 one man testified to the Venetian tribunal that a prostitute had told him how to conjure the soul of Judas to reveal the names of the victors in a forthcoming election. (c) They sure were loving it!
Q:
A female magician named Catherine Trianon, who lived together ‘as man and wife’ with another cunning-woman, was described as having more learning ‘in the tip of her Wnger’ than others acquired in a lifetime. When her house was searched in 1680 twenty-Wve manuscript volumes on the occult sciences were found. (c)
Q:
Its most famous defendant was the famed Spanish sailor and explorer Pedro Sarmiento (1532–92), the author of The History of the Incas, and one-time captive of Walter Raleigh’s Xeet. He found himself hauled before the Lima tribunal on several occasions. One time he was accused of having books of magic and prayers that allowed him to invoke the Devil, and on another occasion of possessing magic rings and magic ink War against Magic which made love letters irresistible to their female readers. (c)
Q:
But the only concrete evidence of the use of a grimoire in Peru concerns an embroiderer, Diego de la Rosa, who was accused of necromancy in 1580. He possessed a manuscript in his own handwriting ‘with many characters, Greek and Hebrew letters and other evil things’, which he had lent to others to make copies. Its contents contained a familiar blend of spells and conjurations to attract women, fly through the air, become invisible, and Wnd hidden treasure. The pig-tailed de la Rosa’s other crime was spending too much time with native Indian witch doctors who instructed him in the use of magical herbs. (c)
Q:
The popularity of the Bibliothe`que bleue was a headache for the secular and religious authorities. Laws were instituted and reinforced to suppress literature considered politically and religiously pernicious, and to monitor the activities of colporteurs. It is not surprising, then, that the publishers of grimoires were loath to identify themselves. A favourite ruse was to hide behind the Wctional publishing company of Beringos Fratres of Lyon, whose premises were located ‘at the sign of Agrippa’. This was a tradition that stretched back to the publication of French editions of Agrippa and pseudo-Agrippan works during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most grimoires were given bogus dates of publication and spurious places of publication like Rome or Memphis. These served the dual purpose of frustrating the censors and giving the grimoires an aura of venerable authority and foreign mystery. They also make it impossible for the historian to date them accurately. (c)

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is less of a social history than it might have been but one cannot complain if the title is crystal clear about what is being offered - a history of magic books. And, as such, it is excellent.

At times, it seems not much more than a compilation of information about these books century by century but this serves one important purpose - it strips away any notion that the bulk of these books served any other purpose than personal aggrandisement in an age of poverty and lack of welfare provision. Men and women had every reason to clutch at straws.

One common theme from earliest times until quite recently has been the use of such texts to discover treasure by calling up demons and dark spirits and then binding and interrogating them to reveal it. John Dee's graveyard excursion was not novel. He was in a very long line of 'magical practitioners' who wanted a fast track to wealth - or to sexual pleasure or even just good health and a bit of happiness in a grim world.

The spiritual content of these early modern books is minimal despite the attempts of later generations to read back their own spiritual searchings into the grubby grab for power and money of what probably amounted (no doubt with exceptions) to a succession of charlatans, fraudsters, small time criminals and half-educated cunning folk determined to prey for profit on the unhappiness of the masses.

Perhaps the only person in our era to have got this magical past right was that inveterate rascal Anton LaVey whose Church of Satan used the tropes of popular 'high' magic to sell his hedonistic mix of Californian individualism and cynicism. This was the same carnival gulling of country folk, in the tradition of medieval hucksterdom, that underpinned the eighteenth century French bibliotheque bleue.

This is not to say that some of the original sources of the grimoires of early modern Europe were not of considerable spiritual importance or that the presence of grimoires did not prove vital to the creation of modern alternative spiritualities as ready-mades for interpretation.

The Hebrew cabbalistic tradition and pagan hermeticism as well as alchemy and possibly the tarot - alongside attempts to come to terms with the demonic lore of the religions of the book - were all sincere paths for the exploration of consciousness and alternative realities. Later, the equally sincere researches of Eliphas Levy, the creation of the Order of the Golden Dawn, the experimentation of Crowley and the 'invention' by Gerald Gardner of Wicca all made use of the conceits of the grimoire in order to explore consciousness and 'spirituality' in new and imaginative ways.

Even between these time poles of sincerity, there are islands of genuine investigation into 'other forces' - Kelley may have been a fraud but Dee really does seem to have believed that he could talk with the angels. Many others took demons to be really existing creatures who could be bound safely for service without threat of eternal damnation.

The fears of the Church and the authorities were part fear of the heretical and part fear of new thinking but, on closer investigation, they were equally related to the potential for grimoires to be used to part peasants and small townpeople from their money or to promote unacceptable distance between community and church.

Immense efforts have gone into rooting out popular grimoires (including the terminal force against sorcerers) over the centuries. The first relevant book burnings were of pagan writings by the newly assertive and totalitarian Christian communities of the late Roman Empire (although the Roman authorities were quite happy to burn books that defied state control of religion long before Constantine).

It is little known that book burnings continued in Germany long after the Nazis lost power. Instead of Jewish and liberal books, religious campaigners were burning books of magic. Indeed, though they disapproved of magic (despite the fantasies of Western propagandists), the Nazis seem far less extreme in this matter than fanatical Christian Democrats and Protestants.

More could perhaps have been written by Davies on the attitudes of the authorities in modernising America who seem, sensibly, to have seen grimoire production as a branch of fraud, precursors to much modern 'new age' nonsense, rather than as some threat of a more fundamental kind.

It might be argued that the detachment of these texts from educated high society and their survival out of that context also detached them from their pagan spiritual meaning and folk purpose. It degraded these texts into non-communal individualistic tools of power - personal weapons in life's struggle for oneself and against others.

Grimoires are certainly ambiguous in pre-industrial and colonial society. Davies is excellent in tracing their path from Europe into the New World and other Western colonies and back and forward across Europe, linking their influence to practical factors such as the availability of the printing press and the willingness and determination of the authorities to suppress them. Levels of literacy are key in both permitting grimoires to flourish (they require someone to read them) and defining their acceptability and use.

Once a population got a taste for such books, these texts embedded themselves deep into some communities of migrants and former slaves - most often when literacy was combined with a low level of education and canny entrepreneurs were able to provide sufficient cheap copies of 'classic works'. Magical sub-cultures emerged that were both proponents of sometimes unutterable nonsense and the basis of a culture of resistance to a non-inclusive high culture that had nothing to say to the poor and uneducated.

This, one suspects, was very different from the highly cultured world of Toledo in the High Middle Ages where Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions and thought mingled to create the radical thinking of which the early modern grimoires were but a pale reflection. The folk memory of Toledo as centre of dark sorcery reflected this cultural debasement of a high intellectual tradition.

In successive totalitarian Christian reformations, magic became debased into a presumption of evil when all it really was was a challenge to intellectual authority. Manuscripts got mangled, attributed inappropriately, given antiquities that do not stand up to scrutiny. Whether manuscripts or printed books, these texts became systematically degraded from their origins in a tolerant High Mediterranean Culture.

Perhaps some of the more genuine intellectual magicians were still being hunted to extinction as late as the early seventeenth century in Catholic Europe but it is fairly clear that the printed versions of their texts in the eighteenth century and their adaptations in America and across Europe and their colonies in the nineteenth were little more than gobbledy-gook for cunning folk. There are some wonderful tales of gullible treasure-seeking yokels being thoroughly done over by trickster 'sorcerers' in the chapter on the pre-revolutionary era in France and Switzerland.

Davies is usefully corrective on one widespread assumption, derived no doubt from the lurid stories of Montague Summers and Dennis Wheatley that witchcraft and demonic grimoires were closely associated. The witch trials were about ... well, witches. There may have been occasional links between sorcery and witchcraft but, outside Iceland, they were rare.

This is, again, probably down to levels of literacy at the height of the witchcraft trials. You could scarcely blame a witch of sorcery by grimoire if she could not read or write. Iceland, on the other hand, had a high level of literacy for women at the time of its witch trials. There also seems to have been a greater chance of sorcery being invoked in a witch trial elsewhere if priests were being implicated in the alleged crime - their literacy permitted use of the grimoire.

There are other insights - into the controversial debate over Mormonism's debt to the grimoire tradition, into irrationalism in American settler society, into the adaptation of grimoires to creole needs and their use by various Caribbean cultures (often cleverly exploited by American pulp publishers) and, more generally, into capitalist exploitation of folk demand for grimoires (with much useful background on the American pulp publisher entry into the market).

The influence of the specialist publisher Delaurence on the creation of new religious forms in the Caribbean and Africa whose antiquity has probably been much exaggerated would be worth an anthropological study in its own right. A thoroughly Western literary form appears to have assisted in constructing new forms of religion on a basis of inherited tribal magic and cultural dislocation. Some 'slave' religions may be surprisingly modern with the same link to the past as (say) Wicca or Asatru - more tenuous than some might like to believe. Even today, DeLaurence Scott books are explicitly banned by the Jamaican Customs Service as threats to local order.

This is quite a dense book but perfectly readable. It comes alive, becoming more than a linking of antiquarian facts, when it gets to the eighteenth century. Here, the narrative starts to strengthen, especially with the narrative of migrant and former slave use of grimoires that really requires yet another historian to interpret, perhaps more theoretically. Davies certainly seems very loath to experiment with theory. What people did with grimoires is well covered. Why they used them, much less so.

The book also adds a very large footnote to Hutton's and others' work on the rise of magic amongst the elite in the industrialising West. The key figure here is the autodidact Eliphas Levy, an eccentric who played an important role in re-presenting the grimoire and the high magical tradition as a possible source for attaining access to an alternative reality.

A community of 'clerks' rather than of high-born aesthetes (pace Wheatley's fantasies) relieved the humdrum nature of their lives and created an alternative vision of society that found its early brief high point in the Order of the Golden Dawn from which all subsequent 'positive' use of grimoires probably derives. This was a moment of cultural sea-change that in France, Britain, America, Germany and Italy led to many different forms of creative irrationalism that are still transforming society as we write.

The book ends with a review of the three 'fake' modern grimoires that have spawned their own intense followings - Lovecraft's wholly fictional 'Necronomicon' (as used in Chaos Magick), Gardner's 'Book of Shadows' (which is central to Wicca) and Lavey's cobbled together 'Satanic Bible' (which is central to Satanism but which, of course, has nothing to do with Satan at all).

All three made use of grimoire lore. Before we get hyper-critical about their provenance, we might ask just how reliable the claims of divine authorship of the books of the Bible or the Koran are if we really, really think about this instead of accepting claims on faith. From this perspective, the leap of faith made by Chaos Magicians (who are just playing with belief quite knowingly), Wiccans (who, in fact, are honest that each text is personal and to be recast by every practitioner in the light of their own needs) and Satanists (who have no illusions that LaVey wrote their text and know full well that Satan does not exist) seems less absurd than that of their rivals.

Perhaps this may be one clue to the determination of the authorities to suppress the grimoire - in its cack-handed way, the grimoire says that no intermediation is required between the punter and his book. Any person with the power to interpret the book can decide their own destiny in terms of sex, power and spirit which is a standing challenge to all established priests, experts and intellectuals.

At its worst, the grimoire is not merely obscurantist but dangerous, not because it can conjure devils or perhaps give cause in extreme cases to murderous fantasy (of which there are cases) and has a proven history of fraud, but because, in truly ignorant hands, it can block the use of 'good' expert knowledge to deal with 'real' problems of sexuality, power relations, conditions of life, healthcare and spirituality. It is probably why socialists and progressives loathe it as much as any cardinal.

But, at their best, their use represents a revolutionary act under conditions where there is no power for the people, where sexual repression is normal, where conditions are poor and life short and where religion represents social order rather than personal meaning. Their use under these circumstances says that 'we the people' will, in your lack of dialogue with us, choose our own experts and our own ways of intermediation with life amd matter. We will use magic because you have given us nothing or what you give us is conditional on our acceptance of your standards and 'morality' without asking us what we want. Irrationalism represents psychic resistance to the arrogance of the powerful.

Magic as resistance will never go away except where it is decisively crushed under the authoritarian boot of State and Church. Maybe that is the eventual solution of many liberal intellectuals as well (certainly many liberal intellectuals in the West have taken the neo-conservative turn in despair at the masses' inability to be 'rational') but it seems a price too high in terms of liberty for the majority.

An alternative may be to permit a degree of healthy irrationalism within a culture based on communication and general welfare where grimoires (as symptom) have no cause to be used for fraud or criminality because their function has changed. Under new conditions, they can be used, as they increasingly are being used in the modern West, for fun and for spiritual growth rather than for the assertion of power by the powerless over circumstance and the even less powerful.

Davies makes one very profound point - perhaps his only attempt at deep analysis in a largely narrative history. It is quite simply that most of us in the West no longer need magic in our lives. Economic development, mass education and technology provide our magic because magic is nothing more nor less than a means of empowerment.

If we see magic re-emerging today (albeit mostly in the spiritual and social sphere), it is because we need it again. The new religions are actively transforming persons and cultures where old systems have failed and this process is likely to accelerate under the influence of the internet. As Davies suggests, magic and grimoires are unlikely to disappear from our culture very soon.

Finally, let me add that the illustrations of various texts, scattered throughout the book, are extensive and well placed. Oxford have done a fine editorial job and there are copious and detailed footnotes and signs to further reading.

The book is also very broad-based with information on all the main Western and Northern European markets and on North America and the European colonies. There will be gaps but a book that covers Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland and Norway as well as the different Caribbean Islands cannot be called parochial. Recommended.

[Steve Cran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three things hit you in the head upon reading this book all the way through. Owen Davies knows his stuff. This book is well researched as are all his works from beginning to end. By this I mean both time and book. You will learn a lot from any of his works. The second is that most grimoires are not in the least bit factual. They are penned by people but often times false histories are ascribed to them. Going further many are said to be written by people who did not even write them . Some would call this embellishment but if it is all about spirituality where truth is paramount I would call it flat out lies. People who have used these grimoires have not had the results they were looking for. Despite that we get to number three Grimoires are evolving and still new ones are being written. The new ones can be dedicated to angels, fairies, pagan gods, devils and even fictional gods from popular novels.

Grimoires became famous for their use in the Middle Ages. Could mean grammar in french it was oft time a collection of spells, working recipes and magical actions. Some famoujs grimoires are "The Grand Grimoire"  "Great Albert" "Petit Albert" Agripppa's "There Books of Occult Philosophy" and Clavicula of Solomon. Their beginning though is in the Middle East most particularly in Mesopatamian times. Books themselves were considered holy and special people called scribes wrote books in general. Scribes were a class unto themselves. It was rare that people could even read. AS a result books themselves regardless of subject matter were considered magical.

This continued through out Greek and Roman times and finally reached Europe after the Crusades when Templars came into contact with Middle Eastern culture and spirituality . Originally Romans thought that magic came to EUrope from a tribe of magician called the "Magi" whoo hailed from Persia.. After Templar exposure European magic was exposed to Arabic works like the piciatrix, astrology and the amalgamation of Jewish Kabballah, Christian mysticism and Islamic Sufiism. Absorbed in these mystic currents was the previous wisdom of pagan cultures.

In the beginning A grimoire was an expensive affair reserved for the upper classes. They were leather bound written with special ink onn parchment. Just to have one gave an individual magic power. Books were thought to heal, ward against evil and give one special abilities. This grimoire had to be written buy a scribe or a magician. As the printing press came about and grimoires were printed on paper this gave more people access to them. It also robbed them of their power.  Before only monasteries and popes and university libraries had grimoiis bu now eevery one had them. This disturbed the catholic church and the protestants but for different reason. eventually FRacne became the main area of making these and chap book. They would filter out into Europe and other area. Most people used them for treasure hunting.

The book discusses how they got to AMerrica and the new world and the impact they had the magical traditions of the new world.  THE most influential books were the " 6Th and 7Th Books of Moses"  and a couiple others. This infueeenced Penssykvania pow wow magic and Hoodoo and Voodoo tradition. It is said that Joseph Smith founded mormonism after using a grimoire to contact an angel. Grimoires and magic would later go through more changes as groups like the Golden Dawn would use them not as a basis for results based magic but rather for spiritual developement. Grimoiures would also be subjected to mass production much like pulp fiction. This lowered their value even more but made them more available .

Edging into modern times we have works of fiction making use of fictional grimoires. The most noted would be trhe Necornomican based on HP Lovescrafts works. New Grimoires that claims=ed to be real buyt were fabrication would be Gerald Gardners book of Shadows and his created Wicca. Satanist Anton LaVey came up with his own but he was more honest then the most.

Owen Davies gives you the inside scoop on all of it. Read this man.

[Honey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only downside of this book was that it inspired me to buy a big pile of grimoire reprints that are not remotely as fascinating as their history. Tremendously entertaining and fascinating for this reader, who has always gotten a kick out of the idea of secret mystic tomes.

[Katharine Kerr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an unfortunate victim of its publisher. The content itself is fascinating, and were I rating it on that basis alone, I would have given it 4 stars. But the production values are terrible. Apparently Oxford University Press decided that copy editors cost too much. The text reads like a second draft -- mostly comprehensible, but filled with small errors that together add up to a big problem.

Spelling errors, poor punctuation, sloppy paragraphing -- they have no place in a scholarly work like this. They are also not the author's fault but the editor's, or perhaps the lack of an editor is more like it. There are places in the text where sentences repeat, maybe not word for word, but close enough to distract the reader. Some of the paragraphs also seem to be out of order.

The binding is badly done, too, for a hardback. The pages on either side of the section of plates buckle. I will say a thank you, however, for those plates. They are printed on the proper glossy paper and are thus legible. Too many books these days have prints on the same cheap paper as the text, which makes them illegible.

[Sienna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fascinating but frustrating read. I appreciate the impressive breadth of the topic but feel that much of the depth was selected rather arbitrarily to titillate or hint at just how far the author's knowledge-net reaches: like, here are runic farting spells and Satan-citing remedies for impotence, tee hee. Davies has previously written on popular magic and cunning-folk, so that may explain the periodic glossing of content, and his chapter notes are pretty generous if you're looking for more details. I also recognize the difficulty of dealing with a subject that's constantly in flux, particularly pre-print when a scribe's opinions and experiences often shaped the contents of the manuscript he (re)produced — what a challenge for editors!

My primary concern is that I couldn't help quibbling with the points Davies made on subjects I do know pretty well, especially when it comes to the variety of ways that early modern women and medical practitioners engaged with the magical world. If there are worrying gaps in the familiar information, how do I know the same is not true of the unfamiliar? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt — an approach the copy editor(s) obviously also decided to take, based on the inconsistent spelling, capitalization, abbreviation, comma and apostrophe usage — but doubt I'll be citing this in any papers.

When defining what constitutes a "grimoire," Davies focuses on conjuring and talismans. He happily includes the diabolic but not the divinatory, discussing Paracelsus but dismissing or omitting the "usual" cures that reflect the spread of his beliefs and methods (occult sympathy and chemically derived ingredients, for instance). Spells are accepted but seem to be to be difficult to differentiate from magical remedies. He hints at alchemy but fails to delve into what he means by the term. These are just minor points, but a bit more exposition might have helped to clarify why Davies emphasizes certain aspects of magic but breezes over others — worthy of note, I think, because many of the works characterized as grimoires (the Grand and Petit Alberts, Key of Solomon, books attributed to Agrippa, etc.) contained both, which is why they crop up repeatedly throughout Grimoires.

Then again, I'm very interested in both alchemy and the spread of magical knowledge to non-magical realms, so these worries probably better reflect my desires as a reader than the book's shortcomings. As another reviewer has already noted, Davies delivers on his promise: this is, indeed, a history of magic books. There's a little something for everyone who might be tempted to pick up a copy of Grimoires, and where depth has been sacrificed at least we've got a decent road map for further reading. And there's plenty of good stuff in the 283 pages of the main text:

The one place in Europe where grimoires did feature prominently in the witch trials was Iceland. Around 134 trials are known to have occurred in this former Danish territory, and nearly a third of them involved grimoires, written spells, or runes and symbols derived from them. Those fortunate enough not to be executed were flogged while the pages of their magic manuscripts were burned under their noses. As surviving examples from the period show, the grimoires being used in this northern outpost of European culture consisted of a very distinctive blend of Continental magic, with borrowings from Solomonic texts and the like, and the Nordic runic tradition. [...]

Another distinctive aspect of the Icelandic experience is that only 10 of the 128 people known to have been tried by the island's highest court were women. This is extraordinary, considering that in Denmark and Norway, and in Iceland's southern neighbour, Scotland, the vast majority were female. One explanation for this emerges from a comparison with Finland where the majority of accused were also men, in contrast with trials in the homeland of its Swedish rulers. Maybe the Norwegian settlers who came to Iceland from the late ninth century onwards brought with them strong elements of the male shamanic cultures of the Saami, which continued to shape the magical tradition of Finland and northern Scandinavia into the early modern period. We need to be clear though, that although accusations of simple harmful witchcraft (rather than full-blown Continental diabolism) were usually the basis of the accusations in Iceland, most of those accused were not witches but rather cunning-folk or ffölkynngisfolk ('wise people'). The shaman connection may have some mileage, but Iceland's magic was based much more on literary magic than that of the 'shamanistic', spirit-inspired traditions of Finland. (71-2)

(The gender shift and blending of regional and far-flung magical traditions are both fascinating. Those also taken with the latter point might be interested in Emma Wilby's Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits, which connects English popular magic and shamanistic traditions.)

Threaded throughout is the really satisfying theme that although so much magic is rooted in falsehood and myth-making, those foundational lies somehow matter very little to anyone drawn to the subject. By the time we learn enough to be disappointed, we're hooked.

[Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great introduction to some of the most notorious books ever created. If you're not familiar with grimoires, they have instructions on how to cast spells, summon angels and demons, perform alchemy, find hidden treasures, etc.--whether or not they actually do these things, is up to the reader or magician. Davies, the author of this book, gives readers a look into how grimoires impacted various cultures, migrated to different continents, were translated into different languages, offers bizarre stories, myths, legends around these texts and magic, and their history from the ancient to now. The accounts he provides derive from all sorts of sources, including religious texts, lists of books banned in different countries, letters, testimonies, etc. all of which are listed for the reader to further explorer if wished. Right after this, I read The Black Arts : A Concise History of Witchcraft, Demonology, Astrology, and Other Mystical Practices Throughout the Ages by Richard Cavendish, and I appreciated that Davies keeps most of his opinions on the topic to his self--I can't always say the same for Cavendish. Also, Cavendish's book is much broader, not just about "The Black Arts", which makes me like the narrowness of this book. Another interesting contrast is Davies barely mentions Alesteir Crowley; on the other hand, Cavendish cites Crowley with more frequency. I can easily say that this was a fascinating and entertaining book on history and religion. Prior to this book and The Black Arts, my introductions to the occult consisted of horror stories (specifically Lovecraft, H. P.), Tool (the band) and a long time friend who indulges in conspiracy theories (years ago, he gave me a copy of The 12th Planet by Zecharia Sitchin and introduced me to Alex Jones--personally, not a fan).

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Give credit for consistency: grimoires lure in readers by virtue of the fantastic premise of mystical secrets, but usually turn out to be dreary lists of pointless arcana, of interest to the specialist but yawn-worthy to the lay reader, and Davies' monograph on the subject sadly shares many of the same characteristics. He's done a comprehensive job of tracking down the important titles, outlining details of their production and consumption, and tracing the impulse to create books of magic from the ancient world to the early-twentieth-century pulps. But far too often the book confines itself to dry recitation, with precious little analysis on offer to enliven the proceedings or put the mass of facts in context.

I can understand the push to make this kind of a presentation; working in a field with a lurid reputation, I'm sure there's pressure to be as high-minded and serious as possible, in a Caesar's-wifely way. One wants to stand out from the variety of breathless, brainless exposes, after all. And yet, that doesn't the book shouldn't be fun to read, does it?

There are some bright spots, but most of these are adverted to rather than fully explored. For example, Davies' evidence shows a strong modern trend of First World-produced books and pamphlets being very influential in reshaping Third World systems of magical belief and practice. There are all sorts of theories one could come up with for why this might be, and the implications are intriguing -- but after have conveyed the bare existence of the trend, Davies leaves its depths unplumbed. Similarly, the early sections of the book, dealing with ancient and medieval practice, are among the most interesting, but they're relatively short and lightweight. Surely this is mostly down to the comparative lack of pre-print sources, but given how large the period looms in the later imagination of the supernatural, it's worth a more detailed look.

Ultimately the book's probably a positive contribution to the sum of human knowledge -- and I don't mean (too much) to damn with faint praise, those with a scholarly interest in the topic will definitely get some value out of it -- but the lay reader will probably want to track down something a bit less abstemious.

[Redrighthand · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkably well-written nonfiction with good narrative arc. If the subject piques your interest, it's absolutely worthwhile to pick up.
I look forward to getting a copy of Davies' The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts in the near future.

[Ivy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this book twice now - the second time being for my book club. I have a lot of thoughts about this book. In short, I think every occultist should attempt to read this book at some point in their journey.

Pros:
- The author is incredibly knowledgeable and uses reputable sources for his intimation. He really knows his stuff and I appreciate that.
- The knowledge found in this book is so vast. Upon reading it a second time, I was able to absorb so much more and connect pieces of occult history together that I didn't quite understand before.
- This book will open your eyes to a much broader perspective of the entire development of Western esotericism, not just ancient grimoires.

Cons:
- The book is very academic and dry. A lot of people in my book club struggled to read and finish this book.
- I am not giving this book 5 stars because I do wish the book had been organized a bit better. I would have suggested more sub-headings so that the chapters didn't feel like a stream of consciousness. Also, the author would bounce back and forth in time. For example, he would write about something that occurred in 1750, then go back to 1710, then forward to 1760. I wish all of the information was presented in chronological order. For the most part, it is, but there were a few times when the author went back and forth within the same century.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough history of grimoires from the ancient period all the way up to the modern day, he looks at the major books that where prevalent in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, touches somewhat on influences from India, it really only leaves out the Orient. Davies very definitely knows his subject matter and has gone to great lengths to research the various magic books that people have used throughout the ages and looks at the most notorious throughout history including The Lesser Key of Solomon, the 6th and 7th Books of Moses, French ‘chapbooks’ including Petit Albert and various other texts of that are considered to be books of black magic. This even covers modern day grimores that include Lovecraftian aspects like the Necronomicon and Anton La Vey’s Satanic Bible (although the latter is interesting as a grimore since it is atheistic in tone).

There is also going alongside this a history of witches, magicians and sorcerers though the ages, the various persecutions and moral panics, the cultural effect that this has had on various societies and the aftermath of such issues.

I did find this a bit hard going in places, even with a background in History so don't expect something that you can just pick up and skim through, although if you do have an interest in this subject from a historical, social, folklore, anthropological etc. point of view then I would recommend getting it, I don't think this will be bested for quite some time.

[Donna Woodwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Owen Davis is an English social historian who specializes in the history of Magic. The book is published by Oxford University Press, and is therefore written with an academic audience in mind, not someone who will use the book as a how-to manual for casting spells or making potions.

I always imagined Davies' sat down with a collection of all of his primary sources (grimoires) and secondary sources (people who wrote about grimoires), to give a high-level overview of how books interrelated to one another over the years, and how they related to the world at large. If I were teaching a history of magic course to undergraduates, this is one of the books I would put on their syllabus, because it gives a broad overview of, well, the intellectual history of magical books.

(If you're into such things, Davies' footnotes are a treasure trove of ideas for further reading. You may hate him for what he does for your book budget.)

I like the book. It's not going to help you do magic. Or even really understand magic. But, it will satisfy one's intellectual curiosity for the ways western occultists have documented their magic to pass on to future generations. Plus, it will give you a much deeper appreciation for the long history of magic. For that, it's like the transition from looking at modern astrology to traditional astrology; there's a LOT out there beyond what's been published in the last 50 years or so. It will deepen your practice just knowing that what's "new" is also the superficial wrapping of all that's come before.

[Mark Hebden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you believe in magic? Angels, demons and the like? Most people don’t, and why should they? Historic superstition has been replaced by scientific knowledge, peer review and scepticism. Throughout human history though people have believed in these things, as much as we now believe in the theory of gravity and ever since someone first dreamt of magic there have been ways of committing such things to paper and its forebears; these manuscripts, texts, scrolls and books became known as Grimoires. Diabolic guidebooks for the curious and the desperate containing an understanding on some level of the occult.

Owen Davies is a Wiccan historian of witchcraft and the occult and this history of magic books is his latest book. He takes us from the pre-Christian period through to present day cultural homages to the occult; Buffy, Charmed and so on. We begin in the Biblical period with the story of Moses receiving the ten commandments and are instructed to recall that the books of the Jewish bible were selected from many writings, and those alternative gospels have not been wholly supressed; indeed they are the base of many magical traditions even today. The sixth and seventh books of Moses appear throughout modern human history as Grimoires and an eighth book of Moses was reported to have been discovered in the 4th century BCE. This book references other lost works that have never been found such as The Key of Moses, Archangelical Teachings, The Hidden Tenth Book and more.

The pre-modern period of the book was, for me, the most interesting element. Hearing how the Magi, a Persian tribe were thought by the Romans to be the first practitioners of magic through their Zoroastrian heritage and the theory that Zoroaster was really Ham, the son of Noah from whom all people of the middle east descended. Slowly from this birth the home of magic came to Egypt, despite several holidays overseas, Egypt was to be magic’s capital and still is to the present day.
There is a huge social history in magic which the author sadly glosses over somewhat and we see that people have always kept such texts and authorities have always feared them. Before witch burning became “a thing” in early modern Europe, book burning was incredibly popular and the sheer level of volumes cast into the flames shows how widespread knowledge of magic and the desire for that knowledge was.

The author takes us via Islamic magical practices in Moorish Spain, Toledo specifically through the European continent at the time of the printing press which democratised grimoire ownership and across the world to the Caribbean, Latin America and United States. More information on the Arabic world and the far east where magical traditions still thrive now would have been a welcome addition but it is clear to see where the author sees his specialties. Far better to have a good history of some areas than a poor history of them all. There are a plethora of texts mentioned, many of which I discover have been digitised, names of magicians in each period, many of whom were conmen as is to be expected and some terrific anecdotal stories of grimoire use and misuse.

I was thoroughly engaged throughout this book and there is an extensive list of references and bibliography for the reader who wishes to delve further in to this world beneath worlds. Owen Davies is a dispassionate commentator in an area which all too often can attract cranks and fools and he tells this history with nuance and distance that is to be respected.

[Jeremy Monkres · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wish I could give this 3.5 stars. The subject matter is really interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed half - two-thirds of the book. The problem is the beginning was the part that was less enjoyable. This is no fault of the author, or less fault anyway, and more to do with the nature of the book. The author is telling the history of magic books more or less chronologically, so in dealing with antiquity and medieval matters, the lack of detailed reliable records to draw upon results in drier, less engaging material that kind of reads like a text book. After the reader reaches the 18-19th centuries, it becomes an easier read. But without the foundation of texts found in earlier centuries, the events of these time periods forward would not be as appreciated.

If you have interest in the subject matter, I would definitely say to give it a read. Just be prepared for a bit of a slog for the first 100 pages or so.

[Scott Ferry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extremely informative and well researched book on the history of Grimoires from late Roman times to the 20th century. There was alot of information in the book that enlightened my understanding of ancient magical books as well as understanding of how books like this found their ways into many cultures across the globe and in some cases actually meshed with or restructered folk beliefs (ie. africa, carribean, etc.) One thing the author brings to light over and over is how these books were diseminated. ie. through mostly pirating. I think the authors strong points are in the research of medieval history on the subject and also up to the 19th century. The 20th century research is lacking in places. All in all the book offers alot of good jump points for further research and investigation. Well worth reading.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly readable. Of a good global breadth. Compelling historical case studies. Refreshingly well referenced with "Further Reading" list. If I could have given more than five stars I would have. Highly recommend.

[Pedro Pascoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simply fascinating romp through the history of magic via the books that contained their wisdom and folly. A book that well and truly places such texts as The Greater (and Lesser) Key of Solomon, the Picatrix, the Petite Albert, the Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses, the Sacred Book of Abra-Melin, the Necronomicon and the Satanic Bible into historical and cultural perspective.
The eye-opener for me was the treasure-hunting craze using 'occult' means during the so-called 'Enlightenment', exposing the irrational underbelly of a supposedly Rational period. The chapter on occult books in the formative years of the US was also an area I was unfamiliar with, and the key books that different areas of the US magic traditions relied upon. The War on Magic is one manifestation of an ongoing battle with authority and censorship of thought, one that holds particular significance today on the Internet, but this history is not by and large concerned with drawing parallels between societies then and now.
The concluding chapter, examining overtly fictional magical tomes from the likes of Lovecraft, La Vey and the likes makes a very interesting observation regarding the nature of many, if not all, of the grimoires examined in this book. The Simon edition of the Necronimicon, for example, is in essence, equally as valid as any other grimoire mentioned, even though virtually anyone purchasing a copy is conscious of its fictitious origin. It borrows elements from some of the historical tomes for flavour, which many previous books also do. Were history to somehow forget Lovecraft, would the Simon Necronomicon become more valid or less? With age and an accretion of history, might it not also take its place amid the venerable books of magic in some far flung future? Has that not already happened?
Personally, I would like this final chapter to have been more expansive on the subject of essentially pop culture and its invented grimoires, as it has more territory to cover than Davies examined, but perhaps a concise study in this area was what was warranted by this book.
Davies does investigate the credulity of the reading audience from the Enlightenment onwards, which may suggest more research and evidence available in that area, or it may suggest a fundamental shift on western conciousness and its approach and consumption of magic because of the Enlightenment, and the shift that it brought about. These were not questions explored by Davies in this book, but might make a future study.
All in all, a very enjoyable romp through the history of grimoires to essentially the 21st century.

[Luis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A super mega fascinating introduction to the history of magic books. The amount of information is excessive at times, but that's part of the charm. To talk at length of each book and each author would require double the size of this volume, so for the regular reader who just wants to learn some history as a pastime, it works pretty well. I would argue that perhaps the ancient part is too short, but I´m sure this book will make any enthusiast be excited about all the comings and goings of magic books, which have for so many centuries been part of our culture.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting, well-researched, and broad history of magical texts in the western tradition. Not sure how I heard about this book, as it had been sitting in my Kindle library for a few years, but it was more readable than I expected.

[Heidi’s Zee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that opens many others!

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly researched and very well written with appeal to academics, lay persons, and students of any magical school interested in learning more about the historiography of the craft as well as its history.

It seems a little rushed by the end, but by devoting the work to the written histories as acceptable evidence, Owen is only reflecting the weight of the study - not any personal pretense that only those from long ago and far away have meritorious analyses! In fact, excerpts of stories are told with compassion and humour that shows just how well he connects well with the personal impact of grimoires on individuals as well as societies. I'd like to see a more intersectional review or critique of his work but until then this is a solid addition to my library!

[Amin Hashemi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book covering grimoires and written magic from ancient times until the works of Lovecraft and Wicca. It's a great starting point for further readings, and while seeming to be short in relevance to its scope, it contains much insightful information as well. So after reading it, you can choose deliberately in which direction you want to aim for your next occult pursuits.

[Ayden Tilton]

(This is not a review for this book, but for one that wasn’t on Goodreads)
I understand that this was his first ever book, so considering that, it wasn’t so bad. I’ve never finished a book, so all credit where credit is due.
I will still give my opinion of this book, however unfair it may be given his inexperience.
I’ve never struggled through a book like I did this one. The end was kind of clever, although borderline “None of this actually happened, it was all a dream”. Also, killing off all your characters doesn’t make for a good book most of the time. Death should be used more sparingly as story growth, not just all over the place, or else you don’t end up caring at all that anyone died.
The villain in the story didn’t make any sense. Not their origin, who they were, and why they were. I didn’t find myself hating the villain or being scared of them, because also some
of their classmates were also villains? Because they found the book and wanted to be? But also because they were enchanted to be? Or they were…. zombies? I lost track of who the main bad guy was, and what his weaknesses and fighting was like.
There was excessive description about rooms and people that was not necessary, that just took up paragraphs, and confused the reader. You don’t have to explain exactly where the windows were in a hallway if it’s not relevant to the story. It just puts a halt on the story and makes it go so slow.
The magic wasn’t consistent, didn’t have any rules, and didn’t make any sense.
I thought it was pretty cool to have the chapter for each character as they died that shows you a little of their past, and fills in a few holes that their characters had.
The beginning throws you into the middle of some battle scene, and tries to introduce every character, plus their looks and their character traits, which was unnecessary and extremely confusing. All of our characters were extreme versions of themselves, with their personality traits being more obnoxious than differentiating. Things like Micah always dropping down to do pushups in the middle of a conversation, and Sho getting angry about nothing, and then immediately apologizing and backing off, or Jock just… being a Jock and super “charismatic” all the time.
There was a lot of allusions to sexual things in this book. A lot of mention of breasts or curves. Every time you’re introduced to a new female character, Knight describes how big their boobs and butt are, and there were a lot of unnecessary descriptions of their clothes that were revealing, like always making sure you knew the female characters were wearing bikinis when they were. It was not necessary to explain their character either. There was also a lot of grabbing of the woman’s butts and thighs that did not need to happen.
The dialogue wasn’t realistic, and it was obnoxious and tried too hard to be funny, when none of it was. However, the descriptions were well done and well written, and story telling was pretty good.
It also was annoyingly unrealistic in that our characters would get incredibly mauled, and yet still push through because they’re “tough men who don’t need help”. You can’t get stabbed through with 10 spears and literally walk away. And the excuse of why Micah didn’t get all the way healed from Lila was so bad. “He just didn’t want her to heal him, but then he wondered, why didn’t he want her to heal him? Oh well, I’m already walking away now.”

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nicely researched dive into grimoires, from ancient papyri to modern grifters. It does begin to drag on when we hit the 20th century, but for completeness sake I see why the author included books loosely adapted from older material. The focus is on the best known/most influential grimoires of the early modern period and their descendants. The alleged 6th through 10th books of Moses get a lot of discussion because they were so heavily copied in the 19th and 20th century, all over the world, while some of the more (in)famous titles like the Lesser Key of Solomon, the Picatrix, and the Book of Abramelin are given much less attention. So I' guess I'd say this is a good introduction to the publishing and dissemination of magic books or grimoires even if it does not get into a lot of analysis of their origins. I was about to give this only 3 stars because it spent so little time on modern Western occultism but that really has been covered to death, and the author's coverage of grimoires in Africa, Latin America, and the US is overdue.

[Lewis Carnelian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Davies presents a methodical history here; I will not say tedious, but due no doubt to the breadth of the subject, it can begin to feel like a bit of a catalog after a while. As a result, the highlights, which normally coalesce around certain memorable individuals involved in the trade and creation of grimoires, can be smothered by the sheer amount of information on titles here. Davies divides his book into appropriate periods, but those looking for summations of the *contents* of such materials may want to look elsewhere. Davies is more concerned with the history of writing and publishing these things and the reactions culturally to them, along with stories of the aforementioned individuals. It's a solid work that to me most sang with the tales of "cunning folk" and treasure hunters, wild characters no doubt, but hats off to Davies attempting to broaden the scope beyond mere Westernisms and the White Male.

[Doug Piero · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could have been utterly boring. At its heart it is a list of all the published grimoires in Western history, in historical order. But the little stories behind each book are fascinating, and the topic itself is inherently fascinating. This is a book of history, so if you are looking for something that believes "magic is real," this is the wrong book. I had to skim a bit here and there, but that was my problem, not the author's, as it is written with an engaging style, and never boring to me. I especially like the final chapters on Anton LaVey, H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon, and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. From page 272, "Around the same time (the 1980s) a study of British Wiccans noted that, before their initiation, Wiccans were typically avaricious readers of fantasy and science fiction." Yup.

[Jessie Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Davies covers vast amounts of time and space with efficient clarity, connecting events through easily understood concepts and continuities. While this leaves the reader feeling as if they’ve only really scratched the surface of this knowledge (and perhaps they have), the end result is a startlingly large amount of information imparted through relatively brief explanatory chapters. After reading this book, one knows a great deal of the broad strokes of the vast history of grimoires, as well as any number of critical and influential specifics. As such, this book is not only a good primer for those interested in grimoires and similar repositories of magical knowledge, but also serves as a gateway to more in-depth studies.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a social history of the books of Western magic. Davies covers ground from late antiquity to the modern era. The main message of the book is that there is tremendous continuity in the documents, the appear over and over again through the ages, repurposed for different types of magic.

This is not a documentary history, getting into the details of differences in manuscripts, provenance, etc. If that is what you are looking for, you will feel that the book is extremely tedious, recounting this or that witch trial, this or that churchman who had a magical library, this or that academic.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

oof...this was a tough read. the writing is average at best, and it is so densely-packed with references (the notes section makes up about 1/3 of the book!) that one's eyes often glaze over. it's like the author wanted to cram in as much information as possible, but it results in totally losing the forest for the trees. I wish he had dug more into the psychology behind these books (their authors, users, and censors) and explained more of what they actually contained. such an interesting topic, but such a boring presentation!

[megan-redwitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

so not something i would recommend. it was just all over the place. there were a lot of fun anecdotes so that's why it scrapped a two because if you're really into the idea it is okay but that's it.

i felt you needed an extensive background in history - & religion - & books - some of which i had some of which i decidedly did not have enough - just to follow along here. so much is just thrown at the reader without a lot of context, even a paraphrase here and there might have helped. in general it also jumped more in time than i expected so it was hard to follow that way at well. the organization was basically geographical and it was more hinderance than help, as sometimes i felt lost in time if not space. & then realize you're a lot farther back or forward and something you think about in conjunction with the narrative makes you go wow but only cuz you happened to think of it!

this also might be my fault but the definition of grimoire and so the scope of the book was very narrow. & honestly my take away overall was that so many are just rip-offs of prior books it actually left me feeling like there are only about five that you need to talk about & maybe a better organization would have been to trace those five's history from start to finish in each chapter instead!

every once and a while where you spent a little more time with an idea, or got some context, i felt more into it - & i especially liked the really early and the most recent "modern" chapters because of that - but for the majority of the book i just didn't feel like any thesis was holding this thing together. it was all a jumble instead of a narrative bringing you through a discussion of a topic. i don't mean that there needs to be a main point being made in the book, so much as there has to be some point in reading it if that makes sense & it just fell well short of that for me.

again if you're really keen on the idea go ahead as i did get some interesting bits out of it myself but if you're not, i would tell you to read elsewhere.