I’ve often joked with
myself about titling blog posts as listicles and click-bait. This one seemed
like a fun option for it.
Witches, NeoPagans and Magicians
have been saying for decades that the power comes from within you. The power
isn’t in the tools, or in what you say. As a result, the best way to
communicate what you truly want and need is to speak from the heart…or at
least, to craft your spells yourself.
There is some merit to
some of that. But some of it is also pretty bogus. It’s easy to demonstrate that
this wasn’t how people looked at magic prior to the last several decades. It’s
also easy to shoot holes in the reality of some of those statements.
Even if we accept that
the power comes from within you, and that your experience, perceptions, and
conscious engagement with the magic are what’s important…and in some ways, this
is all true…we still have to recognize that what you’re doing, and what tools
you’re using will impact all of that inner experience. If you’re not confident
in what you created, or if you feel like something that has survived through
time will be more potent, then you’re better off using something you didn’t
fully create yourself. If we recognize that what you use and what you do has meaning beyond just your inner experience then drawing from existing knowledge becomes even more important.
The idea of a spellbook
is cool. The idea of examining a collection of magical secrets and using them
to solve problems or to increase your enjoyment of life is exciting. Even if it’s
all about the inner experience, there is value to that excitement.
I don’t think it’s all
about your inner experience though. Not everything is just about any one of us,
and the world works and moves in the ways it is designed to. We have to work
within those structures to break and rebuild them to what we want.
Looking at existing methods
of magic is a good way to learn how to build magical rituals and spells.
Examining what’s been done before is a good way to look at how things work and
what tools to use.
There is a point where
saying you want a spell book feels silly because we’ve all been told several
times that we don’t need such things and that’s not how this works. Eventually,
you reach a point where you realize books like that can be awesome. Not only
are they neat and interesting, but they are useful in multiple ways. Not just
in the sense of learning, but in the sense of having ready to go solutions, or
templates to start building your own solutions from. Spellbooks provide utility
while being fun and exciting.
Having seen someone ask
for a good spellbook this morning I’ve decided to do a list. Following the
standard, it is in descending order. Not following the standard, my top ten has
twelve items.
12. The Long Lost Friend
A lot of people really like this one. I’m not a huge fan. I have not spent a
ton of time with it though. It is a general collection of Pennsylvania Dutch
folklore. If you’re interested in exploring folklore generally, you will enjoy
this. If you’re mostly looking for spells, there are spells, and there are
things that straddle a line between spells and less overtly magical folklore. I
prefer Romanus Buchlein, which I believe is a related text. Romanus Buchlein is
primarily spells. We'll revisit the translator for Long Lost Friend later.
11. Nummits and Crummits
Nummits and Crummits is also a folklore collection, but from the perspective of
a folklorist instead of a practitioner collecting it like Long Lost Friend. As
such, it is better organized. This collects folklore from a region in England.
There are chapters on magic and counter magic. Most of it is not immediately
useful but can be adapted to being useful, or can be used for inspiration.
10. The True Black Magic
The name is a bit
misleading. This is not some Left Hand Path wet dream, nor it is a collection of
mischievous diablery. It’s just a Key of Solomon as packaged by the salacious French
press of the Biblioteque Bleu period. It is similar to the popular Mathers
version of the Key of Solomon, but it retains the section of spells which
Mathers omits. There are other better Key of Solomon options, like TheVeritable Key of Solomon, but this is a good accessible slim volume for people
who want to look at grimoire spells in the context of a major grimoire. Joseph
H. Peterson has put out an edition of this. For an alternative look at a
classic grimoire with a collection of spells, Peterson also released Secrets ofSolomon, a version of the Ars Rabidmadar, which is the basis of the GrimoiriumVerum.
9. The Discouerie of Witchcraft
Reginald Scot wrote this text to point out how ridiculous belief in witchcraft
was. He wasn’t saying witches are stupid for believing in witchcraft, but that
everyone was stupid for believing in witches, and it was all superstition. A
lot of his invective regarding superstitious beliefs focused on blaming
Catholics for bizarre rituals and inventing bugbears to scare children. If you
ignore most of the explanations and commentary, the book is filled with popish
papery (Catholicism) which it turns out is just a detailed description of and
instructions for performing conjurations, spells, and rituals. The book became
so popular with people interested in learning magic, that later editions had
essays on magical philosophy appended to it. The Goetia of Solomon is largely based
on this book.
8. The Cambridge Book of Magic
This is not an important
book, but it is a favorite of mine. The Cambridge Book is a working magician’s
notebook, likely from around the time of the English Reformation. It contains a
combination of grimoire style rituals and spells. While the translator noted
that it did not include examples of faery magic, it does, in fact, include a
conjuration of a faery queen. This came in at the eighth spot because it is
slim and accessible and hones in on the type of grimoire magic material which
is included in Scot, but it doesn’t have all of the extra stuff. Subsequent
books that present working magician’s notebooks are more thorough and larger
than this one though.
7. The Works of Daniel Harms et al
Daniel Harms has been
involved with the publication of several grimoires and cunningman’s notebooks.
These tend to be well laid out and present copious interesting material. TheBook of Oberon, which was done with Joseph Peterson and James Clark is very popular and
reflects a working grimoire added to by several magicians. His recent release,
The Book of Four Occult Philosophers, is similar, and passed through the hands
of some of the same magicians as The Book of Oberon. Angels Demons and Spirits
is another great one which presents the grimoire of a cunningman. David Rankine
released The Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet, which is also a cunningman’s
notebook. It has similar material to the one released by Harms but is also
worth exploring. Its layout is less user oriented though. Stephen Skinner also
released A Cunningman’s Grimoire, and Jim Baker, along with David Rankine, released A Cunningman’s Handbook which was perhaps
one of the first popular releases of such a text.
6. Saint Cyprian
St. Cyprian, the Sorcerer Saint, was a legendary magician who converted to
Christianity to gain its power. Despite his reason for converting, Cyprian was
devout and became a bishop and a martyr. Despite his hagiography describing him
abandoning and rejecting magic, the folk-memory of him describes a Christian
bishop who retained and integrated his magical knowledge into his Christian
life. As a result he remained one of the consummate icons of magic. There was a
mythical book containing the ultimate magical secrets attributed to him. The
book was believed to be so magical that people began names magic books “cypriani.”
Throughout Northern Europe, black books, or collections of magical practice,
were associated with his name even though they did not necessarily contain references
to him. In Iberia, he was more of an icon, and there was an array of pamphlets
and booklets of folk magic which were associated with him. This continued in
Spanish colonies in the Americas, and he is a significant figure in some ADR
magical traditions. Humberto Maggi released a Book of Saint Cyprian collecting
some Cyprianic material, Jose Leitao has released multiple books of Cyprianic
material. I like the layout of Leitao’s collections better, in particular the
latter collection which is huge. Leitao organizes the material based on the
source so you get more of a sense of the way the material is collected and
presented in pamphlets and booklets which would have been used in folk
practice. Leitao's two main texts are The Book of Saint Cyprian: The Sorcerer's Treasure and Opuscula Cypriani: Variations on the Book of Saint Cyprian
5. The Sporting Life
This is a very short but
useful text by Charles Porterfield which presents information on Hoodoo
specifically related to things like money, gambling, sex, and avoiding the
police. It presents correspondences and ideas so you can build your own
techniques, but it also presents several spells for various general and
specific purposes. Chapters are arranged based on the area of life the magic
relates to. Some of the language may be off-putting for some readers but the
book is very useful and straight to the point.
4. The Secret of the Psalms
This book provides magical applications of the psalms. Some instances provide
particular spell or ritual components to do with the psalms, but generally, the
psalm’s power is explained, sometimes with multiple effects it can have. You
can recite the psalm to try and apply its power, or you can incorporate the
psalm with other spellwork. The text is essentially copied from another book of
psalm magic which was included in the German collection of magical texts Das
Kloster. The German text also contains The 6th and 7th Books
of Moses, which like The Secret of the Psalms, became a popular and influential
text in Hoodoo.
3. Greek Magical Papyri
The Greek Magical Papyri
refers to several separate and distinct collections and fragments of writing on
magic spanning several hundred years (about the 1st or 2nd
Century BCE through about the 5th century CE). These texts are
primarily from Roman Egypt. By the point these texts were created, Egypt had
been under Greek (Macedonian) control prior to becoming a client state for Rome
and then eventually coming fully under Rome’s control. Roman control does not
seem to have created cultural impact reflected in the texts, but the texts show
a blend of Greek and Roman influences. There are also other Near Eastern
elements reflected in some texts. There are two major English language
presentations of several of the papyri. The standard for several years has been
The Greek Magical Papyri by Betz et al. A new larger text is available from
Faraone and Toralles Tovar The Greek and Egyptian Magical Formularies. Both primarily
present translations of the spells and rituals presented in these texts. If you
want ancient, or late antique examples of magic the papyri are one of the most
popular sources.
2. Svartkonstboecker
This is the work of a folklorist who unfortunate died before its publication.
The text is huge. It collects together several “black books” or magical
notebooks often passed along through families, in Sweden. It is a great
collection of folk magic practices. For people interested in this flavor of
spellbook but want something smaller, The Black Books of Elverum are an option.
1. The Works of Judika Illes
I will admit, I don’t
have these books. Everything else on the list, I do. When I was a kid starting
out, Modern Witches Spellbook was the well known spell book. It had the spooky
witchy feel of 1970s/1980s witchcraft. They seemed a bit naughty and old
fashion, which was exciting, but I also felt like as a middle schooler they
weren’t the books I should be buying. Judika Illes’s books have a nicer more
friendly aesthetic. Because of that and their titles, I just ignored them. I
thought they were just coffee table books that might not even be by a magician,
similar to the magical picture books Barnes and Noble has in their bargain
section. By the time I became aware of Illes’s books, I was probably also in
that phase where I would have thought “why do I want a random spellbook?” Since
then, I have known numerous people who have met her and respect her deeply. I’ve
met more people who have her books and think they’re great. They’re on my list
of books to consider picking up. I’ve heard they contain spells from a wide
range of sources covering many places, times, and traditions. For that reason,
if someone just wants a spellbook and is not interested in a particular structure
or tradition, this is probably the broadest general presentation of spells. Some
of her books are, The Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells, The Big Book of Practical Spells: Everyday Magic that Works, and Emergency Magic! 150 Spells for Surviving the Worst-Case Scenario.
Hopefully, you have enjoyed this list and it will provide you with some options
if you’re looking for books from which to draw examples for building your own
magic, or from which to draw completed spells to use. If you want books for
exploring magic here is my Getting Started in Sorcery list. At some point I
hope to have some more getting started guides for specific approaches to magic.
In the meantime, hopefully these are helpful.
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