Grimoires & Books of Ceremonial Magic
Handbooks of ceremonial magic — the Solomonic tradition and its descendants.
A grimoire is a textbook of magic: a manual giving instructions for creating talismans, invoking or constraining spirits, and performing ritual operations. The genre flowered in medieval and early-modern Europe, drawing on Jewish, Arabic, and Greco-Egyptian sources, and circulated in guarded manuscript copies long before it reached print.
The Solomonic cycle — the Key of Solomon and the Lesser Key with its catalogue of seventy-two spirits — forms the backbone of the tradition, later systematised by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. These works are read today both as historical documents and as living ritual texts.
Essential Texts
The Greater Key of Solomon: Including a Clear and Precise Exposition of King Solomon's Secret Procedure, Its Mysteries and Magic Rites; Original Plates, Seals, Charms and Talismans; Translated from Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, London
De Laurence Mathers
Book of the Sacred Magic (Abramelin - Peterson ed.)
Abraham von Worms
Start Here
The Lesser Key of Solomon (Goetia) and the Key of Solomon are the essential starting points. The Arbatel is short and unusually approachable. Read grimoires first as historical artifacts to understand their worldview before anything else.
From the Collection
Book of the Sacred Magic (Abramelin - Peterson ed.)
Abraham von Worms
Daimonologia: or, a treatise of spirits. Wherein several places of Scripture are expounded, against the vulgar errors concerning witchcraft, apparitions, etc. To which is added, an appendix, containing some reflections on Mr. Boulton's answer to Dr. Hutchinson's historical essay; entitled The possib
Jacques de Daillon
Daimonologia: or, a treatise of spirits. Wherein several places of Scripture are expounded, against the vulgar errors concerning witchcraft, apparitions, etc. To which is added, an appendix, containing some reflections on Mr. Boulton's answer to Dr. Hutchinson's historical essay; entitled The possib
Jacques de Daillon
English · Grimoires