Books and texts
Grimoires, magical papyri, Kabbalistic and Hermetic works and the manuals of cunning folk.
Magical texts are the books, scrolls and papyri that record spells, rites and lore: the Greek Magical Papyri, the Hebrew Sefer Yetzirah and the Zohar, the Picatrix, the Key of Solomon, the Grimorium Verum, the Hindu Atharvaveda, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Chinese Taoist ritual manuals and the grimoires of the European cunning folk. This page asks what these texts are, who wrote and read them, and why their authority is complicated.
What the texts are
Some are scripture, such as the Atharvaveda, which contains charms and healing hymns beside its worship. Some are handbooks, like the Greek Magical Papyri from Roman Egypt, which mix Greek, Egyptian and Jewish elements. Some are medieval compendia, such as the Arabic Picatrix. Many European grimoires were printed cheaply and passed hand to hand, and names such as Solomon were attached to give them credit. Some are tiny, such as a few lines on a papyrus strip folded into a case, and some run to hundreds of pages, but all were handled by a small number of people.
Readers and gatekeepers
Literacy mattered. A text of magic could only be used by someone who could read, copy and, often, read Latin, Hebrew or Arabic. That made the learned magician a figure of the elite and left village healers with oral knowledge. In Ethiopia, the debtera, a church-trained scribe, writes protective scrolls. In Java and Malaysia, Quranic and Sanskrit-derived texts are kept by family teachers. Where a text was in a sacred language, the ritual use sometimes outran the meaning, and people recited words they could not translate because the sound itself was held to matter.
Censorship and burning
Texts have been burned. The Church placed books of magic on its Index, Chinese dynasties restricted books of divination, and Qing and later authorities attacked books they saw as superstition. The Nazi regime closed occult lodges and seized their libraries. What we now know of some practices survives because inquisitors, in transcribing confiscated books, kept copies. Preservation depends on accident as well as intention: papyri survived in the dry sands of Egypt, while many paper books of village healers were lost when families moved or owners died.
Authenticity and the market
Many famous grimoires are not as old as they claim. The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses is a nineteenth-century compilation. Scholars study such works to see how people imagined power, not to test it. Modern editions and online copies are popular, and some publishers present them as ready-to-use manuals, which the guide treats as a matter of belief and not of instruction. Collectors, museums and antiquarian dealers now trade in old manuscripts, and some forgeries sell as originals, which is another reason scholars check provenance.
Text on EveryJaadu
The entries written up so far, best known first.
馃嚜馃嚫 Spain and 5 moreAlfonso X of Castileel Sabio
A medieval king who sponsored astronomical tables and translated works on magic and astrology.Text 路 Power and authority 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚜馃嚫 Spain and 2 morePicatrix睾丕賷丞 丕賱丨賰賷賲
A medieval Arabic handbook of talismanic magic and astrologyText 路 Power and authority 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚘馃嚝 Afghanistan and 2 moreAbu Ma'shar al-Balkhi丕亘賵賲賻毓賿卮賻乇 噩毓賮乇 亘賳 賲丨賲丿 亘賳 毓賲乇 亘賱禺蹖
A Persian astrologer whose manuals shaped medieval European and Islamic celestial studiesText 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Power and authority Historical
馃嚞馃嚙 United Kingdom and 1 moreJohn Dee
An English scholar and advisor to Elizabeth I who pursued angelic communication through scrying.Tradition 路 Speaking with spirits and the dead 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚜馃嚞 Egypt and 2 moreSibylline Oracles
A mixed collection of ancient prophecies attributed to pagan prophetesses but shaped by Jewish and Christian writers.Text 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚛馃嚳 Algeria and 1 moreAhmad al-Buni兀丨賲丿 丕賱亘賵賳賷 丕賱賲丕賱賰賷
A medieval Sufi scholar known for works on letter mysticism and talismansText 路 Power and authority 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚜馃嚞 Egypt and 1 moreDendera zodiac
A carved Egyptian sky map now held in a Paris museumText 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Power and authority Historical
馃嚜馃嚞 Egypt and 1 moreBook of Thoth
A collection of ancient Egyptian texts attributed to the god of writing and knowledge.Text 路 Power and authority 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚜馃嚞 Egypt and 5 moreHermetica
A collection of ancient texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, covering magic, alchemy and philosophy.Text 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Change and initiation Historical
馃嚞馃嚙 United KingdomWilliam Lilly
A seventeenth-century English astrologer and author who shaped Western tradition.Text 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Power and authority Historical
馃嚝馃嚪 FranceEtteilla
The first professional tarot occultist who created a system for card divination.Text 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Power and authority Historical
馃嚛馃嚜 Germany and 3 moreRunes釟贬殺釟踞洘
An ancient Germanic script used for writing and magical signs.Text 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Power and authority Historical
馃嚝馃嚪 France and 1 moreNostradamus
A French astrologer and physician known for a book of poetic propheciesText 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Power and authority Historical
馃嚠馃嚬 Italy and 3 moreRenaissance magic
A 15th and 16th century revival of magical arts blending philosophy, astrology, and hidden knowledge.Tradition 路 Power and authority 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚲馃嚜 YemenDhu'l-Khalasa匕購賵 丕賱賿禺賻賱賻氐賻丞
A pre-Islamic shrine in Yemen destroyed by early Muslim forces.Text 路 Cursing and harm 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚠馃嚦 IndiaSynoptical astrology
An astrological system that overlays tropical, sidereal and constellational zodiacsText 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Speaking with spirits and the dead Historical
馃嚚馃嚦 ChinaKing Wen sequence鏂囩帇鍗﹀簭
The oldest arrangement of the sixty-four hexagrams in the I ChingText 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚫馃嚲 Syria and 1 moreLots of the ApostlesSortes Apostolorum
A Christian divination text based on casting lots to seek guidance from the apostles.Text 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚞馃嚙 United KingdomThe Book of Thoth
A guide to a tarot deck designed by an occultist and his collaboratorText 路 Power and authority 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
馃嚫馃嚛 SudanWitchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande
A foundational anthropological study of Azande witchcraft, oracles, and magic in southern Sudan.Text 路 Cursing and harm 路 Seeing and foretelling Historical
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Alfonso X of Castile: Otto Posse (1847-1921), Public domain, source
- Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa: Jean-Louis Durant (1654-1718), Public domain, source
- William Lilly: Simon Harriyott, CC BY 2.0, source
- Runes: Bengt Olof 脜RADSSON, CC BY 1.0, source
- Nostradamus: After C茅sar de Notre-Dame, Public domain, source
- Renaissance magic: Unknown author, Public domain, source
- Picatrix: Unknown author, Public domain, source
- Synoptical astrology: Constellarius, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi: User:Martin Kraft, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- John Dee: Unidentified painter, Public domain, source
- Sibylline Oracles: Domenichino, Public domain, source
- Ahmad al-Buni: Khalili Collections, CC BY-SA 3.0 igo, source
- Dendera zodiac: Shonagon, CC0, source