Grihestha

An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)

(See India .) Grimoire A text-book of Black. Magic . The three best known grimoires are the Grimorium Verum, the Grand Grimoire, and the Grimoire of Pope Honorius. Black magic (q.v.) is of course an ignorant and superstitious perversion of the true science, and the grimoires well illustrate this-their most noticeable feature being their utter futility. The grimoires, in fact, cannot be taken seriously, and the diabolic practices contained in their pages are more absurd than fearsome. Before entering upon them, the rites of the church are practised as a preliminary and fasting is observed. The great object of the grimoires is to invoke the infernal powers, and at the same time to trick them. The fiends are treated as imbeciles. In the grimoire, the magician is instructed how, when selling them his soul, he may deceive them by a play upon words. One of the chief desires of the sorcerer of the middle ages was to discover hidden treasure by means of Satanic agency, and having found it to devote himself to good deeds and the distribution of his wealth among the poor. Abstinence from every species of impurity is strongly insisted upon for the space of an entire quarter of the moon, and the sorcerer most solemnly promises the grand Adonai (q.v.), the Master of all Spirits, that he shall not eat more than two meals per diem, and that these shall be prefaced by prayer. The operator must change his apparel as seldom as possible, and sleep only on occasion, meditating continually on his undertaking, and centring all his hopes in the infinite goodness of Adonai, who is 66 Grossetete undoubtedly the supreme deity, and not as might be thought a master-fiend. But the grimoires teem with mystifications, and it is frequently difficult to discern their real meaning. In the three grimoires alluded to, the infernal hierarchy is described at length-(See Demonology ); but the principal contents of these works are evocations and spells for the gaining over of the diabolical powers to the purposes of the sorcerer. That they were employed by veritable professors of the art of black magic is rather unlikely, as the real black magician had very much higher aims than the mere unearthing of buried treasure, and it is most probable that they were for the most part in use among amateurs of the art, who dabbled in it merely in the hope of enriching themselves.