The final portions of the document were completed in 1577, but the text references earlier grimoires that date back to at least 1496. Written in three separate hands in black and red ink the original manuscript is evidence of several owners continual embellishment of the collection. Also included are a series of drawings of spirits and other entities and one of the first lists of the Hierarchy of Spirits as found in the later goetic works. Among its contents includes: Rituals for the conjuration of several different spirits, including Oberon (one of the main characters of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Satan, Mosacus, Birto, and others A ceremony to call Baron, a spirit associated with the infamous Gilles de Rais. A collection of what some might call “results oriented” experiments gathered from a myriad of historic sources. Written in the late 16th century, a decade or more before Shakespeare, Folger MS V.b.26 is a manual for the practical application of ritual magic. “The Book of Oberon” is a recent transcription and annotation of the Folger Shakespeare Library manuscript V.b.26. Mostly scrawled documents that range in size from hundreds of pages to one or two sheets.

The British Library, Folger Shakespeare Library, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale, all teem with the grimoire vagaries of dozens of antiquarian collectors. There are countless manuscripts of the grimoire tradition that still have yet to be given the attention they are due. Generally bound into book form as an afterthought by a later owner for easier storage in one’s library. They are handwritten, often in a cribbed and difficult to read text. These historic documents, often cobbled together by successive owners over centuries, are not your mass produced typeset books. It is a considerable thing the undertaking of the transcription and deciphering of a written manuscript.

Daniel Harms, Joseph Peterson & James Clark

Joseph h. peterson pdf