Talk:Grimoire

Moved from mythology of demons, needing cleanup before insertion into some article:

According to some grimoires, the demons will even warn you about their ward (their special defence against particular weapons e.g. swords). However they can never be dissuaded from fulfilling their mission. For every demon, those books describe his/her properties, looks, what he might do for someone who calls him. They also describe a ritual, curse, spell or similar to do when conjuring a demon in order to restrain him and keep him from taking over control. Some books also give specific "sigils" for individual demons that can be used to call and bind the demon. According to contemporary magicians, a sigil is a type of signature or symbol of intent. Sigils incorporated with other influences can add great direction and focus to spellwork. Sigils can be traced in air, carved on candles, drawn on paper and burned etc.

Sean Curtin 01:03, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The pronunciation I've heard is GRIM-uh-ree. I'm getting the feeling that this is at best an uncommon pronunciation. Has anyone else heard it pronounced like this? --Spikey 00:02, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

It's pronounced as in the French: 'GRIM-wahr.'

'grim-WAHR', rather. -- [[User:Djinn112|Djinn112 ♠♥♣♦,]] 02:56, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

I heard "Grim-eh-ree" in a terrible low-budget movie called "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," but never anywhere else! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18D:57F:2380:FC95:691B:9035:7CB2 (talk) 20:49, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

In French, equal stress is distributed across the syllables in a word; so, in a word such as grimoire, it sounds to the Anglophone ear as if there are two emphases, sounding approximately like GREEM+WAHR; although, this is frequently reported as being on the final syllable only. (The pronunciations of French words by native English speakers are very commonly cited as featuring only this second emphasis, despite there being no objective evidence to support it in the original.)

Nuttyskin (talk) 18:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

pronunciation

Yeah, good catch. It seems to be more like 'greem-WAH' in the French, but that's a really subtle distinction. In English, I've only heard the first syllable stressed.

I've heard only greem-Wah. Gingermint (talk) 01:15, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Category

I've removed Category:Magic and Category:Books by type as per Wikipedia:Categorization/Categories and subcategories. They are both parent categories of Category:Grimoires, and an article normally should not be in both a category and its subcategory. --BorgQueen 14:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The Necronomicon IS NOT a real grimoire

The Necronomicon ALWAYS existed in the realm of fiction. There are several books that purport to be the one described in Lovecraftian fiction, most however, are self-consciously fictitious. The only one that truly claims to be the real thing is the so-called "Simon Necronomicon," which is universally regarded as a fraud ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› . It is not only inconsistent with Sumerian mythology, but also the Lovecraftian fiction it is inspired by ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› . Now, of course, it could easily be said that historical grimoires are just as fictitious as the Necronomicon, but these, however, belong to a historical context. The Simon Necronomicon is nothing but a moneymaking ploy, attempting to capitalize on the gullible who believe the books in Lovecraft's fiction are actually real.

Someone dropped in citation needed tags here. Now consider this: there are a lot of Lovecraft fans out there, as well as dabblers in "sinister" sounding occultism. There's a lucrative market for this kind of thing, face it. If it didn't exist, someone would write it. In fact several necronomicons have been written, each claiming to be the "real" version, and only one of them (if any) can be real! So we know that there's a small industry in inventing necronomicons; what evidence do we have that the Simon Necronomicon isn't just another of these inventions? Lets compare. Evidence for the Simon Necronomican being authentic:

• the book's blurb says it's authentic;
• Another book (ostensibly by the same anonymous author) says it's authentic (and rakes in even more money).

Evidence that it's a hoax:

• We have no identifiable author, editor, finder, seller or buyer;
• we have no manuscript!
• We have no mention of such a manuscript prior to Lovecraft;
• we have no mention of the "Simon" manuscript prior to its printing by Schlangekraft Inc half a century after Lovecraft was writing;
• we have the highly believable claim of Lovecraft himself that it is fiction (and he should know);
• we have the fact of its inconsistency with any ancient mythology (and even if it were consistent, that would only demonstrate that they'd taken more care in writing it);
• we have a strong monetary motive for inventing such a book.

If there's really compelling evidence supporting the antiquity of this book, then let us know by all means. The burden of proof lies with you. I'm ready to be convinced. I'm also ready to be convinced that Harry Potter is a real person who actually attended a school called Hogwarts. I just want to see really solid proof. :) Fuzzypeg☻ 13:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

As I see it, the issue is not whether the Simon Necronomicon is provably true, since no book used as a sacred text or grimoire can be proven "true." The question is whether people use the Simon Necronomicon as a grimoire. At Sacred Magic, for instance, there is an active community of people who use the Simon Necronomicon as a grimoire. Thus, it is a "real" grimoire in the sense that people use it as such, just like the Bible is a "real" sacred text to Jews and Christians, despite the fact that none of the original manuscripts exist and its authorship is mostly unknown. There is further discussion at the talk page for Simon Necronomicon at Wikipedia.

Samurai V 06:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

True, absolutely. The Simon Necronomicon has some power to it, and seems to me to have been written by a person with at least half a clue of what they were about — I recognise some of the places they've been to... the book is really only useful for self-destruction though, as far as I can make out. What I was responding to however was an editor's insistence that the book predated Lovecraft, a highly unlikely proposition. Fuzzypeg☻ 20:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

"In fiction" section

I can't see the point of this section. It just seems to be a list of trivia. The fictional representations of these books don't seem to add anything to the concept of "grimoire" that wasn't already present, apart from adding a bit of pizazz. If this section is trying to be a comprehensive list of fictional depictions, then someone's got their work cut out for them; if it's only intended to be significant contributions to the theme, then nothing so far listed seem significant.

I find the Xenosaga references particularly ridiculous. Some dried up games hacks named some characters "Grimoire Verum" and "Lemegeton" (after the books Grimoirum Verum and Lemegeton!) That's about as clever as those people who name their kids "Benson" and "Hedges"!

Anyone mind if I remove the section entirely? Fuzzypeg☻ 05:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Distill it down to the knowledge that the term is used in fantasy as well as real life, perhaps. (A book of magic called the Book Of Gramarye is featured which is presumably a derivation of Grimoire? Sorry, folks, if you don't know that Gramarye is another word for magic, you shouldn't be speculating here.) Goldfritha 00:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I've done this same distillation again. The purpose of these "popular culture" sections is, to my understanding, to explain the major references in popular fiction that have significantly shaped popular understanding of the term. If it's just some book or computer game that rehashes the same old "ancient scary magic book" concept, then it's not changing anything. According to WP:TRIVIA such references should, if they're valuable to the encyclopedia at all, be moved to their appropriate articles, e.g. the grimoire from Wicked should, if it's valuable, be mentioned in Wicked (musical), not here.

For comparison, let's take some other uncommon object, say a mask. The Mask article doesn't list every fantasy novel and computer game that involves masks. There's no point, and it would just bloat the article. Fuzzypeg★ 21:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Lists

I quote the manual of style:

Do not use bullets if the passage reads easily using plain paragraphs or indented paragraphs. If every paragraph in a section is bulleted, it is likely that none should be bulleted.

Nothing in there about doing it because items are unrelated. I am removing.Goldfritha 19:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

IPA transcription

I changed the IPA transcription. Since this is the English Wikipedia, and English doesn't have the [ʁ] phoneme, whether in "grimoire" or anywhere else, I replaced the [ʁ] sound with /r/ (changing the brackets to slashes accordingly, to indicate broad transcription)--Tabun1015 05:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Etymology

That "grammar" is any way derived from rhetoric or vice versa is patently absurd. Both are very ancient words (3,000 years, AT LEAST) and quite independent of each other. Rhetoric comes from a very ancient PIE root meaning speaker, and needs no help with other roots. It is quite related to "orator," probably equally ancient in its own right. Please do not suggest this again. Consult a dictionary.

Additional information

New material includes links to verifiable and credible sources.24.168.227.29 17:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Grimoires are magical books, mediaeval and later

I am under the impression that the word "grimoire" has a much more restrictive meaning that that expressed in the article. This English word, I believe, relates specifically to a genre of magical textbooks (relating to the invocation of angels and demons and such things) that started circulating in mediaeval Europe. By this definition, a scientific work would not be a grimoire (not magic), and neither would a Babylonian work (pre-mediaeval). I don't have access to the OED here at work, but dictionary.com certainly agrees with me... Can we have some citation if there are indeed other uses for the term? Fuzzypeg☻ 02:33, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Righto, no-one's given an explanation, so I'll revert the article back to discuss grimoires proper, rather than technical books in general! Fuzzypeg☻ 02:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Spelling of "magick"/"magic"

Is the aberrant spelling of "magick" somehow intentional and/or significant? The article has both "magic" and "magick" with no clear distinction (to me, at least). IMNSHO the generally accepted spelling "magic" should be used throughout. (I read the article about Magick after writing this, and am less certain now, but still think this should either be properly explained, or normalized to conventions of standard English.)-- era (Talk | History) 16:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

"Magick" as a term is an Early Modern English spelling for magic, used in works such as the 1651 translation of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, or Of Magick. Popular occultist Aleister Crowley chose to use the "magick" spelling in his 19th/20th C. works to differentiate his practices and rituals from stage magic and the term has since been re-popularised by those who have adopted elements of his teachings. Some other occultist authors use the term too. Given that Grimoire isn't a concept unique to these occultists, I've standardised the spelling to the more common "magic" in this case. MairearadN (talk) 14:32, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Speaking as an article writer, the use of an alternative terminology is more specifically relevant if those using it do so in representation of an oppositional philosophy. I don't know that this would apply here. The fact that Crowley's branch uses it represents the only difference I am yet aware of.FourLights (talk) 16:10, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Popular Culture section is missing a reference to Charmed (the TV series)

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Shadows_(Charmed)#The_Grimoire Prog Nathous (talk) 18:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Written from the perspectives of believers.

Basically, if you thought that magic was nonsense, then this article is not informative. Thus, it fails to be of encyclopedic perspective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.50.30 (talk) 06:50, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, which article were you reading? The article at no point implies that the practices work or that any of the beings supposedly summoned exist. The article describes what the subject claims to be, and it's assumed the reader has the common sense to determine the reality of it. To write the article with "claims," "purportedly," and "but this is not upheld by science" in every single sentence would not only be an unnecessary burden to read and write, it would also be insulting to the reader.

What's more, the article discusses the genre from a rather dispassionate academic perspective: 'this book was written at this time and deals with this subject matter, that book was written at that time and was influenced by the first.'

Please be sure to actually have evidence of bias in the article (such as a quote) instead of reading bias into it. Ian.thomson (talk) 08:31, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Over reliance on Davies

There are dozens of footnotes to one specific text and author. I think the article would be enhanced if there wasn't such devotional attention placed on one source of information. Surely, there must be a lot of other literature on this subject. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 23:46, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

LOS PASTELES

los pasteles son echos con :mantequilla,azúcar, huevos y harina. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.210.241.195 (talk) 21:02, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Questionable Claims/Sources in opening paragraph

Most commonly mistaken as a Book of Shadows, a grimoire is not as personal as its counterpart and in fact, a grimoire doesn't contain any personal writings inside.

Added a [citation needed] to this claim.

The only contents found in a grimoire would be information on spells, rituals, the preparation of magical tools, and lists of ingredients and their magical correspondence.[1]

Added [unreliabe source?] to this as source linked is a blog by a single author and doesn't meet standards for wiki citations. MairearadN (talk) 14:42, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

In Ancient period paragraph, it says earliest known written magical incantations are dated between 5th and 4th centuries BC. This information is wrong, there were many Cuneiform from Mesopotamia with magic, which were much more old, for example the Maqlu is dated around early 1st millennium BC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fawazahmed0 (talk • contribs) 03:17, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Arbatel?

Not referenced in the article. Just saying. ArbatelFourLights (talk) 16:05, 3 September 2023 (UTC)