Product Description

The magickal methods and esoteric knowledge of medieval Europe (476 to 1453 C.E.) form the ancestral backbone of modern ceremonial magick. To understand medieval magick, it’s necessary to know the primary repositories of this knowledge - the grimoires of spells, incantations, and ritual instructions for working with angels and conjuring spirits. And to understand the grimoires, you must delve into the life and times of the magicians who wrote them.
Scholar and magician Aaron Leitch sheds light upon the greatly misunderstood subject of the medieval mage in this comprehensive reference manual. In addition, he provides valuable comparisons among the magical practices described in the grimoires and various shamanic methods of working with the spirit world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #315959 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

About the Author
Aaron Leitch (Florida) has been a scholar and spiritual seeker for over a decade. His explorations have taken him into many fascinating areas of human spirituality, their history, and their modern practice. His writings (both in print and on the web) cover such varied fields as Middle Eastern Religion and Mythology, Shamanism, Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and Alchemy, Traditional Wicca and Neopaganism, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Thelema, Angelology, Qabalah, Enochiana, Psychology and Consciousness Expansion, Cyberspace, and Modern Social Commentary.

Customer Reviews

Excellent on theory and practice
Leitch has written what is probably the best book on practical application of the classic grimoires produced to date. The book does assume a basic familiarity with the texts themselves. You should have read the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon, and the Abra-Melin work to be able to best understand this book's ideas, but I think even someone who hadn't could make their way along with what is provided.

The first 125 pages or so are worth the entire book, even if one never means to take up grimoire magic. The history and development of the grimoires is a thread in Neopaganism, in Rosicrusianism and in the work of Golden Dawn-style magical orders. Leitch's analysis of the devlopment of spirit-art in Europe - the sorcerer as urban shaman - is done very well. The chapter on the work of the priest in magic fills in holes that often gape in modern magical theory. Anyone involved in trying to build working modern magical forms out of the wisdom of previous millenia will profit from these sections.

The practical sections do a fine job of turning the notebook arrangement of the grimoire's instructions into workable magical rites. The author sets the grimoires inside their context of religious devotion, personal discipline and trance-skills (he finds solid medieval evidence for the conscious use of consciousness-alteration) and cosmology. Again, the book might have benefitted on a practical level from appending it's own 'grimoire', but the author repeatedly makes the point that every magician must functionally create their own version of the work.

A fine read for anyone interested in the traditional practice of magic.
Ian

A New Standard Reference
Every so often a book turn up that fits the "must have" category for students of magick. Secrets of the Magickal Grimoirs is one of them, in a class with Regardie's The Golden Dawn, Craig's Modern Magick, and Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice. "Secrets" trumps all three on "academic defensability", in that it keeps no secrets - very extensive source materials are accurately cited in the footnotes.

This is not the usual re-hash of widely published materials, with original fantasy and speculation added - Secrets is the result of a major research project supported by a small community of serious occult scholars working to improve their understanding of Mideval magick. Secrets of the Magickal Grimoirs presents the current "state of the art" in these studies in plain language, organized so that a complete beginner will learn everything necessary to understand the more technical chapters. Obscure language is kept to a minimum and new terms are explained clearly. "Secrets" is one of those rare books that is equally useful whether your interest is purely academic, or 100% practical.

If you are interested in the historical origins, early social context, and development of magick as we know it today, you will find it here. If you are interested in the working principles of magick which bridge theory to practice, that's here as well: Leitch wastes no time arguing whether or not the magick might actally work, he goes directly to how and why it works, from both psychological, meatphysical, theological, and nuts-and-bolts practical perspectives.

But most importantly, Secrets of the Magickal Grimoirs is the only "operators manual" for actually using such classics as the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon, the Legemeton, etc. "Secrets" provides an accurate historical context for understanding where these works came from, explains their obscure terminology, and unravels their riddles by supplying the missing links - everything the original users were expected to "already know". Before "Secrets", most working magicians could mine the old grimiors for useful material to incoroprate in their own work. After "Secrets", most working magicians can actually use the old grimoirs as their authors intended.

Secrets of the Magickal Grimiors is fully supported by an active online mailing list and archive. The Solomonic list community provides a friendly venue for discussion and questions on any topic related to "Solomonic magick", and many of the participants are working magicians who are actually using the material. Visit check Yahoo! Groups for the word "solomonic", and you're in.

My only criticism of this book, is that it does not include the actual grimoirs. But if you are reading this review, that should be no problem: They are in the public domain and can be downloaded from online archives (including the files section of the Solomonic list pages).

If this book is not on your shelf, fill the gap! Even if you never make practical use of the how-to material, this book is certain to expand your understanding of the meaning, and context, of real magick in both the Mideval and the modern world.

Excellent work!
Hmn, I do not know what all the previous discouraging comments about this book were about, I must say this was an excellent work. Aaron does an awesome job of presenting firstly the history *behind* the grimoires. The reader passes through mankinds magical history as Aaron enlightens the reader on such things as the shaman's spiritual initiation, mankind's relationship to the gods and spirits, the development of the familar spirit and of gods, the preisthood, devotions, astrology, sacrifices, the magical/spiritual use of mind altering substances, and by who and why the grimoires developed as they did.Truly the list goes on and on....and that is just the theory section!! At the end of the theory section one comes away with impression you have just been taught not only about mankinds magical development but a little about mankind itself.


The practical section details tools, prayers, preparations and eveything needed to begin the sacred and powerful art of evocation. This is not your typical re-hash of Golden Dawn material or self created system, this, my friends is grimoire magic as it was done "back in the day". The information on the magical books, their history and their creation is invaluable as well as something which should be brought back in a big way in magic. He then goes into something rarely discussed in a in-depth manner and that is **HOW** spirits communicate with man. This, to me proves he walks the walk as everything he says here is spot on to my own experience and something Johnny-come-lately's need to know.

It was amazing, really, how many times I had an "ah-ha" or "duh"/head-slap experience while reading this book. Ideas or thoughts that had been floating around my head recently as well as things which happened to me in the past made this book, for me, especially great.

This is a book every newcomer,initiate and advanced student should read. I do not practice as exactly as he points out in the book, and their are some areas I part ways with him at however this is done with a respectful diference and through a few years of the work I have done to do it, the way I do it. I will however, add that I will be adding many aspects of this book into my personal work.

If you want a book that teaches you how to do it the "real way" as they did it orignally, get this book! If you want armchair theory and to impress your occult friends with amazing facts they may not even know, get this book! I usually devour a book in a few hours to a day, this book took me three days to finish because of all the information. Heck, I'll most likely read it again!


Hmn, it really makes me wonder if that review by Thabion below had some, alterior motive......