10 Grimoires You Should NEVER Read

[00:00:01][music] [music] >> History, some books have been feared not for what they say but for what people believe they could do.

[00:00:23]These are grimoires, books of magic, spells, and forbidden knowledge.

[00:00:29]Manuals for speaking with angels and demons, bending fate, and reshaping reality. Some were banned by the church.

[00:00:37]Others were hidden away in monasteries or private collections.

[00:00:41]And a few earned a darker reputation.

[00:00:44]Books said to kill, curse, or damn anyone foolish enough to open them.

[00:00:49]This is the dark library of forbidden magic. 10 grimoires that people say should never be read. A grimoire is not just a book, it is a tool. A set of instructions for calling spirits, timing rituals to the stars, crafting talismans, and commanding unseen forces.

[00:01:08]Most were written by educated men, priests, scholars, physicians, who walked a thin line between faith and heresy. Their books were copied in secret, passed hand to hand, and condemned from the pulpit. From monstrous devils' Bibles to slim handbooks of blood-soaked ritual.

[00:01:28]These are 10 of the most feared grimoires ever whispered about. Number 10, the Codex Gigas, the Devil's Bible.

[00:01:36]A 13th-century manuscript so large it weighs more than a person, and so strange it became the center of its own legend.

[00:01:44]According to the story, a monk condemned to death promised to write a book containing all knowledge in a single night.

[00:01:53]As midnight approached, he realized the task was impossible and begged the devil for help. Whether or not that bargain was ever struck, the book's mix of scripture, medicine, and magic, crowned by that enormous devil, made it feel less like a Bible and more like a warning. Number nine, The Book of Soyga, the book that kills. This secret volume obsessed the Elizabethan magus John Dee, adviser to Queen Elizabeth the First. Inside a dense angelic tables, pages of letter grids whose true meaning Dee believed only the Archangel Michael could reveal.

[00:02:32]Parts of the book remain mathematically and linguistically baffling even today.

[00:02:36]Over time, the rumor grew that misreading Soyga invites madness or death.

[00:02:42]Whether superstition or not, it became a book many occultists prefer to talk about rather than actually open. Number eight, Picatrix, originally Ghayat al-Hikam, an 11th-century Arabic grimoire of astrological magic that treats the cosmos as a living machine.

[00:03:02]It prescribes talismans and rituals powered by disturbing ingredients, blood, semen, and even brains, timed to the exact positions of the planets to influence love, power, and perception. In the wrong hands, Picatrix isn't just a book of magic, it's a manual for turning the heavens into a weapon. Number seven, The Grand Grimoire, also called the Red Dragon.

[00:03:28]Perhaps the most infamous handbook of demonic pacts in Western occult law. It claims to reveal how to summon Lucifer Rofocale, the dark minister beneath Lucifer, and force him into a contract exchanging service and offerings for worldly power.

[00:03:46]Stories insist the true manuscript cannot be destroyed, not even by fire, and that an original rests locked away in secret church archives. Whether true or not, the Red Dragon's reputation is enough to make many step back. Number six, the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic.

[00:04:05]A 15th-century Latin grimoire devoted almost entirely to demons and necromancy.

[00:04:11]It teaches how to summon and compel spirits, including the notorious Mirror of Lilith ritual, calling a seducing, devouring presence from the other side of the glass.

[00:04:23]This is not a book of hopeful prayers.

[00:04:25]It is a handbook for those willing to trade sleep for answers from the dead.

[00:04:31]Number five, the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses. A pseudo-biblical grimoire claiming to reveal the secret magical works of Moses himself, filled with seals, spirit names, and conjurations.

[00:04:45]It spread through folk magic traditions in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, where it was used for protection, healing, and sometimes coercion.

[00:04:56]Condemned by churches, yet cherished by practitioners, it became one of the most controversial grimoires in the modern world. Number four, the Clavicule of Solomon, the Key of Solomon. The grandfather of ritual magic grimoires, it lays out how to consecrate tools, draw circles, and summon spirits under obedience, forming the backbone of countless later magical systems. Publicly denounced as dangerous, privately studied by clergy and scientists, the Key of Solomon shows how forbidden knowledge can be too useful to truly destroy.

[00:05:35]Number three, Petit Albert. A cheap French grimoire from the 1700s that slipped into the homes of ordinary people.

[00:05:43]It mixed charms for luck and love with darker recipes including the infamous hand of glory said to render households helpless while thieves went to work.

[00:05:55]Petit Albert was terrifying not because it sat in a monastery but because it sat on the kitchen shelf.

[00:06:01]Number two, the Book of Saint Cyprian.

[00:06:04]Part saint's legend, part sorcerer's manual, widely feared across Spain, Portugal and Latin America. It promises guidance on treasure hunting, protection and terrifying curses blending Christian prayers with folk sorcery and spirit work.

[00:06:21]Stories claim that once you own a Cyprian book, it owns you. People hide them, bury them or refuse to touch them at all. Number one, Dragon Rouge the red dragon of the Caribbean, a descendant of the Grand Grimoire that took root in French-speaking colonies.

[00:06:40]It's filled with explicit invocations of the devil and pacts promising money, power and protection for a price. In many communities, owning it is still considered reckless.

[00:06:52]Some say even having it in the house invites something in.

[00:06:56]From the Devil's Bible to Dragon Rouge, these texts share a pattern. They promise contact with forces beyond human control.

[00:07:05]Religious authorities feared them as gateways to heresy or possessions.

[00:07:10]Ordinary people feared the curses the contracts and the possibility that the rituals might actually work. These aren't just dusty relics. They are maps of human desire for power, for protection, for forbidden knowledge written into paper and ink. The real danger was never the spells on the page.

[00:07:32]It was the idea that someone could actually use them.

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