The Index of Forbidden Books and the Policing of Magic
For centuries, Roman censorship classified dangerous books, ordered corrections and prohibited works of divination, necromancy, illicit revelation and magic.
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Month: July 2026
Scandinavian Black Books and the Survival of Folk Magic
Small handwritten books carried healing prayers, protective signs, curses, treasure lore and invocations through Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland.
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The Greek Magical Papyri and the Buried Rituals of Egypt
Recovered from Roman Egypt, the Greek Magical Papyri preserve spells for visions, healing, love, protection, exorcism and divine encounter in…
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The Sworn Book of Honorius and the Oath of Secrecy
The Sworn Book of Honorius binds its reader to secrecy before revealing prayers, angelic hierarchies and one of medieval magic’s…
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The Book of Oberon and the Spirits of Elizabethan England
Folger MS V.b.26 opens an Elizabethan spirit world of kings, fairies, demons, healing rites, stolen treasure and Christian conjurations copied…
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Malleus Maleficarum and the Machinery of the Witch Hunts
The Malleus Maleficarum turned demonological fear into a method: theology, interrogation, gendered suspicion and courtroom procedure bound together by print.
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The Key of Solomon Across Europe’s Hidden Libraries
The Key of Solomon was never one fixed book. It survived as a shifting European family of manuscripts filled with…
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Codex Gigas and the Legend of the Devil’s Bible
Inside the colossal Codex Gigas: one medieval scribe, a full-page Devil, healing texts, conjurations, war booty and the legend of…
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The Ars Notoria and the Forbidden Art of Perfect Knowledge
The Ars Notoria promised memory, eloquence and mastery of learning through prayers, sacred names and images so dense they resemble…
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Steganographia and the Censorship of Hidden Knowledge
Trithemius wrote messages as invocations to spirits and planetary rulers. For generations, Steganographia appeared to be a book of angelic…
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