Disappointing Grimoires

I have a fair sized collection of grimoires, although nowhere near the neighborhood that Dan Harms has. If you count my electronic copies as well (which I do), I've got a HUGE collection. And in any large collection there are bound to be some 'less-than-stellar' examples.

I can point to one in particular that got my hopes up, and then dashed them all. This is The Spellbook of John Fian released by Robert Blanchard and IGOS.

IGOS stands for "International Guild of Sorcery", run by Blanchard. I don't know exactly how successful they are, but they charge exorbitant amounts for their books. When I was first starting out collecting grimoires, and foolish, and had more disposable income, I thought "What the heck?" and ordered a couple of them... The Stone Missal and The Spellbook of John Fian.

When they arrived, my heart sank.

The Stone Missal was a cheap photostatic copy in a flimsy plastic binder. Its provenance is highly suspect, and does not seem in keeping with traditional beliefs regarding gargoyles, but as it was the cheaper of the two, and only of mild interest, I didn't mind so much. It had some value to me as a curiosity at least.

But the other.... The other was promisingly hardcovered, in either cheap or simulated leather. But very, very thin. It was stiff to open, and once opened, I could see that it was the same cheap photostats that were in the other book. And as I began reading through it, my anger grew. It was a double-spaced typed manuscript. There were photos and artwork that appeared to be photostats of copies or copies, rendering then all but incomprehensible. And the content...

This was NOT the true spellbook of the notorious Scottish witch. This was a poorly researched essay, at just over 80 pages in length. While it tried to pass itself off as being written concerning the 'original' spellbook of Fian, nothing in it seemed to come from the early modern era in which he lived.

This was a half-assed attempt to create an 'old tradition' of witchcraft based on nothing more than a name and lot of the worst cliches of modern Wicca. There are references aplenty to 'The Burning Times' (a notion long since cast into doubt by many serious scholars) and bare-faced lies about how Fian worshiped "Herne, the Horned God". (Herne, at this time, was considered nothing more than a ghost story about a huntsman.)

There ARE spells, but they are childish in nature. Divination by using dice and playing cards, for example. Rituals for which there is no historical precedent are given as a matter of fact, echoing Margaret Murray's discredited theory of primitive holdover cults becoming witch covens in later centuries.

I'm quite familiar with Fian and his escapades. He played a large role in my graduate research into Early Modern witchcraft beliefs in England. The most famous pamphlet he figures prominently in is called Newes from Scotland and it has been reprinted countless times since its first appearance in 1591. The pamphlet actually details several of the spells Fian was accused of casting. These spells either do not appear in the IGOS work, or they are glossed over lightly.

For example... the chief crime that Dr Fian was arrested and executed for was using witchcraft to raise a storm in an attempt attempt to sink the fleet in which James II was travelling with his new bride, from Oslo. While the subject of raising storms is mentioned in the book, it is waved away as simply a sub-aspect of general weather magic. The author, Blanchard. seems to suggest that making rain was more important to Fian than making storms, in order to help the local crops, which is all well and good, except Fian was no country farmer, he was a schoolmaster living in the city of Edinborough! Nor do the primary sources even suggest such a benevolent aspect to his magic, to say nothing of the highly imaginative rites described to make it rain... involving a mysterious Coven of 13 witches dancing in a circle around the fields while naked.

Another example is the citation in Newes from Scotland of a love spell that Fian had supposedly cast... a spell which involved obtaining 3 pubic hairs from the target of the spell. There are a great many love and lust spells listed in the book, but tellingly, none involve using anything remotely like this. Instead the spells were what you would find in any given mass market paperback at your local big box book store.

The bibliography is quite sad, consisting of only 6 entries... including multiple editions of Newes from Scotland, dropping the actual research content close to nil. Then there is a 'Recommended Reading' section.... which has more books listed than the actual bibliography, and which are ALL IGOS publications. Please note that none of these volumes he recommends have to do with 16th and 17th century witchcraft.

Needless to say, I was furious about this book, and what a waste of money it was. I've since avoided IGOS publications, and those of Robert Blanchard.

So... Caveat Emptor for those of you looking for real grimoires out there.

Much better is The Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet, edited by David Rankine, which is a genuine cunning-man's spellbook from this time, and which gives a much clearer view of folk magic workings. Its flavor is *very* different from Fian's purported 'spellbook', the magic involved is far more involved and interesting, and makes no attempts to invent a tradition of magic from whole cloth.