The Grand Grimoire: Lucifuge Rofocale and the Pact Grimoire

The Grand Grimoire is a small French book of demonic magic, printed with false dates in the sixteenth century but probably first published around the end of the eighteenth or the beginning of the nineteenth century, which teaches how to summon Lucifuge Rofocale, "Prime Minister" of Hell, and obtain treasure from him by a pact. With its sister text Le Dragon rouge (The Red Dragon), it became the most notorious grimoire of popular French culture and the model for the image of the sorcerer who bargains with the Devil for gold.

A chapbook with a false pedigree§

The Grand Grimoire belongs to a family of small, cheaply printed magic books that French publishers produced from the mid-eighteenth century onward, often in the format of the Bibliothèque bleue, the blue-covered popular literature associated with printers in Troyes and later Paris and other provincial towns. These books gave themselves impressive origins: Rome, Memphis or the court of Solomon, and dates in the Middle Ages or Renaissance. Editions of the Grand Grimoire bear imprints dated 1421, 1522 and other years, and the text presents itself as edited by "Antonio Venitiana del Rabina" from the writings of King Solomon.

None of this can be taken literally. Owen Davies and other bibliographers have shown that the surviving editions belong to the late eighteenth or, more often, the nineteenth century; the closely related Dragon rouge, which carries the date 1521, is usually placed in the early 1820s. The material draws on older Solomonic manuscripts, especially the French versions of the Key of Solomon, but the Grand Grimoire is a new compilation, shaped for a reading public that wanted the Devil rather than a learned system of angels and planetary hours.

Structure and contents of the book§

The book usually opens with a preface warning the reader of the dangers of the art and insisting on its Solomonic authority. The first part describes the preparations required of the operator — a period of purity, the making of a "blasting rod" (verge foudroyante) of hazel, and the preparation of a circle — and gives a long "Grand Conjuration". The second part, often called the Sanctum Regnum, describes the spirits and the method of making pacts with them, and many editions close with a miscellany of "secrets": charms for love, for winning at games, for finding lost things or protecting against harm, of the kind found in the Petit Albert and other books of popular magic.

The rituals are a coarsened version of those in the older Solomonic manuscripts. Like them, they combine Christian prayers and divine names with threats to compel the spirit; unlike them, they openly name the Devil's ministers and present the pact as the goal. Historians read these passages as literary artefacts that reveal what eighteenth- and nineteenth-century readers imagined black magic to be, not as surviving secret practice; the present article describes them only in outline.

Lucifuge Rofocale and the hierarchy of Hell§

The best-known feature of the Grand Grimoire is its infernal hierarchy. At its head stand three "superior spirits": Lucifer, emperor; Beelzebuth, prince; and Astaroth, grand duke. Beneath them are six "inferior spirits" who serve as their ministers:

• Lucifuge Rofocale, prime minister, who has power over wealth and the treasures of the world;
• Satanachia, commander-in-chief, said to have power over women;
• Agaliarept and Fleurety, generals;
• Sargatanas, a brigadier;
• Nebiros, a field marshal and inspector-general.

Below them, the text says, serve eighteen further spirits, many of whose names are borrowed from older catalogues such as Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. A very similar arrangement appears in the Grimorium Verum, and the two books clearly share a source or borrow from each other.

The name Lucifuge is a pointed inversion of Lucifer: where Lucifer is the "light-bearer", Lucifuge is the one who "flees the light". The meaning of "Rofocale" is obscure, and modern explanations of it are speculation. The figure is a product of the French grimoire tradition and has no earlier history in theology or in medieval magic. Through the Dictionnaire infernal and later occult literature, however, he became one of the best-known demons of the modern imagination, illustrated in the Grand Grimoire itself by a woodcut of a horned figure.

The pact and the art of cheating the Devil§

The narrative heart of the book is a dialogue between the operator and Lucifuge. The spirit appears and offers his service only on condition that the operator give himself to him after a term of years — twenty, in the usual text. The operator refuses, threatens the spirit with the power of the divine names and the "Grand Conjuration", and finally obtains a bargain in which Lucifuge must lead him to a treasure while receiving only a token in return. The written "pact" in the Grand Grimoire is therefore, paradoxically, an agreement in which the magician tries not to sell his soul.

This structure reflects two older traditions. One is the Solomonic idea, going back to the Testament of Solomon, that a righteous operator commands demons by God's authority. The other is the folk tale of the Devil outwitted — the peasant, saint or soldier who bargains with the Devil and keeps his soul by a trick. The book's readers could enjoy the thrill of the pact while being reassured that a clever and well-armed magician need not be damned. Its theological critics, of course, saw any such dealing as damnable in itself, as explained in the Devil's pact in history and legend.

The emphasis on treasure is significant. Treasure-hunting with the help of spirits was one of the commonest motives for magic in early modern Europe, and trial records from France, Germany and England show groups of artisans, clerics and peasants pooling money for a magician who promised to raise the guardian spirit of a hidden hoard. The Grand Grimoire turned this widespread practice into a printed fantasy.

The Red Dragon and related books§

Le Dragon rouge reproduces most of the Grand Grimoire under a different title, and the two are often treated as versions of one work. Related French titles include the Grimoire of Pope Honorius, the Poule noire (Black Pullet) and the Grimorium Verum. They were sold by pedlars, printed in Belgium, Italy and Spain, and carried across the Atlantic. In France, priests complained of parishioners who believed that possessing such a book put them in danger of damnation, and folklore told of grimoires that returned to their owner however often they were thrown away. Davies' Grimoires: A History of Magic Books is the essential guide to this international circulation.

Lévi, Waite and the modern reputation§

Nineteenth-century occultists treated the Grand Grimoire as the embodiment of degraded black magic. Éliphas Lévi discussed its evocations and its pact in his Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (1854–56) as an example of the dangerous follies he distinguished from true high magic, while clearly enjoying the material. A. E. Waite translated large parts of it in The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts (1898), reissued as The Book of Ceremonial Magic in 1911, with commentary that combined scholarly comparison and open contempt. Through Waite's editions, Lucifuge Rofocale and his colleagues entered English-language occultism, fiction and later popular culture. The French context is described in French occultism from Lévi to Papus, and the text itself is listed in the catalogue as Le Grand Grimoire.

Frequently asked questions§

How old is the Grand Grimoire?§

Despite title pages dated 1421 or 1522, the surviving editions are generally dated to the late eighteenth or nineteenth century. It draws on older Solomonic manuscripts but is itself a product of the French popular book trade.

Who is Lucifuge Rofocale?§

In the Grand Grimoire he is the "Prime Minister" of Hell, serving under Lucifer, Beelzebuth and Astaroth and controlling the world's treasures. He appears to be an invention of the French grimoire tradition; his name inverts Lucifer's, meaning "one who flees the light".

What is the difference between the Grand Grimoire and the Red Dragon?§

The Red Dragon (Le Dragon rouge) is essentially another edition of the same material under a different title and false date. Bibliographers treat them as two branches of one text.

Is the Grand Grimoire connected to King Solomon?§

Only by claim. It borrows features from the Key of Solomon and invokes Solomon's authority, but it has no historical link to the biblical king or to the ancient world.

Sources and further reading§

• Grimoires: A History of Magic Books — Owen Davies, 2009
• The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts — A. E. Waite, 1898
• The Book of Ceremonial Magic — A. E. Waite, 1911
• Dogme et rituel de la haute magie — Éliphas Lévi, 1856
• The True Grimoire — Jake Stratton-Kent, 2009
• Dictionnaire infernal — Jacques Collin de Plancy, 1818