Le Grand Grimoire

Le Grand Grimoire is the most notorious of the French 'black' grimoires, famous for its pact with the demon Lucifuge Rofocale. Its title pages claim impossible antiquity, with dates of 1421 or 1522 and an editor named Antonio Venitiana del Rabina, but the surviving editions belong to the popular book trade of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and Joseph Peterson sees no evidence that it is older than about 1800. A closely related text circulated as Le Dragon Rouge. The book opens with prayers and preparations, then describes the cutting of the blasting rod, the drawing of the Kabbalistic circle, and the conjuration of Lucifer and of his prime minister Lucifuge Rofocale, who is persuaded through threats to grant access to hidden treasure in exchange for a pact; the text famously advises the operator on how to evade the spirit's terms. A second book, the Sanctum Regnum, gives the method of making pacts with the principal infernal spirits and lists their powers, followed by tables of lucky and unlucky days and a miscellany of secrets. The archive presents the Paris edition of 1845 with Waite's English translation of 1898 and Peterson's corrections, an undated French edition titled L'Art de commander les esprits whose spellings and illustrations differ, and a modern Italian version. The Grand Grimoire's imagery strongly shaped popular and literary ideas of diabolical pacts and later Satanic esotericism.

What it contains

• Preparatory prayers and abstinence
• Cutting and consecrating the blasting rod
• The Kabbalistic circle
• Conjuration of Lucifer and Lucifuge Rofocale
• Pact for hidden treasure
• Sanctum Regnum: pacts with principal infernal spirits
• Lucky and unlucky days and a collection of secrets