8 Mysterious Medieval Books That Become More Terrifying the More You Learn About Them

by a single scribe, a task that should have taken 30 years to complete. Sometimes, the Codex Gigas is also called the “Devil’s Bible” because it contains a massive illustration of the Devil. Legend has it that a monk, awaiting execution for his sins, begged a higher power to spare his life if he could create a masterpiece in just one night. The monk then sold his soul to Satan in exchange for the Devil’s help, producing the Codex Gigas before dawn and sealing the pact with a large illustration of the Devil inside the book.

The Picatrix Contains Recipes Blending Blood, Semen, Urine, and Opium This 11th-century Arabic magical text has long been considered obscene due to its content. Besides being a scholarly work filled with philosophy, astrology, and medieval science, the Picatrix also includes recipes for mixing human and animal blood, brains, urine, and other bodily fluids with opium and dangerous substances to achieve various magical results. For example, one charm “allows you to appear in the form of any animal you wish.” To do so, you need to take the semen of a healthy man, place it in an eggshell with the semen of the animal you wish to transform into, then bury the egg in warm dung to incubate for three days.

The Grimoire The Grand Grimoire Teaches How to Summon and Control Demons Looking to make a pact with the Devil? The Grand Grimoire (also known as the Red Dragon) will provide what you need. This guide instructs the reader on how to summon a demon and make a pact with it, forcing it to follow your commands. Reputedly based on the Bible of King Solomon, The Grand Grimoire is still used by some Haitian Vodou practitioners. The true book is currently kept in the Vatican’s secret archives, with rumors that it cannot be destroyed by any means, not even fire.

The Satanic Bible Contains Rituals for Sex, Compassion, and Destruction Considered the foundational text for contemporary Satanism, The Satanic Bible contains essays and rituals by the infamous “Black Pope,” Anton LaVey. Anton LaVey held many professions before delving deep into Satanism: “He was once a lion trainer for Clyde Beatty Circus, then a professional organizer, oboist, crime scene photographer, artist, hypnotist, and psychic investigator.” The Satanic Bible is divided into four parts: Satan, Lucifer, Belial, and Leviathan. The Book of Belial contains magical rituals for “sex, compassion, and destruction.” The Book of Leviathan also includes invocations for these three, including an invocation of Satan.

The Voynich Manuscript Is Filled with Unexplainable Surreal Drawings With drawings of naked women, bizarre symbols, and undecipherable words, no one truly understands what the Voynich Manuscript is about. This colorful and detailed manuscript is quite vague and mysterious, covering everything from medicinal plants to zodiac symbols. Overall, we still haven’t discovered its purpose. The book is believed to have originated in Central Europe in the late 15th or early 16th century. Scholars aren’t even sure what language it’s written in, who wrote it, exactly when, where, or why.

The Mysterious Book of Soyga Vanished for Hundreds of Years Queen Elizabeth I’s advisor, John Dee, was a mathematician and astronomer. John Dee, who was also fascinated by the mystical, attempted to decipher a strange Latin book of magic called Soyga, also known as Aldaraia or “the book of death.” The book disappeared after Dee’s death in the early 17th century, then reappeared in 1994 with two copies, one in the British Library and one in the Bodleian Library. Scholars are still trying to unravel its mysteries, but so far, they only know that it is a book about demonology, magical charms, and astrology. The Book of Soyga also contains the names and genealogies of angels. Its final pages include a series of undecipherable letters. John Dee spent most of his life trying to communicate with angels. Dee claimed he asked the angel Uriel to help him understand Soyga but was advised that only the archangel Michael could interpret it.

The Oera Linda Book Was Popular with Occult Nazi Groups The Oera Linda Book is considered a forgery by many, not a genuine ancient text. However, it was a favorite book of Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler, who once considered it the Nordic Bible. He believed that the Indo-Iranian people were the original inhabitants of Atlantis. Furthermore, he thought the Nordic people pioneered all Western civilizations, crediting them with the development of the Mediterranean, Middle East, and other regions. To this day, some neo-Nazis and other fringe thinkers still claim the book is real and accurate.

The Munich Handbook Is Entirely About Dark Magic Also known as The Necromancer’s Manual, this 15th-century Latin magic book is solely about demonology and dark necromancy. The Munich Handbook is divided into three parts. The first is about illusory magic used to trick people into seeing things that don’t exist. The second is psychological magic, using emotions to gain superhuman power. Finally, there’s divinatory magic, which allows a person to “see” into the past or future. One of the book’s most famous and terrifying sections includes instructions on how to create the “Lilith’s dark mirror” for divination purposes.