Grimoire

Grimoires (literally, "grammars") were used much more by sorcerers, wizards, and early church officials than by witches. A grimoire is a book of black magic, a book on which a wizard relied for all the necessary advice and instruction on raising spirits. However, grimoires are weighty and nearly impenetrable books. They were usually written in dead languages and were filled with arcane lore. This obfuscation was necessary to fend off amateurs and dilettantes, as well as to reward the wizard

willing to put in the required time and effort. If you could get through the grimoire itself, you were halfway to meeting a demon.

Two of the most famous of grimoires are the Key of Solomon, or Greater Key, and the Lesser Key of Solomon, or The Lemegeton. Some people believed these were written by King Solomon himself, whereas others believed they were written by demons and given to the king. These books were thought to have held the power to unlock occult wisdom and powers. They were called Keys because of the Scripture in Matthew 16:19, where Jesus says to Peter, "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Another grimoire is the Grimoire of Honorius, a catalogue of fallen angels and how to raise them. This book was credited to Pope Honorius III, who succeeded Pope Innocent III in 1216. The Grimoire of Honorius was full of Christian benedictions and formulae. "It not only instructed priests in the arts of demonology but virtually ordered them to learn how to conjure and control demons, as part of their job."

The introduction to the Grimoire of Honorius reads like a modern-day sales pitch:

But until the time of this Constitution, only the Ruling Pontificate has possessed the virtue and the power to command the spirits and invoking them. Now his Holiness, Honorius III, having become mellowed by his pastoral duties, has kindly decided to transmit the methods and ability to invoking and controlling spirits, to his brothers in Jesus Christ, the revered ones.