Grand Grimoire

Frontispiece for an edition of The Grand Grimoire

The Grand Grimoire, also known as Le Dragon Rouge or The Red Dragon, is a black magic[1] goetic grimoire. Different editions date the book to 1521, 1522 or 1421. Owen Davies suggests 1702 is when the first edition may have been created and a Bibliothèque bleue version (a popular edition, similar to a chapbook) of the text may have been published in 1750.[2] The 19th-century French occultist Éliphas Lévi considered the contemporary edition of Le Dragon Rouge to be a counterfeit of a true, older Grand Grimoire.[3]

The "introductory chapter"[4] was written by Antonio Venitiana del Rabina, who said he had gathered his information from original writings of King Solomon.[5] Much of the material of this grimoire derives from the Key of Solomon and the Lesser Key of Solomon, pseudepigraphical grimoires attributed to King Solomon.[6] The first book contains instructions for summoning Lucifer or Lucifuge Rofocale, for the purpose of forming a deal with the Devil.

  1. ^ Waite (2020), Introduction to The Grand Grimoire.
  2. ^ Davies (2009), p. 101.
  3. ^ Lévi (1861), p. [page needed].
  4. ^ Venitiana (1845).
  5. ^ Spence (2006).
  6. ^ Butler (1998), p. 80.