Talk:Grimoire
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Moved from mythology of demons, needing cleanup before insertion into some article:
- According to some grimoires, the demons will even warn you about their ward (their special defence against particular weapons e.g. swords). However they can never be dissuaded from fulfilling their mission. For every demon, those books describe his/her properties, looks, what he might do for someone who calls him. They also describe a ritual, curse, spell or similar to do when conjuring a demon in order to restrain him and keep him from taking over control. Some books also give specific "sigils" for individual demons that can be used to call and bind the demon. According to contemporary magicians, a sigil is a type of signature or symbol of intent. Sigils incorporated with other influences can add great direction and focus to spellwork. Sigils can be traced in air, carved on candles, drawn on paper and burned etc.
Sean Curtin 01:03, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Pronunciation
The pronunciation I've heard is GRIM-uh-ree. I'm getting the feeling that this is at best an uncommon pronunciation. Has anyone else heard it pronounced like this? --Spikey 00:02, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)
- It's pronounced as in the French: 'GRIM-wahr.'
[edit] pronunciation
Yeah, good catch. It seems to be more like 'greem-WAH' in the French, but that's a really subtle distinction. In English, I've only heard the first syllable stressed.
[edit] Category
I've removed Category:Magic and Category:Books by type as per Wikipedia:Categorization/Categories and subcategories. They are both parent categories of Category:Grimoires, and an article normally should not be in both a category and its subcategory. --BorgQueen 14:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Necronomicon IS NOT a real grimoire
The Necronomicon ALWAYS existed in the realm of fiction. There are several books that purport to be the one described in Lovecraftian fiction, most however, are self-consciously fictitious. The only one that truly claims to be the real thing is the so-called "Simon Necronomicon," which is universally regarded as a fraud [citation needed]. It is not only inconsistent with Sumerian mythology, but also the Lovecraftian fiction it is inspired by [citation needed]. Now, of course, it could easily be said that historical grimoires are just as fictitious as the Necronomicon, but these, however, belong to a historical context. The Simon Necronomicon is nothing but a moneymaking ploy, attempting to capitalize on the gullible who believe the books in Lovecraft's fiction are actually real.
- Someone dropped in citation needed tags here. Now consider this: there are a lot of Lovecraft fans out there, as well as dabblers in "sinister" sounding occultism. There's a lucrative market for this kind of thing, face it. If it didn't exist, someone would write it. In fact several necronomicons have been written, each claiming to be the "real" version, and only one of them (if any) can be real! So we know that there's a small industry in inventing necronomicons; what evidence do we have that the Simon Necronomicon isn't just another of these inventions? Lets compare. Evidence for the Simon Necronomican being authentic:
- the book's blurb says it's authentic;
- Another book (ostensibly by the same anonymous author) says it's authentic (and rakes in even more money).
- Evidence that it's a hoax:
- We have no identifiable author, editor, finder, seller or buyer;
- we have no manuscript!
- We have no mention of such a manuscript prior to Lovecraft;
- we have no mention of the "Simon" manuscript prior to its printing by Schlangekraft Inc half a century after Lovecraft was writing;
- we have the highly believable claim of Lovecraft himself that it is fiction (and he should know);
- we have the fact of its inconsistency with any ancient mythology (and even if it were consistent, that would only demonstrate that they'd taken more care in writing it);
- we have a strong monetary motive for inventing such a book.
- If there's really compelling evidence supporting the antiquity of this book, then let us know by all means. The burden of proof lies with you. I'm ready to be convinced. I'm also ready to be convinced that Harry Potter is a real person who actually attended a school called Hogwarts. I just want to see really solid proof. :) Fuzzypeg☻ 13:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
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- As I see it, the issue is not whether the Simon Necronomicon is provably true, since no book used as a sacred text or grimoire can be proven "true." The question is whether people use the Simon Necronomicon as a grimoire. At Sacred Magic, for instance, there is an active community of people who use the Simon Necronomicon as a grimoire. Thus, it is a "real" grimoire in the sense that people use it as such, just like the Bible is a "real" sacred text to Jews and Christians, despite the fact that none of the original manuscripts exist and its authorship is mostly unknown. There is further discussion at the talk page for Simon Necronomicon at Wikipedia.
- Samurai V 06:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
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- True, absolutely. The Simon Necronomicon has some power to it, and seems to me to have been written by a person with at least half a clue of what they were about — I recognise some of the places they've been to... the book is really only useful for self-destruction though, as far as I can make out. What I was responding to however was an editor's insistence that the book predated Lovecraft, a highly unlikely proposition. Fuzzypeg☻ 20:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] "In fiction" section
I can't see the point of this section. It just seems to be a list of trivia. The fictional representations of these books don't seem to add anything to the concept of "grimoire" that wasn't already present, apart from adding a bit of pizazz. If this section is trying to be a comprehensive list of fictional depictions, then someone's got their work cut out for them; if it's only intended to be significant contributions to the theme, then nothing so far listed seem significant.
I find the Xenosaga references particularly ridiculous. Some dried up games hacks named some characters "Grimoire Verum" and "Lemegeton" (after the books Grimoirum Verum and Lemegeton!) That's about as clever as those people who name their kids "Benson" and "Hedges"!
Anyone mind if I remove the section entirely? Fuzzypeg☻ 05:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
- Distill it down to the knowledge that the term is used in fantasy as well as real life, perhaps. (A book of magic called the Book Of Gramarye is featured which is presumably a derivation of Grimoire? Sorry, folks, if you don't know that Gramarye is another word for magic, you shouldn't be speculating here.) Goldfritha 00:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I've done this same distillation again. The purpose of these "popular culture" sections is, to my understanding, to explain the major references in popular fiction that have significantly shaped popular understanding of the term. If it's just some book or computer game that rehashes the same old "ancient scary magic book" concept, then it's not changing anything. According to WP:TRIVIA such references should, if they're valuable to the encyclopedia at all, be moved to their appropriate articles, e.g. the grimoire from Wicked should, if it's valuable, be mentioned in Wicked (musical), not here.
For comparison, let's take some other uncommon object, say a mask. The Mask article doesn't list every fantasy novel and computer game that involves masks. There's no point, and it would just bloat the article. Fuzzypeg★ 21:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Lists
I quote the manual of style:
Do not use bullets if the passage reads easily using plain paragraphs or indented paragraphs. If every paragraph in a section is bulleted, it is likely that none should be bulleted.
Nothing in there about doing it because items are unrelated. I am removing.Goldfritha 19:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] IPA transcription
I changed the IPA transcription. Since this is the English Wikipedia, and English doesn't have the [ʁ] phoneme, whether in "grimoire" or anywhere else, I replaced the [ʁ] sound with /r/ (changing the brackets to slashes accordingly, to indicate broad transcription)--Tabun1015 05:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Etymology
That "grammar" is any way derived from rhetoric or vice versa is patently absurd. Both are very ancient words (3,000 years, AT LEAST) and quite independent of each other. Rhetoric comes from a very ancient PIE root meaning speaker, and needs no help with other roots. It is quite related to "orator," probably equally ancient in its own right. Please do not suggest this again. Consult a dictionary.
[edit] Additional information
New material includes links to verifiable and credible sources.24.168.227.29 17:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Grimoires are magical books, mediaeval and later
I am under the impression that the word "grimoire" has a much more restrictive meaning that that expressed in the article. This English word, I believe, relates specifically to a genre of magical textbooks (relating to the invocation of angels and demons and such things) that started circulating in mediaeval Europe. By this definition, a scientific work would not be a grimoire (not magic), and neither would a Babylonian work (pre-mediaeval). I don't have access to the OED here at work, but dictionary.com certainly agrees with me... Can we have some citation if there are indeed other uses for the term? Fuzzypeg☻ 02:33, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
