The only thing I love reading more than books about myth and legend are books you’re not supposed to read. George Bataille once wrote that if you ever caught him producing a book that he risked nothing to write, you should throw it away, and I take that to heart. Every book should be dangerous, because only danger makes you think. I hope every book I’ve written is, in some sense, dangerous, although of course I also hope my readers do not get ripped to pieces by the devil. That’s a little too dangerous.
I wrote
Apprentice Academy: Sorcerers: The Unofficial Guide to the Magical Arts
John Faustus is the original bad influence. He makes a deal with the devil for absolute power, uses his new power to play childish pranks on people, and has a pretty good but stupid time until the devil shows up one day and literally rips him to pieces. Didn’t think that one through, did you, John?
If you get caught reading this book, try saying something like, “Well, now I know not to do that!” But, still, those pranks of his sound fun…
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Some guy in Egypt realized long ago that you can create illusions, fly through the air, change your body into whatever you want, or “demolish buildings and castles,” all by writing out little crossword puzzles.
Like a fool, he recorded his method and handed it to some German dude, who passed the information along, and now it’s just in a book anyone can buy? All those secret crossword puzzles of power? Oh, man, if they catch you with this one, watch out, because people are really fond of their buildings and castles, and they do not have a sense of humor about their unscheduled demolition.
Around the turn of the century, when Aleister Crowley was working out his system of Magick, the source that he turned to for basics was the system of Abramelin of Egypt. From Abramelin he took his concepts of protections, purifications, evocations, vestments, and dromena down to specific details. This system of Abramelin the Mage is known from a unique fifteenth century manuscript preserved in the Bibliothèque de L'Arsenal in Paris. In it, Abraham of Würzburg, a cabalist and connoisseur of magics, describes a tour that he made of the then civilized world, visiting sorcerers, magicians, and cabalists, estimating their powers…
When Jennifer Shea married Russel Redmond, they made a decision to spend their honeymoon at sea, sailing in Mexico. The voyage tested their new relationship, not just through rocky waters and unexpected weather, but in all the ways that living on a twenty-six-foot sailboat make one reconsider what's truly important.…
Not necessarily the world’s first novel (the world’s first novel is probably lost) nor even the world’s first great novel (that would be Petronius’ Satyricon, which you should also not get caught reading), The Golden Ass is definitely the world’s first great novel that has survived through the centuries intact.
It’s the story of a man who tries just one time to dabble in magic and accidentally turns himself into a donkey. The poor guy has a bunch of adventures as he tries to figure out how to, you know, stop being a donkey.
That doesn’t sound so bad, but no one’s ever going to let you read a book with the title The Golden Ass. It just means the golden donkey! There’s nothing filthy about it! But no one will believe you!
Written towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed into a donkey. The bewitched Lucius passes from owner to owner - encountering a desperate gang of robbers and being forced to perform lewd 'human' tricks on stage - until the Goddess Isis finally breaks the spell and Lucius is initiated into her cult. Apuleius' enchanting story has inspired generations of writers such as Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Keats with its dazzling combination of allegory, satire, bawdiness and…
Katharine Briggs spent her whole life learning every single thing about every fairy, goblin, bogie, and sprite, and she put it all in one book.
Now, fairies are famous for their dislike of being talked about—cautious people refer to them as “the fair folk” or “the people of peace” so as not to offend. But Briggs put it right in the title! An Encyclopedia of Fairies! That was a very dangerous thing to do.
If your parents know anything about anything, they will object to your reading a book so dangerous. Still, you’ve got to learn these things sometime, don’t you?
A complete guide to fairy lore from the Middle Ages to the present. Both an anthology of fairy tales and a reference work with essays about the fairy economy, food, sports, powers and more.
This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to…
Seven hundred years ago, someone (no one knows who) wrote a book full of mysterious letters and even more mysterious drawings of unknown plants described in unreadable paragraphs.
For centuries, people have struggled to eke some meaning from the book’s pages. Cryptologist William F. Friedman (the man who broke the Japanese code in WWII) spent his life trying to decipher the book. And all in vain.
No one knows what information the book contains. It could be anything! Simple steps for building a hydrogen bomb? Your parents’ deepest, darkest bathroom secrets? Maps of Atlantis? Maybe! This is the most dangerous book in the world!
The first authorized copy of this mysterious, much-speculated-upon, one-of-a-kind, centuries-old puzzle
"For the first time, a complete reproduction [of] The Voynich Manuscript, has been published, featuring essays exploring what is known about the book and extra-wide margins so readers can record their responses to its beguiling, beautiful strangeness."-Nina Maclaughlin, Boston Globe
"For people who like a good historical mystery, this . . . fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Voynich Manuscript will fascinate."-Rebecca Onion, Slate
Many call the fifteenth-century codex, commonly known as the "Voynich Manuscript," the world's most mysterious book. Written in an unknown script by an unknown author, the manuscript has…
For readers who have always wanted to enroll in a school for magic—be it Hogwarts with Harry Potter or Camp Halfblood with Percy Jackson! Wizard lovers will delight in pretending they’re learning magic from a cheat sheet handbook from an elite school for sorcery.
Welcome to the Apprentice Academy. Congratulations on your acceptance to one of the world’s finest institutions for sorcery. Your course of study here will be long and perilous, but this book of sorcery skills and fascinating tales from the world of magic will help you along the way—ideally with all your limbs and wits intact.
Constance is a wild, stubborn young girl growing up poor in a small industrial town in the late 1800's. Beneath her thread-worn exterior beats the heart of a dreamer and a wordsmith. But at age twelve, she’s orphaned. Running away to join the circus—like kids do in adventure books—seems like…
Who was the man who would become Caesar's lieutenant, Brutus' rival, Cleopatra's lover, and Octavian's enemy?
When his stepfather is executed for his involvement in the Catilinarian conspiracy, Mark Antony and his family are disgraced. His adolescence is marked by scandal and mischief, his love affairs are fleeting, and yet,…
