How to write books that cast a spell over your reader and change them forever.
What is a book of power?
Our culture, and indeed many cultures across the world, are full of legends about magical books containing forbidden knowledge, sources of energy, or secrets that might elevate one to the level of a god – or at least a wizard. In my own travels and explorations of the occult, I have encountered many such rumoured tomes, all of which, to a degree, made the same promises: the power to fly, to create wealth, turn invisible, even to move mountains.
The greatest books, the true “books of power”, are themselves spells that work upon the unconscious of the reader.
One of my favourite occult theories around “books of power” is that of the oneiric grimoires – books accessible only upon astral or dream-planes. One cannot ever “own” such a book, one can merely access it in states of altered consciousness. Attempts to write these books down in full invariably go badly; madness and death seem to await those who try to defy divine decree and manifest the un-manifestable.
The occultist Kenneth Grant theorised that Lovecraft’s Necronomicon was one such oneiric tome, and that unwittingly the atheist writer accessed it through dream, leading to the creation of the Mythos we know today. Certainly, one feels Lovecraft “doth protest too much” when it comes to the alleged “fiction” of his writing, endlessly insisting in his letters to friends and admirers none of it is real, which surely would be so obvious as to require no justification. Unless, of course, deep down Lovecraft himself feared maybe some of it was real.
Now that’s a scary thought.
I have my own collection of grimoires. I possess books once banned, books containing ritual methodologies which would make most peoples’ skin crawl, books of which only a few hundred copies exist in the entire world. There is one tome I possess which is referred to by those in my circle as simply “his black book”, and despite the courage, strength (or indeed skepticism) of my friends, they refuse to read even a line of it. The irony of this is that my black book is by far one of the least potent talismans in my possession.
I tell you this not to “flex” my library, but merely to illustrate one important point. Whilst many spell-tomes or grimoires plead their significance by virtue of their inclusion of recipes for potions, ritual mechanics, or the lexicon of demonic, angelic, astrological, or elemental names, none of these books are truly magical, or powerful, in the most potent sense. Ultimately, many of these books rely, much like businesses do, upon assuring that “their formula works best” and will “produce results”. Whilst fascinating, and not entirely without merit, any power derived through deploying rituals or recipes learned from such books is circumstantially effective at best.
The greatest books, the true “books of power”, are themselves spells that work upon the unconscious of the reader. They use words as symbols which they bury deep within the psyche, only to activate them at a later stage, rather like the spores of a fungal node bursting into life within the mind of an ant. However, unlike fungal spores, which take over the ant and rob them of agency, these spores catalyst change not death; in fact, they precipitate far greater agency because they remove the previous shackles of limited thought.
They infiltrate the human mind through the back-door of subconscious dream-language. They speak directly to that which is buried deep within us.
I refer to these tomes – and they are rare – as “oneiric psycho-agents”. They alter and shape the dreams and desires of the reader, which in turn reshapes who they are as person. In some ways they operate similarly to a magic mushroom trip, though with far less ambiguity attached, and far greater precision and efficacy. They infiltrate the human mind through the back-door of subconscious dream-language. They speak directly to that which is buried deep within us. Such books are powerful beyond measure. Merely to read them is to feel one’s essential being changing, to open one’s perception to a whole new realm, to activate a dormant current within the Self.
A mage who can author such a book is not to be trifled with. Such writers have harnessed and understood the power of the Word. Words are, after all, magical forces. Words spoke the universe into being. We feel this every time we pick up a fantasy novel and read of worlds hitherto unmapped: the raw energy of unbounded creation. The religion of modern science may ever claim otherwise, as is its want to destroy human imagination, but the spiritual truth remains unassailable because it is experienced, it is lived.
As writers, we must not seek to write works that have only superficial power by virtue of what they include – whether that be popular genre elements, modern zeitgeists, new information, or pop-culture references. We should seek a deeper and more profound power: that of transforming the dreams and desires of whomever should read our work, so that they might become all they were ever meant to be.
And who knows, maybe they’ll fly after all?
Learn the magic behind good writing.
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WHY ME?
As someone who helps upcoming writers refine and structure their work, I get a lot of questions about my craft: how I do what I do, the secret knowledge of how narrative works. All great writing is built on a deep philosophy which, at least in a healthy organism, evolves over time and with greater learning and understanding. Many people look to me for guidance about the underlying principles of narrative and how to work spells upon your reader.
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