The Book of Forbidden Knowledge: Black Magic, Superstition, Charms, and Divination

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At just two chapters long in its first edition, the book is filled with colourful tables, prayer charts and numerological ciphers to help figure out hidden meanings, a study that became known as Ilm al-Huruf. Andrea sat there beside me, holding on to my arm. Maybe I yelled, maybe I just sat there. I really don’t remember. She knew why I was hurting but she let me tell her anyway. It wasn’t that an innocent kid was dead. It wasn’t that his killer was acquitted. I’d known as long as I’d known anything to expect such atrocities from this country, our home. That was on brand. An English version of the the lengthier book was published in 2022 and is available online, where it’s described as “assist[ing] those unfamiliar with Islamic magic and culture”.

I think about work in a different way. There are people who are prone to want to be the leader of a large organization. Those are a small subset. I’m more passionate about trying to build something out of the thought leadership and concepts I think are worthwhile, and then organize a movement around that rather than taking over what already exists. If you can get past this, The Haunting of Toby Jugg is a masterpiece. I have frequently cited it as the scariest book I’ve ever read and I stand by it. The first time Toby hears the “Devil’s” rapping at his window is a masterclass in how to write suspense. The atmosphere, the mounting sense of insanity and evil, all of these things are handled so well throughout the novel, I still find myself breaking out in a sweat even writing about it. I think while it’s important to view the protagonist’s (or indeed the author’s) politics with an appropriate level of critical thinking, it’s a crying shame to miss out on such flawlessly written, timeless horror as a result of them. All of the recommended books are relatively new. They’re condensed versions of various grimoires from centuries ago, along with new discoveries and peculiarities of the writer in question. If you haven’t read occult classics on which most of these works are based on, perhaps you should also include them on your reading list. These are the most important ones: Using letters and numbers, al-Buni created elaborate charts, later described as magic squares, which were written in accordance with planetary alignments.The Devil Rides Out (1934) – a novel by Dennis Wheatley – made into a famous film by Hammer Studios in 1968. While I enjoy an occasional E.A Koetting video, reading is still the best way of learning about any form of magic. The reason why I recommended mostly modern works first is because the writers condensed and extracted the most important information from older works. Ed: Up to eighth grade, I was part of a gifted and talented program, so I didn’t go to the neighborhood schools. I might see the neighborhood kids for an hour or two on weekends, but I was separate from them too. That led to something my dad and I always talk about: neighborhood rules. I wasn’t allowed to talk to the neighborhood kids about how smart I was. I wasn’t allowed to talk about what kind of stuff my family had in the house. I wasn’t allowed to talk about the experiences I had because in my dad’s perspective—and he was right about most of it—in the type of neighborhood we were in, people see that stuff and they try to take it. The Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton): All five books. This famous 16-17th century grimoire was compiled from earlier texts. It was considered important by Crowley, Mathers, Waite, and others. The scrying methods correspond closely with Dee’s. I had someone ask me once, “Why do you keep doing more stuff? You’ve done so much. Why don’t you just stop?” I don’t know why I never stopped. That’s something for a psychiatrist to deal with.

In high school, I began to jot down the rules in business that I learned at our dinner table boardroom. I’ve paraphrased some of them here: Every name he studies has a certain power associated with it, he writes, so reciting "Al-Alim" (the knowledgable) a specific number of times grants the believer access to divine knowledge, while reciting "Al-Qawwiy" (the strong) offers divine protection. Tarlin: I don’t feel like that place is close. What I do know is that I’m extraordinarily fortunate. Shimamura, Ippei (2004). "Yellow Shamans (Mongolia)". In Walter, Mariko Namba; Neumann Fridman, Eva Jane (eds.). Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture. Vol.1. ABC-CLIO. pp.649–651. ISBN 978-1576076453.Ed: I think that because I spent a lot of time by myself, throughout my youth, I did develop a capability to think independently and to only be moved by better information and not by who it was coming from. And I think that is an advantage that plays out today and will play out in spades as my life continues to evolve. I think that I understood the importance of doing my own research and creating my own perspectives on things and fitting other people’s information into that, versus starting with other people’s information and then figuring out how much I could do with that until I have to start thinking for myself. Heiduk, Matthias; Herbers, Klaus; Lehner, Hans-Christian, eds. (2020). Prognostication in the Medieval World: A Handbook. De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3110499773.