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00:00For as long as mankind can remember,
00:02the written word has served as a portal
00:04to incredible knowledge,
00:06sometimes passed down over thousands of years.
00:08But as enlightening as books can be,
00:10there are some you should never, ever read.
00:13From ancient tomes supposedly containing black magic
00:16to cursed texts that could lead to your demise,
00:19keep the lights on bright
00:20as we delve into the most mysterious books
00:23you should avoid reading at all costs.
00:30Demonic Dictionary.
00:35If you like horror movies,
00:36you might've seen Hereditary or The Nun,
00:38but did you know that the demonic deviance
00:40in those movies come straight out of a real life book?
00:43Yeah, known as the Lesser Key of Solomon,
00:46this infamous tome is probably the most influential grimoire
00:50or book of magic of its kind.
00:52The book is composed of five different texts
00:54written across hundreds of years
00:56and first appeared as a collection in the 17th century,
00:59back when magic was commonly believed to exist.
01:02Mysteriously though, nobody knows who wrote it.
01:05What we do know is that the Ghastly Grimoire
01:07contains supposed spells and information
01:10on how to summon a whopping 72 demons.
01:13That includes King Paimon,
01:15the demon from Hereditary,
01:17and Valak, who features in The Nun.
01:19A nice bit of light reading then.
01:21Seriously though, why would you summon a demon?
01:23Well, they're said to possess great knowledge and power
01:26that they can impart with you for a prize.
01:28And it's usually a big one.
01:30You see, demons were believed to be notoriously tricky.
01:34One minute you could be hitting up your local fiend
01:36for some mad knowledge,
01:37and the next, whoopsie, you just got possessed.
01:40Apparently a 14th century French monk named John of Morigny
01:43devoutly followed the teachings of one of the texts
01:46in the Lesser Key.
01:47Rather than receiving knowledge or wisdom, however,
01:50he was cursed with horrific demonic visions.
01:53Yikes.
01:54The monk was so traumatized
01:55that he wrote his own manuscript
01:57warning people to stay away from the text.
01:59Even if you're not planning on messing with any magic though,
02:02you should still steer clear.
02:04People who merely read the original manuscript
02:06have reported the book's pages turning by itself,
02:09and ghostly figures appearing to torment them.
02:11Yeah, I'll just stick to my copy
02:13of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, thanks.
02:17Ghastly Gospel.
02:19You've probably heard of the Gospel.
02:21You know, Christianity's ultimate message
02:23of Jesus Christ's love.
02:25Aw, how wholesome.
02:27But there's another Gospel too,
02:29and it's not quite as friendly.
02:31The Grand Grimoire, aka the Gospel of Satan,
02:34is an unsettling text supposedly written back in 1520
02:37by a man named Honorius of Thebes,
02:40who just so happened to be possessed by the devil.
02:43As you can imagine then,
02:44it doesn't contain a great Bundt cake recipe.
02:47Instead, the Grand Grimoire goes into great detail,
02:50claiming how every new pope is systematically corrupted
02:53by the devil, and also gives the reader the tools
02:55to summon Lucifer themselves.
02:57Some versions even contain instructions for necromancy,
03:00that is, the resurrection of the dead.
03:03Jeepers.
03:04As such, the book is regarded as one of the most powerful
03:06black magic tomes in existence.
03:08Seriously, just opening it is apparently akin
03:11to signing your soul to the devil.
03:13Needless to say, that's not the best career move.
03:16While you can buy copies of Satan's Gospel,
03:18these imitations allegedly don't have nearly the power
03:21of the original.
03:22In fact, the original text is so dangerous,
03:25it's locked away in the Vatican secret archives.
03:28That's right, it might sound like something out of
03:29the Da Vinci Code, but incredibly, it's true.
03:32On the bright side, that'll definitely make it easier for you
03:35to keep your mitts off it.
03:36You can put those mitts to much better use
03:38by smashing the like and subscribe buttons down below.
03:41That way you'll never miss out
03:42on any of my amazing videos again.
03:44And I promise none of them are cursed.
03:47Now let's get back to it.
03:50A Hexed Historia.
03:52I love a good adventure story.
03:54So if I didn't know much about the Spanish adventure novel,
03:57An Orphan Story, or Historia Del Jorofano,
04:00I might pick it up for a read.
04:01But I do know about it, so I definitely won't.
04:04That's because despite being written way back
04:06in the 17th century, it remained unpublished for 400 years,
04:10supposedly due to a curse that struck down anyone
04:13who tried to do so.
04:14Ooh, spooky.
04:16When Peruvian academic Belinda Palacios found out
04:19about the archived manuscript in 2016, however,
04:22she was determined to translate its handwritten words
04:25and type them out for a modern audience.
04:27I wouldn't have been so keen.
04:30As well as the original authors failed attempt
04:32to publish their work, subsequent tries by different people
04:35had all ended in tragedy.
04:36One caught a strange disease, another had a car accident,
04:40and yet another had their life cut short
04:42from a mysterious unknown cause.
04:44Geez, that's not very inspiring, is it?
04:46Indeed, the reports worried Palacios so much,
04:49she asked her friend to burn the manuscript
04:51if anything happened to her.
04:53Even so, she kept lugging away at it,
04:55and her efforts paid off.
04:56It was officially published in 2018
04:58without anybody suffering any harm.
05:01So it seems the curse has been broken at long last.
05:03That said, I still wouldn't risk giving this one a read.
05:06Give it a decade or so, then we'll know for sure.
05:11Black Ice.
05:13It can be incredibly exciting to discover
05:15a long-lost piece of literature.
05:17As recently as 2019, a religious text known
05:19as the Smuggler's Psalter was recovered
05:22after nearly 300 years in the ocean.
05:25Despite residing on a ship that had long been sunk,
05:27it was found preserved inside a tin can,
05:30meaning miraculously, it's still readable.
05:32Some lost books, however, should stay lost,
05:35like the Roskina.
05:36This unassuming tome was written
05:38by an Icelandic monk named Gotskalk Nicholson,
05:41who supposedly filled it with evil magic,
05:44ultimately seeking to bend the devil to his will
05:46and rule the world.
05:48Yikes.
05:49Luckily, he didn't get his wish,
05:50and when he passed in 1520,
05:52the grisly grimoire was buried with him.
05:55A couple of hundred years later, however,
05:56a shady Icelandic mage called Lufter heard about the book
05:59and wanted to learn its dark secrets himself.
06:02So he traveled to its burial place,
06:04a cathedral school in Huller,
06:06where Gotskalk had been bishop.
06:08Now it gets really wild.
06:10According to the legend,
06:11Lüfter managed to summon the departed monk's spirit
06:14and demanded he hand over the Ralskina.
06:17His mission was almost a success
06:19when a student standing in the belfry noticed the ghoulish scene.
06:22Wasting no time, he rang the church bells,
06:24dissipating the spirit.
06:26Lufter fled, but was taken by the sea on his journey home
06:29and dragged to the underworld in retaliation for his arrogance.
06:33As for the book,
06:34some say it was burned after the fiasco,
06:36but others are convinced it's still out there,
06:38maybe just waiting to be fished up like the smuggler Salter.
06:42Now, I think it's fair to say most of this is probably
06:45just a myth, but I'm not gonna go looking
06:47for the Ralskina to find out.
06:51The Big Bad Book.
06:53Man, that Satan sure does get around.
06:56I thought him penning one book was unlikely, but two?
06:59As well as his own gospel,
07:00he's apparently also responsible
07:02for this absolutely colossal tome.
07:05It's called the Codex Gigas, or Devil's Bible.
07:07At three feet tall and a whopping 165 pounds in weight,
07:12I don't envy whoever lugged it to its current home
07:14at the National Library of Sweden.
07:16But its size isn't even half
07:18of what makes this book so interesting.
07:19The tale goes that back in the 13th century
07:22in what's now the Czech Republic,
07:23a Benedictine monk named Herman Hermetis
07:26was found guilty of sinning.
07:28Because of this,
07:29he was sentenced to be walled up alive.
07:31Just before the last brick was placed,
07:33however, he begged for mercy.
07:35So the head monk offered old Herman a deal.
07:37If he could transcribe all of the world's knowledge
07:39into one book in a single night,
07:41he'd be spared, right?
07:43Knowing this would be impossible,
07:45Herman desperately prayed to the devil for help.
07:47To his shock, it worked.
07:49Out Satan popped and agreed to write
07:51the rest of the book for him,
07:52possibly by possessing the monk
07:54to write at superhuman speeds.
07:55In exchange, he only asked for one thing,
07:57Herman's soul, and apparently a nice portrait.
08:00Fair enough.
08:01The next day, the head monk checked in on Herman
08:03and was astonished that the task had been completed.
08:06Regardless of how likely this story is,
08:08the tome itself is very real,
08:10and it's undoubtedly impressive.
08:12It contains the Old and New Testaments of the Bible,
08:15various historical accounts,
08:16and instructions for casting spells and exorcisms,
08:19amongst other things.
08:20But the sheer amount of stuff in here means
08:22it should have taken at least 20 years to finish.
08:25Judging by the handwriting,
08:26the book does appear to have been penned by one hand.
08:29Normally though, people's handwriting changes with age,
08:32yet there's zero evidence of that happening here.
08:34Hmm, could it really have been written in just one night?
08:37What's more, the last 12 pages of the Codex are torn out,
08:40leading people to suspect they contain
08:42the very prayer Herman used to summon the devil.
08:45Ugh, could the legends be true?
08:47If so, who knew Satan was such a prolific ghostwriter?
08:53Stump by Soigo.
08:55I love a good crossword,
08:56but I'll admit they can stump me sometimes.
08:59For John Dee, though,
09:00advisor to Britain's Queen Elizabeth I,
09:02crosswords were the least of his problems.
09:05You see, back in the 1580s,
09:06John came into the possession of the Book of Soiga,
09:09a Latin treatise on demonology and magic.
09:12At the time, many people believed in magic,
09:14so he thought the book could be very useful.
09:16The only problem?
09:17The final 36 pages were written in code.
09:20Desperate to uncover the knowledge hidden within,
09:22John worked tirelessly to try and crack the code,
09:25but nothing seemed to work.
09:27Supposedly, he even summoned the archangel Uriel
09:30to ask for their help.
09:31However, Uriel told him something horrifying.
09:33The book was cursed, and anybody who managed
09:35to decipher its meaning would pass away
09:37two and a half years later.
09:39Apparently, disregarding the spooky threat, though,
09:42John carried on trying for the rest of his life,
09:44to no avail.
09:45Then, the book mysteriously vanished.
09:47Until, that is, nearly 400 years later,
09:50when a historian dug out a copy from a pile of dusty books
09:53in London's British Library.
09:55Despite the book's dark reputation,
09:57codebreakers and historians got to work trying to decipher it,
10:00but it was another 12 years until the code
10:03was eventually broken in 2006.
10:05One Jim Reads cracked it,
10:07revealing the previously hidden names
10:09of a variety of demons, angels, and magical incantations.
10:12So, what happened to Jim?
10:14Thankfully, he's fine.
10:15But many people still believe the curse is real,
10:18and say it only smites those who understand
10:20the true meaning of the text, not just read its words.
10:23I don't know, but ignorance is probably bliss in this case.
10:28Untitled.
10:30Don't get me wrong,
10:31coming up with titles for stuff is hard.
10:33You wouldn't believe how long I spent coming up with mine.
10:38Well, Wiccan high priestess,
10:40Persephone Adrastea Arine,
10:43obviously had the same issue back in the 1960s,
10:46because she left her grimoire mysteriously untitled.
10:49Wicca is a form of modern witchcraft,
10:52usually organized into covens or groups of practitioners.
10:55As high priestess,
10:56Persephone was top dog of one of those covens.
10:59So, as you can probably guess,
11:00she was incredibly powerful,
11:02at least if you believe in all this stuff.
11:04Her grimoire doesn't just contain spells and curses, though.
11:07It's also got a family history in it,
11:10and a recipe for hairspray.
11:13I guess even powerful witches
11:14need to keep their mop in check.
11:15Before you hop onto eBay looking for one of these, though,
11:18don't, they're cursed.
11:20Of course, indeed the book contains this eerie warning
11:23scrawled across its cover in a suspiciously red ink.
11:26To those nut of the craft,
11:29the reading of this book is forbidden.
11:31Proceed no further,
11:33or justice will exact a swift and terrible retribution,
11:36and you will surely suffer at the hand of the craft.
11:39Okay, what exactly that terrible retribution would be,
11:43who knows?
11:44There are no recorded incidents of non-Wiccans reading the book,
11:47but maybe that's because they weren't around long enough
11:50to tell the tale.
11:51Even so, the original manuscripts were sold in 2013
11:54for a whopping $13,865,
11:58so someone was very eager to check them out.
12:00Sounds like a lot of money to pay for a book
12:02you'll only read once, though.
12:06Don't read this aloud.
12:09Back in 1919, a seemingly ordinary poetry collection
12:12named Saken was released in Japan.
12:14The author, one Saijo Yasuo,
12:16was known for producing children's nursery rhymes,
12:19so everybody assumed this latest book would follow
12:21in the same vein.
12:22Yet nestled within its pages was a poem so twisted,
12:26so horrifying that it inspired a spine-chilling legend.
12:29The poem, called Tomino's Hell,
12:31is often associated with this creepy painting
12:34that you may have seen doing the rounds on the web.
12:37The unsettling image is by mysterious Japanese artist,
12:40Yuko Tatsushima, whom we know very little about.
12:44We do know her painting isn't directly related
12:47to Tomino's Hell, though,
12:48and seems to have merely been adopted
12:51as a scary accompanying visual on story sites
12:54like Creepypasta.
12:55It's definitely done the job.
12:58But what's the poem itself actually about, then?
13:01Well, it tells the bleak and traumatic story
13:05of a young child named Tomino.
13:07Supposedly, Yasuo was inspired to write it
13:09when he lost a loved one.
13:11But though the circumstances are sad,
13:13the legend around the poem is downright terrifying.
13:16Apparently, reading it out loud directly
13:18causes your demise.
13:20In 1974, Japanese poet and director Teriyama Tsuji
13:24released a movie inspired by the poem,
13:26and sure enough, met his untimely end
13:28only a few years later.
13:30Many other readers are said to have passed from illness,
13:32accidents and sudden, inexplicable causes, too.
13:35Not that everyone who reads it kicks the bucket,
13:38but there are usually consequences.
13:40Survivors of the poem's curse have complained
13:42of a lingering, eerie feeling that they just can't shake.
13:45If for some reason you're still desperate
13:47to read this thing, though, silently doing so
13:49inside your head apparently protects you
13:51from the worst effects.
13:52Hmm.
13:53I mean, all this is probably just a load of baloney, right?
13:56But on the off chance it isn't,
13:58I'm not reading that poem anytime soon.
14:00Malevolent Monarchy
14:03Even if you're not a fan of spooky stuff,
14:06you might still have heard of the Necronomicon.
14:09Created by horror author H.P. Lovecraft,
14:11it's a famous fictional spellbook
14:13detailing a pantheon of evil deities
14:16and how to contact them.
14:17Despite being fictional, it's proven highly influential
14:20and even inspired people to make their own twisted versions
14:23of their grimoire.
14:24Though none can quite top this absolute atrocity
14:28made from a skinned Furby.
14:30Yeah, I'd be less likely to read that
14:32than anything else so far.
14:34Unbeknownst to most people, though,
14:36the Necronomicon is based on a real book.
14:38Known as the Pseudo-Monarchia Daemonum,
14:41or the False Monarchy of Demons,
14:43the real-life inspiration is a compendium of 69 demons
14:47and how to contact them.
14:49This might sound familiar, and it should.
14:51The 16th century book inspired many infamous grimoires,
14:54like the Lesser Key of Solomon.
14:56That said, this Tome of Terrors is probably
14:58a mockery of demons, not a glorification.
15:01Its author, a magician called Johann Weyer,
15:04believed their powers paled in comparison to the divine,
15:07hence labeling them a false monarchy.
15:09He also believed anyone who'd summon a demon
15:12to be the worst kind of magician.
15:13So perhaps he wrote the book to ensure anyone who tried
15:16would get their comeuppance
15:17when their shady demonic dealings inevitably went wrong.
15:20That still doesn't explain where Weyer got all his dark
15:23idolatrum in the first place, though.
15:25Had he summoned a demon to attain it?
15:27That'd be some twist.
15:30A Titanic Curse.
15:33Lady Luck can be a fickle mistress,
15:35but she can also be downright evil.
15:38Enter the Curse of the Great Omar.
15:40The what?
15:41Well, in the early 1900s,
15:42London bookbinding company Sangorski and Sutcliffe
15:45decided to create a gorgeous version of a book
15:48by Edward Fitzgerald known as the Rubiat of Omar Khayyam.
15:52The bookbinders were passionate about the project,
15:54working hard until 1911,
15:56when they finally finished the manuscript.
15:58At first, it seemed the work had paid off.
16:01It was the most detailed,
16:02lavish, expensive book they'd ever created.
16:05I'm talking covered in over 1,000 jewels lavish.
16:08In a final symbol of excess,
16:10the cover was adorned with three peacocks,
16:12representing royalty,
16:14and earning it the nickname The Great Omar.
16:17But whilst peacocks are a symbol of royalty,
16:19their feathers are associated with bad luck.
16:22Sure enough, despite its beauty,
16:24Sangorski and Sutcliffe found it maddeningly difficult
16:26to actually sell their creation.
16:29Eventually, the book was put up for auction
16:30and sold for 450 pounds,
16:33the equivalent of a whopping $76,500 today.
16:38Even so, this was less than half
16:40of what the bookbinders had hoped for.
16:42Anyway, the book was all set to be shipped off
16:44to its buyer in New York in a lovely new boat
16:47named the Titanic.
16:48Oh, yeah, the ship went down
16:50and the book sunk to the bottom of the sea
16:52where it remains to this day.
16:54Then, just a few weeks later,
16:55Sangorski drowned whilst at the beach with his family.
16:58Damn.
16:59Sutcliffe, however, committed to making a second copy,
17:02one just as lavish.
17:03This time, he stored it in a secure vault in London.
17:06But guess what?
17:07It was destroyed during the Blitz of World War II.
17:10Geez.
17:11Unsurprisingly, by this point,
17:12people suspected the book was cursed.
17:14Yet, in spite of all this bad fortune,
17:16Sutcliffe's nephew took it upon himself
17:17to finish a third version.
17:19That once thus far avoided disaster
17:21and now resides in the British Library.
17:23Let's hope it stays there.
17:27Abramelin's Abracadabras.
17:30Egypt is a fascinating place teeming with history,
17:33but it's not often we associate it
17:35with spell books and wizards.
17:36According to one text penned in 1458, however,
17:39magic was a big part of proceedings.
17:42Ketchily titled The Book of the Sacred Magic
17:44of Abramelin the Mage,
17:45it tells the supposedly true story of an Egyptian mage,
17:49as well as serving as a spell book.
17:51Unfortunately, it's also very, very cursed.
17:54Simply owning the tome is enough
17:55to apparently bring demons from other realms
17:57to haunt and curse you with severe bad luck.
18:00I'm talking about kick in the bucket levels of bad luck.
18:03That said, believers are divided on this one.
18:05Some do subscribe to the idea that the book is cursed,
18:08while others say it's no riskier
18:10than any other book of magic.
18:11Either way, my ethos is to steer clear of any book
18:14that might carry a risk of, you know, haunting you.
18:19The Voynich Enigma.
18:22All right, so we've seen some pretty freaky books so far,
18:24but at least we could understand those ones.
18:27Back in 1912, Polish bibliophile Wilford Voynich
18:30discovered a book so mysterious,
18:32it still has people scratching their heads today.
18:34Now known as the Voynich Manuscript,
18:37Wilford found it in a college just outside of Rome
18:39and was immediately struck by its oddness.
18:42It's not surprising, the entire 240-page document
18:45is written in an unknown language
18:47that's proven utterly indecipherable to this day.
18:50There's no credited author, and what's more,
18:52seriously strange illustrations adorn many of the pages.
18:55I'm talking extinct or made-up plants,
18:58strange organic machinery,
18:59and women in their birthday suits bathing in the plants.
19:02All right, the wacky books been dated back to the 15th century,
19:07but that's pretty much all we know for sure.
19:09Many have tried to decipher it, but none have succeeded.
19:12Some even believe the manuscript contains
19:14some kind of forbidden knowledge,
19:15and that cracking the code will cast a fatal curse
19:18on the code breaker.
19:20Cursed or not, there's no doubt the whole situation is weird.
19:23Could it be a simple hoax?
19:25Did aliens visit and leave it behind?
19:27Or is it something else?
19:28Let me know what you think down in the comments below.
19:33Not so friendly.
19:36When it comes to books you should avoid reading,
19:38I bet you didn't think I'd mention
19:39a home remedy book, right?
19:41Yet The Long Lost Friend, published in 1820,
19:43is just such a book, albeit with a few spells
19:46thrown in for good measure.
19:47You see, back in 1928, a Pennsylvanian witch
19:50convinced a local villager named John Blymere
19:53that he'd been cursed, and told him the perpetrator
19:56was another local called Nelson Rehmeyer.
19:59Apparently, he'd used a copy of The Long Lost Friend
20:02to perform the curse.
20:03At first, Blymere had rejected the witch.
20:05Rehmeyer was a well-liked healer
20:07who'd even patched Blymere up in the past.
20:10But Rehmeyer had been going through a period of bad luck,
20:13and the witch was convincing.
20:14So eventually, he accepted her words
20:16and set out to break the curse.
20:18Blymere and two of his friends broke into Rehmeyer's house,
20:21took his life, and attempted to burn the house down
20:23with the book inside it, geez.
20:26Only the house didn't actually burn down,
20:28leading some to blame the power of the magical text inside.
20:32This only fueled the rumors
20:33that Rehmeyer had been up to no good,
20:35something I'm sure the witch was happy about.
20:37Whether she'd actually believed Rehmeyer
20:39to be malevolent or not, we can't be sure,
20:42but I reckon she had a grudge on him for some reason.
20:45Regardless, his old house still stands today,
20:47and is spookily known as Hex Hollow.
20:50Even spookier, the clocks inside her all stopped
20:52at a minute past midnight,
20:54the exact time Nelson closed his eyes for good.
20:57As such, many consider the place haunted.
20:59If the legends are true,
21:01that fishy copy of The Long Lost Friend is still out there,
21:04maybe even in that same house.
21:06And no, I wouldn't try and find it.
21:08If you really want to read it,
21:09grab a copy with a less tainted history.
21:13Malicious mirrors.
21:16As we've seen, messing around with old grimoires
21:18is generally a bad idea.
21:20If you believe the legends, possessions, hauntings,
21:23or even an early demise could await a reckless reader.
21:27The Munich Manual of Demonic Magic, however,
21:29is a 15th century spell book
21:31that could be far more dangerous for guys than girls.
21:34Girl power, am I right?
21:36Most magical texts from the time feature a combination
21:38of angelic and demonic magic,
21:40but this one's purely about the dark side.
21:44So you might imagine it'd be equally dangerous for everybody,
21:47regardless of gender.
21:48Thing is, one of the most powerful spells it contains
21:51involves creating a mirror of Lilith,
21:53used for conjuring the demon of the same name.
21:56According to Judaic and Mesopotamian mythology,
21:59Lilith was the first wife of Adam,
22:01and was cast out from the Garden of Eden
22:02for not obeying her husband.
22:04From there on, she became a demon.
22:07As such, she can be pretty spiky,
22:09especially towards men that summon her without proper reason.
22:12Hmm, I like to think I'm a hit with the ladies,
22:15but even I might struggle this time.
22:17The original manuscript is written in Latin
22:19and tucked away in Munich's Bavarian State Library,
22:22but you can check out a translated edition online.
22:25Not that I recommend it.
22:26Dealing with my stepmom is bad enough
22:28without having an actual demon on my back, too.
22:32Well, that's all for today.
22:34What do you think of all this?
22:35Is there some truth to any of those sordid tales,
22:38or are they all just coincidence and myth?
22:40And have you read any of the books?
22:43Let me know down in the comments below,
22:45and thanks for watching.