Real World Magic Texts with Brian Johnson

Mage the Ascension contains all sorts of magickal books, but how do magic texts in our world go from unearthed to on a bookshelf? Translator and RPG writer, Brian Johnson talks paradigms, spells, and library adventures.

Brian's freelancer webpage

Forged by Dragon's Fire - Book containing books

Brian's References:

Sophie Page has studied a whole collection of magical texts from the 14th-century library of St. Augustine's abbey, Canterbury; her PhD thesis on the topic is here (access with free registration): https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.340649 see also her published volume, Magic in the Cloister: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-06033-0.html)

For a humongous and very colorful example of what a real medieval grimoire could look like, see the Summa Sacrae Magicae

Finally, one that we did mention, the Fasciculus Rerum Geomanticarum, at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (some translated excerpts of which I recently published as Necromancy in the Medici Library, available at all good booksellers)

Greek Magical Papyri

Picatrix

Corpus Hermeticum