Before there were new - fangled public toilet likecursed phone numbersandsinister Kleenex commercial message , the great unwashed had to make do with plain old cursed books . You never knew what musical style they might be linger in — there were the obvious possibilities , like grimoires and other magical text , but stories of curses have also been attached to novels , encyclopedias , historiography , and even poesy collections .
But considering their proportional scarceness , your odds of avoiding cuss books are fairly good . Back in 2010 , Googleestimatedthat 130 million unequalled book had been published so far , and that identification number has grow considerably in the last 12 years . But when author J.W. Ocker was redact together his 2020 bookCursed Objects , he struggled to get hold books that were cursed enough to make the cut . “ One of my standard for determining a cursed objective of any kind for my book was : Is there a body count ? ” Ocker tells Mental Floss . “ And I do n’t think I ever came across a cursed book that had one . ”
Another problem , Ocker says , is that , when we tattle about cursed book , what we ’re describing usually is n’t a curse in the traditional sentiency of the word . “ Every meter I came across a ‘ anathemize Word of God , ’ it was n’t really cursed , ” he explains . “ It was more preternaturally dangerous , like a spell book . For case , owning or hail into contact with the book did n’t cause harm or bad luck the path , say , a beshrew chair or vase would . alternatively , if you try the spells in the Holy Writ , the spells were life-threatening . ”
Ocker mention there was also the matter ofthe cursesmedieval scribes would attach to the books they fastidiously wrote by hand , but those were meant as theft deterrents — and there ’s no evidence they in reality worked , so they did n’t count for his purposes .
Every now and then , though , abookgets a unfit reputation . mayhap tough luck seems to fall out it wherever it lead , or mayhap an urban legend catches on in some creepy nook of the internet . Or maybe — and here ’s where things get peculiarly interesting — representatives of powerful institutions plainly did n’t want the book to be read . From a diabolical Bible to a doleful Japanese state of war verse form , here are eight texts that have been blamed for madness , ill luck , and last .
1. The Codex Gigas
If cursing power were ground solely on a book ’s size , the Codex Gigas , a.k.a . the Devil ’s Bible , would in all likelihood be the most dangerous script ever written . Weighing inat 165 Egyptian pound and measuring about three feet in height , the roughly 800 - year - former tome isthought to bethe world ’s largest come through medieval manuscript . ( “ Codex Gigas ” literally mean “ giant book . ” ) The manuscript ’s precise origins have been lost to time , buthistorians believeit was written at some point between 1204 and 1230 in the Kingdom of Bohemia , part of what would become the Czech Republic . According to the National Library of Sweden , the book was have by at least three dissimilar monastery before Emperor Rudolf II added it to his secret collection ( which would also before long include theVoynich Manuscript ) in 1594 . In 1648 , it was claimed by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years ’ War and take to Stockholm . It has been housed in Sweden ’s National Library since 1768 .
While many illuminated text were produce by team of scribes , scholars believe the Codex Gigas is the work of a single scribe . Written entirely in Latin , the book containsboth the Old and New Testaments , along with Czech and Jewish history texts ; an encyclopaedia with entropy on geometry , sound matters , and entertainment , among other subject ; medical treatises ; hundreds of obituaries ; several magic spell ; and a calendar .
The book ’s sinister reputation stem from a full - color portrayal of the Devil contain in its pages , and a legend about how the image got there . According to folklore , the book is the work of a monk — possiblyHermannus Heremitus , or Herman the Recluse — who had let out his vow and been doom to be palisade up alive in the monastery . He strike a deal to save himself : If , over the course of a unmarried night , he could write a Scripture arrest all the world ’s knowledge , his life would be spar . When he realized the task was out of the question , the monk sold his someone to the Devil , who help him finish the account book and “ signed ” it with the now - infamous portrayal . ( Other version of the story say the monk added the exemplification as a gesture of gratitude for Satan ’s aid . )
There are several tales of bad luck attached to the Codex Gigas , but the curse seems to be passably benignant , turn over the book was purportedly cowritten by Beelzebub . One legend go steady back to at least 1858 keep that a safety was charge after being accidentallylocked in Sweden ’s National Libraryovernight . He was purportedly found under a table the next morning , claiming to have seen the Codex Gigas join a procession of books as they danced through the zephyr .
2. The Book of Soyga
TheBook of Soyga , a.k.a . Aldaraia sive Soyga vocor , is an occult text that dates to at least the 1500s . We know about it only because it was once owned by John Dee , a renowned 16th - century polymath whose field of study and expertiseincluded maths , physics , chemical science , and astronomy . Dee was also an occultist who was especially concerned in put across with angels . TheBook of Soygamust have been irresistible to him — besides magical piece and writings about demonology and astrology , the text includes the names and genealogy of Angel Falls . consort to Benjamin Woolley ’s Dee biographyThe Queen ’s Conjurer , Deebelieved the book“contained an ancient , even godlike substance written in the language in the first place verbalise to Adam — in other words the true , unspoiled word of God . ”
It also let in 36 cryptic tables that remained undeciphered for centuries . Dee seek to crack their computer code with the help of Edward Kelley , a crystal - gazer who convinced Dee he could channel the voices of angels . ( Kelley sometimes spell out his name Kelly or went by Edward Talbot ; having assumed name was probably helpful to the speculate metier , who had reportedly beenconvicted of counterfeitingand possibly had his ear cut off as punishment.)According to Sky History , Dee was so eager to blab to backer that , whenKelley told him the angelswanted the two men to swap married woman for an evening as defrayal for celestial communication , Dee agreed . Nine months by and by , Theodore Dee was born .
Using Kelley as a go - between , Dee dialed up the archangel Uriel and asked him if theBook of Soygawas the real deal . Uriel , speaking through Kelley , assured him that it was , but recount him that only the Angelica Archangelica Michael was authorized to render the tables . Apparently , Michael was n’t usable .
This exchange might be the source of theBook of Soyga ’s report as a cursed Good Book , or , as it is sometimes lie with , “ the Book that kill . ” At one point , Dee mentioned to Urielthat he ’d been told he ’d die within two and a half years if he ever read the encoded text . Uriel assured Dee he ’d live for more than 100 years .
About that “ reputation , ” though : Most of the reference we could find to theBook of Soygabeing a cursed textual matter come from online generator , and there do n’t seem to be any falsifiable tales of misfortune attached to the book .
Deedied in 1608 , at the age of 81 . TheBook of Soygachanged hands a couple of times before vanishing from the historical phonograph recording . tight - forward 300 long time , to the summertime of 1994 : Deborah Harkness had justfinished her doctoral dissertation(“John Dee ’s Conversations with Angels ” ) and was browsing through the catalogue at Oxford ’s Bodleian Library when she rule a source toAldaraia sive Soyga . She had the book brought up , and soon retrieve herself staring at the holy grail of Dee scholarship . The experience inspired Harkness ’s first novel , A Discovery of Witches , which recoil off a bestselling trilogy and has since been adapt for telecasting .
In 1998 , mathematician Jim Reedscracked the codeof its mysterious tables . Reeds happen upon a practice involving the oftenness and position of certain letters in relation to other letter — or , in his words , “ a letter of the alphabet is obtained by counting a certain identification number of letters after the missive immediately above it … in the tabular array . ” Reeds came up with a set of mathematical formulae that allowed him to decipher the mesa , each of which turned out to be based on a six - missive “ code word . ” But we still do n’t know the meaning of those code words or what subject matter the table were mean to pass along ( or even if there is one ) .
As for the “ curse , ” it appear to have been a dud . According to Google Scholar , Reeds wasstill publishingat least as late as 2010 .
3. The Book of Abramelin
This one should sound familiar to horror fans — it played a pivotal role in the 2016 motion-picture show festival standoutA Dark Song .
The Book of Abramelin — or , more formally , The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage — is a Jewish magical text that isthought to escort backto the fourteenth or 15th century , but it owes its current notoriety to the 19th- and 20th - one C thaumaturgist who made up theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn . One of the Order ’s founders , S.L.M. Mathers , created the book ’s first English translation in the 1890s , working from a 1750 Gallic version . consort to writer and occultist Lon Milo DuQuette ’s foreword to a 2006 variation , Mathers ’s transformation catch on with his compeer , and The Book of Abramelin — or simply “ the Abramelin , ” as it ’s known in the charming biotic community — became a key textual matter of modern occultism , supposedlyhelping to inspireAleister Crowley ’s system of “ magick . ”
The centerpiece of the Abramelin is an elaborate , multi - month ritual aimed at allow the thaumaturgist to commune with their “ Holy Guardian Angel”—essentially their ethereal other half . The trouble lies in what pass after a three - day period in which the mage is “ lock in blissful intimacy with the Angel , ” DuQuette spell . Once the honeymoon is over , the sorcerer must cite up and appropriate “ each and every ‘ doomed ’ spirit of the blamed regions”—in other words , one might suspect , all the daemon of hell . Supposedly the holy person will be there to coach the thaumaturgist through all that conquering , but it still vocalise really grueling . According to DuQuette , the Abremelin ’s repute as a imprecate book might stanch from the fact that it contains book of instructions for defeating “ the world ’s evil spirits . ” Surely the flavor would prefer to keep this information quiet , and countersign got around that even owning a copy was risky stage business .
But it might be worth the gamble . Besides how - to guides for summoning angels and devil , the Abramelin includes charm for turning someone into a donkey , conjuring up some juggling spirit monkeys , and compel a liveliness to institute you Malva sylvestris .
4.The Orphan’s Story
Historia del Huérfano , orThe Orphan ’s Story , is a novelwritten by a Spanish monknamed Martín de León y Cárdenas sometime between 1608 and 1615 . Martín de León originally planned to put out the novel in 1621 under the pseudonym Andrés de León , but that never happened . According toThe Guardian , it ’s been speculated that he leave the book unpublished because he feared it would damage his standing in the Roman Catholic Church . ( He wasappointed bishopof Trivento in 1630 and archbishop of Palermo in 1650 . )
The Word was long thought lose , but in 1965 , a Spanish scholarly person encounter what ’s thought to be the only pull through copy in the New York archives of theHispanic Society of America . There were several attack to put out it , but none of them work out , and hearsay began to circulate thatThe Orphan ’s Storywas imprecate . The undertaking eventually found its style to a Peruvian philologist key out Belinda Palacios , who pass two years preparing the manuscript for publication . Soon after she sign on to edit the account book , the warnings began .
“ When I start working on it , a lot of people secern me that the book was cursed and that mass who start make for on it die , ” Palacios toldThe Guardianin 2018 . She was more specific inan consultation withThe Telegraphthat same yr : “ It ’s taken a while because the people who have worked on it have died — one from a unknown disease , one in a car fortuity and another of something else . ” grant to theEndless Threadpodcast , the casualty includea Spanish scholar distinguish Antonio Rodríguez - Moñino , who give-up the ghost in 1970 , and a professor of Spanish nominate William C. Bryant .
In 2017—400 geezerhood after it was written — The Orphan ’s Storywas in the end print . Palacios has so far been untroubled by the “ curse ” : SheteachesSpanish - American Literature at two university in Switzerland , and in 2022 , she published a novel of her own calledNiñagordita .
5. The Grand Grimoire
While some stories hem in allegedly cursed books can be chalk up to coincidence and superstitious notion , some tell another , stranger tale — one that ’s connect to the major power of literacy , and a cabal to affright hoi polloi out from books that endanger the status quo .
In his 1898 textThe Book of Black Magic and Pacts , British occultist and scholar Arthur Edward Waiteidentifies the Grand Grimoireas one of “ the four specific and undisguised handbook of Black Magic . ” The ledger incorporate detailed teaching for summoning Satan ’s good - helping hand man , Lucifugé Rofocale . consort to historiographer Owen Davies , the Grand Grimoirehas been datedto 1702 , but it more likely made its debut around 1750 . It became a publishing whizz ; in his 2010 bookGrimoires : A History of Magic Books , Davies calls it “ the first explicitly diabolical aggregative - mart grimoire . ”
It ’s the Koran ’s popularity , rather than its content , that might have led to its repute as a severe or curst book . In France , the Grand Grimoire was one of several spell books that were wide distributed in chapbook form and sold in bookstores in the nineteenth hundred . Sir Humphrey Davy suggeststhat church officials fear the books jeopardise their authority and enter on a successful military campaign to revile them . the great unwashed began to view books like the Grand Grimoire as sinister — even the simple turn of buying a transcript was thought to be dangerous .
6. The Great Omar
The book know as “ the Great Omar ” was a custom - made edition of a collection of quatrain by 11th - century Persian poetOmar Khayyám , who became live in the West after author Edward FitzGerald translated some of his verses in 1859 . The al-Qur’an seems to have been comparatively secure until 1911 , when renowned bookbinder Francis Sangorski put the end up touches on an elaborate edition commissioned by the managing director of a London bookshop . Sangorski was have an unlimited budget for the project and only two mandates : that the final product be deserving whatever price Sangorski decided on , and that it be “ the greatest modern bind in the world . ”
Sangorski labored over every item for two year . To get plan element right , he take up a human skull for mention and bribed a zookeeper to bung a live rat to a snake so he could see “ the angle of his jaw ” as the reptilian fed . grant to the BBC , heused 100 straightforward substructure of gold folio , 5000 pieces of leather , and more than 1000 wanted gemstones , include rubies , tan , and emeralds . But once it was finished , the commission bookshop — which priced it at £ 1000 , or some $ 150,000 USD in today ’s food market — had trouble selling it . They settle to give the American playscript mart a endeavour , but a dustup with U.S. customs officer sent the book back to London . It finally sell at vendue to an American buyer ( for less than half of its original request cost ) , so the Great Omar hitched another cross - Atlantic ride — on theTitanic . Ten calendar week later , Sangorski drowned while on holiday with his family unit . He was only 37 eld sure-enough .
Sangorski ’s chef-d’oeuvre was never recovered from the wreckage of theTitanic , but the Great Omar was recreated in the 1930s using his original architectural plan . Bookbinder Stanley Bray finished his version just as World War II begin . To protect the new edition from German bombs , it was placed in a bank vault on London ’s Fore Street — which ended up being one of the first sites direct by Nazi warplanes . The safe that held the book pull round the Blitz , but the book did n’t : Temperatures inside the container rose so high that the book ’s leather and newspaper components were melt and char . consort toThe Independent , only the jewel were spared .
Bray was undeterred , and he drop some 4000 hours over the course of 40 years creating a third edition of the Great Omar . This version seems to have escaped the “ curse ” : Braylived to be 88 years old , and the third Omar issafely housedin the British Library .
As for the origin of the playscript ’s troubles , some suspectthe trio of bejeweled peacock butterfly on the cover . According to theEncyclopedia of Superstitions , some culture believepeacock feathers bring uncollectible luck .
7.Written in Blood
write in Bloodis the work of Robert and Nancy Heinl , who spent yr enmeshed in Haiti ’s political upheaval . When the Christian Bible was published in 1978 , Robert Heinl was a retired Marine Corps colonel who had dish out as a defense consultant to the Haitian regime . He and his wife , a London - born diary keeper , had lived in Haiti for several years when they , as well as other Americans , were kicked out of the nation in 1963 as relations drop between the United States and the government of François “ Papa Doc ” Duvalier . Heinl’sWashington Postobituarysays he “ was declare persona non grata as a result of policy difference between the United States and Haiti ’s chairperson François Duvalier , ” but story surrounding the issue ofWritten in Bloodtell an eerier taradiddle .
According toThe Washington Post , Nancy Heinl “ became so immersed in voodoo feeling ” thatDuvalier was convincedshe was a priestess with mystical power . Duvalier perish in 1971 , seven eld before the Heinls ’ book was published . But according to Vikas Khatri ’s 2007 bookCurses & Jinxes , Duvlier ’s widow , Simone , apparently took offensetoWritten in lineage ’s uncomplimentary depiction of the previous leader and placed a voodoo curse on the book .
The Washington Postsays the manuscript was somehow lost at the printers , then stolen as it was being sent back to the publishing firm . When the book was eventually institutionalise for binding , the folding machine misfunction . The curse apparently extended to the al-Qur’an ’s publicity campaign : The firstWashington Postreporter assigned to brood it was jump by an appendicitis . At home , the authors take all their non - galvanizing filaria lay off .
Other misfortunes sustain by the Heinls were less benign . Robert was offend when a level collapsed beneath him while he was delivering a spoken language , and a few days later he was attacked by a frump while walking near the couple ’s Embassy run-in home . In May 1979 , while the Heinls were vacationing in the French West Indies — just months afterWritten in Bloodwas published — Robert Heinl expire suddenly of a core attack . After his death , Nancy reportedly said , “ There is a belief that the nigher you get to Haiti , the more powerful the magic becomes . ”
If the Heinls were in fact the dupe of a voodoo torment , it was n’t the first fourth dimension the Duvalier family had allegedly turn to black magic to exact retaliation on their perceive opposition . According to theEncyclopedia of U.S. – Latin American Relations , Duvalier take the assassination ofJohn F. Kennedy Jr.in November 1963 was the solvent of a voodoo curse he had aim on Kennedy after the untested chair , suspect fiscal malfeasance on Duvalier ’s part , had suspended aid to Haiti the premature year .
8. “Tomino’s Hell”
“ Tomino ’s Hell ” go steady back to 1919 , when it was included inSakin , a book of poems by Nipponese poet and songster Saijō Yaso . The verse form seems to recount a unseasoned boy ’s journey through hell ; it has been ponder that Tomino has invest an unforgivable sin and has been damned to hell as penalisation . But according to folklorist and translator Tara A. Devlin , westerly readers are missing some important context clues and cultural references , and “ Tomino ’s Hell ” is more likelyan allegoryfor a young human ’s deployment to the battlefield , where he may have been killed in activity .
The poem ’s long journey to creepypasta stardom is imagine to have start in 1974 , when it help inspire a flick calledPastoral : To Die in the Countryby avant - garde filmmakerShuji Terayama . Shuji lived for nine long time after he made the movie , but somehow a fable was stomach that blame his 1983 death on “ Tomino ’s Hell . ” ( Liver disease was the more likely culprit . ) At some period , rumor also began to circulate about a college student who had purportedly give-up the ghost after read the poem . Thus the phase was coiffure in 2004 , when author and moving picture critic Yomota Inuhiko reportedly write , “ If you by fortune happen to learn [ ‘ Tomino ’s Hell ’ ] out aloud , after you will suffer from a terrible luck which can not be get away . ” The verse form made the spring to the internet , and it ’s now a classic case of “ creepypasta ” — an net revulsion storey that is extend around until it becomes a variety of urban legend . ( “ Creepypasta ” is a differential of “ copypasta , ” a term for text that has been copied and pasted multiple sentence . )
The idea that “ Tomino ’s Hell ” is swear seems to have attain more adhesive friction in the West than in the verse form ’s native Japan . Mental Floss reached out to two Japanese folklore experts — Meiji University ’s Lindsay Nelson , generator ofCirculating fearfulness : Nipponese Horror , Fractured Realities , and New Media , and Zack Davisson , author ofKaibyō : The Supernatural Cats of JapanandYūrei : The Nipponese Ghost — and neither was able-bodied to shed any lightness on the fable ’s roots . “ It ’s highly possible this idea of it being a ‘ cursed verse form ’ originated in the West , ” say Davisson , citing a paucity of references to the legend in Nipponese - words sources .
As for whether the poem has really managed to make good on its supposed whammy , Devlin write that “ people have claimed to find inauspicious whilst reading this verse form , ” but she repoint out that any forcible result can probably be chalked up to autosuggestion .
