Grimoires as scholarship, scholarship as grimoires

'The pluralism of a postcolonial or decolonial philosophy of religion should be “on both ends” of the discipline; that is, both the phenomena and subjects considered and contemplated by the discipline should be diverse, but also the people, perspectives, and methods engaged in this project should come from diverse backgrounds—not only in terms of race, class, gender, geography, etc. but also in terms of ritual practice, training (both academic and otherwise), initiation or membership in tribes, societies, or “religious” traditions.’

—Oludamini Ogunnaike, “Expanding the Menu or Seats at the Table? Grotesque Pluralism in the (Post)Colonial Philosophy of Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 89, no. 2 (2021): 734.

‘It was in the context of the colonial encounter that Christendom granted other communities and traditions the name it had only ever given itself—religion—and reincarnated it as “secular.”’

—Erica Lagalisse, Occult Features of Anarchism (Oakland: PM Press, 2019), 7.

‘Occultism is the metaphysic of dunces.’

—Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia (London: Verso, 1951), §151-VI.

The term “grimoire,” refers to a genre of magical literature, specifically denoting manuals of magic or sorcery whose etymological roots in the Old French word grammaire (grammar) reflect its origin as a repository of specialized knowledge and constitutes a codified manual of occult ritual techniques and illustrations. The grimoire is a culturally and historically situated textual artefact appearing predominantly in the form of the manuscript or printed handbook. These books systematize ritual, symbolic, and operative knowledge within a magical or occult framework. This can be seen especially through spirit lists, prescriptive instructions for the manipulation of supernatural agencies (e.g., spirits of the dead, angels, demons), the production of efficacious objects (e.g., talismans, amulets), guides for various forms of divination and the intentional use of technologies to create new forms of spirituality among many others.

These claims to hidden or occulted knowledge have rendered many scholarly traditions grimoire-like in form and function. However, unlike disciplines like theology where the influence of theistic discursive traditions on scholarship is rendered explicit, the intersubsumption of esotericism, occultism, and magic with the study of such is often occulted. So how have scholarly texts functioned as these repositories of magical or occult knowledge?

This conference invites scholars to explore the idea of any form of scholarly text as grimoire.