Black magic
Black magic and "maleficium" or sorcery have been practised through the ages with the aid of certain jealously guarded writings, such as the "Black Books of the Magicians". "The Secret Lore of Magic" includes the entire text of the four books of the "Secrets of Albertus Magnus", the "Book of the Spirits," "the Almadel", the "Book of Power", "the Clavicle and the Testament", the "Grimoire of Honorius the Great", and the processes of the Black Pact as given by "the True Grimoire" and "the Great Grimoire". Copies of these Grimoires (the "grammars" of sorcery) were extremely rare, and although occult works based on parts of grimoires were continuing to appear, the actual sources had never before been made available for study and comparison.