Tome of Eldritch Lore: Difference between revisions
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== Comic Books ==
* Possibly the ultimate form of this trope is the Book held by [[The Sandman|Destiny of The Endless]]. In it is written the entirety of existence, past
* In an episode of ''Badger'' dealing with Lovecraftian beasties, Mavis whipped out her "Pocket Necronomicon".
* In the ''[[Marvel Universe]]'', a Tome called the ''Darkhold'' contains a variety of spells, including the Montessi Formula, which unmakes vampirism (and vampires).
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* [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|TV Tropes]]. [[Archive Binge|They're all trapped there! TRAPPED!]]
* ''[[wikipedia:The Book of Abramelin|The Book of Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage]]'', the 14th century grimoire, has stories like this attached to it. Of course, none are verifiable and S.L MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley probably made most of them up.
* Possibly the ''[[wikipedia:Codex Gigas|Codex Gigas]]'' aka ''The Devil's Bible'', not due to its contents, but due to the way it was written, according to legend. The contents of this very large book (three feet long, weighing 135 lbs, so large, it takes two men simply to lift; "codex gigas" literally means "big book") include the entire Vulgate Bible and many other tomes written in the 13th Century, including the ''Cosmas of Prague'' and Isidore of Seville's encyclopedia ''Etymologiae'', plus a striking color illustration of the Devil, which is where it got its nickname. Supposedly, this huge - for the time - book would take three decades to scribe, but legend claims a monk wrote this whole book in one night with the Devil's aid. What's puzzling is, the claim might have some merit. Handwriting experts confirm that the style is unchanged throughout the entire book, with no signs of deteriorating age, health, or mood on the part of the scribe, suggesting he somehow managed to do it in a short time. Enhancing the legend are the last 12 pages of the book, which are torn out. Was something truly evil written on those pages? The world may never know.
* The US Army field manual TM 31-210, "Improvised Munitions Handbook", is probably the best mundane equivalent. Won't summon demons, but almost any use will summon FBI agents. Unlike the other books in this list, Army field manuals are available on Amazon.
* [[Adolf Hitler]]'s ''Mein Kampf'' has started to become somthething like this. It isn't actually banned in Germany, but the copyright is owned by the government of the state Bavaria which never allowed any prints since the end of [[World War II]]. Supposedly it's a book so dangerous that it can turn normal people, or at least easily influential teens into fascist racists, so it must never be allowed to get back into circulation again. There are some attempts now to publish the content with annotations by historians to remove the myth from the book and showcase that it's really just incoherent rambling, which seems preferable to letting curious people just dig up the text on the internet on sites with doubious character.
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