WandaVision's Darkhold: are there real grimoires like it?

WandaVision has expanded the MCU's take on magic, and one creepy book in Agatha's lair raised a question: what is the Darkhold, and are there real books of magic like it? There are. Grimoires such as the Book of Shadows, the Key of Solomon, the Sworn Book of Honorius and the Galdrabók all exist.

WandaVision (2021) stars Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany and Kathryn Hahn. On the show, Wanda's powers have grown more witchy as she heads toward becoming the Scarlet Witch. Agnes was confirmed to be Agatha Harkness, a witch from the comics. She has all the classic witch trappings: an underground lair, frizzy hair and a creepy magic book.

What the Darkhold is in Marvel comics

What we saw in Agatha's lair is potentially the Darkhold. The book has appeared in Marvel properties before, in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Runaways. If this is the Darkhold, it's the first time it has turned up in the main MCU continuity. At the time, it had not yet been confirmed as the official version of the book in the main MCU timeline.

In the comics, the Darkhold is an ancient book of spells of unspeakable power. It's made of dark matter from a hell dimension. It was written by Chthon, a demonic elder god and Earth's first practitioner of black magic. Chthon is like a ripoff of Cthulhu, but it's still Lovecraftian. He put all of his knowledge of magic into the Darkhold. He is also technically the source of Wanda's power in the comics.

The Necronomicon and other fictional books of magic

A big inspiration for the Darkhold is the Necronomicon. The book also technically exists in Marvel, but it's famous well outside it. Many people think it's real. It was invented by the horror author H.P. Lovecraft in the 1920s and has since appeared all over the place, including Evil Dead. In some versions it's bound in human flesh, and reading it for too long will drive you insane.

There are other fictional magic books too. True Detective references one. Harry Potter has A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions, and DC Comics has the Book of Eternity. Real magical textbooks also exist, and they're known as grimoires. A grimoire is a spell book.

The Book of Shadows from Wicca to Charmed

A Book of Shadows is a collection of religious texts and instructions for magical rituals. It's used in Wicca and in many other pagan practices. It contains the core rituals, magical practices, ethics and philosophy of the practitioner. The book in the TV show Charmed could defend itself from harm using its own magical powers. A Book of Shadows also turns up in the film The Craft, and a Blair Witch sequel was titled Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.

There's no single definitive Book of Shadows. A person creates their own to record the knowledge they acquire as they learn. Technically, there's a Book of Shadows in the movie Mean Girls. Because it holds your personal feelings, it usually relates to your Wiccan life, and it's a written representation of you.

One famous Book of Shadows was created by the English Wiccan Gerald Gardner, probably in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Gardner is considered the father of modern Wicca. He tried to keep the contents of his books secret, but they were published in the 1970s and 1980s. The full text eventually made its way onto the internet in the 1990s. We tried out the witch's chant from Gardner's book, which calls on the darksome night and shining moon, the four directions, and earth, water, air and fire.

The Key of Solomon and its biblical magic

The Key of Solomon was written sometime in the 14th or 15th century, around the Italian Renaissance. It's a grimoire that claims to contain biblical magic used by historical figures like King Solomon. Its magic derives its power from God. The book was featured in a Dan Brown novel.

According to mythology, Solomon wrote the book for his son Rehoboam. It was supposed to be hidden in Solomon's tomb after his death. Legend has it that Babylonian philosophers found it while repairing the tomb. One of them received a vision in which a supposed angel commanded him to hide the book from the unworthy.

The book is divided into two parts. The first is full of conjurations, invocations and curses to summon and constrain spirits of the dead and demons. It also explains how to become invisible, find hidden treasures, become popular and find the love of your life. The second part details how the operator should purify themselves through exorcism, what clothing they should wear, and how to build the magical instruments needed for the spells. It also covers the animal sacrifices required to appease the spirits. We tried its spell for how to render thyself master of a treasure possessed by the spirits, and there was a complaint that the incantation said nothing about getting a prize.

The Sworn Book of Honorius and its secret magicians

The Sworn Book of Honorius is a medieval grimoire supposedly written by Honorius of Thebes. It dates back to the 14th century and is one of the oldest and most influential medieval grimoires still in existence. Johann Hartlieb, a physician from that time, comes into its history, and the book was used in necromancy.

It was supposedly compiled by a group of magicians who were being persecuted by the Catholic Church and wanted all their knowledge collected in one book. Their students were sworn to secrecy before being given access to it. Anyone who owned a copy had to be buried with it. The book is 93 chapters long. It covers everything from avoiding purgatory to finding treasure, and most importantly, conjuring and commanding demons.

The Galdrabók's Icelandic spells for thieves, love and enemies

The Galdrabók comes from Iceland in the 16th century. It contains 47 spells drawn from a range of magicians. Casting involves speaking an incantation out loud, or carving runes into objects.

Some of its spells deal with problems people faced in medieval Iceland: catching a thief, curing headaches and insomnia, protecting your horse, and winning the love of a person. Others are dark. There are spells to cause fear in your enemies, kill someone's livestock, give someone flatulence, and prevent a woman from speaking. That last one is super misogynistic. We tried its spell for getting a wish fulfilled, and the wish was for a big part in a big TV show.

How much does Wolverine weigh with his adamantium skeleton

Wolverine weighs about 300 pounds, or 136 kilograms. He weighed 195 pounds before he was given his adamantium skeleton, which added 105 pounds. That's just a thin coating of adamantium over his skeleton, and he is 5'3".

A general rule is that about 15 percent of your body weight is bone mass. Titanium is about three times as dense as bone, so replacing all of Wolverine's bones with titanium would only add about 60 pounds. That a mere layer of adamantium adds almost double that shows how dense the metal is.

Hugh Jackman is 6'2" and lean at 181 pounds. The comics Wolverine is much stockier. His BMI of 34.5 would technically make him obese. The comics justify his muscular frame by saying his healing factor lets him recover from workouts much faster than normal people, so he builds more muscle and strength. To have the same BMI at Jackman's height, he would need to weigh 269 pounds without adamantium and probably close to 400 pounds with it. That would make him 25 pounds heavier than the average NFL linebacker at the same height.

People often fan cast Taron Egerton as Wolverine. He is 5'9" and 174 pounds, so he would need to gain almost 60 pounds to match the proportions of the comic book version.

The books we were afraid to be caught reading, from Twilight to The Game

The first confession was Twilight. One summer, the whole saga was the hot read, and every book was bought at full price at Barnes & Noble, about 150 dollars' worth. After a move, the stack was set aside, guests spotted it, and owning the Twilight novels became a running joke.

The runner up was Neil Strauss's The Game, borrowed from a roommate who kept it in the bathroom and read in college. It's a book about how to seduce women. It starts with some decent tips: be more confident, believe in yourself, don't be afraid to talk to an attractive person, and don't tell yourself you have no chance. Then it moves into problematic territory, like making a pretty woman feel ugly to put her in her place. After that it gets into neuro-linguistic programming, which it presents as a way to brainwash someone with pseudo magic moves.

Where that book eventually goes felt bad. Books about pleasing your partner that aren't mean are a different story. The advice was to skip The Game and read She Comes First instead, because it's "a much better tome."