Sitting a block away from the U.S. Capitol, the Folger Shakespeare Library holds one of the most unusual manuscripts of magic ever discovered. The book was written around the year 1580, a decade before Shakespeare began writing in earnest. This is a manual of magicians in search of results, who scribbled down whatever secrets they could find.
One of the most unusual collections of magical lore ever assembled, The Book of Oberon includes:
- Rituals for summoning several different spirits, including Oberon (one of the main characters of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), Satan, Mosacus, Birto, and others
- A ceremony to call Baron, a spirit associated with the notorious Gilles de Rais
- Several intriguing drawings of spirits and other curious beings
- A list of spirits similar to, but predating, that found in the magical manual the Goetia
- Lore and rituals for the summoning of fairies
- Pages of talismans for various purposes
- One of the oldest known copies of the magical manual The Enchiridion, said to have been given to Charlemagne by Pope Leo III
- Charms for toothache, bleeding, and the capture of thieves
- Headings and words written in cipher, most of which we have managed to decipher
- An account of a mystical brotherhood of magicians that seems to have ties to the conspiracy against the author and playwright Christopher Marlowe
