Books are considered the knowledge of humanity, yet there are still many ancient texts around the world that remain unexplained by scientists to this day. Strange creatures that humans have never seen, incomprehensible mythical tales, methods of summoning demons, and more are the mystical contents hidden within them.
Top 14 Most Mysterious Books in the World
The Voynich Manuscript
Dubbed the most mysterious manuscript in human history, this book is written in an enigmatic script on vellum. Its contents discuss mysterious plants, astronomical tables, and a small bathtub filled with tiny nude figures.
Cryptographers, mathematicians, and linguists have all been baffled by this mysterious book. However, some scholars believe it was written between 1404 and 1438 during the Middle Ages. The book’s name is derived from the rare book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who purchased it in Italy in 1912.
The Munich Manual of Demonic Magic
Also known as the Necromancer’s Manual, this document belonged to a German magician in the 15th century. He aimed to create an original material for summoning demons.
This manual includes three main methods commonly found in magical texts: creating illusions, psychological manipulation, and divination. The first method creates illusions of castles or armies by hypnotizing the subject. Psychological manipulation impacts emotions or uses political power to influence the subject. The divination method is used to gather information from the past or the future.
The Munich Manual describes the sacrifice of mythical creatures. However, the most peculiar thing is that the book does not mention any legends about angels, focusing solely on black magic and depicting classic exorcism rituals.
Codex Seraphinianus
Considered the most mysterious book of all time, author Luigi Serafini recently released a new edition. The book was written in the 1970s and has a structure similar to that of the Voynich Manuscript. Its nonsensical syntax and fascination with bizarre flora and fauna are depicted within: the book contains “trucks with human heads, bones fused into new bodies, and bizarre animals that do not exist.”
Published in the early 80s, it quickly gained fame and attracted global readers’ attention.
Heptameron
The author of this book, Pietro d’Abano, was a prisoner convicted of heresy (atheism) who died in jail. He believed in a concept called planetary magic, which humans could use to summon angels seven days a week. The fact that a man was imprisoned for atheism while still passionately writing stories about supernatural powers caused quite a controversy in public opinion.
The Madman’s Manuscript
This book does not contain any content related to black magic. Written by G. Bacon Mackenzie, the medical director at the Fulbourn asylum near Cambridge, England, the book contains complex diagrams of a patient in the asylum filled with intricate, hard-to-understand drawings and writings. When asked to explain and abandon the incomprehensible writing in the book, this patient presented a series of extremely abstract thoughts. Ultimately, he committed suicide by jumping into a river.
Picatrix
This book about Arabic magic from the 11th century contains many intriguing strange contents, such as “doing wrong to poison others in their sleep or with a glance,” or how to win the love of another, escape from prison, and heal a scorpion sting. The book also describes a special type of “candy” made from blood, brain, and human urine.
The Oera Linda Book
This document is believed to contain ancient wisdom from 4000 years ago, including teachings from the legendary continent of Atlantis and is regarded as the “treasure” of Nazi officers with many horrifying contents. It was even dubbed the “Bible of Himmler.”
The Oera Linda Book is a controversial manuscript that includes history, mythology, and Frisian religious themes, first brought to light in the 19th century. The recurring themes in the Oera Linda Book include issues of ethnicity, matriarchy, and mythology.
The Story of the Vivian Girls
A prime example of outsider art, this book was created by American author Henry Darger and discovered posthumously in 1973.
The 15,145 pages of the book narrate the story of the Vivian Girls living in a surreal kingdom, participating in the Glandeco – Angelinian war stemming from a rebellion of child slaves.
The book contains many beautiful illustrations, from stunning floral carpets to scenes of child torture. Strangely, Darger often depicted his female characters with small penises.
The Red Book
Discovered in the tomb of King Solomon in the 1750s, the Red Book/Good News from Satan was created in 1520 CE. The book is written in both Hebrew and Aramaic.
This four-part book is owned by the Roman Catholic Church and is secretly kept in the Vatican, inaccessible to the public. The book’s author is believed to be Horonius, an Egyptian living in Thebes who was possessed by demons. The book presents evidence of summoning Satan and how new Popes would gradually have their souls possessed by evil. Today, the book is still used by those interested in the occult. It is rumored to be fireproof.
The Rohonc Codex
The Rohonc Codex is one of the most famous ancient books in the world, shrouded in mystery. Its content is presented from right to left with mysterious symbols along with circles and straight characters that are difficult to decipher.
Emerging in the 19th century, this ancient book was gifted to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences by Count Batthyány. Experts believe that the Rohonc Codex was written in an ancient language of humanity and contains encoded messages. To this day, scholars have been unable to decipher the mysterious content of this book.
Alphabetical Africa
Image: Reddit.
Alphabetical Africa, a 1974 novel by author Walter Abish, offers readers a unique writing style that binds the author to certain patterns and restrictions.
Abish confines his novel by using the alphabet. Chapter one, titled A, can only be written with words that begin with the letter A. The subsequent 25 chapters follow the same pattern, proceeding through to the letter Z, completing the alphabet.
This writing method presents a significant challenge for any writer; however, Abish takes it a step further. In the second half of the novel, Abish reverses the pattern. Chapter 27 contains every letter except Z. In the following 25 chapters, he continues this pattern and concludes at chapter 52 with every character except A.
Despite some errors during the process, the majority of the book adheres to this constraint with remarkable accuracy and creativity.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Some Dead Sea Scrolls displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2018. (Image: ABCNews).
From a decade-long excavation period from 1946 to 1956, The Dead Sea Scrolls are just as their name suggests: 15,000 scrolls of paper.
They were found along the Northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, scattered across 11 caves near Qumran. They were later collected, and historians worked tirelessly to piece together their contents and date the scrolls.
Current hypotheses suggest that most of them date back around 2,000 years. Many scrolls are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Ancient Greek, with a few manuscripts translated into other languages. All evidence suggests they may consist of religious texts and documents.
More than half a century since their discovery, The Dead Sea Scrolls remain one of the most influential finds in modern theology, archaeology, and particularly Judean history. They provide deep insights into the people who wrote them, the context in which they lived, their thoughts, and even how their culture developed and differentiated.
House of Leaves
Image: Stinging Fly.
While most works only require readers to read from cover to cover, Mark Z. Danielewski’s debut novel House of Leaves demands much more.
This intricate fictional work revolves around a documentary about a house that resembles a labyrinth and the story of the family living there. The novel has an experimental style, interweaving multiple layers and seemingly combining elements of horror and romance.
House of Leaves, in both its narrative and form, necessitates genuine attention from the reader. The book spans 709 pages, with text layered, inverted, stretched horizontally, and stylized in various fonts. Some passages even carry the implication of puzzles, making readers feel as if they are sinking into a labyrinth.
Finnegans Wake
Image: Biblio.
In many ways, James Joyce’s final work is quite similar to Mark Z. Danielewski’s debut. Finnegans Wake, written over a span of 17 years, is considered one of the most challenging novels to read in Western literature. It is also an experimental work interweaving stories between reality and the dream world.
This work is so obscure that nearly 100 years after its initial publication, much of the plot remains a mystery. This ambiguity stems from Joyce’s use of language with numerous puns and wordplays that create ambiguity and a dreamlike atmosphere for the novel.
Even the most enthusiastic fans of James Joyce find Finnegans Wake strangely difficult to understand.
