I was creeped out when I opened occult book at beautiful library

Curiosity got the better of me but what I found made me feel uneasy

I went to the most beautiful library but was creeped out when I opened a book about the occult

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The Picton Reading Room in Liverpool Central Library has to be one of my favourite places in the city. This stunning part of the library reopened over a decade ago following a £50m restoration project to the William Brown Street site.

Filled with thousands of rare books, the beautiful circular room is a dream, with spiralling staircases and a wonderful dome roof, this historic room is where I had chosen to spend an autumn afternoon reading.

Momentarily distracted from my book, I looked over and saw a reference book entitled The Encyclopedia of the Occult by Lewis Spence and thought I would just have a little look. Turning the pages of this giant guide to the uncanny the book fell open at the entry of 'Dee, John'.

He was a mathematician from the 1500s who in his later years immersed himself in sorcery, but the end of his entry was missing, in fact, pages 117 to 126 had been cut out. Like a moment from a movie, I traced my fingers over what remained of the missing pages, it looked like they had been removed with a blade, but the cuts were not precise.

Searching the index, I could determine that the sections on 'demonology' and 'devil worship' had been removed. And a note written in red ink at the front of the book simply said: "Pages cut out noted 1/98".

I assumed this meant January 1998, which means at some point before them, someone had removed them, but why? What purpose? Did they need the pages for research? Had they taken issue with their very publication (but then why not the rest of the book). Or did it reveal something that should be hidden? Perhaps hand written notes added?

The book itself is considered one of the best iterations of cataloguing all things relating to occult activities and there have been many reprints since it was first published in 1920. Author Lewis Spence was a well-travelled Scot who became fascinated by folklore and myths during his trip abroad to Mexico and the United States.

So there will certainly be other copies of Spence's book that have pages 117 to 126. And it appears no one else at the library has any answers as to what happened to the missing pages. But a Liverpool City Council spokesperson said: “We ask that if anyone finds that a book in one our libraries is damaged, they let a member of the libraries team know and we can try to get it replaced.”

So it remains a mystery as to why and who has the missing pages on demonology and devil worship and what they needed them for. If you would like to examine the book for yourself, or perhaps just enjoy the wonderful dark academic ambience of the Picton Reading Room, it is open Monday to Friday 9am till 8pm and 9am till 5pm on Saturdays, closed on Sundays.

And do make sure to pay a visit to the Hornby Library which has an exhibit of book art at the moment, including one piece where the hands of Frankenstein's Monster protrude from a book and the Oak Room to see a book with a huge eye emerging from the cover - it really does look like the one from Hocus Pocus and is eerily lifelike!

And you can also visit all the surrounding landmarks for free, such as the Museum of Liverpool and the Walker Art Gallery. St George's Hall and gardens are also just opposite which have played as a backdrop for many films and TV shows, including more recently The Batman movie and the drama series A Gentleman in Moscow.

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