Secret of Alchemist Dar

Hi everybody this is my 1st post. I figured this is the best place to post this question so here goes. My son wants to read this book,its a treasure hunt book and is quite popular. My only gripe is that the author has a book of dark spells that you have to navigate through to get clues and I don't know if these are real spells or just made up harmless stuff for the book. Anyone have any info on this?Thanks