The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts;Including the Rites and Mysteries of Goetic Theurgy, Sorcery, and Infernal Necromancy, also the Rituals of Black Magic

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It will be made clear as we proceed that the purposes and ambitions of Magic are commonly very childish, so that we must distinguish really between Black and White Magic, not as between the essentially good and evil, but as between that which is certainly evil and that which may only be foolish. The result was the convocation of all the masters of Magic, to the number of 811, all of whom seem to have come out of Naples, Athens, and a place entitled Tholetus.

I have read many books written from the late 1800's to 1900's and none are as badly reprinted like this one is. From these books he seems afterwards to have extracted ninety-three chapters containing a summary of the art, and made them into a volume which we term the sacred or sworn book.Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item.

Part I provides the reader with essential passages from leading magical texts from the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. It is an attempt to document various famous grimoires, explain the history behind them (refuting many of the legends surrounding them), discuss the theology contained therein (e. My only critique of any of Waite's books is his tendency to mock his peers and an overall condescension toward his academic opponents. Almost without exception, the source of their inspiration is the work mentioned in the preface, namely, The Key of Solomon, and they are consequently of later date. Astrology, or the appreciation of the celestial influences in their operation upon the nature and life of man, could be perverted in the composition of malefic talismans by means of those influences.It was first published in a limited run in 1898, and distributed more widely under the title The Book of Ceremonial Magic in 1910. Arthur Edward Waite’s “The Book of Black Magic” represents an exhaustive guide to the occult, looking at lore, magick, occultist history, ceremony, and much more. Between the most ancient processes, such as those of Chaldean Magic, and the rites of the Middle Ages, there are marked correspondences, and there is something of common doctrine, as distinct from intention, in which identity would more or less obtain, underlying them both. Those who value Kabbalistic literature as a symbolism, the inner sense of which is or may be of importance, but see nothing in the processes of Ceremonial Magic to make them momentous in their literal sense or susceptible to interpretation, will be tempted to dismiss them as mediaeval and later impostures, which must be carefully distinguished from the true symbolical tradition. Waite also wrote two allegorical fantasy novels, Prince Starbeam (1889) and The Quest of the Golden Stairs (1893).