The Book of Black Magic and Ceremonial Magic

Front Cover
Book Tree, 2006 - Literary Collections - 372 pages

With this book the author has assembled together a number of magical spells and treatises from a variety of obscure sources. The result is a great overview of magic from one of the most important figures in Western occultism. When critical at times of Eliphas Levi and Waite's former associate, S. L. MacGregor Mathers, it shows an attempt at being honest with his views on magic. He also covers many of the original early grimoires, sometimes quoting them, and points out flaws in the more recent translations of his time. This is an expanded, updated version of his previous work, The Book of Black Magic. The book is a gold-mine of smaller magical pamphlets published in France in the nineteenth century, which were reproductions of earlier eighteenth-century works, now preserved in this book and valued for their content. All in all this is not so much a book of rituals to perform, which are plentiful and easy to find. It is instead a great reference book on ritual magic, of which only a few good ones exist today. In this regard, it is considered one of the best.

 

Contents

CHAPTER I
3
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK MAGIC
13
CHAPTER II
24
THEOSOPHIA PNEUMATICA
35
4 THE SEVEN MYSTERIOUS ORISONS
46
SUMMARY OF TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC
54
THE LESSER KEY OF SOLOMON
64
A GENERAL INSTRUCTION CONCERNING THE INSTRUMENts
154
CONCERNING THE FORMS OF INFERNAL SPIRITS IN THEIR
193
GETON
236
THE MYSTERIES OF INFERNAL EVOCATION ACCORD
241
CONCERNING THE GENUINE SANCTUM REGNUM OR THE TRUE
254
CHAPTER VII
265
CHAPTER VIII
297
CONCERNING THE EXPERIMENT OF INVISIBILITY
306
CONCERNING THE VISION OF SPIRITS IN THE AIR
313

CONCERNING THE ROD AND STAFF OF THE
161
CONCERNING VIRGIN WAX OR VIRGIN EARTH
168
CONCERNING ASPERSION AND CLEANSING
177
CHAPTER III
184
CONCERNING THE THREE RINGS OF SOLOMON SON OF DAVID
321
CONCLUSION
334
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

References to this book

About the author (2006)

Arthur Edward Waite was born on October 2, 1857 in Brooklyn, New York. He was a poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Waite joined the Outer Order of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in January 1891 after being introduced by E.W. Berridge. In 1899 he entered the Second order of the Golden Dawn. He became a Freemason in 1901, and entered the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1902. In 1903 Waite founded the Independent and Rectified Order R. R. et A. C. Waite was a prolific author and many of his works were well received in academic circles. He wrote occult texts on subjects including divination, esotericism, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, and ceremonial magic, Kabbalism and alchemy; he also translated and reissued several important mystical and alchemical works. His works on the Holy Grail, influenced by his friendship with Arthur Machen, were particularly notable. A number of his volumes remain in print, including The Book of Ceremonial Magic (1911), The Holy Kabbalah (1929), A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (1921), and his edited translation of Eliphas Levi's 1896 Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual (1910), having seen reprints in recent years. Waite also wrote two allegorical fantasy novels, Prince Starbeam (1889) and The Quest of the Golden Stairs (1893).

Bibliographic information