The Book of Ceremonial Magic

A.E. Waite (1857-1942) was one of the most important and influential figures in Western occultism. Perhaps best known as the creator of the enormously popular Rider-Waite tarot deck, he was a prolific author and had a leadership role in several occult groups (including the Golden Dawn), some of which he founded.His Book of Ceremonial Magic (first published in London, 1911?) is a revision of his Book of Black Magic and Pacts (Edinburgh, 1898) It contains a treasurehouse of drawings and quotes from rare handbooks of magic, but it does have some shortcomings. Excerpts often are quoted out of context, without representing any one system intact. Translations are not always reliable and mistakes are surprisingly frequent.Although Waite himself practised ritual magic, his treatment of the literature here represented is highly critical. I suspect that Waite deliberately chose passages from the most corrupt manuscripts possible to strengthen his invective. For example, he bases his extracts from the Lemegeton on Sl.2731 which is one of the least accurate manuscripts of that text. Also he uses a text titled True Black Magic (La Vraie Magie Noire) to exemplify techniques from the Key of Solomon method, when other versions are clearly more accurate.This book also suffers from a lack of any form of critical apparatus, bibliography, and index.Waite did us a service by assembling excerpts from a wide selection of magical texts, giving us a fairly good flavor for the genre, but I advise serious researchers and would-be practitioners of ceremonial magic to use it with caution. Those looking for a much more thorough survey of magical literature would do well to consult E.M. Butler's Ritual Magic, and Lynn Thorndike's History of Magic and Experimental Science.

The hardcover edition of Waite's "Ceremonial Magic..." is the comprehensive version of what has since been published as an abbreviated volume in paperback form. If you get any, get the hardcover.

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