THE HISTORY OF MAGIC, Including A Clear and Precise Exposition of Its Procedure, Its Rites and Its Mysteries
Book Details + Condition: Translated with a preface and notes by Arthur Edward Waite. Undated third edition, circa 1940s. Printed in Britain and distributed in the U.S. Original navy blue cloth, with frontis portrait, black-and-white illustrations, appendix and index. Includes illustrated plates from diagrams and drawings by the author. Tight binding; bumped and rubbed corners; spine outer cloth covered with bookbinding tape; text has some age-toning, but remains clean and unmarked. THE HISTORY OF MAGIC is a broad-ranging study of magic, which also touches on alchemy and other of the hermetic arts. Eliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant, was a French occult author, socialist, and ceremonial magician. "Histoire de la Magie" was first published in 1860. Lévi exerted a profound influence on those who would follow: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Helen Blavatsky, and Aleister Crowley to name a few.
