THE HISTORY OF MAGIC: INCLUDING A CLEAR AND PRECISE EXPOSITION OF ITS PROCEDURE, ITS RITES AND ITS MYSTERIES
Book Details + Condition: William Rider & Son, Limited (London). Increasingly scarce Second Edition, 1922. Hardcover with publisher's blue cloth ruled with ornamental gilt borders, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, top edge gilt. 536 pages. Translated with a Preface and Notes by Arthur Edward Waite. Frontispiece photo portrait of the author, with illustrated plates from diagrams and drawings by the author throughout the volume. Eliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant, was a French occult author, socialist, and ceremonial magician. His "Histoire de la Magie" was first published in 1860. (Please see our available copy of this original First Edition.) Lévi exerted a profound influence on those occultists who would follow, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Helen Blavatsky, and Aleister Crowley, among others. The work is divided into 7 "Books":
- The Derivations of Magic
- Formation and Development of Dogmas
- Divine Synthesis and Realisation of Magia by the Christian Revelation
- Magic and Civilisation
- The Adepts and the Priesthood
- Magic and the Revolution
- Magic in the Nineteenth Century
Levi's work offers a thorough and broad examination of magic and the occult from ancient times to the occult revival of the 19th century, with topics including:
- Magic of the Magi
- Hermetic Magic
- The Holy Kabbalah
- Mysticism
- Superstitions
- Magical Monuments
- The Devil
- The Last Pagans
- Influence of Women
- Magicians
- On Certain Alchemists
- Magical Origin of Freemasonry
- The Illuminati
- Hallucinations
- Mesmerists and Somnabulists
- Magical Literature
- The Occult Sciences
- And so much more.
A firm and clean copy of an increasingly scarce work, with solid binding; rubbed corners and edges; normal aging and wear to boards; some darkening to spine, with chafed spine ends (more so at the top); toning to endpapers; light foxing to first and last few pages; interior text is clean and free of markings.
