- Publisher : Independently published (March 23, 2023)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 488 pages
- ISBN-13 : 979-8388273390
- Item Weight : 1.8 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
A history of magicians written by a Hermetic philosopher. Translated and annotated by E.A. Waite.
Éliphas Lévi is the pen-name of Abbé Alphonse Louis Constant, a Roman Catholic priest and magician. He wrote this history of Magical theory and practice around the world in the mid-nineteenth century, in a time when occultism was de rigueur among the cultural elites of Paris.
First printed in France in 1913, Lévi has clearly spent years researching every imaginable kind of Magic. In this book he documents, with occasional illustration, Magic from Egypt, the Holy Lands, Greece, Rome, India, from the Old Testament, Zoroaster, Hermetics, Pythagoras, the Kabalah, Mysticism, Orthodox Christianity, Jews, Pagans, Devil worship, Barbarian and Women’s Magic, Charlemagne, The Knights Templar, Alchemists, Freemasonry, French Revolution, German Illuminati, Mesmerism and Sonambulism. As we like to say here: “This guy knows his shit”.
Also included are lots of interesting titbits on notorious practitioners like the infamous Gilles de Rais (see his biography here), Raymund Lully, Emmanuel Swedenborg, and Baron de Guldenstubbé. This edition was lovingly translated and annotated by A.E. Waite.
This deluxe paperback edition is typeset in the font Times New Roman. Care has been taken with the re-setting of the interior, the endnotes and the index. The result is a highly readable book on a timeless subject.
Hardcover version
