The Book of Ceremonial Magic [Paperback]

Arthur Edward Waite (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2002

The Book of Ceremonial Magic, written by the distinguished occult scholar Arthur Edward Waite, offers readers an analytical and critical account of the major magical rituals known in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. With chapters on the preparation of rituals, the hierarchy of spirits and demons, and the art of conjuration, this book is a necessary component of any occultist's bookshelf.

Editorial Reviews

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CONCERNING THE INVOCATION OF EVIL SPIRITS

If we would call any evil Spirit to the circle, it first behoveth us to consider and to know his nature, to which of the planets it agreeth, and what offices are distributed to him from the planet. This being known, let there be sought out a place fit and proper for his invocation. according to the nature of the planet and the quality of the offices of the same Spirit, as mear as the same may be done. For example, if his power be over the sea, rivers or floods, then let a place be chosen on the shore, and so of the rest. In like manner, let there be chosen a convenient time, both for the wuality of the air--which should be serene, clear, quiet and fitting for the Spirits to assume bodies--and for the quality and nature of the planet, and so too of the spirit, to wit, on his day, noting the time wherein he ruleth, whether it be fortunate or unfortunate, day or nguht, as the stars and spirits require.

These things being considered, let there be a circle framed at the place elected, as well for the defence of the invocant as for the confirmation of the Spirit. In the circle itself there are to be written the general Divine Names, and those things which do yield defence unto us; the Divine Names which do rule the said planet, with the offices of the Spirit himself; the names, finally, of the good Spirits which bear rule and are able to bind and constrain that Spirit which we intend to call. If we would further fortify our circle, we may add characters and pentacles agreeing to the work. So also, and within and without the circle, we may frame an angular figure, inscribed with such numbers as are congruent among themselves to our work. Moreover, the operator is to be provided with lights, perfumes, unguents and medicines compounded according to the nature of the planet and Spirit, which do partially agree with the Spirit, by reason of their natural and celestial virtue, and partly are exhibited to the Spirit for religious and superstitious worship.

Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Lethe Press (April 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590210123
• ISBN-13: 978-1590210123
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,890,662 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of information, but not always reliable, December 7, 2001

By 

J. H. Peterson (Kasson, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Book of Ceremonial Magic (Paperback)

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.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ian Myles Slater on: A Standard Old Study, Under Any Title, July 28, 2004

By 

Ian M. Slater "aylchanan" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Book of Ceremonial Magic (Paperback)

Arthur Edward Waite (1860-1942) was a professed mystic, an historian of mysticism, alchemy, magic, and secret societies, an industrious translator, and a man unusually willing to turn 180 degrees from a published opinion when faced with new and better evidence. His variously titled "Book of Black Magic and of Pacts" (first edition, privately printed 1898; public edition, 1911), or "Book of Ceremonial Magic" (etc.) shows Waite rejecting the misinformation and misrepresentations of his old source and model, "Eliphas Levi" (real name Alphonse Louis Constant, c.1810-1875) and his sometime-associate in the Order of the Golden Dawn, S.L. MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918), and trying to offer the interested public a responsible survey of the literature of ceremonial magic.

The book in question is frequently reprinted, under a variety of similar titles, although it is now very badly dated; I have reviewed another edition, published as "The Book of Black Magic," and repeat my observations here. Under any title, it contains a number of oversights and errors of fact, but it retains considerable value and interest, and is worth reading with care, and *critical* attention. Some titles do raise (various and different sets of) false expectations, however. I have not seen all editions; with the exception of the recent Weiser edition as "The Book of Black Magic," which appears to reprint the shorter, and apparently less (or un-) illustrated, 1898 edition, those I have seen seemed to have identical texts (but there may be differences I've missed).

Waite makes interesting points on the presuppositions of the genuinely early grimoires (books of spells and rituals) which he describes and excerpts, and useful comments on the (un)reliability of the then-current translations, many of which have been reprinted in recent years. Anyone attempting to use it as guide to practicing such magic should heed Waite's warning that he has taken care to present an incomplete or corrupt form of any ritual involving harm to animals, rendering the spells, by the magical hypothesis, ineffective; entirely out of concern for the animals, not the would-be-magicians, he explains.

Indeed, Waite has little patience with the operative magician in general, and with those who supply the demand for spellbooks in particular. He points out that, in terms of procedures and intentions, the magical literature allows no real distinction between "white" and "black" magic; indeed, what is presented as "white" magic, is, by making direct use of religious rites and objects, sometimes the more objectionable. He also points out that the medieval and early modern magicians generally seemed unaware that what they were doing could be considered blasphemous.

Among its other merits, Waite's book provides extended excerpts and illustrations from the leading pseudo-grimoires published in cheap editions in (mainly) France in the nineteenth century. He points out the origins of some of these tracts in more respectable "occult" writings of the eighteenth century. (A rather wavering line probably could now be drawn back all the way to the Hermetic enthusiasts of the Renaissance, and ultimately to Hellenistic Egypt, but all genuine Egyptian content, except mention of the Pyramids and Pharaohs, had vanished along the way.)

Waite attempts, albeit with inadequate data, to establish the medieval date and Christian origins of the various "Books" and "Keys" of Solomon, a task still not complete in detail, and compares these texts to explicitly Christian works, some masquerading as highly effective devotions. The book is concerned with the relatively elite practice of ritual magic, including its many vulgarizations, and not with European witchcraft, nor with Satanism as such.

As Waite points out, the grimoires promise to teach how to compel, bribe, and trick devils, not worship them (although from a theological point of view, as he makes equally clear, the distinction is meaningless). Pacts are attempts to force supernatural beings to serve humans, not promises of one's own soul -- except where the intention is to break the pact.

The nearest successor to Waite's book to appear in English was Elizabeth M. Butler's "Ritual Magic," first published by Cambridge University Press in 1949, and recently reprinted. It shows a dependence on Waite for materials unavailable to its author in wartime and post-war Britain, but has considerable additional material on actual and supposed magicians (including Gilles de Rais), and on nineteenth century magicians, pseudo-magicians, Satanists, pseudo-Satanists, and hoaxes, and provides an invaluable context for understanding Waite's writings, not just this book. Her book can be read as a follow-up, but also as an introduction.

Butler, more importantly, fills a gap in Waite's coverage. "Ritual Magic" offers a good discussion of the various German (and generally Central European) books purporting to contain the magic of Faust; these are generally duller than the French pamphlets described by Waite, but seem to be rather more likely to reflect real attempts to practice the "black arts," and represent a different geographic area. "Ritual Magic" was, in fact, the middle volume of a trilogy on the Faust tradition (including "The Myth of the Magus" and "The Fortunes of Faust'), and Butler's literary interests are clear throughout.

Those with a genuine interest in current research on the history of European traditions of magic will probably want to turn to the essays in "Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic," edited by Claire Fanger (1998), and Richard Kieckhefer's "Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century" (1997). These all, especially the latter, contain excerpts of texts to compare to those offered by Waite. (Kieckhefer gives a long Latin text as well.) A shorter survey, covering a number of other topics, and with briefer quotations, is Kieckhefer's "Magic in the Middle Ages" (Cambridge University Press, 1989; the Canto paperback of 2000 has a useful new Preface with updated bibliography). Kieckhefer also provides a good introduction to the historical literature on witch beliefs and persecutions, and how these relate to elite magic; a subject on which the second edition of Norman Cohn's "Europe's Inner Demons" is also enlightening.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, February 10, 2002

By 

Frater AChDAE (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Book of Ceremonial Magic (Paperback)

Waite never meant to make this book practical in any sense; instead, he sought to create a reference book. For those interested in Magickal Grimoires, but without the intent to practice from them, this book is a great souce-book. It includes snippets of (and commentary on) various medieval Grimoires, for the edification of the curious.

Though at times, rather harsh in his judgments of Magick in general, and the Golden Dawn system specifically, he does provide a good deal of information in one package.