Customer Reviews

The Book of Ceremonial Magic

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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.

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.

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.

What you've got to understand is that this isn't meant to be a guide to practical magic(k). Like many of Waite's other books (such as The Holy Kabbalah) it is a guide to the literature of, and a summary of the teaching of, a specific esoteric tradition. Viewed from this perspective, this is a very useful book for both the scholar and, if he has an open mind, the practical magician. Just don't expect Waite to hold you by the hand and tell you what to do.

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.

This book's primary value is as a survey of the methods of medieval Western Ceremonial Magic. It consists mainly of excerpts from the better known renaissance grimoires, accompanied by commentary from the author. The material is deliberately incomplete, and Waite's style is verbose, pompous and quite tedious at times. To these flaws must be added his scornful attitude toward his subject matter. Although at times, one does wonder why he bothered to write it in the first place, as a starting point for the study of the Western Esoteric tradition, it is a very valuable survery. A plus for content, D for style.

This was the first book I ever got that dealt with magic and it totally amazed me. I still use it alot almost two decades later and I have just bought a new version of it since the old one is falling apart.

Waite did an excelent job for his time scanning the libraries he had access to for much of the material in it and translating it. Unlike so many other magicians that have read way to many new age books I have noticed that Waite is actually often right and his opposition back then (Crowley and Mathers) usually are wrong. In waites material there are no blinds he just writes what it says and then give his take on it all. I can definatly understand why this upset both Mathers and Crowley. If you want people that definatly leave things out and put huge blinds or deliberatly misleads the readers then go and buy books by Crowley and Mathers because thoose are the experts at doing it.

This is a book that every serious traditional high magician should own and study. In it you find material that you simply will not find anywhere else. It is not a good beginners book on magic though but for the experienced it's a treasure just waiting to be explored.

This book, which is actually a revised and expanded version of the Book of Black Magic and Pacts, is a valuable beginners' guide to European magick systems of the middle ages. This book comes in two parts. The first part is Waite's analysis of various books, along with some excerpts. The second part is a complete grimorie, a synthesis of all the other grimories he analyzes in part one. For a person who is just getting started in magick, this is an invaluable book and SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ESSENTIAL BASIC READING. The big problem I have with this book is Waite's attitude. Waite considers all of this material hogwash, devilish garbage. In his review of The Book Of The Sacred Magick of Abramelin The Mage, he slams the translator, Mathers, by stating, "no doubt the translator will continue to regard (Abramelin) as a work of great 'importance' from the occult standpoint, and its existance in English as 'a real benefit' to students. I leave it to him." This same haughty attitude pervades the entire of the first part, and the comments are boring. It's like reading instructions for a microwave where the instructions insult the reader for buying the microwave!! If the reader can get around this, then the book becomes quite a bit more valuable as a resource.

This is not a grimoire of interesting spells. Rather it comprises Waite's Book of Black Magic and various other essays on the history of magick. If you're looking for a reference guide, this is an interesting book, and I think that any magician would do well to own a copy, but it's really not that practical. Get something by Crowley instead.

This is one interesting book -- adapted from earlier sources, you can find a lot of information that can help you on the path of summoning, conjuring, magical evocation of spirits.

Much Love & Many Blessings,
Thorn Nightwind