Customer Reviews

Great Book of Magical Art, Hindu Magic and East Indian Occultism and the Book of Secret Hindu, Ceremonial, and Talismanic Magic

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I cannot begin to convey my contempt for L.W. de Laurence and his bootleg editions of many occult texts. This is one of his more outrageous and ironic productions. His Great Book of Magical Art, Hindoo Magic & Indian Occultism (1915) was a [copying] (without acknowledgement) of Frances Barrett's The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer (1801), which in turn is a [copy] of Agrippa's Occult Philosophy and de Abano's Heptameron. Besides substituting his name for Barrett's, and substituting a large photo of himself for Barrett's, de Laurence's contributions consisted mainly of altering some of the Hebrew sacred names of God for fabricated pseudo-Hindu sounding names such as replacing Barrett's (and Agrippa's) "Schemhamphorae" with "Zinkuminbujia." Similarly "Abraham" became "Athumech", "Trithemius" became "Kukuzuima-Munkinximaki" etc.!

Barrett at least added some value to Agrippa's classic by providing high-quality engravings, and abridging some of Agrippa's sometimes tedious text, but de Laurence's changes were only...corruptions, designed to promote himself and profit off the gullible. Spare yourself and buy Agrippa.

The title of this book gives you the impresion that, there is talismanic magic and in the whole book there is no talismanic at all