Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variationsin hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all otherspelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
Duplicate headings of the seven BOOKS have been removed.
THE HISTORY OF MAGIC
James Hyatt
ÉLIPHAS LÉVI
THE
HISTORY OF MAGIC
INCLUDING A CLEAR AND PRECISE EXPOSITION
OF ITS PROCEDURE, ITS RITES AND
ITS MYSTERIES
BY
ÉLIPHAS LÉVI
(ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT)
Opus hierarchicum et catholicum
(Definition of the Great Work, according to Heinrich Khunrath)
TRANSLATED, WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES, BY
ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
THE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS ARE INCLUDED
AND PORTRAITS OF THE AUTHOR
Second Edition
LONDON
WILLIAM RIDER & SON, LIMITED
CATHEDRAL HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1922
Copyright
[Pg v]
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISHTRANSLATION
In several casual references scattered through periodicalliterature, in the biographical sketch which preceded myrendering of Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie and elsewhere,as occasion prompted, I have put on record anopinion that the History of Magic, by Alphonse LouisConstant, written—like the majority of his works—underthe pseudonym of Éliphas Lévi, is the mostarresting, entertaining and brilliant of all studies on thesubject with which I am acquainted. So far back as 1896I said that it was admirable as a philosophical survey, itshistorical inaccuracies notwithstanding, and that there isnothing in occult literature which can suffer comparisontherewith. Moreover, there is nothing so comprehensivein the French language, while as regards ourselves itmust be said that—outside records of research on the partof folk-lore scholarship—we have depended so far on ahistory by Joseph Ennemoser, translated from the Germanand explaining everything, within the domain includedunder the denomination of Magic, by the phenomena ofAnimal Magnetism. Other texts than this are availablein that language, but they have not been put into English;while none of them has so great an appeal as that whichis here rendered into our tongue. Having certified sofar regarding its titles, it is perhaps desirable to add,from my own standpoint, that I have not translated thebook merely because it is entertaining and brilliant, or[Pg vi]because it will afford those who are concerned with Magicin history a serviceable general account. The task hasbeen undertaken still less in the interests of any who mayhave other—that is to say, direct occult—reasons foracquaintance with “its procedure, its rites and itsmysteries.” I have no object in providing unwary andfoolish seekers with material of this kind, and it sohappens that the present History does not fulfil thepromise of its sub-title in these respects, or at least to anyextent that they would term practical in their f