The Book of Ceremonial Magic

From SourceryForge

The Book of Ceremonial Magic,subtitled A Complete Grimoire,is a book by Arthur Edward Waite,expanded from his earlier (1898) Book of Black Magic and of Pacts.It was issued in 1911 or 1913,according to different sources.As it is in the public domain,it has been reprinted by various publishers.

The title page includes the additional subtitle,"The Secret Tradition in Goetia,including the rites and mysteries of Goetic theurgy,sorcery and infernal necromancy".

Part I is entitled The Literature of Ceremonial Magic,and includes material from numerous magical texts of the 14th-16th centuries.

Part II is The Complete Grimoire proper,in which Waite essays to systematically synthesize the contents of his numerous sources in a more coherent form than they offer.

In the Foreword to the edition first published by University Books for their Library of the Mystic Arts in 1961,John C. Wilson writes "...this complete Grimoire--which remains to this day the best source of magical procedure extant--is the work of an author who looks upon ceremonial magic as not only futile,but denies any real distinction between white and black magic and considers it all vain and wicked....Waite's disapproval is genuine;but equally genuine is his desire that we shall all know precisely the actual content of ceremonial magic....He speaks in warm terms of astrology and alchemy and insists they are no part of the occultism that he opposes....In late Judaism and even more so in Christianity the magic outworn or belonging to the other fellow became the work of the devil.Waite,despite his great knowledge and wisdom,remained a prisoner of this exclusivist Christian formula."

The book includes numerous illustrations,from historical depictions of rituals to the sigils employed in summoning or dealing with a wide variety of spirits and the talismans to be engraved on rings.

External link

• Online text at sacred-texts.com (not including 1961 Foreword)