The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts

Arthur Edward Waite

Description

An exhaustive guide to the occult, featuring passages on folklore, occultist history, and magic ceremony.

First published in 1898, The Book of Black Magic and Pacts contains a large number of magic spells and occult writings taken from a variety of sources. This volume is one of the greatest overviews of the occult. Written by Arthur Edward Waite, influential scholarly mystic and co-creator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck.

The contents of this volume feature:

- The Literature of Ceremonial Magic

- The Antiquity of Magical Rituals

- The Rituals of Transcendental Magic

- The Rituals of Black Magic

- The Initial Rites and Ceremonies

- Concerning the Descending Hierarchy

- The Mysteries of Infernal Evocation According to the Grand Grimoire

- The Method of Honorius

- Miscellaneous and Minor Processes

- Concerning Infernal Necromancy

Sujets

• Occultism
• Spirituality

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 14 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 9
• EAN13: 9781528767989
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The
Book of Black Magic
And Of Pacts
INCLUDING THE RITES AND MYSTERIES OF GOETIC THEURGY, SORCERY, AND INFERNAL NECROMANCY, ALSO THE RITUALS OF BLACK MAGIC
BY
ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
AUTHOR OF “ DEVIL WORSHIP IN FRANCE ,” ETC ., ETC .

TWO HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS

This Edition Prepared for Publication Under the Editorship of
L. W. de LAURENCE
Author of “The Great Book of Magical Art, Hindu Magic and East Indian Occultism,” “The Sacred Book of Death, Hindu Spiritism, Soul Transition and Soul Reincarnation,” “The Mystic Text Book of the Hindu Occult Chambers,” “The Magic and Occultism of India, The Wonders of the Magic Mirror, Hindu and Egyptian Crystal Gazing, Astral Auras and Colors,” “The Immanence of God, Know Thyself,” “God, the Bible, Truth and Christian Theology.” Owning and controlling the publishing rights of the only standard and exclusive line of Occult Works by The Old Masters and Adepts extant today
“Alii daemones malos virtute divinorum nominum adjuratos, advocare solent, atque haec est illa Necromantiae species quae dicitur malefica: vel in Theurgiam, quae quasi bonis Angelis, divinoque numine regitur (ut nonulli putant) cum saepissime tamen sub Dei, et Angelorum nominibus malis Daemonoum illusionibus peragitur.” —R OBERT F LUDD .
Tenth Edition
III.
Copyright © 2018 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Arthur Edward Waite
Arthur Edward Waite was born on the 2nd of October, 1857 in America.
After the death of his father, Waite and his mother returned to her native England, where he was raised in North London, attending St. Charles' College from the age of thirteen. Waite left school to become a clerk, but also wrote verse in his spare time. The death of his sister, Frederika Waite, in 1874 soon attracted him into psychical research. At 21, he began to read regularly in the Library of the British Museum, studying many branches of esotericism.
Waite was a scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. As his biographer, R.A. Gilbert described him, "Waite's name has survived because he was the first to attempt a systematic study of the history of western occultism - viewed as a spiritual tradition rather than as aspects of proto-science or as the pathology of religion."
Waite was a prolific author with many of his works being well received in academic circles. He wrote occult texts on subjects including divination, esotericism, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry and ceremonial magic, Kabbalism, and alchemy. Waite also translated and reissued several important mystical and alchemical works. His works on the Holy Grail, influenced by his friendship with Arthur Machen, were particularly notable. A number of his volumes remain in print: The Book of Ceremonial Magic, The Holy Kabbalah, A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry , and his edited translation of Eliphas Levi's Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual .
Waite is best known as the co-creator of the popular and widely used Rider-Waite Tarot deck and author of its companion volume, The Key to the Tarot , re-published in expanded form the following year, 1911, as The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, a guide to Tarot reading . The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot was notable for being one of the first tarot decks to illustrate all 78 cards fully. Golden Dawn member Pamela Colman Smith illustrated the cards for Waite, and the deck was first published in 1909. It remains in publication today.
Other works by Waite are in circulation, many published after his death. They include I nner and Outer Order Initiations of the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn , (2005) The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross: Being Records of the House of the Holy Spirit in its Inward and Outward History , (1924), Israfel: Letters, Visions and ( 1886), A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry (Ars Magna Latomorum) and of Cognate Instituted Mysteries: Their Rites, Literature, and History (1994), Theories As to the Authorship of the Rosicrucian Manifestoes (2005), The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail: Its Legends and Symbolism Considered in Their Affinity with Certain Mysteries of Initiation and Other Traces of a Secret Tradition in Christian Times (2002).
When Waite was almost 30, he married Ada Lakeman and they had one daughter, Sybil. Some time after Ada’s death in 1924, Waite married Mary Broadbent Schofield. He spent most of his life in or near London, connected to various publishing houses, and editing a magazine, The Unknown World.
Waite passed away on the 19th May, 1942.
The Folklore and History of Witchcraft
Witchcraft, also called ‘witchery’ or ‘spellcraft’ is the use of magical faculties, most commonly for religious, divinatory or medicinal purposes. The belief and the practice of magic has been present since the earliest human cultures and continues to have an important religious and medicinal role in many cultures today. The concept of witchcraft and sorcery, and those accused of its practice have sadly often been utilised as a scapegoat for human misfortune. This was particularly the case in the early modern period of Europe where witchcraft came to be seen as part of a vast diabolical conspiracy of individuals in league with the Devil undermining Christianity. This eventually led to large-scale witch hunts, especially in Protestant Europe. Witch hunts continue to this day with tragic consequences.
Witches and witchcraft have long been objects of fear, and occasionally admiration in traditional folkloric tales. The Ancient Greeks believed in a deity named ‘Hecate’ who was said to be the god of all witches, as well as hexes, poisonous plants and sorcery. One of the other names she was known by, ‘Chthonia’ literally translates as ‘of the underworld.’ Such folkloric beliefs inspired the character of ‘Circe’ in Homer’s Odyssey . Here, Circe lived on an island named Aeaea, where she turned passing sailors into wolves and lions. Odysseus only narrowly escaped transformation due to a magical plant. Indian folkloric tradition has an all-together darker tale, that of ‘Chedipe’; a woman who died during childbirth. She was said to ride on a tiger at nightfall, and enter people’s houses. Then without waking a soul, she would suck the life out of each man through the toes. The most famous English portrayal of witchcraft is the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, inspired by the tale of the Moirai. These three sisters—or fates—are the first characters the audience encounters and act as agents of destruction, sending Macbeth into a spiral of corruption and obsession.
In Early Modern European tradition witches were stereotypically, though not exclusively women. European pagan belief in witchcraft was associated with the goddess Diana, and was fully believed by much of the population. With the advent of Christianity however, such beliefs were dismissed as ‘diabolical fantasies’ by medieval Christian authors. Early converts to Christianity looked to Christian clergy to work magic more effectively than the old methods under Roman paganism, and Christianity provided a methodology involving saints and relics, similar to the gods and amulets of the Pagan world. The Protestant Christian explanation for witchcraft, such as those typified in the confessions of the Pendle witches (a series of famous witch trials which took place in Lancashire in 1612), commonly involves a diabolical pact or at least an appeal to the intervention of the spirits of evil.
The witches or wizards engaged in such practices were alleged to reject Jesus and the sacraments; observe ‘the witches’ sabbath’ (performing infernal rites that often parodied the Mass or other sacraments of the Church); pay Divine honour to the Prince of Darkness; and, in return, receive from him preternatural powers. It was a folkloric belief that a Devil's Mark, like the brand on cattle, was placed upon a witch's skin by the devil to signify that this pact had been made. The Church and European society were not always so zealous in hunting witches or blaming them for misfortunes. Saint Boniface declared in the eighth century that belief in the existence of witches was un-Christian. The emperor Charlemagne further decreed that the burning of supposed witches was a pagan custom that would be punished by the death penalty. In 820 the Bishop of Lyon repudiated the belief that witches could make bad weather, fly in the night and change their shape. This denial was accepted into Canon Law until it was reversed in later centuries as witch hunts gained force.
It should be noted, that not all witches were assumed to be harmful practitioners of their craft. In England the provision of curative magic was the job of a witch doctor, also known as a cunning man, white witch, or wise man. The term ‘witch doctor’ was in use in England before it came to be associated with Africa. ‘Toad Doctors’ were also credited with the ability to undo evil witchcraft. Since the twentieth century, witchcraft has become a designated branch of modern paganism. It is most notably practiced in the Wiccan and witchcraft traditions, which are generally portrayed as revivals of pre-Christian European ritual and spirituality. They are understood to involve varying degrees of magic, shamanism, folk medicine, spiritual healing, calling on elementals and spirits, veneration of ancient deities and archetypes as well as attunement with the forces of nature. Today, both men and women are equally termed ‘witches.’ We hope that the reader is inspired by this incredibly short history of the folklore surrounding witchcraft, to find out more about this intriguing subject.

EDWD. KELLEY A MAGICIAN
In the act of invoking the spirit of deceased person
PREFACE
IN the year 1889 a learned expositor