The Book of Ceremonial Magic (A Timeless Classic): By Arthur Edward Waite

This is a great study guide to ceremonial magic. Waite delivers an impressive analysis of the ins and outs with a wonderful conclusion on the reality of the subject. A must read for any student of the occult.

Vary nice and practical magick when it's used properly

Lengthy and dry reading BUT full of information I found useful. Addition to the library.

Great buy, fast shipping excellent price! Good service

It opens your mind up to a new way of thinking but lacks information the real book of black magic has more information and is basically the same book

The author

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.

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 is a collection of all renowned Grimoires. I have had read pdf version of all such but having them available altogether in book is highly helpful. This book however doesn't cover the Greater Key of Solomon but covers rest of his keys. There's lots of wisdom to be gained. The sigils/pictures are clear and precise and are explained wherever applicable. Do read the footnotes as well, in many places there's divine wisdom there. I am so glad to have got it. This new edition has amazing front and back cover, the hardcover binding is amazing. Mr. Waite has made fun of the double standard belief of the Grimoires as well which is funny. For eg, he pointed out that in order to do evil as many of the operations intend to, the operator must first be pure of heart and also that God is invoked for blessings to do evil which is ironic, it was really funny to read

Acabei de receber o livro e é tudo de bom. A obra entrega o que promete! Vale a pena!

‘The Original Rider Waite Book of Ceremonial Magic’ – as if this book wasn’t published under enough different titles already. This is a nice, clean edition. Hardcover, but perfect bound with no dustjacket. Cheap paper but clean prints and good reproductions of the images. Not what it might have been, but infinitely better than the mess of poorly scanned, self published ‘facsimile editions’ put out by people who seem to hate books. Only slight quirk was that some of the pages were slightly stuck together. (Is that you, Mr Crowley?)

Love delving into the histopry of the subject.

This book is the typical ceremonial magic book. It has lots of symbols, footnotes, planetary tables, seals, etc. If you are into this type of publication, then this is the book for you. It’s a bit “bloated” for me. This book was initially called “The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts”. It’s from 1898, so you can guess that the type of prose and language you will find will not be the most straightforward. It doesn’t lay out the path towards emancipation, but it is not intended to be that profound. Maybe run a web search to see if this is the type of book for you before getting it.