James Hyatt.
^LIPHAS LEVI
Frontispiece
THE
HISTORY OF MAGIC
INCLUDING A CLEAR AND PRECISE EXPOSITION
OF ITS PROCEDURE, ITS RITES AND
ITS MYSTERIES
BY
ELIPHAS LRVI
(ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT)
Opm hierarchicum et caiholicum
(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.
T9 2 2
Copyright
r.B LIBRARY
H ^
UNIVERSITY
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH
TRANSLATION
In several casual references scattered through periodical literature, in the biographical sketch which preceded my rendering of Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie and elsewhere, as occasion prompted, I have put on record an opinion that the History of Magic, by Alphonse Louis
Constant, written — like the majority of his works —
under the pseudonym of Eliphas Levi, is the most arresting, entertaining and brilliant of all studies on the subject with which I am acquainted. So far back as 1896
I said that it was admirable as a philosophical survey, its historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, and that there is nothing in occult literature which can suffer comparison therewith. Moreover, there is nothing so comprehensive in the French language, while as regards ourselves it must be said tha…