Transcriber's Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
Italics are represented thus _italic_, and superscripts thus y^{en}.
Duplicate headings of the seven BOOKS have been removed.
THE HISTORY OF MAGIC
[Illustration: ÉLIPHAS LÉVI _Frontispiece_]
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.
_Copyright_
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 Éliphas Lévi, is the most arresting, entertaining and brilliant of all studies on the subject with which I am acquainte…