The Book of Ceremonial Magic

From renowned scholar of the occult and creator of the world-famous Rider Waite Tarot Deck, A E Waite comes a new edition of his landmark book on magic. Featuring the original intricate illustrations, The Book of Ceremonial Magic offers an in-depth exploration of the darker side of grimoire, ceremony, demons and spirits. This is a spellbinding book for anyone interested in the grotesque detail of black magic and the ceremonies and rituals that surrounded it. With whole chapters dedicated to describing how early incarnations of the occult prepared to engage with demons, this book will illustrate the deeper historical context of esoteric arts and the development of the occult, setting the context for how we perceive and understand magic today. Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942), commonly known as A. E. Waite, was an American-born British poet and 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."