Magic has been confounded too long with the jugglery of mountebanks, the hallucinations of disordered minds and the crimes of certain unusual malefactors. There are otherwise many who would promptly explain Magic as the art of producing effects in the absence of causes; and on the strength of such a definition it will be said by ordinary people—with the good sense which characterises the ordinary, in the midst of much injustice—that Magic is an absurdity. But it can have no analogy in fact with the descriptions of those who know nothing of the subject; furthermore, it is not to be represented as this or that by any person whomsoever: it is that which it is, drawing from itself only, even as mathematics do, for it is the exact and absolute science of Nature and her laws. Eliphas Levi
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Book Description:
First published in French, this work by Éliphas Lévi (1810-75) was translated into English by occult historian Arthur Waite in 1913. In this book, Lévi traces Western magic from its origins in the ancient world to the nineteenth-century occult revival. Lévi's French edition is also reissued in this series.
Language Notes:
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French
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