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. 1922 _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 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 that—outside records of research on the part of folk-lore scholarship—we have depended so far on a history by Joseph Ennemoser, translated from the German and explaining everything, within the domain included under the denomination of Magic, by the phenomena of Animal Magnetism. Other texts than this are available in that language, but they have not been put into English; while none of them has so great an appeal as that which is here rendered into our tongue. Having certified so far regarding its titles, it is perhaps desirable to add, from my own standpoint, that I have not translated the book merely because it is entertaining and brilliant, or because it will afford those who are concerned with