National Geographic Book of Magic and the Occult: A Visual History

by National Geographic, Jonathan Davis (Narrator)

Blending the allure of the supernatural with keen historical insights and more than 500 photos, this enchanting chronicle of magic around the world will bewitch skeptics and true believers alike.

Magic and the occult have held humanity in their thrall for thousands of years. This sweeping history traces its origins across time and culture—from the protective amulets of ancient Egypt to ceremonial magic in India, Celtic paganism to modern magic tricks.

National Geographic Book of Magic and the Occult illuminates this enthralling world across more than 90,000 years of history. You’ll meet witches and wizards, healers and alchemists, discovering the legends behind them and how they have enriched modern culture. You’ll also encounter a host of spellbinding subjects,

- Mystical moments, including spooky gatherings, strange happenings, and ghost stories

- Magic in pop culture, from Harry Houdini to Harry Potter

- Places of power, from Mount Fuji to “phantom” islands like Hy-Brasil

- Magical creatures like dragons and the Loch Ness Monster

- The art of divination, including the Chinese Zodiac, numerology, and tarot

- Modern magic, from neopaganism to astrology and herbalism

PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Mythology, Paranormal

Audible Audio

First published September 2, 2025

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly mixed feelings about this one. This is a huge undertaking that I probably wouldn’t have recommended, and it’s necessarily limited in detail. Honestly I mostly read this because I wanted to know how they possibly thought they could make this work. In that regard, it does an admirable job with a virtually impossible task.

I’m not a huge fan of the organization of this book. The chapter organizations are fine, but the sections within the chapters feel somewhat random and disjointed from one another at times. There are certain things where I honestly have no idea why they ordered it that way. The index is helpful, but it feels like maybe this wasn’t meant to be read in page number order.

This book makes a very accurate statement early on that magic and the occult, in their many forms, interact with each other and religion and culture in complicated ways. We’re dealing with a lot of different sorts of things here that are broadly labeled “magic” and/or “occult.” The main issue with this is that I don’t think there’s a sufficient introduction to the differences between some of these concepts. There’s a reason Crowley and others started using the term “magick” - not just to look cool, but to distinguish it from illusionary and stage magic. I have no idea why they wouldn’t include that despite mentioning the word in quotes. The result is what often feels like a conflation of all these concepts. They use the word “shaman” mostly uncritically for a large number of traditions, which I know a lot of people and cultures specifically don’t like. It’s also controversial in anthropology for this very reason. Considering how controversial some of these terms can be, I would have recommended a whole section on it.

The main thing I don’t get is the ending. The lack of conclusion makes this book feel like a hodgepodge of information with no thesis or connecting force to make it all work. And the information is mostly very good, but why does it just end??? The map of some relevant places around the world is not a satisfying conclusion in my opinion. Why not say something that connects past and present and different locations around the world? Why not make a statement about where magic and the occult could be going in the future? Honestly even if you just summarized some things, that would feel better to me.

This would be a great place to find fun facts, but I don’t think it does a great job at providing sufficient understanding. I wasn’t even expecting a lot, certainly not much detail, but I think they could have achieved more nuance for their main topics at the very least.

Despite all this, there is a lot of great information in this book. There were even some things I wasn’t familiar with, which is kind of a feat if you know anything about my interests. It’s probably worth reading if it interests you, with an understanding that it’s simplistic in a lot of ways. Normally I dock books more for not having any real sources or citations, outside a few mentions within the text itself (mostly primary sources), but I’m choosing to be generous because the information seems to be pretty decent from what I know and double checked. Might change that when I’m not feeling generous. The journalist authors did have an expert consultant, but honestly having a single expert consultant for a book of this scale is kind of a weird choice. You can’t be an expert in everything.

[Kelli Santistevan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blending the allure of the supernatural with keen historical insights and more than 500 photos, this enchanting chronicle of magic around the world will bewitch skeptics and true believers alike

I listened to the audiobook of this book on Audible while looking at the pictures in my physical copy of this book. This is a great book to do immersive reading with. With this type of book, I feel like you need to look at the pictures so you know what they’re talking about in the book. The physical copy of the book that I own is a coffee table book and it has beautiful pictures. I’ve always enjoyed watching documentaries from National Geographic so I thought I would enjoy a book by them too. I enjoyed reading the history and looking at the pictures. It was very interesting and it’s the perfect time to read this book because it’s almost Halloween.

[Caitlin Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for what it is: a high-level overview of magic and the occult throughout history, across the world and through many cultures, and across a variety of subjects. It is composed chiefly of short articles on those subjects, with high-quality images of magical and occult paraphernalia relating to each article. The exterior is gorgeous - beautiful cover and beautiful sprayed edges. Overall: If you're looking for something more detailed or in-depth, best look elsewhere, but if this is meant to be a coffee table sort of book (and I suspect it is), it has enough substance to still be an interesting read.

[MKF · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's an okay book I just think some things such of cryptids shouldn't be in here.

[Autumn Lenz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and beautifully organized read! The visuals are clear and detailed, and I loved that it goes beyond the usual well-known facts about magic and the occult. Fresh, engaging, and definitely worth picking up.

[Eve]

A sumptuously illustrated survey atlas, as one would expect from National Geographic. Filled with full-color photographs and drawings, ‘Magic and the Occult’ is a straightforward catalog of the truly occult—that is, that which is hidden or mysterious—around the world.

It’s a wide shadow. Starting with prehistoric rock paintings, there is a lot of speculation bordering on baseless assumption. How are we to know they involved worship or ritual? Maybe our illustrious illustrator ancestor was just creative and decided to mash up a human and a mammoth. (Heaven knows what future civilizations might make of these metal and glass rectangles ever by our bodies.) Anything without a solid, provable backstory is open to such interpretation.

I almost stopped there… but obviously, without a historical record, speculation is virtually all we have. And we had to start somewhere; why not at the beginning?

From mystical—mysterious would be a better word—sites to legends involving astrology and more mashups (centaurs, anyone?), the book lays the runway for takeoff. Pretty much anything you can think of, it’s in there. Dragons? Check. Rabbits’ feet? Check. Fairies? Check. Bigfoot? Jinn? The Virgin Mary’s breast milk? Mummies? Vampires? Narnia? There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

I’m going to withhold a star rating here. If you’re looking for an overview of the mysterious in human culture, this is a great surface-level encyclopedia. But if you’d like more detail, this isn’t the book for you beyond an attractive coffee table decoration.

I will comment that one detail I found decidedly shocking was the extreme credence Ronald and Nancy Reagan put in their astrologers’ guidance—even insisting that he be sworn in as governor of California at 12:10 a.m. to ensure proper alignment with the planet Jupiter. As Tim Walz might have said, they’re just weird.

[Drucilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a National Geographic book, this tends to focus heavily on the historical/anthropological aspect of magic and occult beliefs. It's really an adult version of The Extraordinary History of Witches. It can sometimes be dense to make your way through but there are really interesting nuggets found throughout.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you would like an introduction into magic and the occult, this is a great book for that. It is filled with lots of information about both, the history and tons of visual aids as well. The book is well put together, flows well, and brings complex concepts into simpler easier bites, and there is plenty of information to give you some major cases to start looking into it beyond this book.

[˗ˏˋ maddie ˊˎ˗ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely an overview, which could get a little frustrating - the lack of detail when a subject piqued the interest, but it would've been an impossible book to do if not for that.