A.E. Waite: Magician of Many Parts

by R.A. Gilbert

Book by R.A. Gilbert

Genres: Biography

208 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Sørina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whew, well, I made it through. This book is absolutely essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Charles Williams and his relationship to the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, but the obscure writing style, non-chronological arrangement, and abstract nature of the book make it hard slogging to get to the few pages on that topic. It is not really a biography, since few of the external details of Arthur Edward Waite's life are narrated. But then again, he doesn't seem to have had much of an external life. How could he, when we wrote 46 books, edited/translated/wrote intros for 40 more, wrote over 40 rituals for secret societies (p. 160) and was, he claimed, "the most initiated man in Europe" (p. 117) -- he joined dozens of secret societies in his life and founded or led several. So, fascinating content, but a difficult read.

[Lewis Carnelian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't help thinking of Aleister Crowley throughout this whole thing, they seemed such polar opposites—Crowley adventuring around the world, "willing" mosquitos to not bite him and subsequently getting multiple cases of malaria, while Waite toiled away in squalid suburbs of London and other patches of England, wading through the molasses of minutiae and bureaucracy of the various laughable occult societies that I don't think, ever, ultimately offered what Waite was looking for, which probably was a kind of spiritual Holy Graal. He'd join a society, plumb its depths with research, put out an obtuse history of the subject, and then more or less move on, even with his own projects. One gets the feeling of one both taken and then subsequently disillusioned with disappointment with the various paths explored, all adding to a kind of Katamari of Western Christian Mysticism at the core of his being. As I struggle with perhaps one of his most important studies, his The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal: Its Legends and Symbolism Considered in Their Affinity with Certain Mysteries of Initiation and Other Traces of a blah blah, one gets the feeling that Waite couldn't help but sabotage his own methodology—his work contains almost blind, deliberate errors in factual evidence, a kind of magical thinking that ultimately derides whatever mysticism he could possible be eluding to. That doesn't mean his work is without worth, even, while I wouldn't go as far as Crowley's criticism of his style, it is difficult and woefully syntactically labyrinthine. Gilbert's biography is probably the best we will ever get, it's well done, even if the chronologies can be confused—Gilbert follows more Waite's progress of studies than his actual life, and since many of these studies overlap—Hermetic Dawn, Freemasonry, etc, it can all get a bit confused where exactly Waite is standing *physically* throughout all these sheaths of thought. But that is no doubt the intention of Gilbert, who shows a real critical admiration of Waite. A valuable, at times hilarious (Waite could be subtly scathing in his own manner, and the ridiculousness of some of these societies is inescapable, although Gilbert is rather factual here and not prone to belittling it) work that is a great guide if one is interested in this quite prolific and eccentric "mystic".

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It provided deep insight to the man behind arguable the most popular Tarot in the world and who is responsible for bringing many medieval and renaissance texts of the occult sciences to a modern audience. I am beginning to delve deeply into his writings on mysticism and so far have found them illuminating. The book is short but well-written. The organization is primarily according to subject matter but there is also a rough chronological arrangement of the chapters, the first dealing with Waite's birth and childhood and the last dealing with his last years and death. This book makes Waite a living personality and rubs the edges off of the snobbiness that sometimes appears in his writings. He's someone that I would definitely have wanted to have a drink with.