The History of Magic

by Éliphas Lévi, Arthur Edward Waite (Translator)

First published in 1913, an invaluable source book that includes clear and precise exposition on procedures, rites, and occult mysteries. Every aspect of esoteric doctrine and practice is exhaustively dealt with and every authority cited.

Genres: Occult, History, Nonfiction, Magic, Magick, Religion, Witchcraft

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1860

About the author

Éliphas Lévi is the pen-name of Abbé Alphonse Louis Constant, a Roman Catholic priest and magician. His later writings on the Tarot and occult topics were a great influence on the Spiritualist and Hermetic movements of fin de siècle England and France, especially on such members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as Arthur Edward Waite and Aleister Crowley.

---

Éliphas Lévi es el nombre adoptado por el mago y escritor ocultista francés Alphonse Louis Constant.

Reviews

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history of magicians written by a Hermetic philosopher, first published in 1860. You know the kinds of books discussed in Foucault's Pendulum, where they try to tie together all secrets and mysteries, but just make a profound jumble? This is one of those kinds of books. He's interested in the kaballah, heiroglyphics, alchemy, miraculous events, sorcerors, the tarot, gypsies, the Rosicrucians, animal magnetism, anything arcane. He is a believing Christian who condemns pantheism but doesn't disbelieve anything, exactly-- he tries to divide it into light magic (which partakes of the Astral Light and a true knowledge of things as they are) and dark magic, which involves India, necromancy, and so forth. He applies critical thought in an almost random fashion, accepting all kinds of magical events at face value and calling others frauds with no reason why one account should be preferred above another.

Here are a few quotes I found interesting:
"the cubic stone and its multiplication explains all secrets of sacred numbers, including the mystery of perpetual motion, hidden by adepts and pursued by fools under the name of squaring the circle."
Here he is connecting the quest for perpetual motion with the attempts to perform certain operations in Euclidean geometry.

"The plan of all great allegorical temples throughout antiquity is found in the multiplication of the cube by the cross, about which a circle is described, and then the cubic cross moving in a globe."
This sounds like Hugh Nibley.

"in the end he found that the inscription was in the script of proteus (being the Grecian name of the Book of Thoth) consisting of movable hieroglyphics, capable of variations as numerous as there are possible combinations of characters, numbers and elementary figures... the Book of Thoth being the key of oracles and the elementary work on science"
This seems to be saying that the original book of Thoth was a movable book, where heiroglyphs could be rearranged to make new meanings. (The Ars Magna of Raymond Llull accomplishes this with concentric spinning paper disks). EDIT: Doing a little more research, I found that he was referring to the Tarot deck as these "movable heiroglyphs."

Oswald Croll's Treatise of Signatures: "It was recognised on these principles that the original
hieroglyphics, based on the prime elements of geometry, corresponded to the constitutive and essential laws of forms, determined by alternating or combined movements, which, in their turn, were determined by equilibratory attractions. Simples were distinguished from composites by their external figures ; and by the correspondence between figures and numbers it became possible
to make a mathematical classification of all substances revealed by the lines of their surfaces."
This is like Leibniz's Characteristica Universalis.

"Every thinking man is Oedipus, called to solve the enigma of the sphinx or, this failing, to die."
He is saying that the riddle of the Sphinx is how to prevent aging (i.e. with the philosopher's stone)

"Jerome Cardan wrote a long commentary on the treatise of Synesius and may even be said to have completed it by a dictionary of all dreams"
I just like the Borgesian oxymoron of a dictionary of all dreams.

"Lully defined things by their right names and not by their synonyms or approximations; afterwards he explained the names by etymology....Those who were accustomed to scientific jargon protested to the illuminated doctor that anyone could talk like this ; that on the basis of such a method the whole world might pose as learned ; and that popular common sense would be preferred before the doctrine of academies."That is just what I wish," was the answer of Raymund Lully..."
The goal of dictionaries, ontologies and encyclopedias is fundamentally an open one-- to spread knowledge to everyone instead of keeping it to an elite. Compare to Wikipedia

"The epic of Dante is Johannite and Gnostic ; it is a bold application of Kabalistic figures and numbers to Christian dogmas, and is further a secret negation of the absolute element therein ; his visit to the supernatural worlds takes place like an initiation into the Mysteries of Eleusis and
Thebes."
This is an interesting way to treat Dante, as a kind of initiate being guided through the kingdoms of heaven and hell.

[Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

I plowed through the first 200 pages or so and really enjoyed it. Then it lost a little steam for me in the individual histories of people. A who's who of the magical world - but sometimes presented in a way that is not the most organized. (Glad it's indexed!) Sometimes the writing is a bit dull and wordy, but I put some blame on Waite for his translation. A good one to read once and keep on the shelf for reference.

[Baal Of · Rating 1 out of 5]

An employee at Bookpeople mistakenly ordered this book for me instead of the book by Copperfield. I bought this one anyway and now I'm going to read it.

From the preface to the English translation (by A.E. Waite):

Through all my later literary life I have sought to make it plain, as the result of antecedent years spent in occut research, that the occult sciences - in all their general understanding - are paths of danger when they are not paths of simple make-believe and imposture.

Lévi constantly calls magic "science" going so far as to claim that magic is the true, universal, etc. science, but Lévi has absolutely no understanding of science. When writing about the biblical Joseph, Lévi states: "It is a matter of common knowledge that his elevation was due to skill in the interpretation of dreams, a science which even devout Christians now refuse to credit, ..." revealing his complete ignorance of science. Interpretation of dreams is not, by even the most generous interpetations or violent contortions of meaning, a science. He has a similarly stupid concept of mathematics, incessantly referering to the muddlheaded and meaningless numerology of tarot as "exact mathematics".

So much stupid in this book, including these nuggets of misogyny:

The radical emancipation of womanhood falls within the same category. If, integrally and radically, the woman leaves the passive and enters the active condition, she abdicates her sex and becomes man, or rather, as such a transformation is impossible physically, she attains affirmation by a double negation, placing herself outside both sexes, like a sterile and monstrous androgyne.

When speaking of Kabalists:

The natural strength of woman being that of inertia or resistance, they would have ruled that modesty is the most imprescriptible of her rights, and hence that she must neither perform nor desire anything demanding a species of masculine boldness. Nature has otherwise provided to this end by giving her a soft voice, not to be heard in large assemblies, unless raised to a ridiculously discordant pitch.

One of the best sections is the recounting of Madame de Raiz's discovery of her husband's infamous ritualistic murders of hundreds of children. It is unclear just how much of the story Lévi actually believes to be true, since he mixes fact and fiction with no clear distinction through the book. The follow-up to this section reveals part of the problem with Lévi in that he can't distinguish between fact and fiction: "In recounting the history of Gilles de Laval we have indicated sufficiently that Black Magic may be not only a real crime but the gravest of all offenses".

One of the dangers of pretend knowledge is how it gives simplistic answers to difficult problems along with an arrogant certainty. This next quote is one that is well described as fractally wrong:

Drunkenness is a transient madness and madness is a permanent intoxication; both are caused by a phosphoric congestion of the cerebral nerves, which destroys our etheric equilibrium and deprives the soul of its instrument of precision.

The evidence of the chapter entitled Some Magical Prosecutions reveals Lévi's actual magical proficiency, the magic of turning possibly interesting subjects into lethal dullness.

A large chunk of this book is devoted to spurious, fallacy laden arguments about why anyone who doubts the reality of Lévi's magic is clearly biased and ignorant. It is densely packed bullshit with a heady aroma of flowerly language. He simultaneously rejects claims with which he doesn't agree using casual dismissiveness, while making his own extravagant claims about mesmerism and universal medicine with no consistent application of reason. Of course this approach certainly appeals to some people.

Now I have to decide whether to stick this on my shelf with other train wreck books, or just move it along.

[Victor Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro fascinante con un gran poder para desmitifar el oscurantismo, superstición e ignorancia que siempre ha sido parte del entendimiento de lo que culturalmente conocemos o llamamos magia.

[HillbillyMystic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, I don't want to get off on another unpopular rant here, but...I know everyone is gay for A.E. Waite and I fully understand that I, sir, am no A. E. Waite; however this dick here just about ruined Levi's Magnum Opus for me. Half-way through I simply stopped reading Waite's smarmy, contrarian footnotes. I have to assume he was the kind of douche that reminded the teacher she forgot to assign homework at 2:59pm. The translation I read, obviously translated by A. E. White was veritably unreadable with the footnotes that mostly discredited every important point Levi was making and further complicated an already extremely complicated topic. For quite a spell I was synchro-mystically reading the exact same information in this book as Manly Palmer Hall's Magnum Opus, The Secret Teachings of all Ages. Some folk watch many different TV programs during the week. I like to read 20-30 books at the same time instead of literally being "programmed" in front of a screen while in a state of hypnosis. Anywho, I would be reading a chapter on Hermetic Qabbalah in Manly's book and set it down to go "shopping" (she shops, I find a bench and read) with my wife and picked up the much less heavy tome, The History of Magic and also be on a chapter regarding Kabbalah. I would be deep into alchemical symbolism with Manly and open this piece and all the sudden be on Rosicrucianism to boot. Eventually I got so sick of A. E. White's prognostications I put down the book completely until I finished Manly's work. Shortly after finishing Manly, who cited Levi on many occasions with zero rebuttal, I started leaving out White's footnotes and it made this book much more palatable. Towards the end I finally read Levi's biography and learned he was an occulted catholic priest a time or two. This made sense to me since unlike Manly's work this piece seemed most definitely to come from an old testament, Christian perspective. Given the fact that I believe we are coming near yet another man made mass extinction event I wish, in retrospect, I would have just read Manly's book skipped this one altogether. However, like War and Peace, I felt I needed to at least say I have read this one, even if I didn't like it.

[Aleksandra Bekreneva · Rating 5 out of 5]

✴️ Элифас Леви. «История магии»

У меня смешанные чувства после прочтения «Истории магии» Элифаса Леви…

Это не книга. Это гримуар, замаскированный под исторический труд. Полный теорий, метафор, эзотерических отсылок и жутковатых баек.

Ясно одно: во все века всё, что касалось эзотерики, магии и подобного, представляло собой лютую смесь из мошенников и шарлатанов, горланящих о чём-то направо и налево, и тех, кто действительно что-то знал, но предпочитал помалкивать, держать в тайне или создать тайный орден со 10005000 видами испытаний и посвящений.

Посреди этого всего без 100 грамм не разберешься.

Элифас Леви водит читателя по аллеям, в которых католицизм соседствует с некромантией, каббала — с алхимией, а история — с откровением. Он не объясняет, а провоцирует. Каждая глава как лабиринт без Минотавра, но с ощущением, что он всё-таки где-то есть — прямо за спиной.

Всю книгу Элифаса Леви сопровождают хейтерские примечания Артура Эдварда Уэйта, того самого создателя одной из самых известных колод Таро. Слишком уж очевидно хейтерские, суть которых: «Элифас дурачина и всё выдумал, не верьте ему, но вообще, книжка в целом хорошая.»

Ну то есть представьте. В самом загадочном месте книги, где Леви якобы приподнимает над чем-то вуаль, тут же, пр��мо сразу, сноска и приписка от Уэйта: «хаха, а это всё неправда».

Во время чтения настоящая биполярочка из-за этого. И ощущение, что мозга заходит за мозгу.

Из интересного: откопан редкий французский трактат о Таро, прочитана куча жутких историй, достойных быть экранизированными Романом Полански, узнана история реального мужчины, образ которого лег в основу сказки «Синяя Борода», а также подробности жизни Жака Казота, роман которого «Влюблённый дьявол» я читала в детстве.

А так же много жутких фактов проникли в мозг, увиденного не развидеть. Некоторые главы хочется не перечитывать, а сжечь.

Книга читалась сложно. Местами хотелось позвать египетского жреца с факелом, чтобы объяснил, что здесь вообще происходит.

Но что точно могу сказать, наблюдаю множество параллелей с тем, что происходит сейчас. Интересненько. Как будто магия снова проснулась — но в сторис, в постах, в картах дня и в курсах саморазвития.

Жутко!

Читать стоит, если хотите прикоснуться к ускользающей, но живой тени настоящего эзотерического сознания XIX века.

«История магии» это книга-признание. Попытка зафиксировать то, что ускользает. То, что должно было остаться тайной. Но Элифас Леви не выдержал — и записал.

[Jeremy Garber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Éliphas Lévi was a 19th-century French priest who originally pursued a career in the Catholic Church and later turned to the intellectual study of esoteric magic. Yet Lévi never truly left the Church - and his 'scholarship' betrays it. This edition is studded with sarcastic commentary by A.E. Waite (best known as the Waite in the Rider-Waite tarot deck) that points out Lévi's intellectual inconsistencies and downright falsehoods. For Lévi, magic is at its heart the upholding of hierarchy, men over women, the intelligent over the 'feeble' (his words), the white over the 'savage,' and the noble and rich over the unwashed masses of the poor. He pours his scorn on all the latter categories and continually upholds racism and oppression in the supposed name of freedom and order. Lévi's book is an interesting survey of the big names of occultism, but riddled with historical error and, more dangerously, fascism clad in religious guise.

[Caleb.Lives · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the info here is dated and biased, sometimes downright bizarre. You can tell that Waite too was also beyond perplexed by some of Lévi's interpretations, based on his annotations. Some chapters are downright useless, such as the one on Indian magic (doesn't help that I've read good chunk of Rene Guenon's writings during the last few years, so that Lévi's take on Hindu esoterica comes as bizarre, bigoted and even intentionally dishonest). Still, there's more gold than there is lead in here, and you'd be hard pressed to find better compendium written with this goal. And I'll rather deal with Lévi's failings that I would with agendas and new agey idiocy of so many modern authors.

[Constantinos Nterziotis · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book was published in 1860 and for some occultists, it is considered a very good sourcebook. I wonder if they have read it. I am not mean at all. He attacks witchcraft, magick, divination, and especially cartomancy.
The book is full of contradictions and lacks any kind of scientific thinking, like using sources and ancient texts and although it has some good points, you will get frustrated and you will learn nothing about magic and its history.
It was good for its century but outdated for ours. If you planning to read it, buy it at a logical price and choose what chapters you want to read.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

The History of Magic, by Éliphas Lévi -- the nom de plume of French occultist writer Alphonse Louis Constant -- proved a challenging book to read and, interestingly, the link between all of the other books that I have read this year. I first read Freud's The Future of an Illusion, in which Freud argues -- among other things -- that science and religion are incompatible. Lévi makes the completely opposite argument in this book. I then read Gravity's Rainbow and The Gravity's Rainbow Companion and although Weisenburger (the author of the latter) makes no reference to Lévi as one of Thomas Pynchon's sources (though he does mention A.E. Waite, the translator of this edition of The History of Magic, who was very influenced by Lévi's work), much of Pynchon's writing on occultism and Kabbalism seems to come directly from this book (or else by others directly influenced by Lévi, including but not necessarily limited to A.E. Waite). The fourth book that I read this year, in conjunction with this one, was the fourth installment in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Reading Lévi (and Weisenberger) gave me a new appreciation for Rowling, as it helped me realize that she did know a bit about magic and its history, which she incorporated into her works.

Now although this book fit so well with all of the other books that I've read so far in 2015 I did not select it for this reason, though reading Pynchon did make me interested to refresh my limited understanding of Kabbalism (which I had been wanting to revisit really since re-reading Tolstoy's War & Peace last summer, as that book also is filled with many references to Masonry and Kabbalism). I was not seeking this book out, but when I found it at one of my favorite used book stores a few weeks ago I decided to pick it up mainly because I was interested in it as I had read that Lévi was an important influence on one of my favorite poets, Arthur Rimbaud, and that he was a friend of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Honoré de Balzac.

The book itself captivated my attention when I first started it, but it dragged on a bit longer than I found necessary -- with Lévi mentioning many names and stories along the way, with A.E. Waite continually adding footnotes pointing out Lévi's inaccuracy about various points, with a hardened conservative ideology popping up again and again.

From a historical standpoint it is an interesting work, certainly characteristic of the time period, when interest in occultism -- in the 1830s and 1840s -- was on the rise in Paris. Along the course of his writing Lévi touches on everything from Black Magic, somnambulism, sorcery, Kabbalism, Catholicism, vampires, and notably the Astral Light and equilibrium (essential to Lévi). The book will be useful to shelf and come back to as a reference perhaps here and there when I need a little refresher on the subject (thankfully it has an index), but I don't have an appetite to read any more on Kabbalism, numerology or occultism any time soon, and though I found Lévi's book very informative (even if there was a good deal of rubbish to sort through), I certainly have no desire to read him again. What could have been very interesting came across all too often as dull and belabored. How much of this is attributable to the translator, Mr. Waite, I don't know, but I don't really have a particular desire to find out either.

[Blue]

grossi punti interrogativi???

[Lieutenant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read because of the influence of this man on the "occult movement", so I read until the end, he is not stupid, it's not the worst thing I have read but does not have my recommendation.

[Elli Toney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really flamboyant writing heavy with catholic theology.

It was written from the rigidly dogmatic and pompous authority of a catholic priest, Levi should have just continued down that path as it is clearly where his heart was.

At times he assumes too much, that the reader is on the same page and is well versed in history. It is evidently unconscionable to him that one could have a different opinion or world-view other than his own. Other times, he assumes the reader is completely ignorant and thus he really twists and embellishes historical events. He actually misquoted quite frequently and cited the books of origin, assuming his trusted flock of readers would never dare question him or check to verify. He was so bigoted and disdainful for some groups, he was incapable of objectivity and sometimes the truth.

Thankfully, AE Waite provides very detailed footnotes challenging his remarks, revealing the truth amongst Levi's Abrahamic fog. He does come off as pedantic, but you could really feel his frustration.

There are some interesting tidbits buried within these 528 pages, but not enough to recommend that someone trudges through this most frustrating book.

[Meris Stella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Levi has written a very dense history of Magical theory and practice around the world. First printed in France in 1913, Levi, the pen-name of Alphonse Constant, has clearly spent years researching every imaginable kind of Magic. Levi has been thorough, he documents, with occasional illustration, Magic from Egypt, the Holy Lands, Greece, Rome, India, from the Old Testament, Zoroaster, Hermetics, Pythagorus, the Kabalah, Mysticism, Orthodox Christianity, Jews, Pagans, Devil worship, Barbarian and Women's Magic, Charlemagne, The Knights Templar, Alchemists, Freemasonry, French Revolution, German Illuminati, Mesmerism and Sonambulism, and includes a thorough literature review. This is the Magic Bible which Anton LaVey wishes he had written, and if he should have plagiarised anything, he should have read this book.

[Corina · Rating 1 out of 5]

The worst read in years. The writer is confused as to the words used (magic, myth, religion, science, history are all mixed in a logorrhea crisis, probably drug induced), confusing fact with interpretation and calling it reality, bigoted in the very extreme of the spectrum, retrograde to a ridiculous degree, misogynistic, judgemental, xenophobic, and passive-aggressive from the first pages of the preface. The book seems to just be an excuse to talk about the glory of Christianity, there is no real reference to magic; as a matter of fact religion is for him magic, which is quite hilarious in itself.

[AL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full of wisdom told with a poetic flare that shines through even the most tedious translations of AE Waite, the work of Monsieur Constant is a template for the coming centuries of spiritual seekers, influencing both Crowley and Paul Foster Case with his occult teachings and artful language that brings the esoteric studies of antiquity back into the light of human study. A must read for anyone interested in occult study and practice.

[Claudio Yáñez Valenzuela · Rating 3 out of 5]

El querido abad Alphonse Louis Constant escribió esta monumental obra de recopilación de datos históricos en 1859, pero muchísima agua ha pasado bajo el puente académico y esotéricos desde entonces; debemos reconocer que es un trabajo importante para la diacronía del pensamiento mágico, pero que le sobra todo el sermón católico y esotérico machacón.

[Nabilah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hermeticism is boring and this book is a proof. I think Asian magic is a lot more fun than Western occult.

[Monica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nopity nope. Dry and dull

[ameni · Rating 3 out of 5]

the sexism in this one hurt so bad

[Oakley C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loooooonger than it looks and truly lacking charisma. A.E. Waite’s catty and ubiquitous footnotes are distracting and totally unilluminating.

[Pedro Fadul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contiene datos interesantes tanto de índole mágica como moral. El estilo en el que está escrito vuelve un poco cansado leerlo.

[Brandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was certainly a time! 😅😂

[fraint · Rating 5 out of 5]

im sorry hes so cunty this should not be 5 stars but it is

[Luis Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

So of course I read this book, years and years and many years ago. I owned a copy...only for the particular chapter about Rabbi Jechieli (Who was also a physicist) that had in his possession in 13th century France what locals expressed as a“magical lamp” but in reality...it was a flashlight. Given to him from the first temponaut in the last century Eduard Meier. It is in fact the first documented recollection of a time jump through time manipulation. I was rather young when I read the book, because the other nonsense I ripped out the most important pages out of the book and kept the pages of the first ever recollection of time travel even which I’ve kept with me to this day. The day It arrived to my home, and sitting down to read of the event was...well amazing.

[Ary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bizarramente racista e reacionário, até pra época. Pode manjar um bocado de ocultismo, mas puta que pariu, de um ponto de vista minimamente PÉ NO CHÃO (não necessariamente materialista, mas criterioso com a pesquisa), o homem é um alucinado. Pela virulência da escrita dele em seus julgamentos e descrições, só há duas alternativas sobre Eliphas Levi: ou ele ta muito certo em seu cristianismo místico e maniqueísta, gabaritou os mistérios, ou é um reacionário supremacista escondido atrás de um misticismo alucinado.

[Asani Brewton]

I am so digging this book so far. But, alas, I only started it last night and haven't gotten very far.

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most accessible of Levi's books.

[Andre' Delbos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dense read and one of dubious scholarly origin. Nevertheless, Levi remains preeminent in his domain and is worth the effort.

[Nikola · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic introduction to the views of 19th century Hermeticism. The in-depth commentary by Waite is very helpful to the reader.