The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts

Including the rites and mysteries of Goëtic Theurgy, Sorcery, and Infernal Necromancy.
Privately Printed. 1898.

A rare limited edition

First edition. Large 8vo. 252x185mm. pp. xvi, 297 [1]. Frontispiece and nine plates printed on blue and pink paper. Original black buckram, repair to head and foot of spine. Boards and spine rubbed and scuffed and with some marking and a scratch on the lower cover. Internally a little toned at the edges, and there is some slight creasing and chipping to edges of front free endpaper but overall in very good condition. Front paste down has the bookplate of A.R. Patey. Although there was a trade edition published by George Redway (also in 1898), this privately printed first edition is rare, issued in a run of only 500 copies for subscribers and found in two libraries in the UK (BL and Manchester) and one in the US (Trinity College CT).
Arthur Waite (1857-1942) has been described as the first person to "attempt a systematic study of the history of Western occultism—viewed as a spiritual tradition rather than as aspects of protoscience or as the pathology of religion". He also devised the Rider-Waite Tarot. The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts is an historical survey of a wide range of grimoires and other literature of ceremonial magic. It contains much detail on how to carry out and perform various rituals, how they work, what they mean and how they might operate as a single system.

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