Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Waite was an influential member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, whose members included the poet W B Yeats and the occultist Aleister Crowley. This book marks the first time that English readers could dip into extracts of the notorious printed French grimoires.
Your next choice is The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts.
Yes, Waite is a very interesting character. He was one of the early members of the Golden Dawn which grew up in the late 19th century. It’s the first real organised group of ritual magicians who practised magic as a religion rather than as an aspect of science.
Yeats was also a member. What was the lure for someone like him?
There was a whole fascination at the time with Ancient Egypt – the excavations by the French, the Germans and the British. The cracking of the hieroglyphs had led to a boom in knowledge about Egyptian magic. Once you could translate it you could start practising it. There’s also the whole idea of the crisis of faith in the second half of the 19th century.
There’s a lot of talk of grimoires in there – can you explain what they are?
My definition of a grimoire is essentially a book of magic which contains conjurations and spells. Waite thought that many grimoires were complete nonsense at best and downright diabolic at worst.
They were very popular in France.
Well, that’s because the French were entrepreneurial booksellers, printers and publishers. It was all illicit, they shouldn’t have been publishing information on them and of course people were drawn by the lure of the forbidden.
In the late 17th century there had been the huge affair of the poison scandals in which the French high society had been knee-deep in magical rituals, employing Parisian magicians and purchasing grimoires.
But, you’ve made a case that grimoires weren’t all bad and there’s even a link with the angels.
That’s right. Waite’s book gives you all the bad stuff, the idea of the pact with the devils. But, there are a lot of grimoires from medieval times and onwards where they look at communicating with the angels. Actually a lot of grimoires are based on Catholic worship.
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Owen Davies is professor of social history at the University of Hertfordshire. He has written widely on the history of witchcraft, magic, ghosts and folk medicine. He argues that despite persecution, magic has been with us since the first recorded written word and it’s still very much part of popular culture today.
