A.e. Waite Options

I've seen in many post the mentioning of "The Book of Cerimonial Magic", IMHO, it is utter garbadge. This book was designed to be unusable. As for the writer himself, his destruction of the Golden Dawn was moronic with his bizarre ideas of seniority over ability, with his jelousy and fears put upon others because of his inadequaties. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sculacciata.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/butcher.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/diablo.gif) Redhand (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sport_boxing.gif)

This post has been edited by redhand: Oct 23 2006, 04:58 PM

One thing I noticed about this book, if I remember correctly was the pentagram of solomon was different. The name te tra gram ma ton went side to side instead of around the talisman like in most grimoires.

Greetings,

I think that we are being underly harsh of Waite here. He just might be the greatest A$$ sucker in occult history. His Black Magick book appears as if a 4 year old did the illustrations. His translation is complete toilet paper.

I agree with Mr> Crowley who despised Waite. Waite sucks. Save your money.

Peace!

Greetings,

I think that we are being underly harsh of Waite here. He just might be the greatest A$$ sucker in occult history. His Black Magick book appears as if a 4 year old did the illustrations. His translation is complete toilet paper.

I agree with Mr> Crowley who despised Waite. Waite sucks. Save your money.

Peace!

Waite is perhaps the most accomplished occultist of the modern age, if he was nothing as a magician. He received acclaim from royalty and the educated elite, and produced an enormous amount of highly-respected literature on nearly every esoteric subject of his time. His work cannot be dimissed lightly.

Waite's "Book of Black Magic" uses illustrations from classic occult literature, and is designed not to be unusable, but on the contrary to make sense of the confusion of the grimoires. Unfortunately it seems that Waite was trying to blend the grimoires into something complete, under the assumption that they were essentially one work. Perhaps he should have treated them individually, but in any case he makes it clear that the book lacks nothing of interest to the scholar and nothing of use to the dabbler.

Waits has also been criticised as "dry and humorless" but really he's pretty witty. He is critical of the grimoires, and of the motives of the authors, and for a more or less traditional Christian perspective on Ceremonial Magic you could do far worse. As to his translation, considering his academic credits, could you say that you are more of an expert in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Old French? Compare the Waite translations of Dragon Rouge to those of the IGOS edition... that author can't even distinguish between King Saul and St. Paul!

Eliphas Levi, on the other hand, wanted very much to present himself as an authority on the occult, but almost every page of "Dogma et Ritual" has gross errors of fact. Some things he just makes up, and others he is flat out wrong about, and I have no idea why anyone would respect him. On top of this, Levi made every attempt to provide himself as an expert in the "secret society" subcultures, and aside from his books remaining in print he appears to have gotten little for it.