The Black Arts (50th Anniversary Edition)
A Concise History of Witchcraft, Demonology, Astrology, Alchemy, and Other Mystical Practices Throughout the Ages
(Sprache: Englisch)
The Classic Study of the Occult Reintroduced in a 50th Anniversary Edition
The Black Arts is a fascinating and wonderfully readable exploration of the practice, theory, and underlying rationale of magick and occultism in all its branches,...
The Black Arts is a fascinating and wonderfully readable exploration of the practice, theory, and underlying rationale of magick and occultism in all its branches,...
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The Classic Study of the Occult Reintroduced in a 50th Anniversary EditionThe Black Arts is a fascinating and wonderfully readable exploration of the practice, theory, and underlying rationale of magick and occultism in all its branches, including witchcraft, spells, numerology, astrology, alchemy, kabbalah, tarot, charms, and summoning and control of spirits.
This edition features a 50th anniversary introduction by historian of alternative spirituality Mitch Horowitz, who frames the book for a new generation of readers.
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Chapter OneThe World of the Black Magician
The driving force behind black magic is hunger for power. Its ultimate aim was stated, appropriately enough, by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were afraid that if they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die. But the serpent said 'Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil'.* In occultism the serpent is a symbol of wisdom, and for centuries magicians have devoted themselves to the search for the forbidden fruit which would bring fulfilment of the serpent's promise. Carried to its furthest extreme, the black magician's ambition is to wield supreme power over the entire universe, to make himself a god.
Black magic is rooted in the darkest levels of the mind, and this is a large part of its attraction, but it is much more than a product of the love of evil or a liking for mysterious mumbo-jumbo. It is a titanic attempt to exalt the stature of man, to put man in the place which religious thought reserves for God. In spite of its crudities and squalors this gives it a certain magnificence.
The great fascination of magic is in the type of thought on which it is based. Magical thinking is not random, it has its own laws and its own logic, but it is poetic rather than rational. It leaps to conclusions which are usually scientifically unwarranted, but which often seem poetically right. It is a type of thinking which has been prevalent all through the history of Europe, which lies behind huge areas of our religion, philosophy and literature, and which is a major guide-post to the regions of the spiritual and the supernatural, the regions of which science has nothing to say. There is no necessity to accept it, but it rings many a far-away, summoning bell in the depths of the mind.
It is natural to think of magic as a thing of the past, which must have
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withered to dust under the hard light of modern science and scepticism, but, in fact, this is not the case. Magical thinking is still deeply embedded in the human mentality. Magic has been practised throughout European history, down to and including the present day, and it has attracted more interest and support in the last hundred years than at any time since the Renaissance.
No one is a black magician in his own eyes, and modern occultists, whatever their beliefs and practices, think of themselves as high-minded white magicians, not as sinister Brothers of the Left-hand Path. In October 1964 the Los Angeles police arrested thirty-nine gipsies on charges of fortune-telling. The gipsies immediately accused the police of violating their religious freedom. They were not telling fortunes, but giving 'spiritual readings'. 'Gipsies are born with the power to look into the future. It's part of our religion. We are members of the Palmistry Church.' About a year earlier the British witch covens celebrated one of their great annual festivals, All-Hallows Eve, with rites involving the magic circle, the magic knife, incantations, nudity and frenzied dances. One of the St. Albans witches, naked except for a string of beads, is reported as saying, 'We are not anti-Christian. We just have other means of spiritual satisfaction.'
The most notorious and most brilliantly gifted of modern magicians, Aleister Crowley, was regarded as a black sorcerer by many other occultists, and his rituals are saturated with sex and blood to an extent which, to put it mildly, scarcely fits the normal conception of white magic. But he himself professed nothing but contempt for black magicians. Among them he inclu
No one is a black magician in his own eyes, and modern occultists, whatever their beliefs and practices, think of themselves as high-minded white magicians, not as sinister Brothers of the Left-hand Path. In October 1964 the Los Angeles police arrested thirty-nine gipsies on charges of fortune-telling. The gipsies immediately accused the police of violating their religious freedom. They were not telling fortunes, but giving 'spiritual readings'. 'Gipsies are born with the power to look into the future. It's part of our religion. We are members of the Palmistry Church.' About a year earlier the British witch covens celebrated one of their great annual festivals, All-Hallows Eve, with rites involving the magic circle, the magic knife, incantations, nudity and frenzied dances. One of the St. Albans witches, naked except for a string of beads, is reported as saying, 'We are not anti-Christian. We just have other means of spiritual satisfaction.'
The most notorious and most brilliantly gifted of modern magicians, Aleister Crowley, was regarded as a black sorcerer by many other occultists, and his rituals are saturated with sex and blood to an extent which, to put it mildly, scarcely fits the normal conception of white magic. But he himself professed nothing but contempt for black magicians. Among them he inclu
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Autoren-Porträt von Richard Cavendish
Richard Cavendish (1930-2016) was a highly regarded and widely published British historian of magic, myth, and the occult. Educated at Oxford, Cavendish is best remembered for The Black Arts (1967) and for editing the acclaimed 24-volume Man, Myth & Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural, published from 1970 to 1972.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Richard Cavendish
- 1968, 368 Seiten, Masse: 16 x 23 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Perigee
- ISBN-10: 0399500359
- ISBN-13: 9780399500350
- Erscheinungsdatum: 10.01.2018
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
We are all black magicians in our dreams, in our fantasies, perversions, and phobias... In The Black Arts, Richard Cavendish has not only gathered many fascinating facts from the past and from our own time; he has also presented the philosophy of the black magicians and gives many excellent interpretations of their symbols and rites. He has done all this in such a concise and readable style that the reader is hardly aware of how much effort has gone into this work and how original are many of its ideas and interpretations ...Works such as Cavendish s are a reminder that we are living in an era of amnesia. We have forgotten those vital truths that man once knew and by whose strength he lived. Isaac Bashevis Singer, Book WeekIn The Black Arts, Cavendish captures the human striving and universality behind the magical search. He also demonstrates virtuosity for explaining ancient and more recent rituals, rites, and esoteric philosophies with splendid clarity It stands nearly alone as a simultaneously comprehensive and inviting guide to the world of pre-modern esoterica. Mitch Horowitz, from the new introduction
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