Magick

Ceremonial magic and the people who practiced it, from John Dee's angel diaries to the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley, with the documented history kept apart from the legend.

• The Key of Solomon: The Magic Book Europe Kept Copying Europe copied this book of spirit magic by hand for centuries and credited it to King Solomon. Its manuscripts tell a messier story.
• Why Witches Ride Broomsticks: The Flying Ointment Theory, Checked Every Halloween the drugged broomstick story returns. The plants were real and dangerous. Most of the rest comes from confessions extracted under torture.
• Aleister Crowley: How a Brewery Heir Became the "Wickedest Man in the World" Born to brewing money and a strict Christian sect, Crowley spent his fortune on magic and a new religion, until a tabloid called him the wickedest man in the world.
• Where Tarot Actually Came From The cards were a trick-taking game for Italian dukes for three centuries. Then a Paris scholar looked at a pack in 1781 and saw ancient Egypt.
• What Aleister Crowley Meant by True Will "Do what thou wilt" was never a license to do as you please. Crowley meant something stricter, and stranger.
• The Golden Dawn: The Secret Society That Shaped Modern Occultism Founded in 1888 on a coded manuscript and letters from a countess who likely never existed, it rewrote magic anyway.
• John Dee: The Queen's Astrologer Who Talked to Angels Elizabeth I's mathematician built England's greatest library, then spent years recording messages from angels.