The Great Book of Magical Art, Hindu Magic and East Indian Occultism

About this book

Magic squares, sacred names and elaborate diagrams make L. W. de Laurence's Great Book of Magical Art look like a treasury of forbidden knowledge. Its pages collect an impressive quantity of material under the banner of Hindu and Eastern occultism.

The work belongs to the commercial grimoire trade of the early twentieth century. Older European formulas sit beside representations of Asian traditions that often lack reliable attribution. The illustrations are especially revealing because they show what the publisher offered as signs of hidden authority. The volume records a market in occult knowledge as carefully as it presents any individual practice.