A.E.Waite was no ordinary dabbler in the occult and spent most of his life cataloguing its secrets. Though an accomplished mystic, (and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot cards) he retained a scholar's detached perspective and a thoroughly Victorian appetite for order and method. This volume of Waite's work is a masterful compendium of the Secret Sciences, from White and Black Magic, through Alchemy, Divination, Astrology and Kabbalism to the Occult Brotherhoods and the mysteries of Spiritualism and Theosophy. By reducing the essentials of all the many arcane disciplines into a single volume this book, Waite hoped, "would conduct the inquirer into the vestibule of each branch of 'the occult sciences, ' and place within his reach the proper means of prosecuting his researches further in any desired direction."A must-have for all those wishing to delve more deeply into the many and wonderful paths that, followed diligently, can carry the student to the summit of the . This edition contains References and a comprehensive Index.