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The Devil and Dr. Faustus meet.

Preamble

Wonders Never Cease

By Lewis H. Lapham

From crystal balls to the Iraq War, mankind’s predilection for the marvelous and the illusory endures.

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William Butler Yeats, photograph by Alice Broughton.

Essay

W.B. Yeats, Magus

By Jamie James

For William Butler Yeats, poetry was a kind of magic.

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John Dee performing an experiment before Queen Elizabeth I.

Essay

A Well Without a Bottom

By John Crowley

Have devils, demons, and spirits disappeared from the world, or do we just no longer know their names?

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Mesmeric therapy, by a French painter, 1778-1784.

Essay

Healing Spirits

By Daniel Mason

The uneasy relationship between magic and medicine.

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An Audience Watching a Play at Drury Lane Theatre

Essay

Stage Light

By Andrew McConnell Stott

The life of artist and scenographer Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, and the role of the occult in the history of special effects.

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The Sorceress by Bartolomeo Guidobono.

Essay

Very Superstitious

By Colin Dickey

The science of sympathetic magic, and why it persists.

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