To what extent were practitioners of magic inspired by fictional accounts of their art? In how far did the daunting narratives surrounding legendary magicians such as Theophilus of Adana, Cyprianus of Antioch, Johann Georg Faust or Agrippa of Nettesheim rely on real-world events or practices? Fourteen original case studies present material from late antiquity to the twenty-first century and explore these questions in a systematic manner. By coining the notion of ‘fictional practice’, the editors discuss the emergence of novel, imaginative types of magic from the nineteenth century onwards when fiction and practice came to be more and more intertwined or even fully amalgamated. This is the first comparative study that systematically relates fiction and practice in the history of magic.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures Notes on Contributors Introduction   Bernd-Christian Otto and Dirk Johannsen 1 Magic as Pollution: Fictional Blasphemies and Ritual Realities in the Roman Period (1st cen. BCE–4th cen. C)   Kyle Fraser 2 The Medieval Anti-Faust: Stories, Rituals, and Self-Representations in the Flowers of Heavenly Teaching   Claire Fanger 3 Enchantment and Anger in Medieval Icelandic Literature and Later Folklore   Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir 4 Narratives of the Witch, the Magician, and the Devil in Early Modern Grimoires   Owen Davies 5 When Ritual Texts Become Legendary Practice and Fiction in Nordic Folklore   Ane Ohrvik 6 Magic and Literary Imagination in H. P. Blavatsky’s Theosophy   Marco Frenschkowski 7 The Emergence of Fictional Practice in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: W.B. Yeats’ Talismanic Poetry   Dirk Johannsen 8 “My Life in a Love Cult”: Tantra, Orientalism, and Sex Magic in Early Twentieth-Century Fiction   Hugh B. Urban 9 Drawing Down the Moon: From Classical Greece to Modern Wicca?   Ethan Doyle White 10 Drinking from Hecate’s Fountain: Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Trilogies and the Fusion Between Literature and Practiced Magic   Christian Giudice 11 If One Knows Where to Look, Fiction is Magic: Reading Fictional Texts as Manuals of Magic in Post-Soviet Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus   Kateryna Zorya 12 “Cthulhu Gnosis” Monstrosity, Selfhood, and Secular Re-Enchantment in Lovecraftian Occultural Practice   Justin Woodman 13 A Magickal School in the Twenty-First Century: The Grey School of Wizardry and Its Prehistory   Carole M. Cusack 14 Fictional Practice from Antiquity to Today   Bernd-Christian Otto Index