Exploration of occult practice throughout history, looking at the ways people have used magic over the ages, and discussing how magic and science, once barely discernible from one another, separated into two different belief systems which changed Western thinking.

Previously published by Times Books.

Middle East exotica -- The ancient art of hepatoscopy -- The Greek paradox -- Magic in the Roman Empire -- The new outcasts -- Knowledge through number and the word -- Pathways to knowledge -- Resurrection of the Kabbalah -- Music of the spheres -- Two sides of the coin of alchemy -- Rise of the clear seer -- Medieval astrology -- The devil and the proliferation of good and evil -- It's witchcraft -- Rochester rap -- Before Hydesville -- Mr. Sludge -- DDH to HPB -- After the foxes -- My body, my map -- Who's a magician? -- Magic in the twentieth century -- Different time, same channel -- PK wars -- The personalized magic of healing -- You are what you eat -- Come fly with me -- Life after life -- Crystals -- Geomancy -- Is magic a religion? -- Magic and science -- Anthropologists encounter the occult.