beautifully written, and as devast[at]ingly keen-edged a hatchet-job as any since Voltaire invented the fine art of debunking." In a more in-depth review, he explains he finds the book "so enjoyable" because it explains "what real magic is really like," noting that "the authors explore every phase of black magic and occult lore to give ... a fascinating glimpse of ... just what these occult sciences really are, how they were supposed to work, and it makes for absorbing, entertaining reading." He calls the authors "witty, urbane, erudite, scrupulously detached." He also calls it "one of the most readable, witty, anecdotal and entertaining books ever on occultism and the Black Arts." Fritz Leiber, singling out the history of magic as "the chiefest topic" of the book, welcomed it as "a book by competent scholars restating and extending the scientific arguments against the efficacy of magic, prophecy, necromancy, and other sorts of jiggery-pokery," for which he thought it "high time." He wrote "[w]e need more of this outlook in a culture uncritically obedient to advertising and propaganda, and falling dangerously in love with the irrational." Together with a selection of similar works on other subjects he felt it constituted "a readable sound backbone for a skeptic's library." Elements Leiber cited with approval included the de Camps' examination of "the primitive foundations of sorcery," the "historical development and ... modern instances of astrology, consultation of oracles, prophecy, witchcraft, alchemy, numerology, belief in fairyland, mesmerism (dubious parent of hypnotism, spiritualism, and theosophy." He commended them for their "sturdy moral stand" against occult charlatans and the mindsets of their "natural prey"—in the words of the authors, "people who want knowledge without study, health without self-discipline, wealth without work, safety without precautions, and, in general, happiness without earning it." Notes 1966 non-fiction books Occult books 20th-century history books History books about the occult Books by L. Sprague de Camp