Maurice Bessy: A Pictorial History of Magic and the Supernatural
Originally published in French in 1961 under the title Histoire en 1000 images de la magie , this particular book first saw an English-language publication in 1964. As the title would suggest, this is a picture-heavy book. It covers magical and religious practices of ancient societies, obscure tribes, and modern groups. Being a book focused around images, the text is generally concise, rather than going into depth on any given topic. Front cover of English-language edition What is possibly the book's greatest impact is a rather simple thing. A copy of this book belonged to Anton LaVey back in the 1960s around the time he formed the Church of Satan. It was from this book that the Church got the Baphomet symbol now associated with the Church and modern Satanism in general. The book even appears in some early publicity photos for the Church of Satan, as under the dustjacket, printed in white on the black cover of the book is the symbol, making for a rat...