The Compleat Magick

A periodical preserved as a working library

The Compleat Magick collects Bascom Jones Jr.'s influential periodical Magick, which began on 17 July 1970 and ended on 12 November 1993. Rather than a single-author textbook, it is an archive of contributions, editorials, reviews and performance thinking assembled over twenty-three years. The original run comprises 496 issues arranged in nineteen yearly volumes, with more than 1,400 effects across over 2,400 pages.

Magick was written primarily for mentalists, psychic entertainers and performers interested in unusual presentation. Its range is nevertheless broader than that description suggests. Alongside predictions, book tests, billet work, ESP material and audience-reading procedures are card ideas, bizarre magic, publicity advice, staging essays and discussions of character. Contributors include established specialists and less familiar creators whose work is otherwise difficult to trace.

What the reader actually receives

The hardbound edition should not be confused with one ordinary book. Collector's Workshop issued the first volume in 1986; the complete limited reprint was assembled over the following years as four substantial clothbound volumes with indexes. A later Collector's Workshop edition from 2009 is commonly encountered as a multi-volume set and carries ISBN 9780984300709. Digital facsimiles are normally organised as nineteen magazine volumes plus an index.

The contents retain the rhythm of a periodical. Short routines sit beside longer essays, news, historical notes and recurring columns such as The Mystic Word. This makes browsing rewarding, but systematic study requires an index and personal notes. A reader looking for one fully developed course may find the structure fragmented; a creator willing to compare many approaches will find a dense idea bank.

Practical value and responsible study

The strongest way to use the collection is slowly. Choose a theme such as predictions, billets or publicity, follow it through the index, and compare several solutions. Record the conditions, preparation, audience management and failure points of each method before deciding what suits a modern performance.

Some language, assumptions and claimed psychic premises reflect their era. They should be treated historically and rewritten with care. Apparatus, electronics and contact information may be obsolete. The value lies in the principles, construction and performance judgement, not in reproducing every line unchanged.

Collector guidance

Completeness matters greatly. A four-volume 1986-94 set should include all volumes and their indexes; limited copies may be numbered. Check cloth, gilt stamping, hinges, page blocks, inserts, ownership marks and any missing index material. Later sets differ in binding and volume count, so the seller should identify the exact edition rather than simply say complete.

The Compleat Magick remains important because it records more than two decades of working mentalism in the voices of its practitioners. It rewards patient reading, careful attribution and adaptation grounded in present-day ethics and performance conditions.