The works of Stanislas de Guaita (1861-1897) are not grimoires of witchcraft, contrary to what their titles may evoke, but, in the author's own words, Essais de sciences maudits (Essays on the Cursed Sciences), meaning that he had the ambition to take a quasi-scientific look at the subjects in question.

Stanislas de Guaita become one of the leading figures of the reborn occultism of the late XIX century in France. He was a true scholar and an important precursor of modern occultism.

This book, the first volume of the Serpent of Genesis: The Temple of Satan, deals with black magic and the use of astral forces.

The next volume of the series, The Key to Black Magic offers an overview of witchcraft through the ages and the continents most often referred to by symbolists and occultists of the time.

Guaita died before finishing the third volume, The Problem of Evil, although it was published posthumously, many years after his death.

The Temple of Satan includes a Bibliographical Catalogue and an Alphabetical Index. The topics covered in its seven chapters are:

1. THE DEVIL: In the intellectual world it is called Error; in the moral world it is called Selfishness; in the physical world it is incarnated in all forms of Ugliness.

2. THE SORCERER: The ambition of a despotism without control, based on the monopoly of knowledge forbidden to the common man. The Sabbath.

3. WORKS OF WITCHCRAFT: Spells, Charms, Incantations and Evocations.

4. HUMAN JUSTICE: Persecution of sorcerers. The Inquisition The case of the Knights Templar, the Military Order than became a Secret Society.

5. THE SORCERER'S ARSENAL: Interesting and unique list of material resources, astral forces, spirits, etc., used by the sorcerers.

6. MODERN AVATARS OF THE SORCERER: History of some modern sorcerers

7. FLOWERS FROM THE ABYSS: Poetry and the attraction of evil. Ego and Non-Ego. Psychic pollution. Apollo, Hecate, Eros, Atropos.