Christmas books : Magical mystery tour

Behind the Crystal Ball (Boxtree, £20, ISBN 0 7522 0549 8)—even the title of Anthony Aveni’s book is puzzling. It is a comprehensive history of magic right up to the present day, charting the gradual divorce of the occult from science and the reasons for the split. Interesting enough; but it’s difficult to pin down Aveni’s thesis. A pertinent remark comes near to defining it: “… my goal was to demonstrate that deep down science and magic are perhaps more alike than we might care to admit.” The “perhaps” is significant. Aveni is a master of equivocation.