The Morning of the Magicians

The Morning of the Magicians: Introduction to Fantastic Realism (French: Le Matin des magiciens) is a 1960 book by the journalists Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. As the authors disclaim in their preface, the book is intended to challenge readers' viewpoints on historic events, whether they believe the explanations or not, but with the goal to give readers the opportunity to test their level of cognitive dissonance and critical thinking skills. Although the book presents a collection of "raw material for speculation of the most outlandish order," the same reviewer also noted "it is the instigation of original thought that matters."^[1] It covers topics like cryptohistory, ufology, occultism in Nazism, alchemy, spiritual philosophy and is thus often referenced by conspiracy-theory enthusiasts.

The Morning of the Magicians

Cover of the first edition
Authors	Louis Pauwels Jacques Bergier
Original title	Le Matin des magiciens
Translator	Rollo Myers
Language	French
Subject	The occult
Publisher	Éditions Gallimard
Publication date	1960
Publication place	France
Published in English	1963 (Stein and Day)
Media type	Print

Written in French, Le Matin des magiciens was translated into English by Rollo Myers in 1963 under the title The Dawn of Magic, and in 1964 released in the United States as The Morning of the Magicians (Stein and Day; paperback in 1968 by Avon Books). A German edition was published 1962 with the title Aufbruch ins dritte Jahrtausend (Departure into the Third Millennium).

The Morning of the Magicians became a cult classic within the youth culture in France in the 1960s and the 1970s. Cautioned by the hostile reception from skeptic reviewers (notable among whom were the secular humanists Yves Galifret, Evry Schatzman and Jean-Claude Pecker from the Rationalist Union, who debunked the book in Le Crépuscule des magiciens (1965); "The Twilight of the Magicians"^[2]), Pauwels and Bergier went on to pursue their interest in the paranormal in the magazine Planète, dedicated to what they termed réalisme fantastique (fantastic realism). Both The Morning of the Magicians and the Planète magazine had considerable influence on the esotericism of the 1960s–1970s counterculture, heralding the popularization of certain New Age ideas.^[3]

Background

Pauwels and Bergier worked on the book over five years, compiling voluminous documentation incorporated into the Bibliothèque nationale de France as Fonds Pauwels in 2007. Heavily influenced by Charles Fort's work and ideas, the authors' primary aim was to arouse the curiosity of their readership, stating "Let us repeat that there will be a lot of silliness in our book, but this matters little if the book stirs up a few vocations and, to a certain degree, prepares broader tracks for research".^[4]

Influence and criticism

In a 2004 article for Skeptic, the author Jason Colavito wrote that the book's tales of ancient astronauts predated Erich von Däniken's works on the topic, and that the ideas are so close to the fictional works of H. P. Lovecraft such as "The Call of Cthulhu" or At the Mountains of Madness (published in 1928 and 1931, respectively) that, according to Colavito, it is probable that Lovecraft's fiction directly inspired the book.^[5]

Kenneth Feder comments on this book in his book Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. After noting several major errors relating to archaeology, he comments that "The often bizarre claims in 'The Morning of the Magicians that were related to physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and history seemed plausible to me primarily because I did not have the knowledge necessary to assess them intelligibly."^[6]