qos | Books About Doing Magic

Learning Ritual Magic by John Michael Greer et al. is very good from a ceremonial/ritual magic standpoint. It is not explicitly "Golden Dawn".

Kabbalah, Magic, and the Great Work of Self-Transformation *is* explicitly GD and very hard core, but I was impressed by it.

I'd echo the praise of Thorn's book and also recommend checking out Be a Goddess! and/or Goddess Initiation by Francesca De Grandis, which are also based in Feri.

Twelve Wild Swans by Starhawk and Hilary Valentine would be a good training manual in Reclaiming-style magic.

I found Stephen Mace's Stealing the Fire From Heaven to be quite useful, and Christopher Penczak's City Magic had some very interesting ideas. Neither of them is very advanced, though that made them both good fits for me.

I know a few people who might have suggestions: shall I put the question to them and point them in your direction?

Full Contact Magick (I have a copy on my shelf).

I definitely third the recommendation for Thorn Coyle's book! She's excellent.

My personal favorites are "Apprenticed to Magic" and "The Magician: His Training and Work" by W. E. Butler. They aren't comprehensive by any means, but he packed a great deal into fairly few pages and every time I read them I see greater depth or something important I missed on prior readings. I like books that slowly unpack over time like that.

My DH gave an excellent review to Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki's new book, cd, and card set "Your Unseen Power". It may be wickedly expensive and freighted with a bad title, but it contains a lot of meat. I haven't worked with it myself but DAN is a most capable mage.

Learning Ritual Magic by John Michael Greer et al. is very good from a ceremonial/ritual magic standpoint.

*smooches mam_adar on the cheek*

Well... it depends on what kind of magic you're wanting to learn.

Since people seemed to have cornered the ceremonial/qabalistic magic market here, I'll give a couple other tips.

Real Magic, by Isaac Bonewits, is very good. I haven't read the sequel yet, so I don't know if Real Energy is any good, but the first one is excellent.

Basic Magic, Basic Sigil Magic, and the like, by Philip Cooper, are really good too. ESPECIALLY for beginners. They're more chaos magick than anything else, and they're very useful.

For witchcraft and the like, I recommend Christopher Penczak, Ly de Angeles, Paul Huson, and Ann Moura. Each is drastically different, but each helps build a solid foundation for you. There are others, of course, but I can't name them all, or I'd be here forever.

If you give me a bit more description of your paradigm, I might be able to help you further!

Magic is easy. It's being a magician that's the hard part!

Yes, please!

I'll definitely want to at least page through this, if not borrow it outright.

Thank you.

Thanks for all your input in these comments.

I looked up "Unseen Power" and was startled by how expensive it was.
Is the review you reference posted anywhere?

How do you define "chaos magick"? The words make this Queen of Swords twitch and recoil -- but I really don't know anyhing about it.

I ordered Penzack's Inner Temple book today. It looked quite good.

Part of the problem is that I'm not sure what my paradigm is. My roots are in Starhawk and Z Budapest, but my maturity is in The Crafted Cup -- except that I've never been "high church", even as a pagan.

I think what I'm looking for is a way to train my intuition and energy, plus a way of relating to higher powers that I can feel comfortable with -- which is hard, because I'm not sure what I believe right now. I've felt the presence and action of the Divine in my life, but my primary awareness is of Mystery. I do tarot, and I'm pretty good at rituals I make up. I'm torn between hating elaborate rituals and understanding the ritual provides a framework and vessel in which Mystery can work.

I'm also a shaman, albeit not a highly developed one. I've been journeying since adolescence without fully realizing what I was doing.

Part of the reason I'm asking for recommendations is that I'm going to check everything out and look for a system that resonates.

Finally, I'm writing this on Friday evening at 5:56pm after a very long week at work and a certain amount of vodka onboard. . . . But I think the essential information is correct, even if I've had to retype frequently to correct spelling errors. ..

Thank you!

I knew I could count on you! :-)

In theory the review will be published in New Witch, but in practice they haven't let him know yet if they accepted it.

It *is* bloody expensive, but you get a workbook, nine cds of Dolores teaching (and her voice is worth every cent, bright gods can she talk beautifully), and two symbolic card decks (one of the qabalistic Tree of Life, one of godforms). It's not a bad value for the money.

Thanks for the info.
If the review gets published, or if it could be shared privately, please let me know.

For right now, I'm going to keep it on my Amazon Wish List and come back to when I'm done with the first book I've purchased.

Well, the chaos magick I'm referring to is the stuff practiced by people like Peter Carroll, the whole "nothing is true, everything is permitted," octarine-paradigm shift kind of stuff. Philip's books are a MUCH more palatable and enjoyable way to learn it. I'm not much of a fan of Carroll.

As far as the shaman thing, I was thinking that might be a good way for you to go. When I was first writing this post, I was wondering if you might have been leaning in the shamanic direction.

Whereupon I would recommend that you keep up with Christopher Penczak's stuff, and also pick up books and tapes by Michael Harner. He's really good. He taught core shamanism for years.

Because, you know, journeying is only the tip of the iceberg. Once you know the spirit world, you can start working with it. Gaining spirit allies and aides, learning how to heal the spirit, doing exorcisms, conjuring nature spirits to change weather or help someone... Shamanism is a big game. And I think you'd do well with it.

Also, you might try getting deeper into the Qabala. If you like the Tarot, try reading Ellen Cannon Reed's "Witches Qabala." She's brilliant.

Don't worry about finding resonance in someone else's system. Chances are, you'll find several systems that resonate with you, and likely a few of them will clash with each other. That's ok.

The point of looking for magic, of seeking it out, is not to find "what's right for me," but to find what's true. Distill things down to their kernel of truth, and remember that truth doesn't feel, or hope, or fear, or believe. It just is.

And if you're anything like what I know about the Queen of Swords, and so far it seems like you are, you have a knack for finding the truth, and cutting through bullshit.

*grins*

Blessed be!

The point of looking for magic, of seeking it out, is not to find "what's right for me," but to find what's true. Distill things down to their kernel of truth, and remember that truth doesn't feel, or hope, or fear, or believe. It just is.

Ah, you hit the nail on the head here. In the past I've felt highly frustrated because there seemed to be a lot of BS -- or at least dramatic fluff -- in books on magic, and I didn't feel like I had the experience or the intuition to discern the truth behind the dress-up. Now that I've gained some maturity, I feel better qualified to sift the decoration from the essence, and the BS from the truth -- or at least decide when it's going to be worthwhile to work with something for a while to test the results.

I was very surprised when I realized, a year or two ago, that I had shamanic abilities and that they'd been there all along. I'm looking forward to doing more focused work in that area again.

Soitnly. When I checked with him just now he said he's expecting to see it in either New Witch or Pangaia before too long. When it appears I'll give you a head's up. He also said that if you want to contact him directly, he'd be happy to tell you what he thinks of DAN's set. You could pop me a line (my email is visible to my FL) and I'll put the two of you in touch.

Certainly I don't recommend dashing right into the substantial investment that DAN's set represents. Rather, perhaps do something like familiarize yourself with her work through browsing and see if her style resonates with you at all. Honestly, from comments you've made since I originally responded, I'd recommend Butler first. He's great at training in the basic principles of magic and mediumship, and he teaches material that's applicable to various different systems. I've found his work to be as useful as an adjunct to RJ Stewart's faery materials as it is to Dion Fortune's polarity work.

Dolores also has a book called "The Ritual Magic Workbook", which is very good and covers useful ground at a much lower cost than the set.

There's a sequel to Real Magic?? Woot!

There is! And it's supposed to be really good, but I don't know for sure. Read it and let me know! I already said, I think, but it's called Real Energy.

*teeth clench at the 'energy' buzzword*

Ordered and on it's way. I'm interested to see how it relates with most of what I do with "energy", since I've gotten a lot of that with a live teacher instead of a book.

I was sent here (okay, really "intrigued here" is a better phrase) by rocket_jockey.

There is a sort of meta-book called "The Well Read Witch" which is where I started when I was in a similarly 'returning to magic' phase as you yourself seem to be in. It's a huge inclusive list of some of the best stuff out there with brief summaries that really tell you what's in and what's not in each book.
Also the cheesily titled "Deepening Witchcraft: Advancing Skills and Knowledge" by Grey Cat which touches on more of a... how to find your own path and cement it so it becomes a good working model... sort of approach.
I've been reading a lot of anthropology/folklore, so right now my personal favorite is Leland's "Aradia Gospel of the witches" for sheer inspirational value, and a different look on what 'traditional' magic might have looked like.

I can't aggree enough about the T. Thorne Coyle book either. My mother took one of her workshops after reading the book and was simply blown away. Highly recomnded by at least 2 generations of Pagans ;)

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