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I was sent a copy of this book to review back in March. Looking around the blogosphere, I'm thinking that the publisher must be plugged into our informal magick blogging circle because fellow blogger Rob was sent a copy to review as well. I recommend that you take a look at Rob's review in addition to mine, as he makes some good points about the book's weaknesses from the perspective of an experienced magical practitioner. He wound up not recommending the book, and while I agree with a number of his criticisms my impression is more positive so long as its target audience is taken into account.
Let me be clear - this is not a book that I would buy for two reasons. First of all, I am not nor have I ever been a Wiccan, and there are a number of assumptions in the book coming directly from that worldview which I disagree with, in some cases quite strongly. Second of all, I doubt that even an intermediate magical practitioner is going to find anything new or useful in it. Nonetheless, that's not who the book is aimed at. This is the sort of book that is intended to sit on a shelf at a bookstore and attract the attention of seekers who know nothing about magick or Wicca and want to learn about it from a very basic perspective. I don't know that many readers of this blog fall into that category, and the book is certainly not targeted at those of you who come here to read my articles on theoretical models of magick or advanced spellwork techniques.
What I like best about the book is that even if you know absolutely nothing it contains enough information to get you started practicing right away. The techniques that it covers are limited, but one of the things that bothers me about a lot of beginning books on magick is that in too many cases there isn't much "magick" you can really do with them aside from bits of psychological trickery here and there. You don't learn how to do effective magick by reading and studying, you learn how to do it by practicing. The four sections of the book - Altar Magick, Candle Magick, Pendulum Magick, and Healing Magick - give you techniques that are simple but which at the same time can be used to do some genuine magical work. Altar Magick tells you how to set up a basic ritual space, Candle Magick covers some very basic sorcery, Pendulum Magick explains a simple method of divination, and Healing Magick touches on introductory energy work.
That the book is set up to encourage magical practice relates back to my recent discussion with Rob in that there is pretty much no way anyone could pick up this book as an introduction to Wicca and get the idea that Wiccans don't cast spells. I wouldn't have even considered that concept as a possibility except for the media attention around the case of Carole Smith who apparently believes it. Since then, though, I've heard there are apparently a fair number of Wiccans out there who don't practice themselves and a few who will insist that it's not something Wiccans even do. They must be learning that "somewhere", probably from bad introductory books. For all its simplicity, this book is not going to be encouraging that attitude. If this is your first exposure to Wicca, which seems to be the author's intent, you'll understand right away that generally speaking Wiccans do cast spells and at the same time learn a few simple ones of your own that can help you out right away.
In Rob's review, he comments that he isn't clear on why the book leads off with Altar Magick, as he considers it the weakest section. From a beginner's standpoint I think it makes sense, though - if you're going to sit down and do some magick you need a space to perform it in before getting started. And while advanced practioners see an altar as a very simple thing - flat surface, some images, some tools, and you're done - one of the things that I have learned over the years of trying to coach people through the casting of magical spells is that rank beginners are unsure about "everything". As I see it the author's intent with this section was to go into enough step-by-step detail regarding the creation of an altar space that most of these questions would be answered. "Do it however you want" doesn't work with novices. Even if you say, "Some magicians do it this way, some do it that way" they'll still ask you to tell them which one is better. And "whichever one feels most natural to you," the correct answer, usually only confuses them.
As an aside, I'm convinced that this is not because beginners are necessarily stupid, but rather that there's so much nonsense about magick in the popular culture that it's hard to cut through it all. Movies and television programs constantly depict spells in which if one tiny thing is overlooked or done wrong the consequences are disastrous, which is nothing like reality. The free-flowing, artistic aspects of magick are rarely discussed or even addressed in media treatments. Rather, it's all about whether or not you can pronounce "wingardium leviosa" with exactly the correct intonation. Once you start practicing and get a feel for how the magick works you can experience for yourself how ridiculous this mindset is, but how is a beginner supposed to know? A book like this, that gets you working magick right away, can help.
This fear of doing something wrong is also one of the reasons I think the author chose not to include various negative symbols in the book. While I think that the "Wiccan Rede" and "Threefold Law" concepts the book emphasizes are beyond silly ("Harm None" is ridiculous because you can't exist without harming something, and the "Threefold Law" is in my experience an unsupported superstition), I can see where the emphasis of positive symbolism can serve to reassure the beginning practitioner that they're not going to, say, unleash an army of Deadites if they can't quite remember that phrase from "The Day the Earth Stood Still". More advanced magick does require exploration of those darker paths, but so long as this is understood there's nothing wrong with starting off on the the brighter, happier ones. It's also true that the methods in this book are really too basic for sending out curses safely - that requires a more detailed understanding of containment structures, Godhead assumption, delivering charges, and so forth than I think would be appropriate for a book written at this level.
So my take is that this book is a decent introduction to Wiccan magick and a beginning student could certainly do a lot worse, judging from some of the attitudes that I have encountered over the years in the Pagan community. At the same time, though, keep in mind that being neither a beginner nor a Wiccan it's hard for me to compare it with other books on the same topic written for that particular audience as I've hardly read any of them. Also, if you already have a magical practice and some basic technical understanding you're going to find something more advanced than this book a lot more useful.
Want to buy your own copy of "The Big Little Book of Magick" by D.J. Conway? Order from my Books and Media page and you can help support Augoeides.
Suggested ebooks:
John Frederick Charles Fuller - The Star In The West A Critical Essay On The Works Of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley - Lecture On The Philosophy Of Magick
[excerpted from http://www.cris.com/~Amon1/satanism/watcher5.txt
(reformatted by tn)]
THE DARK GODS
by Christos Beest (Order of the Nine Angles)
"They lurk at the threshold of existence
Preening their wings and eyes and sounds
which they send forth to all who have
ears to hear and minds to know. And they
wait and reside in the space between
worlds, the space that is the corner of
the meeting of dimensions. They are the
destroyers... he bornless forever who
wait for our call. Soon they will come to
collect that blood which is required by
Them. To understand Them is to pass that
Abyss beyond which the man ceases to be."
The Message of the One of Thoth
Much has been uttered - 'in shrivelled hallways untidy with the
Blackest Inventions' - concerning the entities/energies known as the Dark Gods. Hitherto, all information regarding 'They who will have
Blood' has consisted of misrepresentations and absolute rubbish.
q.v. the works of H.P. Lovecraft, who intuitively grasped vague
hints of the genuine Dark Tradition, whilst presenting it within
the context of the 'opposites' (as with 'The Necronomicon' in its
many hoax forms). Those who wish to know the Dark Gods are required to pass the Abyss - the experience of going beyond 'opposites' - to understand what these energies are in essence (i.e. they just ARE)
and to remain sane and in one piece.
From an uninitiated viewpoint, the Dark Gods are indeed the most
hideous and terrifying manifestations of the acausal on this causal plane. Due to the Nazarene Tyranny establishing evolutionary regression, very few can comprehend even the most remote hint of Chaos (or The Dark Gods) in its primal state, i.e. they do not perceive the essence hidden by appearance; they are bound by 'moral projections'. ('He is the
damned, the baser for a moral corrupt'.)
While the Dark Gods may be perceived as 'convenient abstractions'
or Archetypal Energy, they may also be regarded as having an actual existence (and it is up to the individual to decide which of these, or neither, is the correct for him/herself). The Dark Tradition,
continued by small numbers of Adepts since the Hyperborean Aeon to the present day, contains many tales of the origins of the Dark Gods.
Whether one chooses to see these as myth or mythos, is, at the end of the day, a matter of personal taste according to which viewpoint is the most magickally useful.
Previously, weakening a Star Gate (or nexion, a physical link between the causal and acausal) and bringing the Dark Gods has involved
hideous rites of sacrifice and suffering, and in terms of results, vile uncertainty principles. Refined magickal techniques (such as the Rite of Nine Angles) have replaced many of these bloody shamblings (the Blood remains, mostly in menstrual form) and the Return of the Dark Gods is now an easier proposition, both in terms of what can be done ceremonially, hermetically and how mass Consciousness can be effected by Aeonic
techniques. However, certain cases involving those who, unprepared
and otherwise, have attempted to bring the Dark Gods, have resulted in madness and/or death. Such events are always followed by the shedding of blood on a larger scale - the Darkest of negations must have sustenance.
And is bloodshed necessary anymore?
Returning the Dark Gods will fulfill the Destiny (in its dying form) of this Aeon - the Western, still about 350 years left to run - by
establishing the next Aeon, which has no word since it is Chaos itself.
This Aeonic progression has been a gradual opening of various
acausal - or magickal - centres on this terrestrial plane. It is
important to remember that there never was a 'golden age' way back when from which the human race toppled and has been trying to grovel back to ever since, armed with hints of 'lost knowledge' constituting the
various 'mysteries' (not in the Greek sense of the word) we have today.
In one one sphere of evolution, we have reached an intuitive stage - the culmination so far of the Aeonic progression - where we can decide our own destiny. For this reason, it is generally agreed that the
terrestrial centres are now exhausted - the new Aeon may very well be
'Galactic' in form (either symbolically, i.e. representing the forward looking nature of civilisation, or literally, the consequence of
the same).
Establishing a forward looking civilisation reveals the nature and
purpose of Satanism. Those (for example) qabalistic magicians who
think they are contributing towards this progression should think again.
The Return of the Dark Gods will bring torment, gnashing Darkness
and Death to some, and bounty to others. As stated, we have reached a point in consciousness to recognise that the world is up for grabs.
The strong will survive and the weak will perish - an obvious statement, though difficult for those bound by Nazarene morality to accept.
To invert the Established is only a starting point, a means to an end.
For most, that stage beyond may be realised in time. But for now, it is enough just to start. As Derek Farr, bastion of the film noir, so eloquently said in his early film 'Lethargy':
"It seems there is no finer point
Than that which is lodged with the cranial index
of a dying priest."
T H E W A T C H E R
NEW ZEALAND VOICE OF THE LEFT HAND PATH
P. O. Box 38-262, Petone, Wellington
excerpted from "The Watcher", November 1990CE XXV AS, Issue No. 5
originally edited by:
Graeme Wilson
P.O. Box 38-262
Petone
Wellington
New Zealand
Suggested ebooks:
Lyman Frank Baum - The Sea Fairies
Howard Phillips Lovecraft - The Other Gods
Ona - The Dark Forces
I was cruising around on Facebook recently and came across a video list of the "Top 10 Secret Organizations" posted on Bing. Right there at #9, I found the order of which I'm an initiate, Ordo Templi Orientis. Interestingly enough, the blurb in the video is reasonably accurate, describing OTO as a "Mystical movement based on the spiritual philosophy of Thelema" with "strong connections to the occult." One could perhaps argue the meaning of "strong connections" in this context, but given the significance of Aleister Crowley's work in the general occult scene I nonetheless consider it a basically true statement.
Here's what's interesting about the OTO's inclusion - the other societies on the list. At #9, OTO is ranked higher than the Catholic organization Opus Dei despite the latter group's membership of 85,000 compared to OTO's 3-4 thousand. The rest of the list includes organizations that are legitimately powerful today, shaped historical events, and/or attract a lot of press from conspiracy theorists. Here's the rest of them:
8. The Knights Templar - Prior to the fourteenth century, served as bankers to all of medieval Europe.
7. Ku Klux Klan - Now a shadow of its former self, but once an enormous organization with millions of members.
6. Beati Paoli - I hadn't heard of this one, but apparently it is believed that some of the modern mafia groups are descended from it.
5. Majestic-12 - Researched by many and pretty much found to be bogus, this group was supposedly set up to study UFO techology and communicate with aliens.
4. Freemasons - Another group with which I'm involved, the Masons still have millions of members but are not nearly as nefarious as some claim.
3. Thule Society - Smaller that the OTO even at its height, but this German occult society had a disproportionate influence on Nazi philosophy.
2. The Illuminati - Disappeared around 1800 and fictionalized in the early 1970's by Robert Anton Wilson, this group is nonetheless apparently the sworn enemy of fundamentalist Christianity.
1. The Bilderberger Group - Small but genuinely powerful, the Bilderberger group constitutes one of the largest concentrations of financial and political resources in the world.
You can check out the video here. As they say at the Oscars, it's an honor just to be nominated. And in case you're wondering, no, the OTO does not "run the world from the shadows." It would be kind of cool if it did, though.
Well I decided to take a little break for the New Year and go away for a week, just to relax and re-evaluate my goals and what I want to do this year.
When doing Black Magic it is important to to set goals for your self and have an understanding of where you wish to take your craft. Sure it can be fun blindly waking around just doing whatever you feel like, but in the end you need to focus your efforts if you want to master any black magic skill.
Witch Sabbath
This is why, at the start of the New Year, I will cast a cleansing spell. After cleansing myself I will take time for me (another important thing to do in black magic). Touch base with myself, and figure out what I desire in the coming year.
There are many roads in life, and in Black magic we believe that we can take any road we want. The choice is ours where we we wish to go.
A wooden path
When I was younger I use to go hiking in the mountains ( I still do but not as much). On some of those trips I would just blindly walk around and play in the forest. It was those times where I usually never made it past the base of the mountain. When I walked in with a goal to get to the top of the mountain, I would usually end my journey on top looking down on the city ( a beautiful site to behold).
Vancouver from Grouse mountain
Anyway my point is that no path is wrong. When I stayed at the bottom and ran around at the base, I had fun, but never accomplished getting to the top. When I set the goal of getting to the top I achieved what I wanted. Depending on what you want your outcome to be, your journey will be different.
With magickal abilities it is the same thing. If you want to excel in black magic, then you need to practice and be committed to learning your skills. Setting goals can help you stay on track and focused on your goals so that you get there faster.
When I set my goals I will alway start by taking time for me and just relaxing. I find that the business of life can sometimes overpower the internal voice so every now and then you need to silence all noise and listen to what your true self is telling you. I use Meditation for this. Meditation is a very very important thing in Black Magic as it helps you to get in touch with yourself and understand what your needs and wants are. Basically meditation provides you with a door to seek out your inner self and find out what you want.
After I have meditated and found out what I want I will them make a list of things that I want to have, or wish to do in the coming year. The important thing with making the list is to not let the "I can't do that attitude get in the way." When you write something down and you feel like you cannot do that, that is your mind putting a limitation on you. In Black Magic we must work to remove these limitations and believe in our own power.
Believe me these limitations can take time to break down. Some of them take years depending on what the limitation is. Just make the list and do not worry about anything.
When it comes to magic goals, after I have made the list of things I would enjoy learning about I will then read as much as I can on those topic, as well as meditate on the concept seeing what information I can derive from the spirit world. Which is usually a lot.
One last important piece on information. Only do things if you enjoy it. Do not do anything you hate just to impress other people. Do things for you! In Black Magic the outcome or attaining the goal is not the most important part.
Getting to the goal is not the most important part. The journey, hiking up the mountain and taking in all that is around me, is. Sure acheiving goals is great, but the jouney is where the lessons are learned and where the growth happens. It is also where all your exerpiences and memories take place. Do not stress yourself out about making mastering your goals. Enjoy the Journey and learn all you can from the experience.
magick
If you cannot have fun and enjoy the journey, then you will never be truely happen IF you ever reach your goal. Your magick will be stronger if you learn with enthusiasm and passion.
Happy Goal Setting,
Priestess Akelta
Suggested ebooks:
Aubrey Bell - The Magic Of Spain
Meshafi Resh - The Black Book
Anonymous - The Basics Of Magick
