Book Recommendation Best book on magick for a beginner?

[Queenofallwitches]

I found Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig to be my absolute favourite all time primer introduction into all things ceremonial magick and occult. It gives a fantastic foundational overview of everything you will need to start your journey.

 

[Yazata]

I found Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig to be my absolute favourite all time primer introduction into all things ceremonial magick and occult. It gives a fantastic foundational overview of everything you will need to start your journey.

Indeed. Really all encompassing, from elemental to Goetia to Enochian.

 

[Xenophon]

Thank you Heydi!

Is Initiation into Hermetics available in the library as well? Also, what do you think of Franz Bardon's other two volumes on Hermetic magic?

Look around the net. I downloaded PDF's of Bardon's 3 books on hermetic magic a few years back.

 

[HoldAll]

As a former armchair magician with some chaos magick experience, I'm roughly in the same shoes as you. I've found at this stage it's more important to find books that speak to you, that grip you and that you can't put down than the more difficult ones that provide solid information but are otherwise too hard or too boring to read. This is why many people recommend books by the Gallery of Magick because they are so accessible and treat beginners like equals, or Jason Miller's "Strategic Sorcery" because it's a fascinating read. Personally, I still like Peter Carroll's "Liber Null & Psychonaut" because of its refreshing iconoclasm but other people of a more traditionalist or olde worlde romantic bent may be put off by him because of this very reason.

I still don't like Franz Bardon's schoolmarmish style of writing but I'm slowly beginning to think that he may have a point as regards all these strenuous and time-consuming exercises he demands from his readers; others with a more industrious work ethic may think the guy's the bee's knees though. Donald Kraig is excellent but I immediately began to baulk when he begain talking about tarot and magical implements because they're just not my cup of tea (at least at the moment). It all depends on your mentality and taste.

So to my mind, it all comes down to subjective personal preference in the beginning. Ask me in a few months, and I will probably be knee deep in Bardon's exercises in "Initiation into Hermetics", no idea.

 

[stratamaster78]

My recommendations for an absolute beginner would be:

1) ‘Modern Magick’ by Donald Michael Kraig

2) ‘Learning Ritual Magic’ and ‘Circles of Power’ both by John Michael Greer

3) ‘High Magick’ and ‘Angels and Archangels’
by Damien Echols

The 1st two recommendations are Classics imo and do a well rounded job of teaching you fundamentals and rituals.

The 3rd recommendation covers those things as well but also puts a lot of emphasis on energy work and developing and using those abilities within the rituals.

A beginner can’t go wrong with any of those imo.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

The two books I always recommend (aside from my own ofc ) are

Advanced Magick for Beginners by Alan Chapman
An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski

Obviously, YMMV.

 

[Thierry007]

Hey all:

I am new to the forum and to magick generally.

So far in my journey I've been reading academic works on western esotericism. I'd like to start venturing deeper into magick and I want to ask for your guy's advice on where to start.

Can any recommend their top books for beginners on magick specifically?

Thanks everyone

- S33k3r

The best book for beginners as I also started magick with this book is... " The Magick of Angels and Demons by Henry Archer "

 

[Xenophon]

The two books I always recommend (aside from my own ofc ) are

Advanced Magick for Beginners by Alan Chapman
An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski

Obviously, YMMV.

I just saw the Stanislavski reference. Good point. One needs a finely crafted persona to fact a challenging task.

 

[GreyBird]

I may sound like a broken record around here, but I would sincerely recommend Initiation Into Hermetics by Franz Bardon, if you are seriously interested in devoting yourself to magic.
If you're uncertain how far you wish to go or what kind of magic you'd like to pursue, merely complete the first two steps of this book, and you will have an exceptional foundation to pursue any other system of magic you may prefer.

Most modern magicians do not properly develop even the most fundamental foundations necessary for the serious pursuit of magic and consequently struggle to attain basic success and progress, but completing at least the first two steps of the IIH will prevent that (or the first three steps if you have the extra patience).
Mastery of the mind and body through thought-control exercises and physical discipline exercises, and mastery of the Imagination through sensory/visualization exercises, are both essential tools for the practice of magic (at least if you wish to succeed), and these areas are covered within the first two/three steps of the IIH.

If the Elemental Magic presented in the later steps of the IIH do not interest you, then you would be well-equipped to move on into whatever other system you prefer - but the central exercises presented in the first two steps of the IIH are universal in their importance, regardless of what kind of magic you practice, so it would be wise to get those done and over with regardless of your future interests or whatever you wish to study on the side during these first steps.

Beyond this foundation, I can't truly recommend any other material, as any further study is highly dependent on what interests you or what suits the path you wish to follow.

Thanks

Post automatically merged: Nov 11, 2023

Kybalion. Genesis.

Thanks

 

[Diluculo_DelFuego]

Self Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition by Chic and Tabitha Cicero is a good high Magick beginners book.

 

[Thierry007]

Lucifer and Hidden Demons by Theodore Rose is also good book it's pathworking descriptions are poetic amd very beautiful

 

[Xenophon]

Lucifer and Hidden Demons by Theodore Rose is also good book it's pathworking descriptions are poetic amd very beautiful

It's visualizations are poetic indeed. I had rather less results with the workings recommended. And the book's insistence that simply showing their power is reward enough for the demons strikes me as culpable naivete. In any case, this is no book for the beginner. It would tend to cement the mage (manque) into utter dependence on the demons, the very opposite of what the LHP is about.

 

[Vandheer]

Personally, I still like Peter Carroll's "Liber Null & Psychonaut" because of its refreshing iconoclasm but other people of a more traditionalist or olde worlde romantic bent may be put off by him because of this very reason.

I really like the bare bone approach Peter J. Carroll took on this book. Especially after looking at texts of Thelema where you will have to find your way through billion references and traps on top of Crowleys smug additude, it is refreshing to look at a manuel that went like "here, this should work".

His latest works are just bonkers though, he lost his marbles imo.

 

[Xenophon]

I really like the bare bone approach Peter J. Carroll took on this book. Especially after looking at texts of Thelema where you will have to find your way through billion references and traps on top of Crowleys smug additude, it is refreshing to look at a manuel that went like "here, this should work".

His latest works are just bonkers though, he lost his marbles imo.

Yeah, I had the strong impression that our priceless Petey had stripped a gear or two in later works. I've mentioned I like Michael Kelley's minimalism, but he unfortunately seems to have been bitten by the publishing bug. He turns out "systems" of magic the way one does table legs on a lathe. If he had stopped with just the first one, I'd feel a little less like I was being imposed upon.

The Crowley corpus is like dealing with Kafka's bureaucracies: one is sent in ever widening circles chasing references that never quite get nailed down.

 

[Wintruz]

I've been thinking about curricula recently. It's been a while since I was in any kind of tutorship and, when I was, that was within something of a tradition (i.e.; "my teacher taught/teaches me this, so I shall teach it to you"). Outside of all that, most of the beginners books I've seen promoted in recent years are based on the Golden Dawn (which, if you're going to do it, is best done by Lyam Thomas Christopher's book).

Liber Null is quite a good book to get the mechanics of magic without a symbolic system. It teaches something that can be used straight-away and it can be adapted to any symbolic system that later catches the eye. So I'd go with that first and do all of the exercises. Have a good physical exercise routine alongside this.

While working through that, I'd cast a pretty wide net and read (only read for now) about as many culture-specific magical systems as possible. If something is alluring make a note of it, put it out of mind and come back to that note in a few months. Is it still alluring or was it a passing fancy? If the former, it might be a key for you. If there's confusion, consider getting one of those ancestral DNA tests and research the tradition that corresponds to your strongest ancestral pool.

I'd also read David Shoemaker's Living Thelema and P. D. Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous. They'll give you an outline of various things but remember that the map is not the territory. I'd further read Manly Palmer Hall's The Secret Teachings of All Ages for an older overview of the occult and something like Colin Wilson's The Occult for something (slightly) more up to date.

That should all account for the first eighteen months or so.

 

[Diluculo_DelFuego]

Sydan Moone produced a few great books. At some point *d love to test them. Steve Savedow, Denning and Phillips, Jason Miller, decent books as well. Gallery of Magic books.

 

[HoldAll]

Shawn Martin Scanlon's "Everything You Want to Know About Magick But Were Afraid to Ask" (it's in the library) is nice, too. He writes with a slight GD/Thelema slant but the book itself is very beginner-friendly if you want to approach magic from a traditional Western angle.

 

[Elementriloquist]

As a former armchair magician with some chaos magick experience, I'm roughly in the same shoes as you. I've found at this stage it's more important to find books that speak to you, that grip you and that you can't put down than the more difficult ones that provide solid information but are otherwise too hard or too boring to read. This is why many people recommend books by the Gallery of Magick because they are so accessible and treat beginners like equals, or Jason Miller's "Strategic Sorcery" because it's a fascinating read. Personally, I still like Peter Carroll's "Liber Null & Psychonaut" because of its refreshing iconoclasm but other people of a more traditionalist or olde worlde romantic bent may be put off by him because of this very reason.

I still don't like Franz Bardon's schoolmarmish style of writing but I'm slowly beginning to think that he may have a point as regards all these strenuous and time-consuming exercises he demands from his readers; others with a more industrious work ethic may think the guy's the bee's knees though. Donald Kraig is excellent but I immediately began to baulk when he begain talking about tarot and magical implements because they're just not my cup of tea (at least at the moment). It all depends on your mentality and taste.

So to my mind, it all comes down to subjective personal preference in the beginning. Ask me in a few months, and I will probably be knee deep in Bardon's exercises in "Initiation into Hermetics", no idea.

I've seen the gallery of magic stuff. I never tried it and decided to keeping struggling with Initiation Into Hermetics (lol) because I'm not looking to mess with forces that I can't control. I'm not going to try and summon or commune with an angel to ask for favors, or just invoke some unseen entity/force for the same reason. The kind of magic I want to do is to enact change with my own intent.

The the kind of magic practiced in Initiation Into Hermetics is very personal, direct, intentional, and something important I never saw in other books, observable & testable. That's why it really interests me.

EXAMPLE (Using A Thermometer To Test For Changes In Room Temperature):
Initiation Into Hermetics
Step 5 (V)
Magic Psychic Training 5 (V)
Page 110 (Dieter Ruggeberg - 3rd Edition - 1976)

Repeat the accumulation and evacuation several times, and by each emptying, you will accumulate the fiery element all the more in the room. As soon as you are free from the element yourself, you ought to feel how the element is amassing in the room, and get the sensation of the room becoming very warm. After some exercising, the warmth in the room will become not only a subjective, but a real matter of fact and any person—magically trained or not—entering this room is actually bound to feel the warmth. A thermometer does indicate, how far we are capable to condense our imagination with respect to the fire, so that factually a materially perceptible warmth can be produced in the room. The success of this exercise depends entirely on the willpower and the plastic imaginative faculty. It is not absolutely necessary, in this step, to bring about such an amount of physical warmth that it can be measured with a thermometer. But supposing a magician takes a keen interest in working in this more spectacular way, he can specialise himself in this problem with the help of these instructions. The genuine magician, however, will not be satisfied with such an insignificant phenomenon, and rather prefer to further his own development, because he is firmly convinced that he can obtain much more, as time goes on."

But I may never even make it to Step 5 to do this test.

I just wish there was some kind of cheat code training method for the two difficult Step 1 mental exercises in Initiation Into Hermetics. You've probably already started practicing them by now:
1. One-pointedness (focus on a single thought for 10 minutes without any mental interruptions)
2. Vacancy Of Mind (empty your mind of all thoughts for 10 minutes without any mental interruptions)

I can't even get past the first one. I always get an interruption within 30-40 seconds. When I first started there was consistent progress, I was excited and enthusiastic, expecting consistent and small incremental progress. Then I just hit this frustrating insurmountable 1 minute wall that I haven't passed in a while (passed a few times before) and I don't see an end in sight. I don't want to spend 5+ years just trying to do that exercise, and then a next 5 years on Vacancy Of Mind if I even get there.

I might die before I even finish Step 1 lol. If I had a time machine I'd give myself this book when I was in my teens so that I could have built up better mental habits, and saved myself the trouble I'm having now.

 

[Thierry007]

And the book's insistence that simply showing their power is reward enough for the demons strikes me as culpable naivete

That point of view is also mentioned in demons of magick by Gordon winterfield and Henry Archer's book (although they work with angels in those books not just demons) and the only difference is that the author of LHD is more confident about the truth of this theory

 

[HoldAll]

I can't even get past the first one. I always get an interruption within 30-40 seconds. When I first started there was consistent progress, I was excited and enthusiastic, expecting consistent and small incremental progress. Then I just hit this frustrating insurmountable 1 minute wall that I haven't passed in a while (passed a few times before) and I don't see an end in sight. I don't want to spend 5+ years just trying to do that exercise, and then a next 5 years on Vacancy Of Mind if I even get there.

I might die before I even finish Step 1 lol. If I had a time machine I'd give myself this book when I was in my teens so that I could have built up better mental habits, and saved myself the trouble I'm having now.

Speaking from my own experience as a beginner. I think it's important to add some ritual practice right at the beginning so you don't spend years with those mind-training exercises. That's why so many recommend the LBRP because if anything, it feels like you're doing some real magic including gestures and holy words at least - without it, I would just try and quieten my mind (and berating myself for not succeeding) without noticing any real benefits in ritual practice.

Additionally, I am trying my hand at various incantations and they serve to validate my meditation practice because I've noticed that I am as yet unable to say these words with utter conviction and that much more concentration on my part is needed - I still feel like an amateur actor with a bad case of stage fright. It's one thing to read these impressive ancient lines in a book and still another to declaim them genuinely dramatically in a way that would give a critical observer goosebumps. What I am shooting for is something like trance-concentration, and a good way to test your meditation progress is to try and reach that state in practice (instead of forever labouring under a gruesome program of abstract exercises).

Post automatically merged: Nov 15, 2023

I've seen the gallery of magic stuff. I never tried it and decided to keeping struggling with Initiation Into Hermetics (lol) because I'm not looking to mess with forces that I can't control. I'm not going to try and summon or commune with an angel to ask for favors, or just invoke some unseen entity/force for the same reason. The kind of magic I want to do is to enact change with my own intent.

In my mind, Damon Brand's book work for two types of readers: a) experienced practioners who have done their groundwork, b) absolute beginners without any preconceptions who are able to accept his premises with child-like wonder, overawed by all those mysterious sigils and impressive barbarous words. They didn't work for me because I've read scores of books about magic, forever ruminating and sceptically pondering all these strange philosophies and occult concepts - I just don't have the required openness of a beginner anymore. In my mind, the GoM (angel) books are pretty harmless, you won't be pursued by some monster all day long.

Post automatically merged: Nov 15, 2023

I figure it is best to start my journey into Magick by first understanding the theory behind it.

Any recommendations for a good theoretical text?

Almost every book on magic has at least some introductory chapter on theory, and everyone has a different opinion - there is no such thing as a Unified Theory of Magic. No two magicians will exactly agree on how it works and everybody comes up with their own opinion once they gained some experience. There is always the danger of becoming so stuck in a morass of theories that one never gets anything done. It's also possible to switch paradigms, for example to consider spirits as objectively existing beings and another time as parts of your own mind (I'm in a middle of a long-term working where my practical understanding would often oscillate between these extremes). All in all, I would try to gain some experience and only then analyse them and see if they fit into some accepted theory. Yes, this book says this and that book says that but there is only one way to find out which is author is right, and that is practicing.