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The main reason for this thread is to provide a discussion forum for the books I just posted here:
wizardforums.com
I am beginning to think that these books are in a way indicative of a trend, or rather a bundle of trends, where less-than-serious authors routinely plunder ancient traditions and churn out crazy-quilt occult concoctions like there was no tomorrow. Take "Enochian Forbidden Demonology Spellbook: 50 Forbidden Enochian Rituals to Communicate With the Demons as noted in the Ars Goetia" by Liber Occultis (seriously?) - in principle an interesting idea to use Enochian in conjunction with the Goetia but the lurid cover and the fact that it's part of a series called "Enochian Occultism" encompassing 34 (!) books so far isn't exactly confidence-inspiring.
By pure accident (thanks to @Yazata for pointing it out to me) I discovered that someone had hijacked good old A.E. Waite's "The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts" (first published in 1898 and later called "The Book of Ceremonial Magic"), the copyright of which having long lapsed of course, and passed off this scholarly book (written by a pure white-lighter and good Christian) as a genuine black magic grimoire, now dubbed "The Complete Book of Black Magic and Witchcraft".
Something's going on here, or rather several things but I can't put my finger on it. Who is buying those books? Is there really a demand for 34 low-brow tomes on Enochian magic? Is Satanism becoming the new Wicca? Will some hack write a Picatrix for Dummies?
This may very well be an issue for the General Discussion section but I'm mostly worried about those new book publishing trends, that's why I opened a thread here.
Collection - Popular Satanism
This post is somewhat embarrassing. I originally began to collect those books in an attempt to highlight my feeling that cheap hacks had recently begun to exploit the word 'Satanism' solely for its shock value, spewing out 'dark' fluff with little or no substance. However, a few of them seem to...
wizardforums.com
I am beginning to think that these books are in a way indicative of a trend, or rather a bundle of trends, where less-than-serious authors routinely plunder ancient traditions and churn out crazy-quilt occult concoctions like there was no tomorrow. Take "Enochian Forbidden Demonology Spellbook: 50 Forbidden Enochian Rituals to Communicate With the Demons as noted in the Ars Goetia" by Liber Occultis (seriously?) - in principle an interesting idea to use Enochian in conjunction with the Goetia but the lurid cover and the fact that it's part of a series called "Enochian Occultism" encompassing 34 (!) books so far isn't exactly confidence-inspiring.
By pure accident (thanks to @Yazata for pointing it out to me) I discovered that someone had hijacked good old A.E. Waite's "The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts" (first published in 1898 and later called "The Book of Ceremonial Magic"), the copyright of which having long lapsed of course, and passed off this scholarly book (written by a pure white-lighter and good Christian) as a genuine black magic grimoire, now dubbed "The Complete Book of Black Magic and Witchcraft".
Something's going on here, or rather several things but I can't put my finger on it. Who is buying those books? Is there really a demand for 34 low-brow tomes on Enochian magic? Is Satanism becoming the new Wicca? Will some hack write a Picatrix for Dummies?
This may very well be an issue for the General Discussion section but I'm mostly worried about those new book publishing trends, that's why I opened a thread here.