I was rather disappointed in this book. The description on the back says:

Learning Ritual Magic is a traingin manual for anyone
serious about learning solitary magic based on the
Western Mystery Traditions, including tarot, ritual
magic, Qabala and astrology.

However, the first paragraph of the Introduction states:

The lessons that follow were originally compiled as an
introductory course in high magic for members of an
independent Hermetic magical order. That order, now
known as the Companions of the Rose (COR), remains
active, but its focus and curriculum have evolved a good
deal since the days when the course was first written and
new members now follow a different course of training.
However, because the original course proved to be an
effective introduction to the fundamentals of Hermetic
magical theory and practice, the governing body of COR
decided to present it to a wider occult community in the
hope that other students of the mysteries may find it
useful.

Now, I have to ask myself, if the Order that created these lessons no longer finds them useful for their own beginners, why do they think people from other traditions would?
It is very highly based on the Qabala, so if your tradition has nothing to do with the Qabala – you need to skip this one.
I believe this book was marketed in the totally wrong way.
It should have been, “Learning Ritual Magic from the Hermetic Tradition.”
The “fundamental theories” of this book differ greatly from many of the base foundations of other traditions. Although a few of the exercises may be helpful for the beginner, I believe a beginner of a different tradition would find themselves utterly confused and lost trying to use this book as a part of their studies.
This is another example of what could have been a great book – had the title properly reflected the specific content. Please publishers – don’t market books toward ALL practitioners of magic when the book is for a very specialized group or tradition!

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Created Dec 28, 2009 at 9:19am • Submit your own review...