(Aleister Crowley beside his ritual journal, from The Equinox, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1910)

Most persons learn about magic through books. This is not the best way to learn, nor for most students is it the easiest way, but it is rare to find yourself living within easy travel distance of the Wiccan coven or ritual magic group that is exactly right for your needs and inclinations. Books are often the only way to learn many aspects of the occult.

All of the titles listed and described below are books that I have studied and used in my own research and ceremonial work. They are in my personal library, and I refer to some of them almost daily. I can vouch for their value.

None of my own books are listed below -- those interested will find my books described on my Books, Cards and Kits page.

This is the primary source reference on Golden Dawn magic, the system of Western ceremonial magic developed and extensively tested and used by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Regardie in his youth served as Aleister Crowley's personal secretary, and later after leaving Crowley's service he became a member of one of the off-shoot branches of the Golden Dawn. From these two sources he was able to collect a large number of the original Golden Dawn teaching essays that were used for the instruction of new members, as well as documents connected with the rituals and mythology of the Golden Dawn. This book is absolutely essential for anyone seeking to learn Western magic, regardless of whether or not the student intends to practice the system of the Golden Dawn, because almost all systems of modern Western magic are based on the Golden Dawn teachings, to a greater or lesser degree.

This is a workbook for serious students of Western magic. In contains a lot of information about the four elements and how they are used in magic, and also about elemental spirits, larvae, ghosts, and other lower spirits. The best part of the book are the numerous practical exercises for awakening and developing occult abilities, and for dealing with spirits. I've done many of these exercises regularly for extended periods, and can testify to their effectiveness. If you practice the mental exercises in this book, you will get results. You will begin to notice an increased sensitivity to atmospheres, auras and spirit presences, and will see the world in a completely new way. These results take only a few weeks of practice to start to show themselves. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who is serious about learning magic.

The book was originally published in German in 1956, and the early English translation by A. Radspieler is terrible, but can be understood with some effort. I've heard that the work was more recently translated again by someone with greater skill in English, but I have not had the chance to study this new translation.

This book by Bardon concentrates on the subject of spirit evocation, which is the calling forth of spiritual beings into manifest existence. A large part of the work is devoted to descriptions of spirits, and illustrations of their seals or sigils, based on Bardon's personal work. This is useful as an example of a magician's work book, but the real value of this text to the student lies in the general instructions given by Bardon concerning the tools and methods used to evoke spirits.

Evocation is an ancient part of ceremonial magic, but is little understood by most modern students of the Art. I have found Bardon's advice on dealing with spirits, and his insights into their nature, accurate and valuable. This book is not quite so useful as his INITIATION INTO HERMETICS, but is none the less of immense practical utility to working magicians.

Crowley is the most famous, or infamous, alumnus of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This is his best-known book. It treats practical magic in general terms, examining what magic is and how it works. The famous definition of magic (or magick as Crowley spelled the word), Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change in conformity with Will is found here. Because it is a rather loose collection of parts, the work is difficult to comprehend as a whole, but must be studied with attention in small sections. To understand everything in the book, it is necessary to know something about the Golden Dawn system, and also about Crowley's own rituals and beliefs. However, this is the best place to begin learning about the magic of Aleister Crowley.

I would counsel beginners not to be frightened away by Crowley's reputation as an evil black magician. Crowley led a very active and diverse sex life, and his moral decisions may well be questioned, but he was a true magus and his writings can teach us an enormous amount about the art of magic. To ignore Crowley's teachings because of his vague reputation as an evil man is to throw the baby out with the bath water (something Crowley never did himself, so far as I know).

William Gray's work is based on the teachings of the Golden Dawn, as these descended through the Society of the Inner Light that was founded by a former Golden Dawn member, Dion Fortune. This is one of his more useful books on the general subject of ritual magic. It also examines the Tree of the Sephiroth, which is extensively employed in Western magic in combination with the Tarot.

All of Gray's books are worth serious study. He is one of only a handful of modern writers about magic who actually knows what he is writing about. His general observations on practical matters and advice to beginners is sound, as I have verified in my own work. This book has a special place in my library, because it is one of a handful of texts that exerted a formative influence on my attitude toward magic while I was just beginning to study the ancient Art.

Dion Fortune was one of the members of the original Golden Dawn. She broke away from the authority of Moina Mathers, who was running the Golden Dawn during Fortune's term of membership, and established her own occult lodge, the Society of the Inner Light. Dion Fortune wrote many books about magic, both nonfiction works and novels. Her fiction is actually fairly good, and contains many useful little bits and pieces of magical lore, for those willing to look for it.

Fortune's best book is undoubtedly her treatment of the Tree of the Sephiroth, as it was taught in the Golden Dawn. It gives an excellent overview of the Sephiroth themselves, and of the structure of the Tree. Where it is weak is in its explanation of the paths on the Tree (a subject complex enough to require an entire book in itself).

This is a good choice for anyone wishing to understand what is loosely referred to in New Age circles as the Kabbalah -- by this, the Golden Dawn version of the Tree of the Sephiroth is meant. Actually, there is a good deal more to the Kabbalah than the Tree, but little other than the Tree is used in modern magic. Many of Fortune's books suffer from vagueness and pomposity, but not this title. She was writing about a subject she knew well, a subject she regarded as of supreme importance to spiritual development.

This is the seminal document of the Kabbalah, vastly more important than another other single work. It is quite brief, and may be found elsewhere on this site. Sepher Yetzirah describes the creation of the universe in the form of the vocalization of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and gives occult correspondences for the letters.

Ginsburg's Kabbalah, first published in 1863, was one of the references used by S. L. MacGregor Mathers when he created the system of Kabbalistic correspondences used in the original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Since so much of this Order's teaching has come down to the present and is still being used by practical occultists today, it is useful to study Ginsburg's book, in order to better understand the Golden Dawn system. The same is true of W. Wynn Westcott's edition of Sepher Yetzirah. Routledge and Kegan Paul combined this brief work with another text by Ginsburg, The Essenes, first issued in 1864, and printed them under a single cover. Both are worth reading.

This is yet another text on the Kabbalah used by S. L. MacGregor Mathers as a source work. First published in 1843 in French, it was translated into English in 1926 by I. Sossnitz. The 1940 Bell Publishing edition is a bastardized version of the Sossnitz translation, in which the Hebrew footnotes and a preface on the origins and meanings of the Kabbalah have been cut out. Franck's books is a surprisingly readable general overview of the Kabbalah. It does not concentrate so much on details of the practical Kabbalah as does the book of the same name by Ginsburg, and as a consequence is not of so great an interest to the working Kabbalist.

The leader of the Golden Dawn, MacGregor Mathers, produced this book as a charitable commission by his friends and fellow Freemasons, Woodman and Westcott, who together with Mathers founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The book was published in 1887, a year before the first temple of the Golden Dawn was established in London.

It consists of a portion of the Latin translation of the Zohar by Knorr von Rosenroth (Kabbala Denudata, 1677). Today it is of interest mainly because of Mathers' introduction, which provides many details about the practical Kabbalah, and his wife's preface, which gives some insight into Mathers and his work in the Golden Dawn. Both the introduction and preface appear elsewhere on this site.

The body of the text contains The Book of Concealed Mystery, The Greater Holy Assembly, and The Lesser Holy Assembly, all key texts from the voluminous compilation known as the Zohar.

The best authoritative and modern general overview of the history and parts of the Kabbalah. I use this work frequently as a reference concerning names and dates. Scholem was a scholar of considerable merit. His single defect was a contempt for the occult uses of the Kabbalah, which led him to undervalue the magical Kabbalah, both in an historical and a practical sense. He makes up for this fault, in my opinion, by having an enlightened understanding of the role of Gnosticism in the development of Kabbalistic concepts.

The structure of the work is quite loose. Part One concerns the historical development and basic ideas of the Kabbalah; Part Two is a collection of separate essays on a diverse range of topics connected with Kabbalah; Part Three is a set of biographical sketches of important figures in the history of the Kabbalah.

This book, limited to a print run of 1000 copies, is the finest example of facsimile publishing I have ever encountered. It is a faithful copy of the original London edition of 1659, which was based on the most important part of Dee's Enochian transcripts. The section of transcripts printed by Casaubon was the result of spirit seances conducted by Dee and his paid scryer, the alchemist Edward Kelley, from 1583 to 1587. The work also contains Dee's transcripts of a few unimportant scrying sessions that occurred in 1607, but did not involve Kelley.

Although this book is quite difficult to read, due to the Elizabethan language and spelling, and the fragmentary way in which the angels transmitted the Enochian system of magic to John Dee, it is the most important published source for Enochian magic. I read it very slowly, a few pages a night, and made copious marginal glosses (in light pencil, of course) in the margins of the book. This is the best way to learn what the Enochian system of magic actually is, as opposed to what it has been simplified into by MacGregor Mathers and later interpreters.

Someday, someone with a knowledge of Enochian magic will edit and correct Casaubon's text -- translating the Latin and Greek passages into English, translating and interpreting the Enochian words that appear in the speeches of the angels, correcting errors, replacing missing text and symbols, and providing a good general index -- until that day comes, Casaubon's original book is the best insight we have into the teachings of the Enochian angels, and into the secret magical lives of John Dee and Edward Kelley. Although I have not seen it, I believe that Samuel Weiser has published a cheaper edition of A True and Faithful Relation. Those interested in Enochian magic should buy this book, no matter what price they have to pay for it, since it is essential to a complete understanding of Enochian magic.

This work was originally published under the title The Enochian Evocation of Dr. John Dee (Gillette, NJ: Heptangle Books, 1984).

It consists of a selected transcription of material from John Dee's Enochian diaries. Particularly valuable is the section from Dee's manuscript De Heptarchia Mystica, a system for evoking the angels of the seven traditional planets of astrology, which was omitted from Casaubon's A True and Faithful Relation, and also very valuable is Dee's attempt to write a book of Enochian spirits for the purpose of establishing an initial link with the Enochian angels. Dee never put this book of spirits to use, and in my opinion its construction is flawed, as I have suggested in my own work Enochian Magic For Beginners, where I have offered my own Enochian book of spirits as a replacement for Dee's attempt.

This work was expanded and reprinted in 1986 by the Aquarian Press, and it is the expanded edition that I have in my library.

As its title suggests, Turner has compiled the basic material from Dee's manuscript De Heptarchia Mystica, mentioned above. This is an essential source for anyone serious about understanding Enochian magic. The content in Turner does not exactly overlap with that in James, making it a valuable exercise to closely compare the two texts. The content is somewhat difficult to understand because in Dee's manuscript it is presented in a chaotic form, just as the angels revealed it to Edward Kelley, and as Kelley dictated it to John Dee.

I was able to restore Dee's text to some extent in Enochian Magic For Beginners -- for example, I succeeded in completing the inscription on the seal on page 51 of Turner's work that Dee called the Heptagon Stellar, which in Dee's manuscript and in Turner is only partially suggested. A threefold comparison between James, Turner and myself would probably be quite useful when trying to make sense out of the Heptarchia.

I regard Dee's Hieroglyphic Monad, written in 1564, as the first Enochian text. It is true that Dee did not meet his crystal scryer, the alchemist Edward Kelley, until March 8th, 1582, exactly one year to the day after Dee's first contact with the Enochian angels, which took place on March 8th, 1581, in Dee's bedchamber. On the earlier date Dee was awakened by a rapping and the soft call of a voice that sounded to Dee like the cry of a screech owl -- this happened ten times, and it inspired Dee to begin his efforts at crystal scrying, which ultimately resulted in the Enochian transcripts. There is no question in my mind that this spirit communication in 1581 was caused by the Enochian angels, who had been focusing their energies on John Dee for some considerable time before Kelley first sat down in front of the crystal to scry.

Dee was a man singled out by the Enochian angels long before his union with Kelley. The manner in which the Hieroglyphic Monad was written by Dee suggests Enochian involvement, as does its content. The work was penned by Dee in a period of only thirteen days (the number is significant) in a white heat of creative inspiration, which Dee was staying on the Continent at Antwerp.

Thirteen is the number of the moon, because there are thirteen lunar months in a year. For this reason thirteen is the traditional number for a coven of witches, worshippers of the goddess of the moon. Enochian magic is moon magic, as I have demonstrated in my book Enochian Magic For Beginners. It is centered around the spirit Levanael, female goddess of the moon, although this is never openly stated anywhere in Dee's diaries. The holy day, or day of occult power, in Enochian magic, is Monday, the day of the moon -- this is not openly stated either, but is quite obvious from the Enochian record.

Also significant is the reception of the most important Enochian material while Dee and Kelley were on continental Europe. The Enochian angels threatened and intimidated Dee and Kelley into leaving England for the Continent -- the two men would never have departed from England without this angelic coercion. This strongly suggests that there is a hidden link between the Enochian angels and the Continent, and that their communication with Dee was not as powerful or lucid while Dee and Kelley were in England. It may be no coincidence that Dee wrote his Hieroglyphic Monad while staying in Antwerp.

During the writing of the book, Dee was possessed with creative passion. It is unlike anything else he penned throughout his life. Enigmatic, obtuse, it is virtually impossible to understand in its entirety. Dee possessed an occult key to the understanding of the work, which he communicated in secret to his friends, among them Queen Elizabeth the First, but this key has been lost.

The book concerns the esoteric meaning of the structure of a geometric figure that Dee called the hieroglyphic monad. In 24 brief "theorems" or chapters (also a significant number, in connection with Enochian magic -- see Revelation 4:4), Dee explains the meaning of the parts of the monad with the aid of simple diagrams.

Throughout his long life Dee regarded this early work as of the highest significance. It puzzled and fascinated his contemporaries, who could make little sense of it. I analyzed the monad briefly in my book Tetragrammaton, and suggested some of the links it may have with Enochian magic. From a single veiled hint provided by Dee in the final theorem I was able to construct by Kabbalistic means an entire hierarchy of twenty-four angels that I named the Wings of the Winds. This alone suggests the power of Dee's book.

The Hamilton-Jones translation from Dee's original Latin text was first published in 1947. It was reprinted by Samuel Weiser in 1975. Hamilton-Jones added his own commentary to Dee's text, which I found to be almost worthless for my purposes. The Jones translation was allowed to lapse into public domain (I was informed of this fact by one of the editors at Weiser), but the Weiser edition contains a preface by Diane di Prima, written in 1975, that is copyrighted.

This is the best source presently available on the factual history of the Tarot, as opposed to the fantastic, fictional history that has masqueraded as fact for the last two hundred years or so. In it you will learn that the Tarot was invented as a game of cards in northern Italy in the first half of the fifteenth century, by combining a set of emblematic images with the ordinary deck of playing cards that had been in use in Europe for gaming at the time of the Tarot's creation for around fifty years. You will also learn that the Tarot held no significant esoteric or occult meaning for anyone in the world prior to the late eighteenth century in France, when Court de Gebelin started the entire "book of ancient wisdom" myth. And that there is absolutely no connection between the Tarot and the Egyptians, or the Gypsies. And that the Tarot was not used for card divination by anyone prior to the eighteenth century.

First published in 1944, this important work describes the cards of Crowley's Thoth Tarot in great detail. Crowley based his Tarot designs on the original Golden Dawn Tarot deck designed by S. L. MacGregor Mathers and painted by his wife, who was an artist. However, Crowley did not simply copy the Golden Dawn designs, but completely renovated them, and in many instances threw them out entirely in favor of his own interpretations. This is especially true of the designs on the trumps, which exhibit only a slight influence of the Golden Dawn Tarot - the number cards of the Thoth deck show a stronger Golden Dawn influence. The artist who painted the Thoth Tarot, Lady Frieda Harris, drew elements from numerous traditional decks and blended them seamlessly with the symbolism of the Golden Dawn and Crowley's own personal cult of Thelema. The result is the most elegant, complex, and meaningful esoteric Tarot that has ever been created. Crowley is the foremost commentator on the symbolism of the Tarot, and the Book of Thoth -- both the card designs and the descriptive text that explains them -- may be his greatest work. It is impossible to understand the esoteric Tarot as a whole without a complete and intense study of this book.

This little book was first published in 1910 as an accompaniment to the Tarot deck illustrated by the artist Pamela Colman Smith, who was one of Waite's followers during the period Waite headed his own occult lodge. Waite designed the deck, and Smith in a general and loose way executed his instructions. The Smith Tarot, which is variously referred to as the Rider Tarot (because it was first published by Rider), the Waite Tarot, and the Rider-Waite Tarot, is the most widely used modern Tarot deck. For this reason, Waite's commentary has some importance.

Waite had been a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and had seen and used the esoteric Golden Dawn Tarot designed by S. L. MacGregor Mathers and painted by Mathers' talented artist wife, Moina. Most of what is valuable symbolically in the Rider pack is due to this Golden Dawn influence. However, Waite also did research into earlier Tarot decks and incorporated some of their features into his cards.

As usual, Waite's prose is difficult and unpleasant to read, his attitude insufferable, but the book is mercifully concise. Each card of the Waite Tarot bears its own image, both the Major Arcana cards and the Minor Arcana cards. This was in the nature of an innovation by Waite (or more properly, a return to an earlier forgotten model) since until his deck the number cards of the Minor Arcana had not had pictures to illustrate their meaning. In his book, the cards are shown in black and white line drawings, and Waite very briefly examines the meaning of each.

This is one of the texts on the Tarot that it is necessary to own and study, regardless of your personal feelings about the worth of the Rider pack, or the value of A. E. Waite. Waite's deck is too significant in the history of the Tarot to ignore.

This book is of value as a stage in the development of the Egyptian Tarot. What is the Egyptian Tarot? It is the attempt by various Tarot designers and interpreters to restore what they consider to be the original Egyptian symbolism to the Tarot cards. The mistaken belief that the Tarot was Egyptian began with the writings of Court de Gebelin in 1781, and was supported by so many self-appointed authorities on the Tarot over the following two centuries that even today many people do not realize that there is not a trace of Egyptian symbolism in the Tarot, other than what has been imposed upon it.

This process of Egyptianizing the cards reached its most intense phase in the writings of Paul Christian (Jean-Baptiste Pitois), and was given a pictorial form, based on the text descriptions of Christian, by René Falconnier, who hired an artist, Otto Wegener, to create a set of Egyptian trumps for his book, Les XXII Lames Hermètiques du Tarot Divinatoire, published in 1896. Five short years after Falconnier's book reached the shelves, the hack writer on occult subjects, Valcourt-Vermont, who called himself the Comte C. de Saint-Germain after an earlier and much more interesting figure in the history of esoteric philosophy, stole Falconnier's trump designs and published them in the book Practical Astrology as his own.

There is very little that is original in Practical Astrology, other than the designs for the suit cards. Saint-Germain was forced to innovate in this matter since Falconnier's book only contained images of the trumps. The text of Practical Astrology appears to have been largely derived from the writings of Paul Christian, although Saint-Germain at least has the decency to pretend to rewrite this material. The trump designs are simply copied from Falconnier's book, with the odd exception of the High Priestess. For some reason that is not obvious, Saint-Germain caused this to be redrawn, undoubtedly by the same person who did the designs for his suit cards. Nowhere in Saint-Germain's book does he credit either Paul Christian or René Falconnier for its contents.

The Tarot cards in Practical Astrology are all black and white drawings done in pen and ink with no shading, so that they are suitable for hand-coloring. However, Saint-Germain wrote nothing at all about the coloring of the cards, presumably because Christian wrote nothing, and therefore Saint-Germain had no source from which to steal this information. It is likely that the Tarot designs in Saint-Germain's book were the source for the Egyptian Tarot cards of C. C. Zain. Zain's Church of Light Tarot trumps are very similar to those of Saint-Germain, apart from slight stylistic differences; however, Zain's suit cards are slightly more original.

The Church of Light, also known as the Brotherhood of Light, was an esoteric organization founded by Elbert Benjamine. One of its teachings was the practical interpretation of the Tarot cards in divinations. Benjamine, who called himself C. C. Zain, designed an Egyptianized Tarot deck that is closely patterned after the Tarot trumps of René Falconnier, although Zain's source for these designs was probably the book Practical Astrology by Edgar de Valcourt-Vermont, who liked to call himself the Comte C. de Saint-Germain. Saint-Germain's trumps are identical to Falconnier's, with the except of the High Priestess, which differs only slightly from the Falconnier trump. The source for Falconnier's designs was the descriptions of Egyptian Tarot trumps given by Jean-Baptiste Pitois, who liked to call himself Paul Christian, in his book The History and Practice of Magic. Zain added his own designs for the Lesser Arcana cards, which differ somewhat from those of Saint-Germain.

The text of Zain's book was published in the form of thirteen separate pamphlets over the course of the years 1935 and 1936. For this reason the material is scattered throughout the book in what at first appears to be a confused manner. But there was method to Zain's madness - he deliberately structured his pamphlets in such a way that the information in each separate pamphlet would be worthless in itself, with the design that this arrangement would force his patrons to buy all of the pamphlets in order to get a workable system of Tarot interpretation.

Because Zain committed the fatal error of associating the suit of Coins or Pentacles with elemental Air, and the suit of Swords with elemental Earth, his system is in disharmony with the esoteric Tarot current that flows from Eliphas Levi through the Golden Dawn to Aleister Crowley. It cannot be fully reconciled with the Golden Dawn system, and for this reason must always remain a curiosity rather than a major contribution to the literature of the Tarot. Even so, it is necessary to know Zain's teachings in order to understand the evolution of the Egyptian Tarot from Paul Christian down to the present day.

Edred Thorsson (Stephen Flowers) is a prolific writer on all aspects of Nordic magic and myth. He established and heads an organization called the Rune Guild that is devoted to the practical use of runes in magic.

This book had been accepted by Weiser, but not yet published, at the same time that I was seeking a publisher for my own book about the runes, Rune Magic. Due to publishing delays, my book did not appear until 1988, and it was years later before I read Thorsson's work, but when I did read it, I was struck by how many coincidental correspondences existed between our books. We both independently made the decision to focus upon the 24 runes of the elder German futhark, as the most suitable runes for magic.

Futhark is very much worth reading, and I recommend it to anyone seeking an accurate understanding of the occult aspect of runes. Many popular works on rune magic give wildly inaccurate meanings for the runes, but Thorsson has drawn from the ancient runes poems and rune artifacts in defining the magical meanings of the German runes. While I do not agree with all of his interpretations, it is possible to see their basis and inspiration in the traditional lore of the runes.

Margaret Hone was the President Emeritus of the Astrological Lodge of London, and the Principal Emeritus of the Faculty of Astrological Studies. Justifiably regarded as a modern classic, this basic text on the elements of astrology is easy to read and simple to use. It is a book I refer to frequently to refresh my memory concerning astrological details. There are hundreds of books available about astrology, but none are of greater practical utility. This sheer usefulness of the work explains its fourteen separate printings between 1951 and 1975.

Many regard this book as the foundation for the modern revival of witchcraft. It's central thesis is that the women and men accused of witchcraft in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance were practitioners of a surviving pagan nature religion. By examining the transcripts of the witch trials and other contemporary evidence, Murray tries to lay out the framework for this lost religion.

Although it was greeted with acclamation when first published, the tide of scholarly opinion turned against Murray, and in later decades the work was dismissed as nonsense by many of her academic associates. When tides turn, they often turn again, and the last decade or so has seen a renewed interest in Murray's theory, although it has not been completely rehabilitated.

A sequel to Murray's groundbreaking work The Witch-Cult In Western Europe. It contains many interesting speculations about the nature of witchcraft worship and beliefs in the Middle Ages. It is perhaps significant that whereas Murray's first book was published by the prestigious Oxford University Press, this follow-up work was issued by Sampson Low, Marston and Co. in 1931. If the work was initially offered to Oxford University Press and declined, it suggests that in the decade since the publication of Murray's first book on witchcraft academia had already turned its collective back against her.

This is my favorite work on the subject of modern witchcraft. It is filled with sound advice and practical methods. The book is written for beginners trying to understand what is involved with the type of ritual magic used in modern witchcraft, yet it avoids being simplistic or condescending. The first edition was published in 1978, and the work was reprinted by Phoenix, which by coincidence also publishes the new edition of my own How To Make and Use A Magic Mirror.

Gardner is often referred to as the "father of modern witchcraft." This title is apt. In Witchcraft Today Gardner made the extraordinary claim that the witchcraft of the Middle Ages had never completely died out in England, and that during the Second World War he had been initiated into a witch coven in the New Forest. The book created a sensation, and prompted many readers to write to Gardner asking him how they also could become modern witches. Gardner started his own style of witchcraft, complete with rituals and laws, and began conducting initiations. Gardnerian witchcraft is still practiced today by thousands of persons around the world.

It is interesting that the "mother of modern witchcraft," Margaret A. Murray, wrote a brief preface for this book, lending it some of her tarnish authority as an expert on witchcraft. By the 1950s her reputation as a serious scholar lay in ruins, but it was still a generous and courageous act on her part to endorse a book in her field by an unknown writer with highly unconventional ideas. Murray sums up Gardner's book very concisely when she writes: "In this book Dr. Gardner states that he has found in various parts of England groups of people who still practice the same rites as the so-called 'witches' of the Middle Ages, and that the rites are a true survival and not a mere revival copied out of books."

John Woodroffe may be better known by his pen name, Arthur Avalon. He is the translator of such important texts on Hindu Tantra as the Serpent Power, and the author of Sakti and Sakta. The present work, first published in English in 1914, was written by the Indian Pandit Shriyukta Shiva Chandra Vidyarnava Bhattacharyya Mahodaya. It is the clearest exposition on the nature of Shakti that I have read. Due to the numerous Sanskrit words in the text, and its almost 1200 page length, it is somewhat difficult to read, but those who persevere to the end are amply rewarded with knowledge. I regard it as the most important of Woodroffe's literary efforts.

There is no getting around it, to study Western magic you must read at least a few of the numerous books written by Arthur Edward Waite, a member of the Golden Dawn who rose to lead an off-shoot branch of the Order during its period of decline. This is an unpleasant task. He was singularly unsuited to study or teach magic, yet he spent much of his adult life doing it. Waite combined almost unreadable prose with an incredible arrogance and contempt for the individuals and subjects he wrote about. However, he wrote about very useful and obscure areas of occultism, and oftentimes his books are the only texts easily available on these subjects.

A case in point -- traditional ceremonial evocation as practiced by the magicians of the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, and recorded in a scattered collection of ritual workbooks known as the grimoires. Waite was perhaps the first English-speaking writer to assemble the teachings from all the major grimoires under a single cover. This was originally published under the title The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, but was later enlarged by Waite and issued under a new title, perhaps because his publisher feared the words black magic might frighten some readers away.

This is an interesting and useful introduction to the grimoires, in spite of Waite's constant sneers at the foolishness not only of the men who wrote the grimoires, but at anyone who would take their teachings seriously. The grimoires are usually overlooked by modern magicians. At first glance they appear pedantic and silly, but a deeper study of the ancient texts repays the effort many times over, because the essential structures that underlie the practical methods described in the grimoires are still valid today.

Shah was born in India in 1924. Most of his works concern Sufism and Oriental philosophy, so this compilation from the European grimoires of ritual magic is somewhat of a departure. The structure of this work is very similar to Waite's Book of Ceremonial Magic. Shah extracts sections from the major published and unpublished grimoires such as the Key of Solomon and the Grimorium Verum. It is useful as a general reference, although, as is also true in the case of Waite's book, it would have been more helpful had the sources of the material been labeled more clearly.

Sylvan Muldoon was a natural master of astral projection, and Hereward Carrington the psychical researcher who investigated his extraordinary claims. This is the source for almost everything that has been written about astral projection in the intervening decades since its publication. A necessary text for those who wish to attempt astral projection themselves. Muldoon was able to supply countless small but important details concerning his methods and his experiences on the astral plane.

I am very fond of the writings of P. D. Ouspensky, a Russian mathematician who became a disciple of the mystic and lunatic, Gurdjieff, in 1915, but who later broke away from his master to follow his own path of discovery. Of all his works -- and they are all good in their own way -- the best is Tertium Organum.

"Here is a book which will reorganize all knowledge. The Organon of Aristotle formulated the laws under which the subject thinks; the Novum Organum of [Francis] Bacon, the laws under which the object may be known; but The Third Canon of Thought existed before these two, and ignorance of its laws does not justify their violation. Tertium Organum shall guide and govern human thought henceforth." (from the Introduction by Claude Bragdon)

In a nutshell, this book attempts to redefine reality be questioning the way we perceive and understand our world. I remember reading it very, very slowly the first time. I would read half a dozen pages, then set the book aside and think about them for hours, sometimes days. It had a profound influence on my view of the universe, and its echoes express themselves even today in odd places in my own writings.

Published in French as Histoire de la Magie in 1860, this general overview of European occultism is not the best history available, but it is one of the more readable, and exerted a significant influence on the minds of ritual magicians at the end of the 19th century due to Levi's reputation as a great magus and sage. A great deal of information about magic has come into the popular press since Levi's day, and we now know that on many occasions Levi was talking through his hat -- he knew almost nothing about the subjects he treated. However, his opinions on magic are far from worthless. It is significant that Aleister Crowley, who was disinclined to worship at the shrine of any authority figure, always held Levi in high regard -- so much so that he proclaimed himself Levi's reincarnation.

Levi's book is quite readable. Since it had an effect on the beliefs and practices of the members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, it is necessary for modern magicians, working in the general current of Western magic, to be aware of its contents. Waite is much easier to stomach as a translator than as an original author.

The first edition of Spence's Encyclopaedia was published in 1920. It's editor through the press was A. E. Waite. The work contains 2500 entries, and is a remarkable achievement for a single writer, working alone. The author's ambitious goal was to illuminate through articles the entire history of esotericism and occultism around the world and in all historical periods. It has remained a useful reference over the eight decades since it appeared, another achievement.

I have only two regrets about this book. It is not nearly long enough, and Spence did not take sufficient care to provide his sources. This means that occasionally, when you go to look something up, you will not find it, and if you do find it, you will not be able to verify the facts of an article, or expand on its content, since the sources used by Spence to write the article were not recorded adequately. This is a very great sin in a reference book, and it is a tribute to Spence that his Encyclopaedia largely overcomes this limitation.

For me, the acid test of any reference work is how often you find what you are looking for when you consult it. Some of the references in my library are utterly worthless. By that, I mean that every time I have consulted them on a topic in their field, I have come away disappointed. But Spence's Encyclopaedia returns at least as many hits as misses, and this makes it a valuable resource.

An overview of ancient writings that concern the magical lore and uses of precious and semiprecious stones. The good news -- the appendices of this work contain important original texts. The bad news -- they are in Latin. Even so, there is enough important information in English to make this a useful reference on this subject. It was first published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford in 1922.