As its title suggests, Familiar Spirits is a practical guide for understanding the place familiars have in our lives, and learning how to summon and interact with these beings for specific purposes.

Say the word "familiar" to most people, in an occult context, and they immediately think of a cat. The image of the European witch of the Renaissance period with her broomstick and her cat familiar is burned into our brains from constant repetition, so much so that the cat is regarded as the familiar. This is not so. The cat of the witch in popular folklore was not the familiar, but only the living vehicle for the familiar, which was a spiritual being called by the witch that took up residence inside a pet cat as a convenient way to interact with the witch.

Familiar spirits have been recognized down through human history. They are condemned in the Bible, along with so many other interesting and useful things. Not only witches, but wizards and shamans had familiar spirits. Indeed, the spiritualist movement of the 19th century was based on the use of familiars as guides or gatekeepers to the spirit world.

Given the prevalence of familiars throughout history, the general ignorance concerning them is surprising, but may in part be due to their condemnation by the Christian Church. In some past centuries in Europe, to admit to interaction with a familiar meant a sentence of almost certain death.

This book describes all the various ways familiars have functioned in harmony with human beings, and shows that in spite of their condemnation by the Church, they have been an overwhelmingly positive influence on those with whom they interact. They have served as teachers, guides, protectors, friends, and even lovers.

Familiar spirits are not something from our colorful past, but exist alongside us today, interacting with humans as they have always done. Magicians have long recognized their usefulness and have called specific familiar spirits into material objects or vessels as servants. This books shows how to summon familiar spirits possessed of qualities desirable for carrying out specific purposes.

The method used to accomplish this is a system of letter-symbols that may be readily combined into spirit sigils. By crafting a sigil from a name that is derived from the desired function of a familiar spirit, it is possible to use that sigil to summon and direct the familiar to perform that function. This gives a very precise control over the nature of the familiar spirits summoned, and absolute power over their actions and continuing existence. Since their sigils define not only their names, but their very reasons to exist, there is little fear that they will fail to seek to fulfill their functions.

I call this system of letter-symbols Power Glyphs. It has universal application in magic. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the Power Glyphs may be the single most important teaching, from the standpoint of practical magic, in any of my books. I have used the system daily in my own work for many years. It is very solidly based in traditional Western practice - Cornelius Agrippa used a somewhat similar method of sigil making, as did A. O. Spare. This book is well worth obtaining merely for the Power Glyphs alone, even by those with no interest in familiar spirits.

One thing I wished to convey in this book is that familiar spirits are not alien, threatening invaders in our lives who seek to control or hurt us, but are companions and friends who are always near, even though they must be summoned and accepted before they can make their presence fully known to us. Traditionally, much of Western magic has been worked through familiar spirits. This truth has been forgotten in modern times. The familiars themselves have been forgotten and neglected, but they have not vanished - they are still here, waiting to talk to us and serve us.

ISBN:0-7387-0421-0. Price: $14.95 US. Llewellyn, 2004.