Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #365920 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 164 pages

Customer Reviews

A book not to be overlooked.
A Collection of Magical Secrets & A Treatise of Mixed Cabalah is a book, I fear, far too easily overlooked. It is a collection of various documents found bound amongst a copy of The Veritable Key of Solomon, used by the two authors in their last publication of the same name. The material, then, found in this volume consists of numerous experiments, talismans and spells that did not seem strictly Solomonic in nature and were thus excluded from the aforementioned work.

The book includes various charms and operations more commonly associated with folk magic yet displaying a definite qabalistic bent, devoid, however, of the complications and extravagance of full blown ceremonial workings.

Thus it is both an interesting insight into the practical approach adopted by magicians as such that would have been early users of grimoires, as well as an indispensable clue to the historian with regard to the development of that tradition.

The experiments, as often they are labelled, reveal a side to magicians of that period which is regularly ignored and to which many are ignorant. The many gaps in the modern magicians repertoire (those, at any rate, following in the footsteps of the Golden Dawn) evinces such lacunae in the general understanding of magic's development and modes of use. This book, in short, presents many possibilities for scholars and practitioners alike.

The occult student might approach such material in much the same way as was intended by those who bound it into their grimoires: as magical experiments. I would suggest that this will provide many opportunities to discover useful techniques and to deepen one's understanding of how magic works and how it is worked most effectively.

For the academic this offers an equally tantalising prospect. This work provides a window into an almost unexplored area of the western magical tradition, demonstrating realities that could help progress the modern understanding of its history.

The introduction by David and Stephen indeed goes some way to exploring this, leading the way for an entire new chapter within magical scholarship. I cannot under sell how relevant I believe this work to be; I really do consider it an important, if somewhat brief, addition to the library of any who wish to study this area.

Another praise worthy addition is the inclusion of the original Latin as well as the translation of various Psalms and other passages. For those of us who read Latin, and wish to put to good use the hard work required to attain to such a skill, it saves a great deal of trouble and expense; a copy of the Vulgate no longer being required.