Essential Books?

[ghawke2]

I'm curious as to what books you all think are essential from basics to evocation.

Here the books, mostly digital (unfortunately I try and keep this on the downlow as I'm currentlyat home with a catholic family)

Read
Lon Milo DuQuettes "My Life Amoung the Spirits"
Lon Milo DuQuettes "The Chicken Qabalah"
DuQuettes "Low Magick"
DuQuettes "Homemade Magick"
Sylvan J. Muldoons "Projection of the Astral Body"
Phil Hines "Condensed Chaos"
Robert Allan Bartletts "Real Alchemy"
Jason Newcombes "The New Hermetics"
"The Three Initiates Kybalion"
"The Corpus Hermeticum"

Not really magick but more law of attraction based, but Richard Dotts "Playing in Time and Space: The Miracle of Inspired Manifestations" and "Banned Manifestation Secrets"
Two little eboks on Servitor and Thought Form creation by a guy named John Kreiter

Reading Concurrently at various times:

Israel Regardies "The Golden Dawn."
Regardies "The One Year Manual"
Regardies "The Tree of Life"
Kraigs "Modern Magic" (currently working through)
Franz Bardons "Initiation into Hermetics"
Andrieh Vitmus "Hands on Chaos Magic"
F.D. Frater "Practical Sigil Magic"


Books I have yet to read.
Lon Milo Duqettes "Enochian Vision Magick"
Philip H. Farber "Brain Magick"
Konstantinos "Summoning Spirits"
S.L. Macgregor Mathers ebook "The Book of Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage."
Arthur Waites "The Book of Ceremonial Magic"
Chic Cicero, Sandra Cicero "Self Initiation into the Gold Dawn"
Michael Benjamin "The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram."
Plontinus "The Enneads"
"Three Books of Occult Philosophy or of Magick" by Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Steven Ashes "The Complete Gold Dawn Initiate"
Bernard Haisch "The God Theory" (science instead of magick)

Referrence, spirituality, and more traditional stuff
Steven Ashes "Secret Symbols of the Tarot"
"Kabbalah for the Student" Rev Michael Laitman and "Attaining Worlds Beyond"
Manly Halls "Secret Teachings of All Ages"
"The Zohar" haven't read.
"NLP: The Essential Guide"
Will Durants "The Story of Philosophy"
"Introducing NLP"
Eckhart Tolles "The Power of Now"

What other books SHOULD I own?

[Desecrated]

Okay. Stop.

You have at least 3 books on that list that can do everything you ask for. And at least 10 books that has nothing to do with it at all.

[ghawke2]

Okay. Stop.

You have at least 3 books on that list that can do everything you ask for. And at least 10 books that has nothing to do with it at all.

Will do. I guess I only posted all of that to see if I'm adequately covered in knowledge (not just ceremonial) aspects of all of this. I heard that while the Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie is great, I've also heard that his material only cover so much and that the deeper work is unpublished. The book "The New Hermetics" is great but the author says it only goes so far. It seems like some these books always say "Oh, hey, here's this but if you want to know more, you need buy X" as if X is always just over the horizon. lol It always seems like, after doing some reading, viewing some of the forums, etc that there are books which cover this stuff and then are the right BOOKS which REALLY cover this but I don't know what those are.

I tried doing a forum a search (there is a TON of material here) and when I looked up books on summoning it seems like people had issues with Konstantinos's book or Bardon's works. While the concept of Chaos magick is cool, I, for some reason and at this time, I don't feel as focused doing it sometimes even though I know ALL of it's mental in the end.

I'm very much a newbie. Just looking for guidance. My apologies if I seem overly eager. Thanks for your reply. I do appreciate it.

[Desecrated]

Crowley wasn't even in golden dawn for 2 years. He was never initiated into the inner order and his knowledge of the order is severely lacking.
Regardie was Crowleys secretary for about two years. His knowledge of the golden dawn is even less.
Plus most of what he wrote is infested with Crowleys owns ideas and then later on when the Cicero couple came into the picture it became even more diluted.

Now, if you are interested in the history of western occultism during the 20th century you should definitely get those books.

[ghawke2]

Question: Which books do I have that are all I really need then?

[Desecrated]

Kybalion

Regardie - golden dawn.

Kraigs "Modern Magic"

Franz Bardons "Initiation into Hermetics"

F.D. Frater "Practical Sigil Magic"

These five in combination should keep you busy for at least 3 years. And then if you like any of them, they will probably continue helping you for another 10-15 years.

[ghawke2]

Awesome! Thank you!

So far I'm REALLY enjoying Kraig and how he lays out his lessons. Out of all the books I've used so far, asides for Duquette's Chicken Qabalah which helped explain Qabalah in a fun way, Kraig has been the most accessible.

[Desecrated]

Awesome! Thank you!

So far I'm REALLY enjoying Kraig and how he lays out his lessons. Out of all the books I've used so far, asides for Duquette's Chicken Qabalah which helped explain Qabalah in a fun way, Kraig has been the most accessible.

Yeah, it's a classic for a reason, Very easy to understand and work with.

[Rin]

You're going a bit overboard there I think. If you're just starting out, you should be focused on establishing a thorough daily practice. Reading so many practical books (plenty of which contradict eachother, or at least come from different viewpoints) will just confuse you this early on.

That said, if you're putting together a list, I'd also recommend stepping outside the 20th century Western writers. Get into the classics. The Enneads is a good starting point, I'd also highly recommend Plato and Iamblichus, the Hymns of Orpheus, there's a lot of mystical subtext to Homer as well (not to mention just plain brilliant mythological writing). You should be able to find your way from there. For a modern perspective on the mysteries as they were practiced in the classical world, I'd highly recommend the works of Algis Uzdavinys, especially Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity.

Then there's the basic Eastern mystical texts - the basics like the Bhagavad Gita, the Dao De Jing, etc. and then branch out from there. Western writers tend to highly intellectualize magic and mysticism, and some Eastern influence can be a good balance for that.

But most of all, don't get bogged down in the reading. Outside of the short list of essentials, make sure your practice - study ratio is slanted well towards your practice, and work your way through books one at a time instead of flipping from subject to subject. There's so much out there to read, but so little of it is essential to actually developing into a practicing magician. It doesn't hurt, but it shouldn't dominate your training.

Other than that, to the 5 that Desecrated listed, I'd add the Corpus Hermeticum and Robert Bruce's New Energy Ways (not his e-book, Energy Work, which I found inferior to the original). The former is the foundation for a lot of modern Western esoteric thought, and the latter will completely change the way you work with energy for the better. Those handful should be your "essentials," the books that help you gain a basic understanding of magical theory and practice. The rest should help add flavor and expand your understanding, but are by no means essential. You could easily omit say, Duqette, or Regardie, entirely from your reading, and you wouldn't suffer in the slightest in terms of your practical magical attainment.

[Haqim]

Then there's the basic Eastern mystical texts - the basics like the Bhagavad Gita, the Dao De Jing, etc. and then branch out from there. Western writers tend to highly intellectualize magic and mysticism, and some Eastern influence can be a good balance for that.

I'm not alooone!

You are absolutely right - many Western occultists are just mixing Eastern mystical traditions with other ideas (or simply with their own...), which makes their works some weird "intellectual chaos".
I'm not saying that they're all wrong, but beginners should read more Chinese and Indian texts before any Western works.

[magari]

You have the knowledge.

Practice practice practice

[ghawke2]

You're going a bit overboard there I think. If you're just starting out, you should be focused on establishing a thorough daily practice. Reading so many practical books (plenty of which contradict eachother, or at least come from different viewpoints) will just confuse you this early on.

That said, if you're putting together a list, I'd also recommend stepping outside the 20th century Western writers. Get into the classics. The Enneads is a good starting point, I'd also highly recommend Plato and Iamblichus, the Hymns of Orpheus, there's a lot of mystical subtext to Homer as well (not to mention just plain brilliant mythological writing). You should be able to find your way from there. For a modern perspective on the mysteries as they were practiced in the classical world, I'd highly recommend the works of Algis Uzdavinys, especially Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity.

Then there's the basic Eastern mystical texts - the basics like the Bhagavad Gita, the Dao De Jing, etc. and then branch out from there. Western writers tend to highly intellectualize magic and mysticism, and some Eastern influence can be a good balance for that.

But most of all, don't get bogged down in the reading. Outside of the short list of essentials, make sure your practice - study ratio is slanted well towards your practice, and work your way through books one at a time instead of flipping from subject to subject. There's so much out there to read, but so little of it is essential to actually developing into a practicing magician. It doesn't hurt, but it shouldn't dominate your training.

Other than that, to the 5 that Desecrated listed, I'd add the Corpus Hermeticum and Robert Bruce's New Energy Ways (not his e-book, Energy Work, which I found inferior to the original). The former is the foundation for a lot of modern Western esoteric thought, and the latter will completely change the way you work with energy for the better. Those handful should be your "essentials," the books that help you gain a basic understanding of magical theory and practice. The rest should help add flavor and expand your understanding, but are by no means essential. You could easily omit say, Duqette, or Regardie, entirely from your reading, and you wouldn't suffer in the slightest in terms of your practical magical attainment.

Cool. Thanks for other book suggestions. A lote of these were just curiousity books I collected over the years at various times. I've only really been actively engaged in magickal practice for about a month and am following Kraig.

[Caerdon]

I have one book that I recently got which is very helpful (atleast for me)
It's called the Ars Vercanus : Advanced Magickal Techniques by Wennergren. it's available on Amazon and goes over a variety of topics and practices, with a focus being upon the Etheric body, Etheric centers, and the influence of the Etheric reality

[Nahemah]

Carl Jung, Man and his Symbols.

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

The Rubiyaat of Omar Kaaayam [ Fitzgerald translation].

No hurry though.

[Hadit]

Didn't see Levenda's The Dark Lord or Stairway to Heaven.

[GreySorc]

Well, thanks for the suggestions, guys!