Book Review: Advanced Magic For Beginners

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. -Friedrich Nietzche

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin - more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. -Bertrand Russell

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs, Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes, Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall and a preserving sweet. --William Shakespeare

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions. - Lord Alfred Tennyson

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form. --Albert Einstein

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.
--Jiddu Krishnamurti

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men. --Goethe

Like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagrams of my motor. A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally I would have given for that one which I had wrestled from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence.--Nikolai Tesla

Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. --Epicurus

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. --Anais Nin

The joy of life consists in the exercise of one’s energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.--Aleister Crowley

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. --Thomas Alva Edison

The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.
--Pablo Picasso

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me. --Ayn Rand

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.--Steven Hawking

Book Review: Advanced Magic For Beginners

Jan 14 |09:25 AM

In my extensive reading and research into all matters arcane, I am always delighted when I come across a book that manages to brilliantly balance simplicity and depth. Advanced Magick for Beginners by Alan Chapman, published in 2008 by Aeon Books, is one such book. Following along in the Chaos Magic current ("post-modern magic," as the author refers to it), Chapman strips away all of the cultural and personal pretenses placed upon magic, and pares down to the bare bones of the underlying theories of magic.

The author describes his approach to magic as an art, a science, and a culture of experiencing truth. As an art, a magical act is an experience that we ascribe meaning to. As a science, a magical act is a technique which we refine through an experimental practice and observation of results. As a culture, a magical act is a means of working with a cultural framework, a set of ethics both personal and cultural, to achieve results which are relevant to the life and world in which the mage lives.

That is it, as far as Chapman believes the complexity of magic should be taken. The techniques he outlines are more guidelines than anything else. They are a methodology of how to approach magic. This is no book that will tell you what to say or do; Rather, this book will help the reader discover for him or herself the style of magic that flows best with his or her own personality. The author cares not which gods you work with, worship, or pray to (if any at all), nor does the author care which tradition, style, or culture you borrow your elements from (or whether you have invented them all on your own). Instead, the author cares that the reader develops an understanding of magic which will be able to answer the questions of why things work.

As such, there is no art, no poetry, no romantic language. Chapman wants to make certain that you really get a solid grasp on the theory, and that you decorate it as you see fit. The book's starkness is both a blessing and a curse. While maintaining its no-nonsense tone throughout the read, it can feel a bit dry at times and one can get lost in some of the more complex ideas he weaves. Thankfully, the author does have a sharp sense of humor, which he does pepper up the book with. Even when the theories get thick with layers of metaphysical concepts, the author keeps the reader there with his clear and thoughtful presentation.

This book is not so much a curriculum for learning the magical arts as it is a catalyst to get the reader thinking on deeper levels about his or her magic. Chapman places a strong emphasis on technique. In many of his chapters, he has laid out spreadsheets in which he examines the core aspects of a magical working, and cross-references many different approaches to magic against those core elements. Thus, he distills the steps of all magic down to 5 simple steps: deciding what you want to occur, making sure it is possible for the outcome to occur, choosing an experience and equating that experience to the desired outcome, and finally performing or engaging in the experience. Last, the mage observes his or her results, and modifies methods as needed. It is against these five steps that he examines sigil magic, sympathetic magic and magical links, nonsensical styles of magic, as well as magic involved with working with Gods, entities, or created servitors.

The author likewise explores facets of magical culture, such as the usage of magical names and mottoes and aeonics, with the same forthright manner. He addresses the need for a mage to choose, or not choose, a magical name, and the potential importance of doing so. He speculates upon the concepts of the kind of world the mage lives in, and the evolving consciousness of humankind, and where magic fits in. Ultimately, his wanderings in various topics magical culture augment his explorations into magical methods and puts them into a greater framework where magick that is self-sufficient, self-driven, and ultimately, the most satisfying to the self can thrive.

What appealed to me most is that this book helps those who seek to know the magical arts to get to the heart of how and why they work. Chapman's work transcends cultural, stylistic, and traditional boundaries in an intelligent way that can help the dedicated mage intelligently develop a system of magic that is unique to the one using it. As I hold true that every mage must find his or her own path, I find that this book can offer some good information about the terrain.