Reddit reviews Advanced Magick for Beginners

I'm highly surprised no one's mentioned Advanced Magick for Beginners yet. It's one of the best chaos magick books I have ever read, and would recommend reading it before even diving into Gordon White's stuff. And this comes from my 7 years experience in new age/new thought/occult studies and practices. Also, the Psychonaut Field Manual gets an honorable mention.

Hi! Ok, I need to talk about the end game first: If you practice enough, you not only will get results, but you will start getting them all the time, without actually doing anything. Looks wonderful? Yes and no. The problem here is not to get to that point, but who you will be when you get there.

If you have hate, insecurities, fears, those will start to manifest too on their own. Basically what you are inside will all become 'external'.

That is why the very first thing you need to learn, and keep practicing daily, is banishing.

The goal of banishing is to align you with the divine, and to clean you up and transform you. As Crowley said about the LBRP "Those who regard this ritual as a mere device to invoke or banish spirits, are unworthy to possess it. Properly understood, it is the Medicine of Metals and the Stone of the Wise".

Roughly, the four elements correspond to core elements of the human personality: air is thought, fire is will, water is emotion, and earth is the physical. So it is like a respiration: First you exhale all the used up/low/unwanted elemental energy in each quarter. Once you have emptied, you can then 'inhale' the high grade stuff delivered to you by gently asking the archangels.

The quabalistic cross at the beginning serves to make a first rough alignment with the divine and draw a bit of energy to kick start the process: You pull some energy from above, ground it down below, then equilibrate it between Severity/Strength/Mars and Mercy/Jupiter. The center of the cross then becomes Tipharet/Beauty/Sun (Brush up on your tree of life if needed to understand that better).

I recommend reading Israel Regardie's 'Middle Pillar'. By the way don't start up on the Middle Pillar straight away, you risk being blown off by the energy since you are not a proper vessel to it yet (been there). Repeated practice of the LBRP is needed first. The middle pillar is used to basically draw a shitload of energy into you.

Once you have started a daily practice of banishing, you can safely take up magick. There I have to, once again, recommend Alan Chapman 'Advanced Magick for Beginners'

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1904658415

Everything you need to know about magick is in there. Will save you the trip through Old School Ritual/Chaos Magick. It is really extremely simple once you get the knack. Just play with it, and start practicing it balls to the wall. You'll get results, just remember to choose wisely what you want and plan in advance, because you can be damn sure you will get exactly what you asked for.

Also, the goal of it is not to get something for nothing. This will transform you as much as it transform the world around you. It will then be made obvious by experience that internal and external is the same thing. Hopefully at this stage you will have found your 'true will' and everything will be peachy.

Edit: Because I tend to repeat myself a lot when the kids are around :)

A few random ones other players have found useful:

• General Strategy Guide.
  
  
• Constructive Playing.
  
  
• Character Management.
  
  
• Parallel Temporary God Mode.
  
• Cheat Codes.
  
  

i can't help you with making rituals as i'm pretty new to the practical side myself. i haven't read these, but they've been highly recommended by multiple people:

[modern magick by daniel michael kraig](http://smile.amazon.com/dp/0738715786
)

advanced magick for beginners by alan chapman

> How do I undo the conditioning that causes me to irrationally fear/reject/recoil at any mention of the Devil, Serpent/Snake, Baphomet, and other spiritual concepts that would go against my Pentecostal upbringing?

practice, both in the sense of trying repeatedly and developing a practice. the more educated you become about the significance of these symbols, the less the perverted pentacostal interpretation will appeal to your instincts or even stand out.

knee-jerk reactions from ingrained beliefs are a function of the lower emotional and animal body. you (your reason) are riding a horse that gets spooked whenever it sees a snake or a goat, and whenever it gets spooked, you get spooked and attribute significance to the horse getting spooked. someone with mastery over their horse would calmly allow the horse to be spooked and simply rein it in.

If you're looking to dive headlong into practice, I found Advanced Magick for Beginners to be a helpful, fun read.

Read and do the exercises from this short but epic book.

Then read this and diligently work the practices for years.

Magick and meditation can't give you easy answers to the hows and whys of existence, but they will give you the tools and discipline to make the best of the time that you do exist.

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Magick-Beginners-Alan-Chapman/dp/1904658415

In this book it offers this framework for ANY magic (I cut and pasted this from a review - it appears in the book repeatedly):

1. Decide what is to occur.
   
2. Ensure the occurrence has the means of manifestation.
   
3. Choose an experience (ritual experience).
   
4. Decide the "Ritual Experience" means the same as the intended occurrence.
   
5. Undergo Ritual Experience.
   
6. Results.
   
   For example
   
   
7. It will rain today
   
   
8. It can rain from the sky via gathered clouds
   
   
9. Spilling water onto the ground from a cup
   
   
10. Spilling water onto the ground means it is raining
    
    
11. Spill water onto the ground
    
    
12. It rains in the near future
    
    According to Mr Chapman's theory following those 6 guidelines will enable you to create your own rituals, complicated or simple. On some level what you put in, you will get out.
    
    Edit: Chapman, not Carroll.

This

Or this for free.

> "if the kingdom of heaven is within you, why spend more than £10 on occult books?" -- APIKORSUS

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Magick-Beginners-Alan-Chapman/dp/1904658415