Reviews and Comments

There are two Picatrix translations that get used by practitioners these days: this one, and the Warnock/Greer one. Both are excellent, but I prefer this one, and this is why: Attrell and Porreca have an academic approach to translation that lends itself to copious footnotes and careful, historical consideration of strange terms. They also label portions of the text by section and paragraph number, making it much easier to share citations with others. While the Warnock/Greer translation may be targeted at practitioners, I believe that practitioners can get even more out of this one, just from its ease of reference and excellent indices and appendices.

Rural England has a very rich and mostly ignored history of secret societies and folk magic. This book reveals a ton of fascinating lore about both. For historians of secret societies such as Freemasonry, there are many interesting threads in this book that tie the Craft to earlier trade guilds and local initiatory traditions. For those interested in hedge magic and witchcraft, the collection of rites, rituals, and traditions that this book uncovers is AMAZING. The toadmen alone are worth the price of admission!

This book was pretty good, and while I got a lot out of it, I didn't really get what I needed. I was looking for more depth regarding Trithemius's work on steganography, because I was trying to link it to more Renaissance cryptography stuff. So I enjoyed it, but felt a little let down. Probably my fault.

This is an amazing and much-needed collection. It contains the first modern English translations of most Hermetic fragments since G.R.S. Mead, and for that it is truly worth it. However, the quality of the binding on the hardcover version of this is truly terrible; it feels like a very cheap book. The contents are great but the actual physical book leaves much to be desired. Go paperback if possible.

Gosh, this book is a must-read for those who really want to learn about Hermeticism. It's dense, and it can take some time to get through, but it's excellent.

I've been slowly reading through this amazing collection of ancient Christian (mostly Coptic?) spells and papyri. It is great. There is so much going on in here. Ancient Christians sure were horny. There are tons of love spells.

This is the first book on Kabbalah written in Latin, and marks a huge milestone in the development of Christian Cabala.

Hands down, the best Agrippa translation to date. This is a must-have for anybody who studies Western Esotericism, astrology, planetary magic, or any other weird stuff.

One of my mentors told me that he re-reads this book every year. It is dense, packed with information. If you want to understand 19th and 20th century occultism, you need to read this.

It is really difficult to find good books on planetary magic, at least modern ones. I was incredibly thankful to come across this one. It is packed with great ritual advice, a framework for approaching planetary magic, and instructions for talismans and conjuration.