I realized at some point that I had already read MOST of this book. But I enjoyed every chapter, every bit that I was reading for the second time. Dunn does an excellent job presenting the reader with things to think about and try. This is an excellent book for anybody who wishes to treat magic as a true spiritual practice.
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Moderator/admin of Grimoire.Social and the strange quark behind the Arnemancy podcast. A great lover of books. A collector of many strange volumes. Show me your spooky grimoires!
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Reverend Erik's books
2024 Reading Goal
66% complete! Reverend Erik has read 8 of 12 books.
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Reverend Erik finished reading The practical art of divine magic by Patrick Dunn
Erik L. Arneson finished reading Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, #1) by Neal Stephenson
Reverend Erik finished reading Art of the Grimoire by Owen Davies
Calliope finished reading Handbook Of Contemporary Animism by Graham Harvey
An incredibly wide variety of essays on animism, incorporating everything from new anthropological research to media criticism of anime. I probably shouldn't say this kind of thing, but every magically operant person ought to read it, if they can. A lot of the essays are available online now, so you can check out the ToC if you don't want to buy it, or can't of course.
Calliope finished reading Real Sorcery by Jason Miller
Very good. Straightforward, and with noteworthy changes from the first edition. Most tellingly, Miller completely overhauled the "love and lust" chapter after realizing he didn't like traditional erotic binding spells and didn't want to be the one providing them for people.
His daily exercises have been a good foundation for changing my daily practices, and his specific spells look solid. The book's conceit of working with magic by performing mundane tasks is something I understood already, but it never hurts to be reminded.
You're either interested in this topic or not, but if the question is whether this book is good at that topic, then yes, it is. It's very good.
It packs a lot of information into a quite short book.
It's in four broad sections. The first is an introduction and outline of Egyptian history. The second is a narrative "history" of Egyptian myth, beginning with the creation of the world and moving through the retreat of the goddess and the contention between Horus and Seth, and so on. The chapters here indicate how many different gods could fulfill the roles of each narrative event. The third section is an A-Z of gods, places, and groups, often filling in the narrative from the previous section. The final section is an extensive bibliography.
Erik L. Arneson replied to Erik L. Arneson's status
I am really chewing through this book at a rapid pace. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy Neal Stephenson's writing.
Reverend Erik wants to read Mercury, or, The secret and swift messenger by Wilkins, John (Foundations of semiotics,)
Reverend Erik wants to read Secrets of planetary magic by Christopher Warnock
Reverend Erik replied to eudaimoniae's status
@eudaimoniae This was a really good one!
Reverend Erik finished reading The Elizabethan world picture by E. M. W. Tillyard
Calliope reviewed Book of Maps: Revelation Edition by Benebell Wen
Book of Maps (Wen)
I like this deck a lot. And the book is often necessary because cards will depict gods and historical figures that aren't necessarily recognizable in sight.
But the book sometimes gets its mythology wrong, refers to worrying ideas like theosophical Akashic records, and tries to brute force a thesis about prisca theologica that's as unnecessary as it is culturally flattening. The book will often talk about how "all cultures" do something that's factually untrue, like believing in "the light."
It does feature a more systematic mapping of I Ching trigrams to tarot cards, which was interesting. And much of the myth and history is still good.