These are some of the books on my overcrowded shelf of Magical Stuff that I think make good starting points.


* Josephine McCarthy, Quareia. A pretty lengthy course that I honestly feel I vibe with better than the Golden Dawn stuff, and need to get back to. It is not a direct descendent of the GD but goes over a lot of the same territory in a way I find eminently approachable. Also Jo is, like, the polar opposite of sketchy - reading her stuff is like sitting down with your snarky old aunt who has Seen Some Shit; she's also generally good about removing stuff like "racism" and "gender essentialism" and "biases she didn't realize she had until they were pointed out" from her writing.

* Damien Echols: High Magick. This and its sequel Angels & Arch-Angels have very good descriptions of Golden Dawn rituals and some discussion of why you’d want to be doing them, and what to do once you’ve poked a hole in reality with them. I feel like there are definitely some gaps in what he covers but they’re very good books for just kicking yourself in the ass to start Doing This Magic Shit with.

* Israel Regardie: The Golden Dawn. A giant incoherent pile of course notes and lectures and research notes, with some attempt made to provide a path through it in the introductions. This book is a wall that you will bash your head against again and again until either your skull or the book gives way. It will confuse the fuck out of you, annoy you, and possibly even offend you. Get a printed copy. Make marginal notes.

* Lynn Thomas Christopher: Kabbalah, Magick, & The Great Work Of Self-Transformation. A fairly readable attempt to take the giant mess of Regardie’s Golden Dawn tome and provide a framework for actually going through it. Does not stand alone, you'll need the GD book.

• Culdasa: The Mind Illuminated. Regularly meditating is an important part of this whole "magic" thing. You should be doing it regularly. (And so should I, I've been pretty lax on it this past year though.) This is a really solid book on the subject, with a ton of great little tricks to use in the endless quest to get your inner narrative to shut the fuck up for a while.

All of these are currently in print. Quareia's all free online. You can probably find all the others as pirate scans if you're broke.

Also: if you start doing this magic shit, keep a journal. What did you do, when did you do it (date AND time), what was the environment like, did anything interesting happen?

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