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Title: The Ritual Magic Workbook: A Practical Course of Self-Initiation by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, J. H. Brennan ISBN: 1-57863-045-2 Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser Pub. Date: February, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.38 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A collection of great tools for WORKING with rituals
Comment: I take exception to much of the previous review ("Housewife's Magic"). It's important to read the title and understand that it's a workbook, and the word "work" describes the intent of the book very well. The central theme here is preparation for magic, by working. The cleaning, the building, the readings, the attention to the details of the magical implements ... they all serve the purpose of focusing energy/concentration and achieving the discipline needed to effect change through will. You've utterly missed the point if you think these are just a bunch of mundane details and are unimportant. They're the meat of the book, they ARE the real magic, and the heart of the discipline being taught here. The "followers of other magical paths" can bypass all that and skip to the sensation-seeking, but why bother with a book like this if you believe it's only the rituals themselves that matter?
I enjoyed it for the detail about the making of the implements and the temple. So it's practical, as described, but a fuller self-initiation requires several other books and thus the suggested readings at the ends of each chapter.
If you want to put your hands to meditative use so you are well-grounded for further explorations, then this is a marvelous introductory book.
Rating: 3
Summary: Housewife's Magic
Comment: Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki is obviously a skilled and knowledgeable master of her craft. Her teachings are useful and comprehensive and I am sure many readers will find this book most inspiring.
However, I did not find what I was looking for when I bought the book mainly because of it's title. It describes rituals for the classic post Golden Dawn way only. Witchcraft of the more domestic sort could also be ritualized using this book, but that's pretty much it. Followers of all other magical paths, such as Thelema, Chaos Magic, Grimoiric Magic and wilder sorts of witchcraft will find this book restrictive and conservative to the point of being hardly usable. According to it, their magic can't possibly work anyway, though it most definitely does.
Another grudge I have with this book is that it does not clearly distinguish between more and less important lessons. Endless pages are spent detailing mundane topics such as how to physically clean a ritual room and giving very specific instructions on the construction of less important ritual tools such as candleholders. I missed a lot of "This is but a suggestion and being stuck here shouldn't stop you from going on with the important part." sentences.
Rituals are rather shallow and never go beyond the intensity of an average Holy Mass - which is understandable as this book is an introduction. They are also lengthy and invocations use to be so long they can hardly be learned by heart and spoken "deep from the heart". It seems the rituals in this book do not aim to cause much of the change Ashcroft-Nowicki knows magic is, but rather form a ritual base for the spiritualist quasi-religion she teaches. Which is not everything ritual magic can be - not at all, folks.
If I was as bound to my path as Ashcroft-Nowicki is to hers, I'd have given this book one star. If I followed the same path she does, I'd have given it four.
Rating: 5
Summary: wow
Comment: this book is the book that you should get if you are just starting out or want to know what exactly witchcraft is about it talks about how you need patience and it says that it would take a year to do all of the stuff in it so you need at least 5 minutes a day ith it and within the first chapter you will feel as though you have really accomplished something.
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