Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Familiar Spirits: A Practical Guide for Witches & Magicians by Donald Tyson ISBN: 0-7387-0421-0 Publisher: Llewellyn Publications Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Chaos by any other name....
Comment: A practical guide to servitor creation- using 'power glyphs'- sigils to you and me:) Personally i found the 'power glyphs' presented weren't completely to my taste- so be prepared to be creative:)Where this book sometimes repeats information stated elsewhere it makes up for this with many interesting bits of information on spirits through the ages and within different traditions. A good addition to any practical magickians library
Rating: 4
Summary: Overall, a good resource, but has a few problems.
Comment: All in all, this was a very good book, and I've found it to be quite useful, and have had good success with it. However, there are a lot of things that Tyson presents as fact, such as spirits lie, demons are debasing evil creatures, etc., that are nothing more than his own opinion and are not necessarily true.
The simple fact is there are honest spirits, and there are those who aren't. But, Tyson makes a good point when he says that a spirit's advice should be taken with a grain of salt until you know the spirit is trustworthy, just as you would with a human you just met. You wouldn't want to sell all your worldy belongings, invest the money in the stock market on a long shot, and subsequently lose everything because you took the advice of a someone whom you didn't know well.
While it is very true that there are negative spirits out there, Demons tend to be stereotyped into that negative category unjustly. In the ancient world, all spirits were called Demons, and were not evil. It is due to Judeo-Christian influence that the term "demon" has become synonomous with "evil". It has even been my experience with the Demons listed in the Goetia that they are very friendly, honest, and pleasant individuals, willing and eager to help. Of course, I don't use the traditional Solomonic method of Summoning, so I treat them with the utmost respect and as equals and allies, not merely debased servants, as do traditional Goetic magicians.
In addition, one comment I took personal offense to was that Tyson says you have to debase and degrade yourself and become demonic to work with Demonic entities and this is ABSOLUTELY not true. Once again, I work with them all the time, and I have neither debased or degraded myself to do so, and I am certainly not demonic in nature.
Tyson also says that ghosts are not really spirits of the dead, but spirits who have assumed the personality of a dead loved one -- another point I disagree with.
Overall, my main problem was that Tyson often presents his own theories and ideas as occult truths, when they are not, and the reader is left to attempt to discern for themselves what is fact and what is opinion.
On the good side of things, his system is very well thought out, and can be easily adopted by a beginner. The Power Glyphs are quite excellent, and the nightly ritual he lays out is simple, if a bit time consuming. However, as with any magick, it can be adapted to any style of magickal practice with a bit of tweaking. The important thing is, his system works, and given a bit of dedication on the part of the practitioner, produces excellent familiars.
Rating: 3
Summary: Some Good Ideas, but...
Comment: I purchased this book based on the previous reviews. I admit now that it is NOT a good way to decide to purchase a magic book. The book presents too many assertions that the reader should take at face value. He does not encourage the reader to see if his assertions are true for themselves. I very much liked the idea of power glyphs as they are easy to combine into sigils to create one's own familiars. However, that is about as useful as I found the book. I found the writing to be disjointed and it failed to keep my interest. This book could do with less dogmatism and better editing.
 |
Title: Creating Magickal Entities by David Michael Cunningham, Taylor Ellwood, and Amanda R. Wagener ISBN: 1932517448 Publisher: Egregore Publishing Pub. Date: 30 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: The Golden Dawn Enochian Skrying Tarot: Your Complete System for Divination, Skrying, and Ritual Magick by Bill Genaw, Judi Genaw, Chic Cicero, S. Tabatha Cicero ISBN: 0738702013 Publisher: Llewellyn Publications Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
 |
Title: Mysteria Magica: Fundamental Techniques of High Magick (Llewellyn's Aurum Solis Series) by Melita Denning, Osborne Phillips ISBN: 0738701696 Publisher: Llewellyn Publications Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: The Power of the Word: The Secret Code of Creation by Donald Tyson ISBN: 0738705284 Publisher: Llewellyn Publications Pub. Date: 01 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: Scrying for Beginners: Tapping into the Supersensory Powers of Your Subconscious (Llewellyn's Beginners Series) by Donald Tyson ISBN: 1567187463 Publisher: Llewellyn Publications Pub. Date: 01 February, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
