Book

Ritual Magic

Donald Tyson wrote Ritual Magic as the road map he found missing: a single book that shows how the major systems of Western occultism fit together, where each came from, and how its rites are actually worked. The opening chapters place ritual magic in its general scheme, tracing its descent from the ancient mysteries through the medieval grimoires into the modern currents, so that the reader can see Golden Dawn ceremonialism beside Crowley's Thelema, druidism beside witchcraft, the satanism of Anton LaVey beside the cult that preceded it, and voudoun possession beside shamanism. The historical heart of the book is its treatment of Enochian magic and John Dee, from the angelic sessions to the calls that shaped so much later practice, alongside the Tarot, the magic squares, the four elemental instruments and the ritual of the pentagram. The practical half then teaches the art directly: the temple and its furnishings, the instruments, banishings and invocations, evocation, and the conduct of a full ritual working, with illustrations drawn by the author. Tyson's tone is that of a practitioner-historian clearing away modern myths in favor of the tradition's own record.

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