Customer Reviews

The Black Ship

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is definitely one of the best books I've read on the left hand path (and I've read many). Unlike most books in this genre, the author provides a congruent paradigm in which the practices relate.
As the author says in his introduction, this book is really aimed at practitioners with experience, but having said that; I would recommend it to anyone starting out in the left hand path - I wish it had been available to me 20 years ago.
The beauty of the book is that is not dogmatic, nor does it give many 'cut and dried' rituals. This is left to the inventiveness of the practitioner. What it does do however is give a excellent paradigm in which to advance through the dark path. Some parts of the practice don't appeal to me personally (the veneration of ancestors for example) but the author does give solid reasons for their inclusion, and, like so much of the rest of the material could easily be adapted.
Some of the authors ideas are quite 'out there' but no less excellent for all that.
Overall well worth a five star rating. This is a serious book for serious practitioners and not for the casual dabbler; but then to be fair, a dabbler wouldn't be able to use this book since it focuses so much on inner introspection and self knowledge.

The author is clearly well versed in the left hand path approach to working with one's higher genius or daemon. To question the specifics of the author's metaphysics, as some other reviewers have done, is I think to miss the point entirely. The reader would do well to view this work in the same light as one might view the works of Hakim Bey or similar authors who seek less to inform and more to inspire. The intent here is that the reader will not merely read and analyze the information within, but rather use it as a jumping off point for personal work of an empirical nature. It is less important that the ideas within are accurate, but rather that they are coherent (as in fact they are) and aid in one's apprehension of one's higher genius and subsequent transformation. In short, it doesn't matter if it's true. It only matters if it works. And, speaking as one who has actually taken this work out of the realm of theory and into the realm of practice, it does.

Malphas has created an interesting book. Among Classical Theurgists Daemons were that class of being, half way between humans and gods. Their mere being provided a gateway -- way for the human to transcend the laws of the here-and-now. In most traditional system some greater Being sends you a Daemon to help you out, because It thinks your goals are worthwhile or your Virtue great. They're handy entities that help the human stop being a thing that exists by type -- "What you is is what you is" and become a being that can shape his fortune both in this and other realities. Malphas reveals in simple terms that these beings are you -- an not totally awakened part of you. If you use a rational self-aware and self-enlightened philosophy -- rather than herd-supertisition other-centric false altruism -- you can be the God that grants the Daemon to you. With simple to follow practices from both traditional magic and modern philosophy, Malphas shows you how to meet the Daemon, and become the Daemon. This is a book that would have delighted Thomas Jefferson, Anton LaVey, Socrates, Heideigger and even Uncle Setnakt. Well done! The perfect Walpurgusnacht gift. A nice maunal for increasing Power, Pleasure and Knowledge.

Warning: This is a biased opinion.

On the surface the author is breaking new ground with his book but the more I read his book, the more his work is questionable.

The premise of the book is about knowing that there is a black sun emanating black (uv?) rays in some parallel universe that spawns daemons. Each daemon is attributed to every human being, well according to him, there's 3 daemons attributed to the 3 parts of the self. Once this is known, then the mission of merging with ones daemon to understand his or her true will while bringing the kingdom of pandaemonium (as it were) on earth is the objective to be carried out.

There's other parts of the book that speaks of ancestral worship by having the ancestors in your life to help you/daemon complete your true will and you fix your ancestral karma or wyrd to remove any wrong doing of your families blood line.

I find that it's sort of based on Eastern Mysticism but for me, this book has many concepts that I have a hard time getting around. So then what I did was ask the author myself certain questions about his/her work in which took a while for a reply. Eventually my questions were answered with a suggestion to go to his/her ($5.00 a pop) forum if I have any future questions. I had gratefully thanked the author still feeling unsatisfied by his/her answers while wondering why should I pay money to ask "believers" about the book when I can ask the author myself (who's also on my myspace page)- I mean, isn't buying the book payment enough?

The problems that I find with the literary faction of the occult is that there are too many people out to amalgamate a grand system of many different elements when the fact is certain things based on their nature shouldn't be mixed in. -Sounds like I'm speaking about something else doesn't it?

I am not calling the author (who's anonymous) a fraud but rather his work (to me) is rather unsound. Perhaps, this would change in the future eventhough I doubt it. Nor am I bashing this book because it may be right up your alley, but the only way for you to find out is to buy a copy for yourself.

This book is a well laid out prescription for understanding and utilizing LHP techniques. It guides you along the path from the understanding of your ancestors all the way to the summoning of Daemons. Along the way, you will discover that you are awakening to new and greater awareness. You are the God creating the Daemon. If you are serious about the LHP and wish to have a worthwhile paradigm to work within, then give this book a try. This work is a delight and earns its place among the better guides of the LHP.

This must be a first: A 'fluffy' Left-Hand Path book! - sharing the same slackness, incoherence/lack of intellectual rigour, and indulging in the same type of uncritical wishful thinking, as its wiccan/New Ager RHP counterparts.
The author reads like Konstantinos on a bad day, as there is no philosophical, metaphysical or theoretical depth to this short work whatsoever. Instead it is comprised of a series of bald statements, where the author says 'such-and-such' is so, without any qualifying exegesis of any kind, leaving the reader no choice other than having to accept the author's notions of 'The Pandemonium', 'The Chaocosm' and other lazy, unsubstantiated concepts at face value... Either that or dismiss the entire book as the product of some ageing goth (?) whose ego is so large, he thinks his statements should be accepted without him having to do any work to win over his readers. Truly awful twaddle! Read Kenneth Grant, Order of Nine Angles or Frequency 435 instead.

The Black Ship is an intriguing and practical approach to the discovery and understanding of the Daemonic self. The author delivers a sound explanation of the emergent Daemonic race, and provides end-of-chapter exercises for the Left-Hand Path practitioner. The Black Ship is an essential text for all occult libraries.