62 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Light in Extension, August 3, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic (Hardcover)
If you want to complete the Great Work, then this volume is the only book you need. This version is much easier to use than the Llwellyn version, and for those of you who want to (dubiously) claim a grade beyond Adeptus Minor, this book contains a tugid, heavy-handed and pompous ritual for the Adeptus Major grade by A.E. Waite.
Thelemites might want to beware. This volume contains strong opinions about Crowley in both directions. For example, the editor calls Crowley's corpus "[material]" -- a word I've never seen in a footnote before now, and Regardie is forever ambiguous about his former master. At the end of the book there are a few essays by practicing Thelemites to balance the Crowley bashing at the beginning.
This book also contains:
1. Reproductions of the trumps from Regardie's Tarot.
2. The Introduction to the Qabalah Unveiled by S.M.R.D.
3. Regadie's previously unpublished Enochian Dictionary.
4. Historical and explanatory essays by modern Golden Dawn Adepts.
5. Nothing by the Ciceros, (a blessing perhaps?)
6. Eight pages of color plates including examples of Enochian Chessmen.
7. Large, easy-to-read, diagrams -- an aspect that suffers in the smaller Llewellyn paperback.
8. No Llewellyn adds for back endpapers.
9. An exmple of the ritual of the hexagram with the unicursal hexagram popularized and possibly invented by Crowley, although Regardie claims that the unicursal hexagram was in the order papers before Crowley's time.
10. Expanded coverage of geomancy.
I hope this helps you make an informed purchase.
E.U.L.
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46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
this MAY be the edition you want . . ., December 20, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic (Hardcover)
Thank God for Purists!
At one point I thought the Llewellyn edition of Regardie's classic had been distorted by 'contributors' (!) leaving the rest of us with no resort except the New Falcon edition of the Golden Dawn, in spite of its higher price.
However, I have since read that New Falcon themselves have been overly tampering with the original Golden Dawn material in this volume, besides adding their own essays and such. We are left with the task of comparing editions, as we venture to make use of the Golden Dawn material. Obviously, we need to compare these 'reissues' with those present before Regardie's death.
Yet this New Falcon edition of the Golden Dawn material also has additional material by Regardie, and additional reading recommendations, variant from the Llewellyn edition. These valuable recommendations will redefine the occult book market for you, and have you going after more of the books Regardie actually thought were important, instead of the misleading plethora of colorful, whacky, glitzy/flashy 'offshoot' books that litter the burgeoning occult market today.
New essays, not included in the Llewellyn edition, by Regardie and others, are featured. Especially valuable are those wherein Regardie touts the necessity of regular, balanced psychotherapy for anyone embarking on Golden Dawn paths, as a preventative of problems and device for gaining self-knowledge.
A useful list of psychology books, apparently approved of by Regardie, was featured in the first edition by New Falcon of the 'Comp Golden Dawn System,' before he died. I do not know if such a list has been maintained as it was, or has been tampered with, thus endangering the spirit and usefulness of Regardie's original advice/recommendations.
Such lists recall those contained in Regardie's much smaller 'Foundations of Practical Magic,' Aquarian Press, which came out some six years before he died. Now out of print, this smaller book featured reading recommendations sprinkled throughout the text, as well as two 10 or 12 item lists of recommended useful books (one list on qabalah, one list on meditation.)
The introductory material in Regardie's smaller book 'Ceremonial Magic,'Aquarian Press, also now unfortunately out of print, featured good advice on introductory material for would-be Golden Dawn practitioners. For example, I was not previously aware that Regardie thought so highly of W.E. Butler. Regardie recommends 'the several books of W. E. Butler, all on the same subject, which are excellent texts for the student to study for a long time.'
At any rate, consulting earlier editions of Regardie's editions of the original Golden Dawn material will transcend the need for the tampered rituals and knowledge lectures in more recent editions. It will also transcend the need for the hacked Golden Dawn material of dubious authenticity scattered all over the internet. These derivative pseudo-Golden Dawn phenomena, modified without Regardie's knowledgeable eye, have been deceiving sincere students and researchers left and right.
It would be nice if future editions of the Golden Dawn material, would preserve the original and useful material set forth in the edition before Regardie's death. Maintaining the integrity of that original volume published by New Falcon, circa 1984, they can then add, with enthusiasm, their '150 pages of new material,' and still not cheat the reader by messing about with the edition Regardie at least had a chance to see before it went to press, whilst he was still alive.
Frankly, I wish New Falcon would just leave their 1984 'Regardie - approved' volume alone, and reprint all their new essays they feel are so desirable, into some other seperate volume.
I think what we need is a new Regardie to come forward, and rescue the original material from so many tampering hands, no matter where such tamperers originate from.
. . .at any rate . .
Yet, still don't feel the need for this volume? Then get Regardie's 'The Art of True Healing' book (see reviews,) practice it for awhile, and note results(!!!) You will then surely want to get your hands on this New Falcon 'Complete Golden Dawn' volume, or the other Llewellyn Golden Dawn collection, and all the rest of the Regardie material, even the out-of-print stuff.
Which brings us to another question, there, New Falcon . . .!
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