Creating Magickal Entities: A Complete Guide to Entity Creation [Paperback]

David Michael Cunningham (Author), Taylor Ellwood (Author), T. Amanda R. Wagener (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2003

Creating Magickal Entities is a comprehensive reference manual that presents step-by-step instructions for creating entities through astral manipulation that will change your life. This manual, written by three practicing occultists, reveals magickal and alchemical methods, many which have been lost and suppressed through the ages, in a refreshingly modern way that magickal practitioners of any tradition can understand.

Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Egregore Publishing (June 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932517448
• ISBN-13: 978-1932517446
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #351,668 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the timid or fluffy!, September 15, 2003

By 

F. Presson "Freeman" (Birmingham, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creating Magickal Entities: A Complete Guide to Entity Creation (Paperback)

Totally practical and down to earth, this book is written by
three experienced hands who have been working in the subject
matter, and it shows. There are war stories and cautionary
tales, and a detailed outline of what to do to create a
servitor or other entity.

It should be obvious, but I'll repeat: this is not Magick 101.
Therefore, it is not boring to those who have been around a
bit and are ready to try something new, or ready to see someone
else's take on techniques of which they may have already
been aware.

If you're comfortable with invocation and evocation, have worked
with sigils, talismans and the like before, and have made some
inroads into effective magick for yourself, then by all means
GRAB this book and enjoy it. If you're not quite ready for it,
buy it while it's still in print while you work your way up
to it. It does not contain instructions for basic operations,
nor should it. It's about time some texts for grad students
showed up!

My pre-press copy (#13) could have used a bit more copy editing,
but the errors didn't affect anything critical.

Disclaimer: I have been associated with two of the co-authors
online for a while, to one extent or another, and have e-met
the third since reading the book. This didn't color my opinion,
although it did simplify my own buying decision.

-- Freeman, Temple Zagduku

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Offers a concise, methodical approach to entity-creation, March 13, 2004

By 

Psyche (spiralnature.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating Magickal Entities: A Complete Guide to Entity Creation (Paperback)

Perhaps the only work of its kind solely dedicated to entity creation, Creating Magickal Entities offers step-by-step information and instructions on servitor creation. Everything from possible uses and precautions, practical advice and examples of entities previously created by its authors is discussed in depth.

While Creating Magickal Entities assumes the reader knows little about magickal entities, it is not designed to be an `intro to magick' type book. It offers little introduction to general magickal theory or technique; the authors expect the reader to know a thing or two about what they're doing beforehand - and it is highly appreciated.

A created entity is noted as being an extension of a thought-form, which is described as `a symbol that represents a concept or thought for the person...It is entirely in the realm of concept until the person makes the thought-form manifest into reality' (pg. 9). A created entity is defined as being a `vital principle held to give life to an immaterial essence, which has been created to have a self-contained and distinct existence with a conceptual reality, by the deliberate effort to personifying segregated thoughts and emotions' (pg. 9).

The basic methodology authors lay out for entity creation details that by `taking specific thoughts and emotions and identifying them with things like names, symbolic attributes, etc., we are better able to work with them in a conscious manner.' Advising that it is `very important that we wisely chose our thoughts and the way we understand them. If we do not understand our thoughts and emotions and try to use them for our own benefit, the results can, and more often than not, will be counterproductive' (pg. 11).

I do, however, have a few minor quibbles. While it is refreshing that the authors do expect a certain intelligence of the reader, footnotes may have been a good idea. For example, not everyone may be familiar with the Pythagorean system of numerology mentioned frequently throughout the book, and while a brief description is given in the glossary it wasn't noted anywhere prior to that. There are a few uncorrected typos, but they are infrequent enough to be of no major concern.

Beliefs common to chaos magickians such as `the important thing is to use whatever feels right to you, and works best for you' (pg. 47) are frequently stated, though there is no formal mention of chaos magick by name. Despite the subject of the book. Creating Magickal Entities does not use the chaos magick terminology. The words `servitor' and `sigil' are curiously absent from this work, words like `entity' and `programming symbol' are employed instead. While not `bad', it is curious that the have authors avoided these terms. Perhaps it is due to the negative connotation that chaos magick has, and the desire to appeal to a broader audience?

Several practical examples are given in the appendices, using various methods employed by the authors are likely to make for excellent reference for the novice entity creator.

Cunningham, Ellwood and Wagener offer a concise, methodical approach to entity-creation without pandering to the lowest common denominator. With practical advice and step-by step instructions, Creating Magickal Entities is well written, and highly recommended for magickians interested in learning more about servitor creation.

41 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Its...ok, March 30, 2007

By 

Frater J (IL United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Creating Magickal Entities: A Complete Guide to Entity Creation (Paperback)

This style of creating a magical entity is very similar to the Franz Bardon method. Although Bardon spends approximately a page discussing the creation of simple elementals, and a few more pages creating simple talismans and elementaries, to add it up, its probably no more than 10 total pages. These authors have stretched those concepts into a book. Now let me start off by saying that people who have a solid base of theory and practice will have no problem using this book. Of course people who have that probably already know how to do this in the first place, and this book offers only the simplest methods to creating something in a manner quite similar to bardon.

The book reads a little fluffy. Its got a real new age feel. The book is lacking in some places where I think they should have explained the theory a bit more, and in exchange they substituted simplicity. They mention the Opening by Watchtower and Middle Pillar only in passing and have minimal information about things like sigils and correspondences and so forth, leaving that up to the individual student.

My 2 biggest problems with the book are as follows:

1) They don't encourage much prep work, unlike virtually every other magical system out there, and in fact they clearly state that any systems that advocate caution and prep are to be avoided. They do encourage you to do things like meditate and do martial arts and draw, and then go about your astral hijinks... 0_o

2) They only briefly discuss the ideas of Karma. They mention it briefly and seem to focus on the wiccan ideas of it. And then later they go on QUITE PROUDLY to tell about how one of the authors made an entity to ruin the lives of people who lived in an aparment building...cuz I guess she felt like it.

While I understand that there are more systems of magic than Kabbalistic/GD, I usually try to avoid any book that uses the word Faery more than once.

So my best suggestion would be to buy Initiation to Hermetics. Its a great book, that has a lot more information. And most importantly it provides the tools you need to get a servitor to function properly in the first place, because without a foundation your house may sink into the mud.