Learning Ritual Magic: Fundamental Theory and Practice for the Solitary Apprentice [Paperback]

John Michael Greer (Author), Earl Jr. King (Author), Clare Vaughn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2011

Learning Ritual Magic is a training manual for anyone serious about improving their magic based on the western mystery traditions, including tarot, ritual magic, Qabalah, and astrology. "What you get out of [magic] can be measured precisely by what you are willing to put into it- and time is the essential ingredient in successful magical training," the authors write. And just as no one expects to run a marathon or play a Bach violin concerto without sufficient training, so practitioners of the magical arts shouldn't expect to work complex, powerful magical rituals without a solid grounding in the techniques of Hermetic high magic. By spending at least a half hour a day practicing the lessons found in Learning Ritual Magic, the solitary apprentice attains the proper groundwork and experience for working ritual magic.

Learning Ritual Magic provides lessons on meditation and a set of exercises designed to develop basic skills in imagination, will, memory, and self-knowledge, all of which are absolute fundamentals to magical attainment. While the authors discuss the essentials of magical theory, they focus on daily, basic perspectives rather than launching into details of advanced practice.

Designed for the solitary practitioner, Learning Ritual Magic concludes with a ceremony of self-initiation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book will provide fascinating reading and education. Congratulations to the authors for a job well done. Excellent. -- Lee Prosser, Ghostvillage.com

About the Author

John Michael Greer has been a student of the occult traditions and nature spirituality for more than twenty-five years. He is the author of numerous articles and more than ten books including Natural Magic, The New Encyclopedia of the Occult, The Druidry Handbook, and The Druid Magic Handbook. He is also the co-author of Learning Ritual Magic and Pagan Prayer Beads. He lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife Sara.

Product Details

• Paperback: 271 pages
• Publisher: Weiser Books (November 4, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578633184
• ISBN-13: 978-1578633180
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #483,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in the gritty Navy town of Bremerton, Washington and raised in the south Seattle suburbs, I began writing about as soon as I could hold a pencil. SF editor George Scithers' dictum that all would-be writers have a million words of so of bad prose in them, and have to write it out, pretty much sums up the couple of decades between my first serious attempt to write a book and my first published book, "Paths of Wisdom", which appeared in 1996. These days I live in Cumberland, Maryland with my spouse Sara; serve as presiding officer -- Grand Archdruid is the official title -- of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), a Druid order founded in 1912; and write in half a dozen nonfiction fields, nearly all of them focused on the revival of forgotten ideas, insights, and traditions of practice from the rubbish heap of history.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXTREMELY INTENSIVE PRACTICAL WORK, incredibly valuable!, April 27, 2006

By 

Michael Herman (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learning Ritual Magic: Fundamental Theory and Practice for the Solitary Apprentice (Paperback)

THIS BOOK IS ONE OF THE BEST PURCHASES I HAVE MADE IN MY LIFE.

It is an incredibly in-depth and extensive introduction to practical magic, and is an invaluable tool to help develop the skills of meditation, concentration, observation, imagination, visualization, memory, and will power. Also, it is an excellent introduciton to tarot cards, Qabalah,number symbolism, the theory of the five elements (water-earth-fire-air-spirit) and an incredibly vast range of esoteric/occult philosophy... all of which intertwine and overlap, and mix in with the practical work. I am absolutely amazed at how much substance and depth has been packed into every chapter.

encountering magic can be difficult without a starting point or guide- the subtitle of this book says it all, it is a way for people to start on their own. Each chapter is organized in a very clear and straightforward stye, and each chapter is a lesson that you work on over two weeks (or more, if you have time constraints). The lessons develop on eachother, so the book takes about 9 months to finish... getting through it and doing all the exercises is, in itself, a great way to develop your willpower!

The rituals taught in this book are the Qabalistic Cross, the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, and the Middle Pillar exercise. These are rituals are all from the Golden Dawn tradition, and are basically meditation and visualzation exercises intended to develop your inner faculties. While the rituals are excellent, i find the real value of this book is the tarot exercises and work with the Tree of Life... while these are essential and fundamental aspects of occult philosophy/practice, it can be difficult to find an entry point into learning about them. The exercises in the book guide you through incredible exercises that provide an incredible practical way of learning about the tarot, Qabalah, number symbolism, and much more. there is also great emphasis on learning about your psyche and increasing body awareness.

I had also considered buying Kraig's "modern magick", and Newcombe's "21st Century hermetics", but decided against them when i compared them against this book. i am extremely happy with the decision! compared against the other two this book seems far more practical, and more likely to provide an intensive/thorough experience for people who want to develop their inner abilities.

I'm half way through this book now, and though i like to wait until i'm totally finished, i felt i should put up a review to help people who may be considering buying this book or others like it. i can gaurantee that the reason other people have not reviewed it yet is because it is a book you need to work with over a long period of time. this might scare people off, but ultimately what you get out of anything is proportional to the effort and time you put into it... i look back over the parts i have read again and again, and astonished that the book always reveals deeper layers of meaning with every read. definitely one of the best purchases of my life...

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Way to Get Your Feet Wet, January 16, 2008

By 

Michael Gorsuch (Edmond, OK USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Learning Ritual Magic: Fundamental Theory and Practice for the Solitary Apprentice (Paperback)

I highly recommend this book to those interested in exploring the Western Mystery Tradition. The authors start you out immediately with practical work that builds on itself. On top of that, you have mandatory reading from other occult works. After a few weeks, you will know if you are cut out for it and if you want to continue.

For me, it helped me build a daily routine in which I dedicated myself to the work. After four months, I felt competent to begin working on the Cicero's Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition without stumbling over the beginning exercises.

All in all, from personal experience, this is a great way to get started in your studies and practice.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cultivating the Mind of the Magician, October 28, 2011

By 

Andrew Watt "freelance author" (Pomfret, CT) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Learning Ritual Magic: Fundamental Theory and Practice for the Solitary Apprentice (Paperback)

In other books of magic, the teaching begins with elaborate memorization and the learning of rituals. Greer, King, and Vaughn take a slightly different approach: Instead of providing their reader with spells and magical rituals (though there are some), they choose to provide the student of magic with a series of training exercises that the beginning magician should perform in order to be a more effective magician.

The difference is profound. As Jason Miller wrote in The Sorcerer's Secrets: Strategies in Practical Magick, "First comes the working, and then comes the work." Yet one can perform all the magical rituals in all the books in the world, and still not be able to magic one's way out of a paper bag. As Greer, et al demonstrate, magic is about changing consciousness. That means relying on what they call the five-finger exercises: for meditation, for entering into stillness, for cultivating mindset, for understanding the Tree of Life, and more. One cannot become a rockstar songwriter-guitarist without practicing guitar and learning the fundamentals of rhythm, melody and lyric poetry; one cannot become a rockstar magician without practicing magic, but also practicing the underlying qualities that make a magician effective.

This book is hard work -- hence my rating of four stars, not five. This book will NOT make the reader a better magician. It will providing you with a series of training exercises that will make you a magician... if you do them.

The book makes use of reading exercises for which one can read from Dion Fortune's Mystical Qabalah, Israel Regardie's The Tree of Life: An Illustrated Study in Magic; though there are other other writers to choose from; it's also important to have a Tarot deck... I used the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, and it's useful to have a very simple deck from the very first day one works with this book.