Magick for Beginners: The Power to Change Your World (For Beginners (Llewellyn's)) [Paperback]

J. H. Brennan (Author)

Book Description

Series: For Beginners (Llewellyn's) | Publication Date: April 8, 1998

Designed to make Magick accessible to the novice, this guide introduces the many aspects of magic and the occult, and explains in detail several experiments that the reader can try, including producing money and becoming invisible. The book is divided into two sections on Low and High Magick. In the first section, the reader can explore the Ouija board, astral and etheric bodies, the chakras, the aura, Qabalah, wood nymphs and leprechauns, mantra chanting, water and ghost divining, and the Tree of Life. The reader is then introduced to the more potent High Magick. The author explains how to prepare the mind correctly before conducting ritual magic, and how to conduct rituals.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In one book, J.H. Brennan has encapsulated an introduction to both low and high magick. He focuses mainly on the methods of the Golden Dawn (the most well known contemporary magical organization), but he also incorporates elements from sources such as the I Ching and practices such as dowsing. While there are other practical primers on magick available, none tackles the stickier concepts such as Brennan's revelation that the astral realm is not just influenced by imagination but is imagination. Brennan links magick to the mundane world in terms accessible to the novice and with demonstrations such as materializing a $100 bill to illustrate the fundamentals of magick. --Brian Patterson

About the Author

J. H. Brennan (Ireland) is the acclaimed author of over 90 books, both fiction and non-fiction, including Forbidden Truth, The Alien’s Handbook, and The Spy’s Handbook (all published by Faber & Faber), Death: The Great Mystery of Life (Carroll & Graf), Martian Genesis and The Atlantis Enigma (both published by Dell), The Magical I Ching and Time Travel (both published by Llewellyn), and the popular Book of Wizardry (Llewellyn) under the alias Cornelius Rumstuckle. His works have appeared in more than fifty countries in Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Australia.

Brennan is best known for his young adult fiction series, Herbie Brennan’s Faerie Wars (Bloomsbury) with combined sales exceeding 7.5 million. The creator of several role-playing books, his solo fantasy gamebook series GrailQuest (Dell) has sold over 6.5 million copies.

He resides in County Carlow, Ireland with his wife and ten cats.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 1st edition (April 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567180868
• ISBN-13: 978-1567180862
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #910,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magick for Beginners, August 5, 2002

By 

Cassandra Barnes "Cassandra" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Magick for Beginners: The Power to Change Your World (For Beginners (Llewellyn's)) (Paperback)

J. H. Brennan has written more than 50 books and has lectured internationally. His latest book, Magick for Beginners: The Power to Change Your World, is an easy to understand introduction to using magic. It isn't about pulling rabbits out of hats or other sleight-of-hand tricks. Brennan defines magic as "a collection of techniques, dating back at least 70,000 years, aimed at manipulating the human imagination in order to produce physical, psychological, or spiritual results."

He emphasizes that there's more than one system of magic. Because his training was Qabalistically based, the techniques he describes include many elements from the Quabalah.

Auto-suggestion and imagination play a huge role in the success of magic. Human imagination is also described as "astral" and the astral world is as real as the physical world. Practicing magic brings one into contact with the astral plane, and sometimes with astral entities. For this reason, Brennan starts with basic safeguards that all magicians need to learn before doing anything else.

He then describes in great detail how and why magic works. He begins with "low magic," which includes instructions on how to produce a [$$$] bill. Low magic also includes divination, auras, chakras, and dowsing. Many of the low magic techniques are relatively easy to master and there are thousands of magicians practicing them.

Brennan then discusses "high magic." High magic requires far more work and dedication, but the rewards are enormous. It enables practitioners to "link [themselves] to the power and knowledge of the Universal Forces that underlie all reality." He includes instructions for rituals, pathworking, and conjuration. Brennan finishes the high magic section with instructions for making oneself "invisible."

Interwoven throughout the book are threads from the Qabalah, and quantum physics. Brennan draws parallels between the ancient and modern, and believes that science and magic will one day be recognized as one and the same.

He's used an informal approach in Magick for Beginners to help remove the dark mystery surrounding the practice of magic and show that "magic can be fun." Readers following his instructions can evoke magic to safely improve their lives. While it can be a serious endeavor, they'll find they can have fun with it also.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for starters, April 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Magick for Beginners: The Power to Change Your World (For Beginners (Llewellyn's)) (Paperback)

I had to buy this book in secret c_c because my parents don't allow it... I found it to be very well written, and the instructions for each working were exact. I haven't bought any other related books yet, but I will... that is, if they're written by the same author as this one.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's good, but mistitled., April 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Magick for Beginners: The Power to Change Your World (For Beginners (Llewellyn's)) (Paperback)

I just got done reading this book. I think it explains a LOT about magick and the way it's performed. However, "Magick for Beginners" is not a good title. I think a better title would be "The Science of Magick". It's put together with a lot of examples and a lot of the authors own personality. I would definately recommend this book to others that were on the path to spirituality.