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25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A rip off of Lovecraft, September 29, 2005
This review is from: Nocturnicon: Calling Dark Forces and Powers (Paperback)
I have read and followed Konstantinos work for years. Some people attribute to him the same kind of clout as Silver Ravenwolf, for good or ill, and has a similar reputation. They both are very successful authors, and so come under the worst scrutiny.
I have not, in any area of the book, heard him call this black magick. It is not black magick. I have labeled his brand of magick as dark magick. Dark Magick in the sense that it is not inherently evil, but something that alot of the contemporary wiccans would shun. So if you are looking for black magick, you will disappointed. Which is why I think the other reviewers wrote as they did.
His magick is usable, and is indeed different than modern magick. I do not consider this a weakness. There are Elements in these rites if you know what you are looking at. However, death, darkness and such are chaotic. Hence the chaotic way of forming the circle. Those who understand the balance of nature also understand that light=order and dark=chaos. These rites were refreshing, and interesting to read. Some people claim he is making his own kind of magick...but is that not we all do when we write our own spells and such? Some claim he is pandering to goth mentality. Well, I suppose you could say that any other wiccan or ceremonialist is pandering to the fluffy bunny mentality also. It is a matter of perspective. :)
Konstantinos is not the only mage to use drugs or substances for magick. Aliester Crowley was reknown for it. He uses substances that although are not illegal, they skirt the edge of it. Really I see no difference in using Absinthe which has a myriad of herbs as well as Chartreuse. Herbs have chemical components or drugs if you will, and shaman of old had used these forumlas into antiquity. The law makes them illegal and wrong, but they can be used for altering perception and that is his whole point in this. Tantrics and those who use sex magick (which is not unheard of in ceremonial magick) use another way of altering the perception and senses of the magician. Part of magick is physical whether people recognize that or not.
What my beef with the text is near the end. His whole subject utitlizing the Necronomicon by Simon just seems like he is trying to cash in on the darkness, fear and horror of Lovecraft. Yes the Necronomicon can be used, but relying on other works and such for comparison seems like money grabbing. For this reason alone I give it 3 stars. I am sure you can use his rituals at the end to better use the Necronomicon, but then that requires that you buy it also. It just gives a lack of credibility when you add something like that to your work.
In summary, these rites can be used, and I think with some good results, but it also requires you to be adult about the subject. It is more like something someone over 21 should buy, in my opinion, because of the information that is in it. I think that was his intended audience anyway. All in all I think it is a good book, but I would say you should read his Nocturnal Magick and Gothic Grimoire first.
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57 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I Don't Believe this Book Actually Qualifies as an Occult Text, September 27, 2005
This review is from: Nocturnicon: Calling Dark Forces and Powers (Paperback)
Once again, Konstantinos has created a book on Goth culture that has little, if anything, to do with traditional occult themes. Readers expecting to find detailed, practical rituals will be sorely disappointed: instead of providing such information, Konstantinos fills this book with musings drawn from his obsessive interest in the Necronomicon and his reprobate New York City lifestyle. Furthermore, I doubt that many readers will have the time or resources available to attempt many of these stunts: rituals frequently call for the use of alcohol, drugs, Gothic sex partners, long, dark hallways, deserted beaches, basements to simulate a descent into Hades, etc. How Konstantinos' target audience of teenage/adolescent Goths are supposed to obtain such things is beyond me.
It is standard fare for a book on the occult to begin with circle casting techniques and basic methods of raising energy. Oddly, Konstantinos has discarded the techniques outlined in his previous books and devised weird new rituals to replace them. These involve lying down in the black of night, imagining a swirling mist of specters surrounding you, whispering at you, inhaling the vapors of said "whisperers," and trying to self-induce terror at the thought of suffocating on this mist. The circle casting that follows is then composed of little more than "pushing out" against the "whisperers" in the shadows. Interestingly, at each of the respective quarters Konstantinos has his readers alternately breathe against the outer edge of the circle, warm their hands and press, lick their fingertips and press, and fall upon their knees, but nowhere in the text does he explain the obvious elemental association of these acts as invoking (or attempting to invoke) air, fire, water and earth. The lack of such basic explanation puzzles me: Konstantinos surely must realize that his failure to explain the symbolism of the ritual to his readers will make the motions ineffective.
Now to the heart of the material: The first chapter of this book contains standard-issue, largely plagiarized material from Austin Osman Spare on sigil magick (to his credit Konstantinos makes a rare acknowledgement of the derivative nature of this section). Nothing new here, and this section seems strangely out of place for the rest of the book. Readers will be thankful, however, for its inclusion, because it is one of the few rituals that most anyone can perform successfully. The next chapter describes a standard-issue method of sex magick (repeating a commanding phrase to oneself at the height of orgasm). Nothing particularly new here, except that Konstantinos insists (contrary to his earlier Gothic Grimoire work) that one should perform this sort of work with a partner (which seems like a strange thing to concentrate on in the midst of shared passion, but therein lies the mind of Konstantinos).
Then the book goes straight downhill: Konstantinos advocates the use of alcohol, absinthe (illegal in the U.S.), and psychodelic drugs (illegal in the U.S. and most everywhere else) to aid in the performance of rituals. He follows this up with "Hadetic" magick, which is a fancy name for Greek psychodrama about a vision quest to Hades that seems lifted from Bulfinch's Mythology. Divination material is copied from his other texts (themselves copied from Cunningham's materials) on different forms of scrying, except Konstantinos also recommends use of blood in the scrying dish. Yuck. Then the most disturbing part of the book: a dance with a Gothic partner who pretends to be a corpse (which Konstantinos calls his "Dance of the Dead"). I kid you not! He even strongly suggests that sex should follow the Dance... very disturbing. Then he discusses random conversations he had with Lucifer while he was suffering from a BRAIN INJURY (I highly suspect that explains a lot of this book). Oh yeah, Lucifer is a great and brilliant guy, by the way, although the author will not share with the poor reader, Lucifer's brilliance (apparently the wisdom is just too personal, and potentially marketable for another title).
To wrap it all up, Konstantinos spends fully the last half of the book pontificating on the glories of the Necronomicon, and how it's been so wildly successful (the version he referenced was published in the 1970s) that it's created the very entities that Lovecraft invented out of his sick imagination seventy years ago. Oh, and this includes a Call to Cthulu ritual, the alien god creature bent on destroying the earth. Anyhow, I suppose this section is harmless enough, since everyone knows Lovecraft spun these monsters out of whole cloth. It's mainly filler material, and mainly demonstrates how nostalgic for his 1970s sci-fi youth Konstantinos was feeling when he wrote this part. All in all, I think this book is mostly devoid of new thoughts about the occult, generally reflects a disturbed worldview and mindset, and becomes vividly uninteresting in the last half. But on the bright side, it is an interesting psychological portrait of Konstantinos. Not worth the price of admission, but since it's the only thing to admire about the book, puts it slightly above the one star minimum.
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17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sweet, sweet reading for all us nocturnal creatures, January 27, 2006
This review is from: Nocturnicon: Calling Dark Forces and Powers (Paperback)
New York-based occult author Konstantinos (and yes, that is his real name) is a famous name within the darker aspects of the occult. Over the years he's published a total of six books with Llewellyn - books that are all aimed at and written for Nightkind; that is, creatures of the night, people with a somewhat darker (but not necessary evil) view of magickal workings and who prefer the darkness of the night to the light of the day. He's also written numerous articles and appeared on many different TV-shows. In other words, he knows what he's talking about.
And in Nocturnicon he talks about magick being done at night. As with other books of the same category (not necessarily about darker aspects of the occult, but definitely about magick), this is not a book written in an attempt to convince skeptics that magick does indeed work. And it's not some sort of summary about the history of magick and the occult, even though historical references does pop up from time to time. No, this is instead a manual for the believer, a tool that you can use to summon the dark forces that are hidden somewhere in the dark and the infinite universe that surrounds this planet of ours.
Many books about magick contain rituals that are very difficult to do, demands years and years of practice, and include accessories that aren't always very easy to find. Nocturnicon is, however, nothing like that. The rituals and exercises described here are easy to do, don't require any bizarre and impossible demands of preparation, and if you do them correct you'll see the results in no time. Konstantinos is an honest author. He discusses how the use of absinthe (not the legal stuff but rather the old, traditional version) can affect the imagination in great ways, he doesn't deny that illegal substances that help in opening up new aspects of your consciousness, and sex magick isn't too taboo to write about.
Still, please note that it's NOT a "pro-drugs book" or kinky anthology about sleazy sex. Far from it.
If you're a diehard skeptic who doesn't believe in anything that has to do with the occult and magick, then Nocturnicon is probably one of the worst books you'll ever buy. However, if you're open to new possibilities and perhaps even feel instinctively that the darkness of the night affects you in a very special way, then there's really no reason for why you shouldn't run as fast as you can to your nearest bookstore and get a copy of Konstantino's latest work.
He actually succeeds in being amusing, thorough, controversial, funny, and serious, all at the same time, and if you add the fact that the book itself if extremely pleasing to the eye you'll realize that Nocturnicon - Calling Dark Forces and Powers is a book you cannot afford to miss.
Note to the reader of this review: I usually don't give 5 stars to a book, since most books have at least a few flaws that lowers the grade, but occasionally it does happen. This time it did, but rest assure that Konstantinos' latest is worth every single one of the five stars.
I give you my reviewer's word on it.
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