From: Darth Pikachu Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.magick.goetia,alt.christnet.demonology,alt.satanism Subject: Re: The Book of Solomon's Magick Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 21:15:16 -0400 Organization: Sith Merchandising Conglomerate / Bill Gates Fan Club Lines: 47 Message-ID: <01HW.B5F17C6400024518064006BC@news.mindspring.com> References: <42949487522889894063NEWS2LX@news1.tninet.se> <8qg8qe$hm8@bolt.sonic.net> Reply-To: darth_pikachu@wickedness.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 04.30.b3.f3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 23 Sep 2000 01:14:32 GMT User-Agent: Hogwasher 2.0 (Macintosh) Path: typhoon.sonic.net!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!news.vic.com!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!news-out.uswest.net!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick.tyagi:25263 alt.magick:211042 alt.magick.goetia:469 alt.christnet.demonology:11743 alt.satanism:156786 On Fri, 22 Sep 2000 14:29:15 -0400, nagasiva yronwode wrote (in message <8qg8qe$hm8@bolt.sonic.net>): > besides "Goetic Evocation: The Magician's Workbook", Volume 2 of > the pair, by Steve Savedow, Eschaton Productions, 1996, to what > other references (I presume excluding straight grimoires such as > Crowley's or Mathers/De Laurence's editions of Lemegeton) do you > refer here? That's a pretty fine book, but mostly a supplement to the real Greater and Lesser Keys. The Goetia depends upon concepts established in the Greater Key, and that is a more mature and complicated volume. As for Savedow's book, he mostly seems on the right track, and provides a lot of good information and caveats regarding working the Goetia. But there is some junk in there too. He fucks up in four areas: (1) He makes references to a "necessary" ritual in Volume 1 which appears nowhere else, thereby beefing up sales of the otherwise unimpressive V1 (2) He adds tons of Kabbalah which has almost no functional bearing whatsoever on standard Goetic rituals or even anything he suggests, and is thus likely to confuse the less experienced results-oriented practitioner (3) Stories of his own communications with the Goetic demons which seem like Star Trek episodes; sounds like one of the demons found a rube, and (4) Steve Savedow concludes that Goetic Magic is basically impractical and too risky to bother with-- something which indirectly discredits him as an authority on it. We don't need another A.E.Waite. But that shouldn't discourage anyone from buying it. Anybody who wants to pursue Goetic Arts needs all the information they can get, and sifting through a ton of crap for pearls is a part of that process. Savedow is no different. > thanks for the reference. does Bardon focus on Goetia, or is his > a more general work? Bardon is a lot like Savedow in that he describes many really excellent principles, but then goes headfirst into a la-la land peopled by friendly monsters. Bardon is extremely preachy, and is not fond of evil spirits at all. (What a wuss!) He also literally believed that he was an Emissary of God, superior in every way to the Buddha and Jesus. I think he was smoking too much wacky weed, because his infallible arse got shot off by the Nazis. Maybe he would have done better if he had been a little more modest. --Clifford Hartleigh Low