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Rating: 
Summary: Good for reference
Review: For those interested a lot of the rituals compiled in here are from the original HOGD temples and not the later "Stellar Matutina (sp?) rituals that are in the Llewellyn version of _Golden Dawn_... so that is an added bonus. Also as numerous people have pointed out, the layout is often hard to get used to since it has 10 or so chapters and each chapter starts off at page 1. Francis King's ritual magic book is probably better for the size (and bang for the buck, as i have noticed that some people have jacked up the price of this book thinking that it is ultra rare or something), (I am refering to Francis king's book which contains most of the so called "flying rolls") but this contains some similiar works and shows a lot of the early influence of Theosophic concepts, which I found interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Good for reference
Review: For those interested a lot of the rituals compiled in here are from the original HOGD temples and not the later "Stellar Matutina (sp?) rituals that are in the Llewellyn version of _Golden Dawn_... so that is an added bonus. Also as numerous people have pointed out, the layout is often hard to get used to since it has 10 or so chapters and each chapter starts off at page 1. Francis King's ritual magic book is probably better for the size (and bang for the buck, as i have noticed that some people have jacked up the price of this book thinking that it is ultra rare or something), (I am refering to Francis king's book which contains most of the so called "flying rolls") but this contains some similiar works and shows a lot of the early influence of Theosophic concepts, which I found interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Light in Extension
Review: If you want to complete the Great Work, then this volume is the only book you need. This version is much easier to use than the Llwellyn version, and for those of you who want to (dubiously) claim a grade beyond Adeptus Minor, this book contains a tugid, heavy-handed and pompous ritual for the Adeptus Major grade by A.E. Waite. Thelemites might want to beware. This volume contains strong opinions about Crowley in both directions. For example, the editor calls Crowley's corpus "[material]" -- a word I've never seen in a footnote before now, and Regardie is forever ambiguous about his former master. At the end of the book there are a few essays by practicing Thelemites to balance the Crowley bashing at the beginning. This book also contains:
1. Reproductions of the trumps from Regardie's Tarot.
2. The Introduction to the Qabalah Unveiled by S.M.R.D.
3. Regadie's previously unpublished Enochian Dictionary.
4. Historical and explanatory essays by modern Golden Dawn Adepts.
5. Nothing by the Ciceros, (a blessing perhaps?)
6. Eight pages of color plates including examples of Enochian Chessmen.
7. Large, easy-to-read, diagrams -- an aspect that suffers in the smaller Llewellyn paperback.
8. No Llewellyn adds for back endpapers.
9. An exmple of the ritual of the hexagram with the unicursal hexagram popularized and possibly invented by Crowley, although Regardie claims that the unicursal hexagram was in the order papers before Crowley's time.
10. Expanded coverage of geomancy. I hope this helps you make an informed purchase. E.U.L.
Rating:
Summary: THIS is the edition you want . . .
Review: Thank God for Purists! The Llewellyn edition of Regardie's classic has been distorted by 'contributors' (!) leaving the rest of us with no resort except the New Falcon edition of the Golden Dawn, in spite of its higher price. This New Falcon edition of the Golden Dawn material also has additional material by Regardie, and additional reading recommendations, variant from the Llewellyn edition. These valuable recommendations will redefine the occult book market for you, and have you going after books Regardie actually thought were important, instead of the misleading plethora of colorful, whacky, glitzy/flashy 'offshoot' books that litter the burgeoning occult market today. What a relief that the excellent people at New Falcon, whatever may be their alleged flaws, have made this edition of unretouched Golden Dawn available, to 'all true seekers of the Light.' They have left us the Golden Dawn as Regardie had envisioned such material at his death in the mid-80s. It will transcend the need for the tampered rituals and knowledge lectures in the lamentable Llewellyn edition. It will also transcend that of the hacked Golden Dawn material of dubious authenticity scattered all over the internet. These derivative pseudo-Golden Dawn phenomena, modified without Regardie's knowledgeable eye, have been deceiving sincere students and researchers left and right. Still don't feel the need for this volume? Then get Regardie's 'The Art of True Healing' book, practice it for awhile, and note results(!!!) You will then surely want to get your hands on this New Falcon 'Complete Golden Dawn' volume, and all the rest of the Regardie material, even the out-of-print stuff. Which brings us to another question, there, New Falcon . . .!
Rating:
Summary: One stop sourcebook for Hermetic and Cabalistic Magic(k)
Review: This book is a revelation of many of the important papers of the Golden Dawn of MacGregor Mathers, A. Crowley, W.B. Yeats and others. It presents systematically the early stages of study in the Golden Dawn Tradition. There is nothing that a Golden Dawn temple will provide in writing about the first 3 or 4 grades of advancement toward adepthood. I took away a couple of points because of the author's terse and slightly archaic method of writing and for the fact that he wrote an entire chapter on enochian magick and enochian chess after admitting in the first sentence that he knew nothing about them. In any case, it's a great beginner to intermediate level source book for correspondences, Golden Dawn tradition and explanation of hermetic symbology. For the serious student, not for someone looking for light reading.
Rating: 
Summary: 3.5 stars for content; 2 for editorial and production values
Review: This review is for the second (2003) revised limited edition of The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic. Please be aware that that there are online copies of the table of contents for this book, so make use of them if you want to get an idea of content; I won't be detailing the content here.
This is a useful work for comparison with other published versions of the GD documents. I'm glad I bought it. It contains all the material from the original Isis-Urania temple of the Golden Dawn, as contrasted with the material in the popular Llewellyn version, which is largely taken from the post-schism GD under the temple Stella Matutina. But although I am pleased with my purchase, I do have several major gripes:
1. One of the worst things is the ridiculous pagination. For some reason, the editor saw fit to begin each new section of this 1000+ page book at page one, so you have eleven sections, each with 50 to 165 pages. Even with the new master index included in this second edition, it makes referencing more of a chore than should ever be necessary.
2. The typesetting is disappointing. Readability would not have suffered if the font face were reduced even as much as two point sizes. The copy should have been split into two columns, to make better use of all the needless whitespace. These two changes (font size and double columns) would have decreased the book's 4" thickness by 25% or more. Also, for such a large and expensive volume, I would have expected a heavy-duty dustjacket, but no go.
Text formatting is also inconsistent. The bold format is used where italics would have been more appropriate. Headings and captions are difficult to differentiate, because they use the same capitalized font face. And double-hyphens are used to render em-dashes. These may seem like nitpicky details that only a typesetter could care about, but it's attention to details like this that differentiates the professionals from the amateurs. In this case, it is clear that the publisher and editor are unfamiliar with publishing industry standards.
As it stands, the thickness of the book is prohibitive of comfortable reading--one could just about put out one's back with this thing! What's more, the binding is well below par. My large-format coffee table books all use heavy card stock to fasten the cover. The end papers in the Complete Golden Dawn, however, are very light card stock. In fact, I had to request a second copy because the endpapers in the first one came away from the cover during shipping, and the same thing looks to be happening with the second copy as well. I will probably end up getting it rebound into two smaller volumes at some point.
It's worth mentioning that even though the production and editorial values at Falcon Press are not up to snuff, their customer treatment is. On my order, and in prior correspondence, I had made clear that I would forego the promised signature from Christopher Hyatt. When my first copy arrived *with* a signature, I complained about that, and about the damaged endpapers, and they promptly sent me second copy--without requiring the first copy to be returned. I don't know if this was graciousness, or if they were just cutting their losses, but I'm happy with the outcome.
4. A substantial part of the volume is taken up by initiation rituals (Neophyte through Adeptus Major), which I must admit are of little interest to me as a solitary practitioner. But I'm willing to grant that these materials may become useful as a summary of symbolism when I am more knowledgeable in my own right.
5. Six essays were also commissioned for the revised second edition:
* "Astrological, angelic and demonic forces resident in the lesser arcana of the tarot," by Lon Milo DuQuette
* "The aclhemical teachings of Frater Albertus and the Paracelsus Research Society," by Jospeh Lisiewski, PhD
* "Regardie and me: The place of therapy in the great work," by Jack Willis, DC
* "The inner order revelation: Theory and practice," by Zehm Alohim, Adeptus Major
* "Magic in woman's perspective," by Kelli K Holloran and Lisa M Pim
* "MacGregor Mathers and the secret chiefs," by S Jason Black
These have little relevance to a work purporting to present the complete Golden Dawn system of magic, unless 'complete' can be taken to mean everything and the kitchen sink. But no, all of these extra essays are just clutter, and should have been published in a seperate anthology.
6. The most egregious feature is courtesy of the editor, Christopher Hyatt, who has seen fit to air his dirty laundry and his political and magical convictions at several places in the volume. This adds nothing to a presentation of material that was never his to begin with. It is fortunately not riddled throughout, but there are a few other appearances of this sort of stuff. Here are some examples:
Preface, page 36, on the differences between white and black magic: "Magic, however, is magic, regardless of what ends one pursues or how you might moralize about the means used to accomplish the end. Like science, magic must remain amoral--uninfluenced by any set of standards except knowledge and results."
Note that Hyatt is no scientist if he sincerely believes this. All professional organizations have codes of practice that are binding on their members. The leading scientific organization in the world, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has an entire section devoted to ethical issues, and its mission statement includes the promotion of "the responsible conduct and use of science and technology." Not to mention that a great deal of academic research just can't be done without the approval of an ethics committe. Hyatt's reasoning is simply false.
Volume 1, pp. 61 & 62, from a section titled "Elitism," advertising a Golden Dawn Foundation: "It should stated emphatically that the Center is intended to be *Elitist* in the strictest sense of the term.... The lame, the halt, the effete and inept will not find a favorable environment for their foibles there."
Suffice to say, the benchmark here is any conventional institute for higher education. Ivy League colleges, including seminaries, are not in the business of insulting people. In this case, Hyatt and company are simply out of touch.
Appendix V, "Magic in woman's perspective," p. 37: "Editor's note: Finally, we might add: Who wants to be equal when, in fact, *uniqueness* is the goal of the great work? ...."
This appears in editorial brackets at the end of an essay, by two women, on their opinions about the place of women in magic. I needn't get into the substance of the article, or the merit of Hyatt's view. This is simply the worst of a string of examples showing the interference of an amateur (one is tempted to say immature) editor. It's little more than a slap in the face of the two authors, coming as it does right at the end of their piece.
One last thought: Given the bumbling of the editor, I can't help but wonder how much "editing" was done on the original order documents themselves. Can we really trust the accuracy of this work?
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