Ceremonial Magic & The Power of Evocation: A System of Personal Power

Rating:
Summary: The Best Magical Book I have ever used!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: As a student who began his career in the magical arts some five years ago, I find Dr. Lisiewski's work inspiring, practical, and educational in the extreme, simply because it is helping me to achieve the full physical manifestation of my goals. I have studied such popular magical systems as the Golden Dawn, and have achieved only partial results at best, just as he said in his book. The majority of the time I achieved negative or no results, those other books never explaining the pattern or reason of the negative results achieved.
I have never seen a book that discuss axioms for magical survival such as Dr. Lisiewski's does. These axioms not only insure your personal survival, but also serve as axioms for personal success. They enable you to avoid MAJOR pitfalls in performing such rituals, and I cannot stress how important this is!
Additionally, this is the first book to put into chronological order and explain the most well known systems of magic and how the catholic church attempted to prevent such systems from being practiced.
I STRONGLY recommend Dr. Lisiewski's book to anyone who has stuggled with such COMPLETELY incoherent systems such as the Golden Dawn and its many offshoots, and who want to achieve full physical positive manifestation in their life. In the end, partial results will get YOU NO WHERE.

Rating:
Summary: This book has made a tremendous difference in my life.
Review: I have been studying and implementing Dr. Lisiewski's advice give in Ceremonial Magic and the Power of Evocation, and like some of the other reviewers here, have been getting quite favorable results. To be more sepcific, I have been getting positive results where I had been getting negative ones before, favorable results where I had not been getting any whatsoever, and have actually "reversed" former results I could have lived without in the first place. I was not aware of this process of "Subjective Synthesis" that he discusses, nor the "Magical Propositions and Axioms for Success and Survival." All I can say here, is that they make complete sense to me, and explain some of the trouble I got myself into by doing evocation the modern or "New Age" way, which he objects to so strenuously.

I have to agree with Mr. Tahbion's review in most part, but strongly disagree with him in his saying that you have to have been raised a strong catholic for this book to work for you. I was not raised in any religion, have been into a church twice in my thirty-some years (to attend a funeral and wedding) and to this day, don't consider myself anything but a philosopher of sorts, although I have studied the religions of the world for many years as well, and really, don't agree with any of them. So all in all, I think this book is what the "average" magician is looking for if he wants to build or rebuild his personal magical universe. You won't regret working from this book I assure you!

Rating:
Summary: Ceremonial Magic
Review: I like this book because the author states that the Goetic demons are not subjective beings (in the mind only) but actually exist outside the mind. I already knew this because of my evocations. I think because of psychology, a lot of magicians are afraid to say that Goetic demons actually exist and instead say that they are either abberations of the mind or aspects of the personality that need to be evoked and some how controlled. Maybe they are scared to be seen as odd. But anybody who practices magic in this day and age is odd anyway, including me. However, the author really gets down on the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and nameless others for changing the ceremonies to their own design. That is the reason I give it only four stars, otherwise I would give it five. I think--and it has been my experience (Yes I practice, practice, and do evocations)--that as long as you really "WILL" a demon to appearance, then it will appear, regardless if you stand in a circle made out of shoe laces, jump rope or a needless complicated circle, needless, of course, unless you really believe that you need it, as the author seems to believe. Anyway, I get the suspicion that the author is using an alias in order to stomp on some magical toes without getting trashed himself, but I could be wrong. According to the author, he is a physicist but he writes more like a philosophy major. Again, I could be wrong, just my opinion. The contributions by Dr. Hyatt and Jason Black are curious and entertaining. I wish I could meet the author, Dr. Hyatt, and Mr. Black. I'm sure I wouldn't be bored. Anyway, I highly recommend this book to anybody. There aren't many good books on Evocation available, but this book is one of the few exceptions. I recommend that a beginner buy this book instead of "Aleister Crowley's Illustrated Goetia", because, I believe, it is put together better.

Rating:
Summary: He did it "Medieval style" --and It Worked...
Review: Joe Lisiewski is more of a medievalist than Steve Savedow! And yet, he, like Steve, is not claiming a photographable manifestation. He, like Steve, admits to a subjective approach, so he's not crazy. IMO Lisiewski's "Subjective Synthesis" theory is the "scientific" part of his book. His rationalizing about the alchemical properties of smoke used in spirit materializtion are (IMO) a process of his subconscious; something your inner child wants to believe. Liseiwiski's "Subjective Synthesis" is very well expressed. He is a philosophical dualist (like Steve) and firmily believes that his Heptameron demons are not related to, or particularly connected with, archetypes or shadow fragments in the individual psyche (a monist, Jungian and actually a "Hermetic" view--in spite of Joe's insistance that his system is "Hermetic"??). He does, however, admit that the human mind is the receiver for these beings. None of my quibbles invalidate what he's doing. I'm sure what he does really works--for him. And yet his dispensing with what he calls "New Age" concentration exercises (Bardon, OTA, and even Tibetan tantric!) is obviously dependent upon his having been raised in a Catholic school and absorbing all the mental conditioning that goes along with that mind-set and lifestyle. If you were raised a devout Roman Catholic, and you have that strong conditioning, then this book's method could work for you--if you are willing to take the risks he warns you of--and fulfill all the rest of the devout religious operational commitment and requirements. An additional note concerning Joe Lisiewski's version of the Heptameron. Yes, Barrett's *Magus* is largely lifted from Agrippa I,II, III, and psuedo-Agrippa (the *Fourth Book*). But Joe owes Barrett! Specifically Barrett's English translations of the Latin conjurations in the original Heptameron (in the Fourth Book), which comprise more than a third of the text! Maybe this is why Joe is so hard on Barrett? If Barrett was a dirty, plagerizing scoundrel then it's okay to use his translations (word-for-word) without giving him credit....Not a major sin but one that should be confessed and attoned for in some measure (buring a hundred candles in Barrett's memory should expiate this minor infraction ). (In speaking of the *Fourth Book* I am referring to a direct facsimile of the 1655 first English edition)
Joe also borrowed the descriptions of the spirits from psuedo Agrippa (Robt. Turner suggested this in his version of the Heptameron) so we have a bit more than the 32 page original.
The Heptameron is probably at least a hundred years older than Agrippa, and maybe more. According to Stephen Skinner it owes something to *Picatrix.* And in reading it over again, I tend to agree of Lisiewiski that it is "medieval" in origin.
*Ceremonial Magic and the Power of Evocation*, along with Savedow's *Goetic Evocation*, is among the best I've come across. This book is not for everybody--but for a very few romantic Catholics who fit Lisiewski's personal model, it could open Pinhead's Box...If that's what you really want to do.
Nobody who is actually considering doing this sort of work should fail to read it, and anyone studying this sort of work should also read it.

Thabion


Rating:
Summary: FALCON PRESS ALERT
Review: Okay. The author's main thesis is that your evocations don't work because you have to follow the directions in the original grimoires EXACTLY. If you mix stuff up from different systems, it won't work. That's why you just get psychological reactions INSIDE yourself instead of some actual presence OUTSIDE of your magical circle.
The author (who for all we know could just be a pseudonym of Hyatt and Black, but let's assume he exists) presents a particularly "easy" grimoire with a detailed commentary on how to use it (though you need access to a lot of Catholic implements--Holy water, etc. to make it work.)
This is interesting reading certainly, particularly compared to the droves of magic books published by Llewellyn.
Does it work? Alas, I'm only an armchair magician. I can't help you there.


Rating:
Summary: Should be titled: "My Way Is The Real Way"
Review: This book has been causing a much needed rift among the practitioners of the Ritual Magic community that in reality is a long time coming. The premise of the book is that the Spirits listed in the old grimoires are not "parts of your brain" as the frustrated- psychologists-come-magicians would have you believe, but rather independent beings of great power and thought. Now I have sided with the latter argument for some years now maintaining that these Spirits want and need interaction with us as much as the help we want and need from them. Though I part company with the author in several places in his book. Oh and FYI, this is a book about manifesting the Spirit to VISIBLE appearance right dead in front of you!

First off Lisiewski feels it's necessary to put that "Ph.D" right out in front there as if it's a badge to impress you with. His doctorate is in the field of physics and it is interesting that a scientific physicist practices the art of summoning demons and devils from the underworld. Another thing I disliked is his constant name dropping of his "teacher" - from his descriptions of their contact, it seems they were phone acqaintances more so than an eye-to-eye student-teacher relationship - the late Dr. Francis Israel Regardie. (If you don't know who HE is, then use a search engine and look him up!) Joe seems to find it necessary to link himself to Regardie early on probably to establish in your mind that he's got some lineage or validity behind him. Then he brings out that he was a student of the late Frater Albertus who was not only a Ritual Magician but also had a course in Alchemy that Lisiewski claims to have taken.

Lisiewski does a fine job of explaining that the roots of real Hermetic Occultism does not belong to the Golden Dawn as so many have believed but rather to older sources which have been recently (last 50 years) revealed thru Greek papyrii. Lisiewski does his damndest to take cat-o-nine-tails to the modern New Age authors - which he doesn't name but you're sure he's talking about Poke Runyon, Don Kraig, Nelson White, Konstantinos, William Gray, Dion Fortune, etc. - for their ill conceived notion that the Spirits of the infamous grimoires are nothing more than aspects of our own subconscious minds.

Now in all fairness, Lisiewski does mention on pages 87 & 88 where he asks if there is a psychological basis related to the Spirits from the grimoires and if by transferring this subjective basis from the mind of the practitioner to the magic triangle, ordering it to behave and then re-assimilating, is the practitioner doing some self-psycho-analyzing. Lisiewksi states "I don't know". And it appears he and Regardie (a trained psychiatrist)

had words on more than one occasion about this very subject and that they disagreed. He goes on to say that by viewing the Spirits as objective Entities, it is from a purely pragmatic point-of-view. I agree.

Now as a practitioner of Sorcery who has successfully practiced the art of Evocation since 1988, I take umbrance with the author on two very important issues he raises.

First off is found in his "10 Axions for Success and Survival" - which the word "survival" I found to be little more than trite sounding. In Axiom number 9 where he admonishes you bt saying

"Do not to reject the religion in which you were raised as, nor the commonsense found in what religionists call The Commandments of God. The use of these precepts is crucial in devising an effective subjective synthesis and producing a corresponding coherent, integrate subconscious belief system. It is also the one fundamental axiom every Practitioner of magic rigourously avoids, which accounts for more magical failure than is realized."

I feel his use of the word "reject" is incorrect, rather he should say "despise" as rejecting something and despising it are two totally different views and there is nothing wrong with rejecting your childhood belief system however it's all well and good to not despise it. In essence, don't blame the Buddha, Yahweh, Jesus, Mohammed or any other Deity for your parent's and culture's screwups. The old adage "Jesus save me from your followers" gives rise to this idea.

The next bone of contention I have with this otherwise very worthwhile book is how the author speaks with a forked tongue. On one hand he's telling you that to get the results you want, you must follow the grimoire to the letter and he uses the Heptameron as an example because it requires the fewest amount of implements, tools, sacrifices, and etc. He makes it very clear that you cannot expect to get something for nothing and really takes the New Age Magicians to task for this aspect!

THEN he explains how he gets the Spirit to do his bidding. In essence he fills his head with the power of "God" thru invocation and wrestles control with the Spirit itself. Why wrestle you ask? Well because he believes these Spirits are antagonistic toward him and don't really want to do anything to help him. Once control is maintained, then he charges the entity to do his bidding. The charge has to be worded almost like a court approved legal contract lest the Spirit find some loophole in it and screws him over.

But what is Lisiewski really telling you here? Yes, that he acts like a bully and forces the Spirit to do his bidding without any hope of reward! Now if this atittude was prevalent among Paleros or Santeros in the African Traditional Religions, they'd get Jack Squat for results and abused & slapped around by the Orishas and Nganga Spirits for such insensitive greed.

Here Lisiewski telling you that you can get something for nothing. He offers the Spirit NOTHING as compensation for helping him. Then he goes on to discuss - at boring length - his viewpoints on the dreaded "slingshot effect" and how to avoid it. This is totally unnecessary IF the practitioner asks the Spirit what sort of reward it would like for its services from the get-go. Obviously he never read the classic grimoire "Le Dragon Rouge" because in it the practitioner summons Lucifuge Rofocale & then barters/ negotiates with the Spirit for its help.

In the latter half of the book, he takes you thru the Heptameron grimoire and discusses what you'll need and how to get ready for the event. In this he is superb. His notes are well done and his thought processes are clearly understood.

Frustratingly there is no index and that seems to be a common trait for New Falcon publications. The Bibliography is good and concise. Over all the book is recommended if you're versed in this type of practice. I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner though. I obtained it from Amazon for sixteen dollars and ninety-five cents cover price. I give it four out of five stars.

Rating:
Summary: A Tremendous Book on Magick
Review: What a book! It's obvious this guy has been at this long time and
knows what he's talking about! I've been having trouble for years
getting the results I want, and now I know why. If you're serious
about magic, then get this book. If not, ignore it and keep on
failing!"