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Rating: 
Summary: Finally a good new book on the Golden Dawn!
Review: After wasting my money on volume after volume of pulp magick rehashes of the Golden Dawn and Regardie material by Chic and Tabatha Cicero, I was pleasently surprised to find this book. Instead of adding worthless guided mediatations packaged as "Self-Initiation" to the worn out Golden Dawn material, this book actually further develops the Golden Dawn magical system. The GD originally integrated Enochian and Qabalistic magic for working with the magical forces of the elements. David Griffin has continued this integration process, applying it to planetary and zodiacal magick as well. Most importantly, this book makes the magickal system of the Golden Dawn extremely usable. Contrary to the opinion of another reviewer, the chapter on practical magick thoroughly explains the use of each of the rituals in the book as well. The 24 pages of color illustrations make the $49 price tag worth every cent. The Enochian planetary tablets can not be found anywhere else. Although Regardie described the construction of talismans using flashing colors and geometrical figures, they have never been illustrated in color before. These illsutrations take the mystery out of talisman construction.
Rating: 
Summary: This is just a bad book
Review: As a former officer of a Griffin temple, I cannot in good conscience NOT say anything about this book. In my honest opinion this book borders on invoking Qlippothic forces. In Griffin's own grade material he includes lectures where Mather's stresses the importance of obtaining a pure and true color when painting your magical tools lest they become "an abomination". A man that is teaching his students that the wrong color is an abomination must certainly take responsiblity for including Qlippothic names on the talismans in the front of his book. There are also many errors in this book, which again, if a wrong color is an abomination then what would vibrating the wrong name or drawing the wrong sigil do? After being involved with one of his temples it is my honest opinion that the errors in this book are not a mistake and that Griffin is not a true Golden Dawn Source AT ALL.That being said, if you do happen to have this book and cannot bring yourself to burn it, (which I honestly cannot do...so I donated it to a friend who collects occult things as a historic document) just make sure you fully check each ritual before performing to ensure that you are using the correct sigils, names, etc. That in and of itself will be a good exercise for any good, geeky occultist. Just make sure you do not do ANY of these rituals as they are written. The correspondences are handy as far as the intended symbols, godforms, colors, etc. but honestly there are many better sources than this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A useful and exhaustive programme in the GD tradition
Review: I've read through this book, and the only real errors I have found are in: (1) The Magical Eucharist section, whereas Griffin claims that the example given is for the full SIRP, it is actually for GIRP (Air); and (2) in the First Call Griffin renders ZNRZA inexplicably as ZURZA. A very useful feature of the Ritual Magic Manual is the ritual explication of Regardie's Invocation and Assumption of the Highest Divine Force. The revised Enochian Calls are invaluable, with a common sense approach that eliminates the extraneous GD pronunciation rules -- such as always pronouncing z as zoad -- thus restoring the beauty and efficacy of the language. The Calls as they are here published represent a significant scholarly revision to Dee's rules of pronunciation. As to the overall accuracy of names and sigils in this book, Griffin notes the instances where he corrects (or deviates from) established sources: examples of this include (much-needed) revisions to the Hebrew spellings of Qlipothic hierarchy given in Crowley's 777.
Although it might be true that some of the positive reviews were placed by members of Griffin's temples, I suspect that some of the nay-sayers likewise have an agenda displayed by some of the unreasonable claims made in some of the more vehement reviews. Could this be fallout from the HOMSI wars?
Rating:
Summary: THE How-to for Golden Dawn Style Ceremonial Magic
Review: This work is exhaustive and meticulous. The title is descriptive; it is what it purports to be-- a manual for the mage to use in learning to invoke and banish all of the forces of the Tree of Life; elemental, planetary, zodiacal and sephirotic. Included is a section on basic rituals which has all of the old stuff plus some new innovations (not the extraneous fluff found elsewhere), color plates of all of the tablets save the elemental tablet of union, a section on the why and how-to of demonic evocation, a section on practical and talismanic magic (with a sub-section titled "The Aim of Magic"-- but if you don't have a clue what its for to begin with then you should go back to playing Dungeons & Dragons and leave this cirriculum to those with serious interest in real spiritual developement) and more. The ritual invokations have synthesized a vast body of tradition and distilled the information into concise and detailed, tabulated, step-by-step instructions that have never been arranged and presented in such a comprehensive and complete format for the practicing magician. With the addition of enochian hierarchies for the zodiacal invokations, associated godforms and thoughtful and scholarly adjustments to the pronunciation of enochian, this book shows that the GD system is still a living, breathing organism. Kraig's book got me started in the Great Work, and I can't say anything negative about it, yet neither can I compare it with this one. This is a book that the practicing magician can use as a textbook, referencing it over and over as she learns to systematically and consciously invoke and banish all of the forces that comprise the universe and awaken them within her own sphere of sensation.
Rating:
Summary: This is just a bad book
Review: What can I say about this book? Its packed with all the Rituals practiced by the Magical order. If you have this book along with Donald M. Kraig's -Modern Magick: Eleven Lessons in the High Magickal Arts, then you are off in self initiation.
You might want to take note though that this book covers a much more detail than Modern Magick, since this IS a Manual. It may be good if you keep this aside as a bible for Magick. But still you can learn magick with it. I would recommend Modern Magick for those interested in Magick, but once you start catching things up or understanding how Magick works, this book would be invaluable. This book is not for beginners, and the essence of Magick is not written in here, since it "assumes" that you have a background in Magick already.
This is a must have for your occult/magickal library.
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