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Rating: 
Summary: This book includes information on the Akashic Brotherhood.
Review: I worked on several sections of this roleplaying book based on White Wolf's "World of Darkness" (WoD) and the Mages that live within it. The book deals with the effects that people's wills can have in shaping reality. The Book of Shadows is an additional resource book to be used with Mage:: The Ascension. The book includes information on the various Traditions of Mages that populate the WoD. It also includes information on making detailed characters in the Mage system with Merits, Flaws, and more Abilities to expand upon those given in the standard game book.
I worked on sections about the Akashic Brotherhood Tradition with another author Sam Inabinet. The Akashic Brotherhood is a group of martial artist/meditative monks that relies upon a special practice of meditation and body movement known as the Do. Their primary sphere of speciality in the game is that of the Mind. They work to calm themselves in order to achieve Ascension (one of the possible goals in the game). The Brotherhood believes in purification of both body and mind.
It is important to point out that the Akashic Brotherhood is not just based upon the beliefs of the Chinese or the Japanese but, is in of itself, a hybrid of the Japanese, Chinese, Indian (as in India where there are thousands of religions), and a tad from the Pacific Islands. Some people have been fast to judge based upon the fact that they believe that the Akashic Brotherhood was meant to be from a certain culture.
It may be of some intrest to those that tend to be annoyed by roleplaying games that this game includes a Tradition of Mages known as the Celestial Chorus that worship "the One" and use singing as a main focus for utilizing their will to manipulate reality in order to bring about perfection in the world in "the One's" image.
Rating: 
Summary: Out of date
Review: I've played mage for a few years now, before third edition graced the shelves, and I found that this book was not terribly helpful. While it had several high points, the extra skills included on a whole could be gained by taking a specialty in an already listed skill. The merit and flaw section was interesting, with the publication of revised and third edition, it's no longer needed. The expanded tradition sections, were helpful, but sense the publication of third edition, they are no longer up to date and to be honest, if you want to know about traditions The Traditions Gathered set of books is a far better resource. While The Book of shadows is an interesting read, it's definitely not a required resource for mage.
Rating: 
Summary: More useful than great
Review: The book of shadows, which was written between the publishing of the 1st and second editions of Mage, is at this point slightly "behind the times," especially what with the release of Mage 3rd edition. Somewhere between irrelevant and necessary. Has some good basic material on the various Mage fringes, as well as a lot of expanded stuff for character creation.
Rating:
Summary: More useful than great
Review: The book of shadows, which was written between the publishing of the 1st and second editions of Mage, is at this point slightly "behind the times," especially what with the release of Mage 3rd edition. Somewhere between irrelevant and necessary. Has some good basic material on the various Mage fringes, as well as a lot of expanded stuff for character creation.
Rating: 
Summary: Great companion to the Mage sourcebook.
Review: This book is invaluable for the new lists of merits and flaws and the new abilities. Unlike some other White Wolf books, this book actually gives lists, not just a few new listings. I constantly refer to this book in character generation. Though some of the new abilities can really be covered by standard abilities, some of them are really helpful. Those and some of the merits and flaws even give me new ideas for characters. A great resource.
Rating:
Summary: A good oldie showing it's age
Review: This is a good book which has a lot of information to make your character richer (merits and flaws, extra skills, more detailed information on each Tradition, the Technocracy and others, etc.). However, most of the sections in this book are beginning to show their age, as the information presented here has been revised and updated to much more practical information in several other Mage books. The section with the parables, though, is still one of my favorite Mage reads.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointment but bright moments
Review: Though an interesting book I found that much of the facts and historical references were poorly researched if researched at all. It appears that this is a useful playing tool but the facts are all wrong.
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