The main reason for me buying this book was to complete my ‘magical library’. I have magical texts from different times, so I thought I could not leave out Golden Dawn. Regardi compiled official papers to a massive book as a guide of Golden Dawn magic. After endless introductions, but book continues with theory (an extremely high level of information) and rituals. You can do a step-by-step course through the different grades of the order. My personal interest was mostly to see how much of the older magic I could trace back in the system of the Golden Dawn. I found less medieval magic than I expected and John Dee is only treated at the end of the book, in much detail again I might add. I didn’t study the rituals, let alone try them out, I am at best an ‘armchair magician’ interest in the subject of magic. The theoretical parts thrive mostly on Kabbalah and sometimes more Eastern/Theosophical theories. I didn’t find much obvious mistakes. All in all the early teachers of the Golden Dawn managed to build a very structured, original and rather organised magical system out of older systems and in this book you will find all/most information about it and your complete ‘how to guide’. The book comes with a gigantic index, because it is also intended to be used as encyclopedia for both users and investigators.
A book that belongs in every library of people interested in magic, also when you are not into the Golden Dawn.