This book was, okay. Definitely not the quality that I expected from this publisher, but it did provide additional sources via footnotes that allowed me to research further. This book will be more used as a source book for additional information. But in that case, they should just release something like a published reading list.

Llewellyn's Complete Book of Ceremonial Magic is the new must have to your shelf, from beginner to teacher.

So much information! It always amazes me how intricate and involved magick can get! It's a fascinating read that discusses so many different practices in the Wiccan community! I think anyone interested in the arts will enjoy reading this book.

This is a very comprehensive book. I particularly enjoyed the attention to historical detail regarding practitioners and traditions developed over the years.

I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review. I enjoyed reading this an seeing magick and theories from several different points of view. There were a lot things that I needed to get clear in my mind and that book helped with some of that. There are parts that I might have go back and read again. It is designed for continual use. I will be adding some of this to my personal practice. I know that we add and take away things we doing on our spiritual journeys all the time.

The Complete Book of Ceremonial Magick gives a broad overview of the history, development and the practice of ceremonial magic. It covers the evolution of ritual magic staring in ancient times and forward to modern days and the work of Aleister Crowley. Some topics include the Hermetic principles, the Quabalah, demonology and spirit evocation, Enochian magick, the Golden Dawn, Thelema, Greer and magical correspondences.

This is a great book if you want a quick overview of how the practice of "magic" has evolved and changed of centuries. Yet, if your looking for a comprehensive overview this will only wet you appetite. It was relatively easy to follow, but I didn't find it overly compelling. That said this was a preview copy so the finished copy could be more in depth.

All in all, I would recommend it as a starting off point for magical evolution.

Llewellyn’s book of ceremonial magick is written by several authors. I enjoyed learning the lore behind the rituals and how they were passed down through centuries. This is a book I can see being used as a reference guide for many.

Reading this book was a introduction for me into Ceremonial magick. Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the opportunity. My review opinion is my own.

I enjoyed reading the different authors in this text. The writing by each author is in depth to the subject and varied as to their style of magic. The themes are constructed into eleven actual books on ceremonial magick. Each chapter is easy to understand and informative. I would highly recommend this book for all who are interested in educating themselves in Ceremonial Magick. This is a excellent book for those with experience and those new to the craft of Ceremonial Magick.

"Llewellyn's Complete Book of Ceremonial Magick" includes the writings of so many amazing authors. Each chapter gives the author's perspective on the history of Magick. It was fascinating learning the lore behind all of the many different rituals passed down through the centuries.

This is a valuable book to have, if you want to explore the history of magickal rituals.

I will start by saying that I read Llewellyn's Complete Book of Tarot, which I liked and enjoyed (link to my review included in the blog post), so I had high expectations for this new volume on ceremonial magick. This one was not as good. To be honest, it felt a bit flat.


The book is arranged into eleven books (chapters) on various topics of ceremonial magick. Each chapter is written by an expert or experts on that particular topic. Some topics include:


Foundations of Western Magic
Planetary Magic
The Golden Dawn
Thelema and Aleister Crowley
Magician's Tables

The main issue with this book is that it is basically a dry textbook. The history of Western Magick, and it is Western European Magick, can be interesting, but after a while that seems to be all this book offers. The books feels more like a history textbook than a "complete book" on the topic. I am a bit puzzled how the editors managed to get such a good line up of experts and practitioners and turn out such a dry, slow reading book.


The other issue with the book is that one cannot be sure who is the audience for the book. Advanced users and experts have likely read and studied many if not all of the sources presented and discussed in the book. They probably know the history too. For beginners, aside from the names, dates, and titles of various books and sources, there is very little. If a beginner was hoping to get some ideas on getting started or supplementing a budding practice, they'll need a different book. There is not much that is actually practical here. What a beginner can do is make note of some of the sources listed throughout the book, find them, and study those instead.


The book does offer a lot of sources in the chapters. There are some good footnotes, so if the readers want to learn more and explore further there are plenty of sources.


I need to make an additional note for this review. I am reviewing it from a NetGalley galley. Unlike other galleys, for some reason the publisher decided to provide a galley "that contains partial sections of each individual book." So as a reviewer I have no real sense of what was left out. In addition, when I got to the end of a couple of chapters, the cutoff could be a bit abrupt. I cannot say if some of the material missing might be included in what was not provided. The bottom line is, as it stands, this is not that good of a book.


Overall, I found the book to be just OK. Text is pretty dry, mostly names, dates, and sources. I enjoy reading history, but this was just too plain. I may borrow it once it gets published just to see what was missing. However, I am not recommending this for libraries. For public libraries that collect pagan materials and similar works, this is optional; I'd say wait to see if a patron requests it before ordering it if at all.

I have been dreaming of reading this book collection for so long and when this one popped up, I knew I had to check it out. Man is this full of information! There was so much and it is nearly impossible for me to simply read through it like a fiction novel. It is for sure a great reference novel to have on hand. One day I hope to own all of these books in the complete collection.

This was well written, easy to understand, and chocked full of amazing information.

Having not know a lot about Ceremonial Magick, I found this book to be a great primer on all aspects of it. It's well written by a variety of practitioners on an extensive number of topics in Ceremonial Magick. The copy that I received was only a selection of the topics in the book, and I look forward to reading the final copy with all topics. I felt the subject matter was interesting and well written in a way that a novice could understand and more advanced practitioners could still appreciate.

My thanks to Llewelyn Worldwide Publications for a galley proof via NetGalley of ‘Llewelyn’s Complete Book of Ceremonial Magic’ edited by Lon Milo DuQuette and David Shoemaker in exchange for an honest review.

It’s subtitle is ‘A Comprehensive Guide to the Western Mystery Tradition’. This galley contained partial sections from each of the eleven books contained within this volume. Each book focuses on a different aspect of ceremonial magic and is written by a different author, considered an expert in their respective fields.

The sections included mainly focused on historical and theoretical perspectives though the summary does mention that practices are covered in the full text.

Overall, I expect that this will be a useful reference book for a newcomer or novice practitioner seeking an overview. The material appeared sound, even if not especially innovative.

I will note that as Llewellyn is based in the USA, that the focus is quite USA-centric. While referencing the contributions made by late 19th Century-early 20th Century magicians it gives the impression that ceremonial magic hasn’t evolved since then. The Epilogue about the future of ceremonial magic felt rather vague.

The extract did include footnotes though not a bibliography, though I would expect that this would be found in the completed text. Still I can only review what I am presented with. Llewellyn has a good track record with these kind of compilations.

This book is fantastic. I've really been trying to learn different types of rituals to perform and this book is chockful of them. I am definitely going to buy a physical copy as well. I love it!

This was an amazing collection of things from multiple authors about Ceremonial Magick. I enjoyed reading about all of the different topics. Each one gives a pretty well done complete ideal of each one. I think that they did an amazing job and practitioners will enjoy this one both new and advanced.

Based on the cover and title of this book, I expected Llewellyn's Complete Book of Ceremonial Magick to be a detailed reference manual for all things ceremonial magick related. It reminds me of Llewellyn's Complete Book of Correspondences, an indispensable reference for witches and other magick practitioners. Unfortunately, this book is nothing of the sort.

The authors are clearly knowledgeable. The book doesn't suffer from lack of expertise. The problem is, I think, the organization, or perhaps lack thereof. There are some tables and practical information scattered throughout, but by and large, this is mostly a history book on different aspects of ceremonial magick.

One of my favorite pieces of the book is a non-Catholic, polytheistic alternative to the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. But when I got to the end, I realized: nowhere in this "complete" book does an original version of the LBRP occur. The alternative assumes familiarity with ritual already, and doesn't lay out the God-names or archangels from the one that's been practiced for over a century.

I've already read books by several of these authors and on several of these subjects, so I was able to follow along. I fear, though, that someone without at least a beginning background wouldn't understand a lot of the topics.

For instance, Chapter 1 is about the Kabbalah, but it glosses over what the sephiroth are; the Tree of Life is a concept that requires more than a few sentences to really understand. (And even after reading Dion Fortune's excellent book The Mystical Qaballah, I feel I've only scratched the surface.) In Marcus Katz's chapter, he talks about his experiences with the Abramelin Operation, which was actually one of the most thorough explanations of an actual ritual in the book, but that left little space for what comes after (was there a word count limit for these authors?). Having read his book After the Angel, specifically on his Abremalin Operation, as well as several others of his books on Western Esotercism, I'm convinced he's quite knowledgeable. And Chic and Tabatha Cicero's chapter was mainly a summary of their book The Essential Golden Dawn, with a couple other tidbits thrown in.

I feel uncomfortable giving this book 3 stars because I am impressed by the authors and contributors. I have no doubt at all they are experts in their subjects. But the book itself doesn't come together for me. There's not enough elucidation of hands-on magick, the organization of the sections are wildly different from one another, and even the topics they do cover don't go in as deeply as I feel is required to do them justice.

While it would be naive to think I could learn ceremonial magick from one book, I did expect a lot more practical information. It's not a reference book, it's more of an incomplete history book. If you know nothing about ceremonial magick, it might be a good place to start -- but expect to jump off from there to the authors' more complete works. One more thorough book was written by an aforementioned contributor, Marcus Katz. His The Magister Volume 0 is exactly what I expected to get out of this book: history, in-depth explanation, ritual, and exercises to bring the reader into the practice of ceremonial magick.

Please note that I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Reading this book was difficult.. its basically a quote of information with cited sources.. I didn't enjoy this boring and painful read...

An excellent books, well written and informative.
I learned a lot about cerimonial magick and I think that all the authors write very well.
Strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

There are some very familiar names among the authors of this work, though I don't recognise all of them. The work consists of several smaller 'books' written by people knowledgeable about the various subjects covered. It starts out with introductions by Lon Milo DuQuette (a well-known and respected occultist) and David Shoemaker (whom I haven't come across before). This is followed by a section on the history of magic by Sam Webster (a name I've seen before but don't know well) which touches on some key events but makes no attempt to be comprehensive in the short space allotted.

Next is a section on Kabbalah by Anita Kraft and Randall Lee Bowyer. It has an extensive history, but I felt it failed to get the real depth of the subject. Why would an occultist want to learn about this? I know the answer to that, but I didn't feel it was provided for the newbie reader.

This is followed by Planetary Magick by David Rankine. I've been wanting to read something by David Rankine for a while as he's someone I keep hearing about! Planetary Magick is basically astrology re-branded and this gave a history of it, rather than a how-to, which seems to be the theme of the book.

Then we have a chapter on Alchemy, written by Dennis William Hauck. Again, we got a good overview of history. I was pleased to see mention of the Greek occupation of Egypt, though I've yet to find a book that goes into Alchemy among the Ancient Egyptians compared to the Greek interpretation that is known as Hermeticism.

Demonology & Spirit Evocation by Dr Stephen Skinner comes next. This is one of those very familiar names. He explains the history of demonology and how the name 'Demon' got applied to a variety of pre-Christian spirits, both good and malevolent. Apparently he believes all magic comes from spirits, which many magicians might argue.

The Magick of Abra-Melin by Marcus Katz follows. I read the Book of Abra-Melin the Mage when I was in High School and fairly new to occult literature so I was a little surprised to see how steeped in Judeo-Christian religion this book actually is. The ritual to contact your Guardian Angel plays an important role and for that reason would be of interest to Thelemites. As with the other sections, this one gives a history and a general idea of what it's all about.

Enochian Magick and Mystercism by Aaron Leitch is about Angel Magick and provides some interesting history about the Elizabethan era and especially about John Dee. The Golden Dawn by Chic Cicero & Sandra Tabitha Cicero, authors I've heard of for years, follows. This one started out sounding like a recruitment advert for the Golden Dawn, but settled into history after the initial burst. I think this one crammed too much history of Western esotericism into one chapter. If I hadn't already been familiar with half of the history, which covers far more than the role of the Golden Dawn, I would have been lost. Ironically all that history fits into a fifteen year time frame in the Victorian era and emphasises that much of what we know as Western magic(k) is based in 19th century Christian mysticism. They didn't mention that the original GD members believed in celibacy, even between married couples, but it did point out that women were included and even influential in the Order.

Thelema & Aleister Crowley by David Shoemaker was no surprise as Crowley would have to turn up in a book of this nature. He was mentioned briefly in the previous chapter, but there was more focused attention on his magical influence in this one. The only thing that niggled is lack of information about the actual origins of the concept of Thelema, which is written about in Plato and the Bible.

Polytheistic Ceremonial Magic by John Michael Greer I found a little confusing. It started out with a welcome overview of magic(k) preceding the Christianisation of various systems, then suddenly I was reading passages from a couple of other authors. Perhaps some extracts needed introduction. It then goes into the authors own amalgamation of Druidry and Golden Dawn format ritual instruction as well as a couple of well-known rituals like the LBRP.

We wrap up with Magician's Tables by David Allen Hulse, something important to any book about Ceremonial magick, then The Future of Ceremonial Magick by Brandy Williams, which was, shall we say, abstract and more about the future of our world than specifically about where magick is going.

The author information, placing them both in the Caliphate OTO, explains the lack of mention of Kenneth Grant or of Austin Spare and the rise of Chaos Magick from the 1970s. Despite that, for someone completely new to magic(k) of any kind, the book does provide a lot of interesting history and context for a lot of practices still prevalent today. It would make a good companion book to go with the old texts mentioned throughout the book.

Llewellyn's Complete Book of Ceremonial Magick provides a good introductory survey of the history of Western ceremonial magick from its theorized origins in the ancient Mediterranean and Mesopotamia to the modern day.

Technique is lacking as far as I can tell from the digital ARC I received via NetGalley, aside from an essay by John Michael Greer on adapting the techniques of the Golden Dawn to polytheism. What you miss in practical application, you will find in theory. See what resonates and follow up with those authors online and in their other texts to see how to take more practical approaches.