Real Magic: An Introductory Treatise on the Basic Principles of Yellow Magic

This book is harsh. Very, very harsh. The author was not only a specialist and advanced practitioner of magic, but also a strict atheist and materialist who interpreted magic as a set of yet to be properly discovered physical principles and laws. You'll find no fluff here. This is a hard, almost scientific theorization on how magic might work, with some small practical examples (if you think a "kill spell" is small) added for good measure.And, boy, isn't the author angry? He despises and criticizes to no end everyone he considers charlatans:* Religions? He deconstructs them showing how their rites fit within his theory of magic, hence concluding they're just so many additional schools of magic;* Gods? Useful tools the mage creates (yes, creates) as focus points, but ultimately unreal;* Spirits? Blobs of memories stored in our collective unconscious that living people can tap into;* Phantoms? Those same memories, animated by a living person doing unconscious magic;* Souls? No, you're dead, you're gone.Some aspects of the book are dated, mainly its reliance on 1970's research that for one reason or another went nowhere, its predictions about how the world of magical research would be shaped by the 2000's but weren't, and its "Switchboard" theory of the collective unconscious, which is well behind the current state of the art in information theory. But those are minor problems. The actually important stuff is still as mind blowing as when the book was written, and worth the price alone.If someday in the future magic is proven true and a physical "thing" no different than electricity or nuclear forces, this book will be looked back as the starting point in that revolution. If not, well, it was a good try. In either case, get it and be prepared to have your entire belief set challenged.

P.E. Isaac Bonewits' "Real Magic", has, since the 1970s, been considered one of the foremost introductions to magic on the market. Yet it leaves me deeply unsatisfied, and there have been better introductions before and since.Bonewits' main contention is that magic and occult abilities essentially stem from innate talents, and the rituals, systems and disciplines are basically window dressing on psychic wild talents. Dismissive of all religion and mysticism (particularly the Abrahamic faiths, but he doesn't back down from harping on the Soka Gakkai or the KRSNA Consciousness movements, either), he reduces magic to thaumaturgy- wonderworking- ignoring that this has historically been a subsidiary art to theurgy- divine magic. Magic, for him, comes down to magic as defined in  The Golden Bough ; that is, a ritual science of cause and effect. A materialist, to him there are no intelligences to contact- gods and angels are archetypal ideas and nothing more. To top this off, Bonewits writes with a dated, hippy-ish style that tries to sound cleverer than it really is. I found it endearing when Ram Dass did it in  Be Here Now - in Real Magic, it smacks of arrogance, which Bonewits dishes out in spades. The whole book feels dated in the extreme, with debunked and questionable references to lines of inquiry that ultimately led the "human potential" movement and Cold War era parapsychology to dead ends.That said, the book isn't all bad- it does offer a useful deconstruction of ritual (more completely treated in William G. Gray's  Magical Ritual Methods ), a valid set of magical laws with which I can find no objections, and is peppered with interesting conjectures- as well as some lines of inquiry that should probably be picked up again. However, I can recommend some better introductions to magic: The Occult: The Ultimate Guide for Those Who Would Walk with the Gods The Black Arts: A Concise History of Witchcraft, Demonology, Astrology, and Other Mystical Practices Throughout the Ages (Perigee) The Tree of Life: An Illustrated Study in Magic The Master Game: Pathways to Higher Consciousness (Consciousness Classics) All are better guides to what magic is and is about than "Real Magic".

Before I recieved my copy of "Real Magic" by Isaac Bonewits, I honesly thought I would not like his writing style, his book, or him...based off reviews. It turns out I misjudged myself on that. But I will say that he's one of those authors that you will likely either love him or hate him. And the puns. By the Gods, some of the puns really push it! Seriously, "psi what we will psi"??? Ack!Puns, likes, dislikes, and screaming aside, this book is probably going to be on my bookshelf and perused over and over again until it crumbles into dust! That's about how much I liked it and how valuable I feel it is to any given magical practitioner, regardless of tradition. I really find it hard to believe that, while some parts were revised in 1989, it was orginally published in 1971. The reason this surprises me is that it is still pretty applicable today.What's of even greater value is that he does not take himself too seriously. He comes across with the (largely) open-minded attitude that I feel is needed even today. And he treats the subject with a seriousness that is at the same time matched by a degree of non-seriousness and humor.He even echoes efforts I myself have made in my private research. He managed to look at magical systems across the world and formulate a set (that is not set) of magical laws. This, I feel, is very helpful. IN addition, he puts forth an idea, a concept, an analogy, of how everything is connected and how to use those connections in various psychic phenomena.I'm not, however, going to say, "If you read no other book on the subject, read this one." No. Just no. But, once you've read a book or two on magick, go ahead and read this one. You'll gain something from it.

An interesting work for those working in esoteric traditions today. Eccentric, fun-poking, clever and witty. I'm kind of unsure about it. I'm glad I read it; but come away from it somewhat puzzled as to what I'd learned. Sometimes it irritated me; sometimes it delighted me. I think I'll read it again in a year!

I live the way the author applied physics to the concept of spirit, I felt it gave good insight into how spiritual things may work, and takes the fear of anything going bump in the night.

I wished I had read this book when I first become interested in Esotericism. Bonewits looks quite scientifically and quite often in a humorous ascerbic tone at the subject of magic - real magic. Not pulling rabbits out of hats, but sorcery, thaumaturgy and theugy. It is written for any traditional. From this text comes his 'Laws of Magic' which is bonewits distillation of magical practice the world over.I highly recommend this book to new comers to the occult and 'old hands' alike !

Firstly my apologies to fans of this book, we all like what we like but unfortunately I don't like this. I wouldn't say it's a beginners book but it's certainly not an advanced book either, more of a mini-encyclopedia of the magickal arts, which is written well yet in a style I found quite frankly annoying. I thank the author for his apology at the beginning of the book and I hope he can accept my apology for this review!