"The Practical Qabalah" by Charles Fielding : A Review

"I recommend this book, but not as your first Qabalah book"

This book was really good...

I don't know if I would suggest it to someone with absolutely NO knowledge of the qabalah, as it sort of just brushes over the basics fairly quickly and then goes into the more practical uses. Hence the title...

As I started to read this, I felt like I was easily distracted and it really didn't hold my attention until I got a few chapters in. Not that it was written poorly, it just wasn't very exciting to me personally since all of the first few chapters were more of a review for me than anything else. I had a basic knowledge of the Tree of Life, as well as the Hebrew alphabet, 4 worlds, etc. What really got me to want to read this was the application utilized in ceremonial magic. This book gave me a little bit of insight on that.

Some of the covered topics in this book are:

Foundations of Western Occultism: a touching tale of eastern spices in western thought.

The Tree and its forces: The ten sephiroth and what they represent

Paths and Pathworkings: The paths that connect the tree together, as well as some mental imagery that can be used to associate with ease in meditation.

Cosmogony: The story of the beginning of the universe cycle we live in.

Esoteric Anatomy & Physiology: how this all pertains to your physical and emotional body as an individual.

Psychology: Mainly about Jung, but Freud and Adler are in there too. Many myths are dispelled about the popular opinions on Freud being a weird creepy pervert due to modern psychology interpreting "sex" to mean "intercourse" instead of generalized "pleasure". Fascinating section.

Karma & Destiny: It explains the differences and similarities between the two, and how to utilize both to get where you want to be.

Ritual: Basic ritual structure, tools utilized in many common practices, and even a few brief practice rituals to help you coordinate your physical body into the ritual mindset. (Ex. in a low lit room, stand with your back to a chair that is six steps behind you. do a short calming breathing exercise and without looking backward walk backward toward the chair. Hear a voice in your head to tell you to "sit" and then do so. Do the breathing exercise again, and repeat. This will strengthen your senses of what is around you. pretty cool!)

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Qabalah with the intention of utilizing it in ritual and even everyday life practices. Near the end, there are two short stories depicting scenarios of people who did such utilization and the small steps they took to make it work. The setbacks and habits they had to face and ultimately modify to acheive the desired outcome. This book helps to put into perspective the fact that "casting spells" isn't just wishing something would happen and sitting on your butt waiting for it to come to fruition. The steps required to manifest your dreams into reality are easy to follow once you know how.

"The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford" by Lon Milo DuQuette : A Review

To start off, let me begin with how amazingly helpful this book is! I began reading this with minimal knowledge pertaining to the Qabalah. Having only read 2 other books on the subject before this one (an act that tends to qualify most "readers" as experts on ANY subject), I was excited to see how Mr. Duquette's method of explaining things would lend itself to such a dry and often times BORING subject. This book changed my opinion greatly!

For those of you who are not familiar with Lon DuQuette's work, he is an occultist, musician, teacher, and all around funny guy. Without writing up a bio about him, I suggest looking him up, and even saying hello to him online. He's a very intelligent and personable magician whom I admire greatly. His sense of humor turns the often repetitive aspects of occult study into a comedic cartoon of sorts in my mind. I laughed through this entire book, and learned quite a bit while doing so.

Some of the topics touched upon in this book:

The ten Command-Rants: basically a short breakdown of what Qabalah is... simplified to ten basic concepts, while making a parody of the tem commandments.

Sepher Yetzirah, the book of Formation: a retelling of the Qabalistic origin story, complete with diagrams and charts helping the reader visualize the process of the origin of the universe (or rather, this incarnation on the ever running cycle of them).

Hebrew Alphabet: This is a very important aspect to the Qabalah, and this book teaches you fun little tricks to help differentiate between certain characters that seem almost identical to the untrained eye.

Four Qabalistic Worlds & Four Parts of the Soul: learn what "as above, so below" actually means!

Tree of Life: The Glyph that most people think of when you say you're studying the Qabalah, when really it is just one of the many keys to understanding it.

Tarot & Holy Guardian Angel: How does the Tarot play into the Qabalah? well, really the Qabalah is the reason the Tarot works at all, read the book for more on that. Also, the HGA is a topic heavily discussed in most Thelemic circles.

I highly recommend this book to beginners as well as adepts, as it not only explains things in an entertaining way, but it provides little bits of insight I've not seen or heard anywhere else on a vastly covered topic. There's even a section where he explains the difference between "Qabalah", "Cabala" and "Kabbalah" for those who have often wondered.

Follow the link below to purchase your copy of this amazing book, you will NOT be let down!

~Rev. Skw¥rm