Seven Faces of Darkness: Practical Typhonian Magic

Rating:
Summary: Remanifesting a Forgotten Tradition
Review: Don Webb's work, the first public offering from the Order of Setne Khamuast within the Temple of Set, stands as one of the first in what will hopefully be many antidotes against marshmallowy occultism.

Using the same general research method that Stephen Edred Flowers (aka Edred Thorrson) used to reawaken the Runic Tradition Webb dives deep into objective scholarship in order to subjectively synthesis an authentic remanifestation of a Tradition. This is not simply an act of imitation of the past but a contemporary reawakening viable in the contemporary work. No attempt is made to suggest that the individual using this material will experience what was experienced in the past but it will give them the necessary material to partake of some of that Essential quality without looking towards the past with rosetinted glasses.

If the Hermetic Tradtion or 19th and 20th Century Heremetic influenced magic like the works of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley have an interest for you this book will make an excellent addition to your knowledge base of Typhonian Hermeticism, its practice and its influence.

Rating:
Summary: Scholarly, but dry
Review: This book is backed up by a lot of scholarship, and avoids the trap of exploiting ancient Egypt by hanging fantasies on it like so many lesser authors have done. It _is_ practical, and my only qualm is that it doesn't really capture _my_ imagination, anyway. Just becuase you imitate rituals from the past doesn't mean at all that you are experiencing what those ancient magicians were practicing. We cannot share their mind-set (pun intended).