Magick,  S. Connolly,  thoughts

Magic Squares

I don’t know why but I’ve been thinking a lot about magick squares since reading an interview with Nineveh Shadrach, author of the Occult Encyclopedia of Magic Squares. I read the reviews of the book, amazed at the bad ones. So naturally I am going to buy the book based on the bad reviews (since it seems those complaining wanted hand holding and didn’t get it – I’m sympathetic to an author who gets reviews like that).

Of course all of this caused me to ask myself how I viewed the magick square.  I see magick squares not as simply talismans drawn on paper but rather living, breathing, vibrating tools with a great deal of depth and dimension. I’ve always found them fascinating since my first introduction to “tablets” as a student and the first time I read Crowley’s 777. As a matter of fact I wrote an online class about them that instructs people in one method of creating the squares as taught to me by my teachers. Certainly that method, I’ve discovered, is one of several that I’ve seen and been taught by other magi over the years. This goes to show you just how versatile a magick square can be.  In my book The Complete Book of Demonolatry I’ve included the “class material” for my magickal tablets class, too. So if you own that book you can check it out. If you don’t – check it out via the link above. Note and correction about that class material: Whenever I refer to Crowley’s “Enochian” in the lesson readings — please take that to mean “qabbalistic equivalents”. Because technically gematria is Qabbalistic. The Enochian is simply from the Qabbalistic. Obviously I did not catch this error during proofing. At some point I might re-write the class and put out a nice PDF version.

That’s really all I have to say for now. Enjoy! (Oh, and by the way, is it just me or do “Magick Squares” sound like a cereal?)  Mmmm. Delicious magick squares…

Steph is an award winning and bestselling author of thrilling steamy and paranormal romances, dark urban fantasy, occult horror-thrillers, cozy mysteries, contemporary romance, sword and sorcery fantasy, and books about the esoteric and Daemonolatry. A Daemonolatress and forever a resident of Smelt Isle, she is happily married and cat-mom to three pampered house cats. Her muse is a demanding sadistic Dom who often keeps her up into the wee hours of the morning. You can contact her at swordarkeereon@gmail.com

4 Comments

  • Morgan Drake Eckstein

    I wrote a “bad” review of the one hundred square book, Magic Squares and the Tree of Life, (my opinion was that it was useless for most people without a lot of work space and time to spare), but never wrote a review of the Encyclopedia. Basically, I decided that I needed more time to work with the Encyclopedia before actually reviewing it.

  • Steph

    Well, working with squares is definitely time consuming if you’re building them from scratch, that’s for sure. 🙂 It could be true. The Encyclopedia could be absolute rubbish, too. But I figured I’d give it a gander. Perhaps I was most intrigued with the reviews that called it “difficult to follow”, “useless if you want to learn how to make the squares”, and “Unusable” and “Incomplete”. Of course I’m also convinced a lot of people buy books about magic, maybe skim them, but never really read them or work through them. Now I would absolutely respect any review you gave because you actually do the work. But you never know on Amazon who is doing the work and who is pretending to. I’ve gotten several awful reviews on my books by people who, I can tell, clearly did not read them based on what was said in the review. I think they bought the book, it didn’t have what they wanted in it (something quick and easy?) and they immediately dissed the book as impractical. Of course my assumption could be wrong in this case, too. Either way – sometimes bad reviews do intrigue me more than good ones. LOL!

  • Simon

    I have a copy of the Encyclopedia. Bought it because I am mainly working with magic squares and looking how to expand on what I know. To me the information in it could be condensed in a more useful form. Also while titled as an Encyclopedia, it is only the first part of it.
    I would be interested to see how you review it later.

  • Steph

    @Simon – I will definitely be reviewing it eventually. I completely get what you’re saying though. Sometimes a little organization goes a long way. Especially with such a vast topic as the magical square. 🙂

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