Real Magic

by Isaac Bonewits
Weiser, York Beach -- $26.95

The book is basically a look at worldwide magical beliefs and practices and how magic (and I'm not talking about stage magic here) works.

I picked this book up a few years ago, and I've never gotten all the way through it until now. It came highly recomended from the Pagan community in general, so I was looking forward to the analysis.

Bonewits starts with a very interesting and comprehensive layout of all the different laws that come into play when using magic. Polarity, association, invocation and evocation and how they all interrelate to one another. This is a little bit much to take in all at once, and it's one of the reasons that I never got all the way through the book. It's textbooky, but that's not to its detriment. We're talking about a very complex subject and it's well-written.

From there, though, the book went downhill for me. The third chapter is a very long one on parapsychology, citing very few studies, but the author assures us that "countless" studies have proven various paranormal phenomena do happen. I don't necessarily believe that without a listing of at least some of these studies. The author explains this away by saying that "...if I had included all of them -- would have given the reader five or ten footnotes per page or else an Appendix twice the size of the text". Frankly, I think that's a lame excuse at best.

I also disliked the overall tone of the book. I realize Bonewits was quite young when he wrote it, but after a while the arrogant tone made me want to put the book down and not come back to it. For example: he seems willing to give any magical system the benefit of the doubt, but when he gives an example of a system that fails -- well, it's the Christian one. The druidic ceremony he describes, of course, goes absolutely swimmingly. He also includes a sneer at pretty much every group that disagrees with, or would provide an alternative theory to the one he's proposing.

Give me a break.

The tone and lack of footnoting aside, though, the book does contain some valuable insights into Magic for the interested Pagan. The laws I've mentioned, but also Bonewits' theory of what he calls the Switchboard is worth a read. The chapter on the patterns of ritual was also an interesting read, though I've read better analysis elsewhere, without the ego-trip. Ditto for the chapter defining magic.

My recommendation? The book is worth a look for chapters one, four, six and parts of seven. If you can pick it up second-hand, or borrow it from someone, that would probably be best. The back cover of mine reveals I paid $22.50 for it, and it's probably more expensive now. There are better books out there for that price.

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