Advanced Magick for Beginners

by Alan Chapman

A new paradigm that delivers a genuine transformation of occultism. The author assumes no previous knowledge, only a willingness to explore what magick offers, yet it is apparent to anyone with a background in the subject that Alan Chapman is drawing on a wide range of experience, from classical Crowleyean Magick, to eastern metaphysics, and back again to Discordianism and Chaos Magick. Chapman's writing-style is humorous, direct, seductively logical, and his enthusiasm for the benefits of magick is both tangible and infectious. The novice magician will indeed find themselves equipped to commence all sorts of magickal trance work, enchantment, divination, and even some of the higher forms of spiritual development. To experienced magicians, Chapman offers a subtler he revitalises magick by cutting it free from the extreme relativism Chaos Magick bequeathed, provocatively redefining it the art, science and culture of experiencing truth.

Genres: Occult, Magick, Witchcraft, Magic, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Religion

141 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My husband asked me what I was reading and when I told him the title he stared at me blankly for a moment and then asked if that wasn't an oxymoron, was the author trying to be funny. Having finished it I can tell you I'm pretty sure that's exactly what he meant.

The book is short, easy to read, and expressly to the point. Chapman has broken magic down to its most bare bones; if you want to know how to make magic happen you can literally toss out your library and just begin by following this formula over and over. And add the other books back in once you've mastered this philosophy. Even a beginner to magic will be able to completely grok and follow this book and make magic start happening.

But be aware this book is a complete deconstruction. If you are the type of person who likes the layers - history, theology, philosophy, symbols and smells and bells and whistles - you are going to detest this book. Chapman's main purpose is to strip away those layers and leave only the necessary scaffolding remaining. Consider yourself forewarned.

Despite this easy beginner approach I wouldn't recommend it to my friends and clients who are just dipping their toes into magic. Not because they couldn't learn from and work with it, but because I think they would miss out on a layer of purpose written into this book. (There are also some things that a true beginner who's read very little else will wonder what the hell he's talking about - not the practices he recommends but the ideas he's deconstructing.) Chapman's deconstruction perfectly works to strip down those layers of tradition and habit and thinking that can be passed on by other teachers and books simply because that's how they were told to do it or it doesn't feel like magic without it, etc... It seems to me that this book is meant to address you after you've ingested some of these other ideas and started forming your own habits and need to have your own magic and thinking taken back to bare bones again. Therefore, not for the beginner, but exactly for the person who is just now ready to begin moving from beginner magic into advanced magical work. A beginner at advanced magic is exactly who this book is ideally for.

So if you've already gotten started on magic and you are at the crossroads that Chapman describes in his book, that place where you feel the call to either "quit dabbling" and go do something serious with your life (though I personally find this option feels more like "it's cool to dabble and go do something real with the rest of your life") or "dedicate your life" to chasing magic. If you're at that crossroads (one of many of them in my experience) and you feel the latter branch calling you to move deeper then this book is exactly the next thing you should read.

[Adam Koebel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book to follow something like Condensed Chaos. Full of very to-the-point ideas and useful exercises. A bit full of itself from time to time, that can be mostly ignored due to the trove of interesting bits.

[Froztwolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Usually, books on magical workings and related subjects are esoteric, full of symbolism and hard to follow. This one is clear, to the point and simple to understand.

In just over 150 pages Chapman manages to give a high-level overview over the entire field of magic, and even touches on how it relates to religion. The writing is incredibly concise and easy to understand.

Irreverent, sardonic and dismissive at times. May well be insulting if you have a strong link to a particular school of magic, or religion.

Would recommend to: Anyone that is curious about what magic is and why they should care.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a brilliant resource and a very good guide for beginners and experienced practitioners alike. The author distills method, theory, and ideas down to their core meaning and gives references for those who wish to find more information. Simultaneously pithy and deep, this book is encouraging to actually get out there and do the practices and exercises given within. "Advanced Magick for Beginners" is easily one of my core distillation guides, next to the works of John Michael Greer, Peter Carroll, David Shoemaker, and James Eschelman.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um dos melhores materiais a respeito do tema, com bastante humor e informações.

[Germán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corto y directo, con todo lo bueno y malo que ello pueda conllevar: Chapman deconstruye la magia y deja lo mínimo, así que quien coja el libro buscando rituales y demás historias se verá decepcionado. Pero, si no, resulta un libro que va al grano, que no abrumará a los principiantes del título (aunque quizás está más bien dirigido a "falsos principiantes": gente que no parte completamente de cero sino que ha tocado o leído ahí y allá y quiere pasar a ser un "principiante" en el sentido de empezar a tomarse la cosa en serio - aunque hay bastante humor en el libro) y que, a través de la experiencia del autor, intenta condensar lo básico y dar el empujón que en muchos casos suele faltar. Quizás en los últimos capítulos se empieza a ir un poco por las ramas, pero en general muy buen punto de partida.

[Aleksandr Lazarev · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is useless!
I can feel how author is pushing more words to make more pages. Pages are small and there are 170 of them (pdf). Nothing new and useful. I tried methods mentioned in this book and found out that they don't work.
This book is another example of commercial clickbait project with no insight.

It has neither Spiritual nor practical value.

[Sean Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written and beautifully bound text that elegantly explains the principles of Chaos Magick. It strikes the right balance between theoretical and practical.

Also, it's very funny. Humour is an integral aspect of this new form of magick which is not bound to ethnicity or tradition or baroque ritual.

[Kirby Coe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting

Glad I read this intriguing book. Highly recommend for both folks interested in Magick and folks who just want a really thought-provoking read.

[Vin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely on the list of book recommendations for people interested in occult studies. Does a really excellent breakdown of magical theory and thought with enough personality and personal experience to make it stand out from some other blander introductions of magical thought. I really enjoyed Chapman's stress on the importance of recording your magical acts and then the eventual follow through as a means of record and proof. I got a lot of good little insights from this that have enriched my practice and overall conceptualizing of magic and how it shows up in my day to day life. In particular, I have danced in quiet a few graveyards as a means of initiating a new period of change into my life. I've seen a few reviewers say this is more of a book for intermediate practitioners due to the fact that there is actually nuanced and well presented advice that could benefit them. I think that's a little narrow minded - I think beginners deserve a book that treats them seriously and Advanced Magick for Beginners absolutely does not hold anything back. The reason it isn't a four star read is the last twenty pages are kind of a boring slog through the idea of the world ending in 2012 as a philosophical dissection of end of the world prophecies. Not necessarily Chapman's fault I'm reading this in 2022 but damn, did I skim. 3 1/2 stars.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent primer on chaos magic. This book is easy and enjoyable to read, and the exercises are straightforward and simple. I was surprised to find out how young the author is--he's clearly very well versed on the subject. The chapter titles are intentionally ambiguous, so it's difficult to find things again in the book. If you intend to use it as a reference, it might be good to take notes so you can find things again.

A word of warning: the techniques presented in this book can be dangerous, and there's a reason the cover has a grenade on it. The author seems to be intentionally leaving out any kind of moral compass here for the reader, and jumps to a non-dual, "no such thing as good and evil" point of view rather quickly. Yes, that can be an important realization for an advanced practitioner, but it's likely to cause a beginner pain and suffering in the short term, and may make it harder for them to progress initially.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, if you want to learn magick there are more serious, no-nonsense options. The author aims at being irreverent, but sometimes he is just straight up irresponsible. If you don't want to get into chaos magick (sigils and servers), don't bother with it. If you want to, reading up to page 150 (right before the part about the meaning of magick), will do. And be ready to deal with a man probably past his 40s who (probably) unintentionally ends up sounding like an edgy teenager who is a step or two above his peers.

[Jon Adler · Rating 4 out of 5]

a helpful overview of what magick is / does / can be. this is my first time reading Chapman's writing directly, and i really appreciated both his humor and the expansive view he brought to the discussion.

i credit this book with finally helping me remember the divide between "etheric" and "astral", two terms i have enountered hundreds of times and yet could could never previously differentiate.

the exercises seem productive, though i read this book in a chapter of life wherein i did not have the time to actually do them. something i would like to come back to in the future.

[Claus Appel · Rating 1 out of 5]

It started promising. The first few chapters were easy to follow. Gradually the explanations became worse and more cryptic.

Chapman's writing style became more and more painful to read as the book went on. He is arrogant, condescending and thinks he is much funnier than he is.

I subtract one more star because Chapman is apparently a climate change denier. He ridicules the threat of climate change and equates it to the 2012 Mayan eschatology fad.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good short postmodern overview of the core basics of what magic consists of really, stripped of all the pizaz. There’s definitely more meat to put on these bones, but it’s a wonderful primer that sets you up well to dive deeper with other sources and in depth traditions.

Im realizing that I actually don’t have any desires I wish to fulfill with magic haha so practicing is kind of a dead end with me at the moment.

[Misty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solidly Good Book

Although I, at times, found the author to be a bit wishy washy it was mostly very good. Humor is used to great effect, the exercises accurately reflect the points he was making, most of his statements were sufficiently backed by reasonable explanations, and he did it all without being needlessly wordy.

[chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Great Book about magickal philosophy

Very much in the vein of Robert Anton Wilson this book reminds me a lot of, there are different simplified experiments that guide the reader on a journey the results of which can only be experienced personally.

Great read to remind us that we make our magick

[Alexander Maricich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I’ve read on the subject of Magick. Cuts out the fluff, easy to understand, and also entertaining to read?! Jackpot!

This book deserves a spot on any magician’s shelf, regardless of what tradition you ascribe to. Couldn’t recommend it more. If only it was the first one I had read.

Why haven’t you read this yet?!

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars and not 5 only because of HOW simple it is. It's extremely straight forward and covers a wide variety of information. It is, i think, an essential read for those looking to walk a magickal path.

[Peter A. Lio · Rating 5 out of 5]

thought-provoking!

Beautifully written and incredibly philosophical, this is what I have been looking for. It’s wise and careful, and almost like the Tao Te Chung at times. I loved this book though I don’t totally understand why.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable with a great sense of humor/humility

[Mary Phan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book.

[Kelly Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could not have asked for a better introduction to magickal thought! If you are interested in magick/the "occult" please give this book a go!

[João Maximiliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. It's a magical manual without anu kind of barriers. Logical and practical.

[Malum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not for beginners. Not because there are some deep occult secrets here, but because the point of the book is to take what you think you know about occult practices and turn it on its head.

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and humorous little book on pragmatic Magick. Light read. Recommended for people into that stuff, such as magick, humour and a bit of chaos.

[Kelly K. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no idea how I got through this

[Obi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the author even when he seems to mock my naivety. It's like having witty parents who explain with humour, how you would get hurt if you dare to touch fire with your bare hands.

[Taylor Ellwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I read this book, what I found myself thinking was that while I found the exercises useful and some of the author's points salient to what he was trying to teach, there was also an odd mixture of push button magic (we don't need to know how it works) and traditional perspectives, which actually in a way fits, but also reveals what I'd consider problematic about this book. There's a tendency to stick with tried and true in occultism and this book fits that tendency. The decrying of asking how magic works fits with the traditional perspectives the author takes toward evocation and other practices and ironically defeats his criticisms of occult culture, because he ends up embodying what he is critiquing.

Is it a good book? I'd say there is some useful information here, and that an occultist will benefit from exploring the ideas. At the same time, what would be the most useful exercise for this book (and really any other book in general) is to question everything the author says, and also don't buy the push button, we don't need to know how it works model. If we don't need to know why it works, why write a book on the subject?

[Greyer Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book breaks magick down quite nicely into action then results. He even has little scientific tables breaking each part of the experiment down. Anything that has been done in magick, he neatly codifies it, simplifies it. You can then add complexity to it to suit your artistic taste, and he even talks about that.
Magick is the Art that encompasses all other arts, turn your life into Art!!