Baby Gods

Phil Hine’s classic book on Chaos Magic - who knew Cthulhu could prove such fun?

I read this book many moons ago so I re-read it for fun and then again for this review and I had forgotten how good this jolly little text reads.

Let no-one fool you into thinking that this book’s depth comes from the page count - for at 64 pages I consider this ‘teeny’. The value comes from Phil Hine’s description of the mental attitude generated, invoked and lived with by a magician following a Cthulhu mythos.

[amazon.co.uk] [amazon.com]

 

But also the mentality of a magician actually living magic:

"Magic is not something which one merely ‘does’. It’s personal, pu-close. It twists you and skews your perception of the world, tipping you into a world of signs and portents."

Now that sounds better than Harry Potter - right kids?

The explanation of Phil’s rethinking of invocation and banishment to make them contextual for the mythos should encourage the working magician to rethink (again) their approach to magic and default beliefs about magical working.

I also liked the reversal of focus description:

"I have found that, in working Mythos magick, it is useful to develop a reverse talent, the widening of awareness without particular focus, until one perceives all aspects of the immediate environment as a medium for possible communion."

I had not encountered the notions of Theory-In-Action and Theory-In-Use before but the description of Theory-In-Use provided by Phil maps on to my practitioner’s understanding of magic.

"…Theory-in-use, which relates to the guidelines and patterns that a practitioner learns, through practice and individual experience, which enable him to be effective"

I heartily encourage all practicing magicians who have not read this - to read it, and all those who have read it - to re-read it.

Related Reading:

• philhine.org.uk
• Phil Hine Wikipedia entry
• freely downloadable ebooks collated and written by Phil Hine, including Ray Sherwin’s "Theatre of Magick"
• amazon.co.uk
• amazon.com