High Magic II: Expanded Theory and Practice Paperback – Illustrated, October 8, 2008

I am reluctant to give a review because this is so good. If you want to be a magician study this book. You don't need a magical order. If you follow the wisdom of this book and the first one you will become one of the true far seeing people. You will begin to live in a different world. You will start to cause a change to occur. Or you can join an order and pay money and let someone else decide what is best for you. The author calls this pragmatic magic. I agree. He educates you on all avenues of magic. It is a little light on qaballah but it makes up for it on other levels. It will give you a solid foundation. I been studying this art for more then 35 years and if I would have read this 20 years ago I would have saved a lot of money,.

This book is the second (so far) in Frater U.:D.:'s High Magic series and I reckon that in many ways it is better than the first. He continues with his pragmatic and ecclectic approach to the occult and for that I am gratefull. The fact that no one system is seen as king is extremely fresh.Once again, the book is organised so the reader gets information piecemeal so that it can be properly cognized and worked with. In this fashion he covers yoga, mirror magic, mudras, divination, shamanism, evocation, the Abramelin operation and much more. One of the issues that people seem to have in regards to the previous book is that there is no Qabalah, well that has certainly been rectified here. While it may not be as in depth as other books it serves as a good introduction (truly the Qabalah deserves its own book as there is so much to learn and do). The historical information regarding different orders and their practices is interesting but just remember that history is subjective and different sources will tell you different things. Frater U.:D.: also discusses combat magic in this book which is a first for most introductory texts. My personal opinion is that knowledge is the best protection and knowing how someone could attack you will help you protect yourself far better than putting your head in the sand.As you can probably see from the star rating, I really like this book. It has given me a different outlook on some of my practises and I have actually gained NEW information from it (compared to most introductory books that seem to just rehash old material). Frater U.:D.:'s take on morality is refreshing and realistic and his take on demonology is quite interesting, maybe not how I would tackle the subject but who am I to judge. I also like his reports from magical practice, it's nice to see how others work and to see their successes and mishaps. It lets us know that they are humans too.The debate about whether this is truly High Magic will continue however as there are a lot of "low magic" techniques in this book but at the end of the day who really cares? As long as the information is correct and helpfull then it shouldn't matter and if it really matters to you then pick up The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites & Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order (Llewellyn's Golden Dawn Series) or something similar and have at it!So as it stands, High Magic I and this book are one of the few good introductions to high magic and if you follow the system in it's entirety then you shant go wrong.... too often.Wizrd

Great Book, 2 of 2, Top Notch Coverage of Subject!!!This order consisted of Three Books in One Box:The product Packaging was Terrible, No interior protection, Box itself just about fell apart without any outside help!Was delivered by Amazon, Not Third Party Shipper, Awful treatment of a Valuable purchase (to me), for some unknown reason the Damage was very Minor, considering how the package arrived!!! When opened one entire end of box fell off. I did Not Pay for Premium Shipping, and in my opinion it was Sub-Standard!!!

This fills in the parts that High Magick leaves out excellent execution.

Good book

Frater U.D.. has provided an invaluable service in publishing this material which is an overview and how-to-guide of many different magical systems presented with open-mindedness. Highly recommended!!!

Great material, most appreciated. I carried it around with me for days and days. Playing little games like not looking at itfor a whole day....and then looking at it...to see if I still liked it. I DID!!!

2 contained quite a bit more esoteric information---both practical and theoretical. He went farther into the "dark side" than I would have preferred.

I love it

This book is fantastic, however it is not a stand alone book, it has been written with the notion you will have or are, working through the first book of similar title. If you're thinking of buying this book I would recommend you purchase the first one "High Magic practice and theory" and spend your time with it.There is a massive amount of information in both books and to work with this book you will need a sound foundation of the practices of High Magic before you will be able to make much use of the information contained in this one. I have enjoyed both books enormously but I have spent years of my life dedicated to the arts and crafts of magick and Frater UD is in my opinion one of the magical gems who is definitely worth reading about and listening to. If you want to be a real magician/witch you must start at the beginning and dedicate years of your life to become accomplished, there are no short cuts.

Frater UD's best book is without question Sigil Magic. This book seems to have a lot of information in it on practice not theory which in theory sounds good but not so much in practice lol. I find UD's writing style to be a little annoying at times, and pretentious, in that at times he seems to use multiple levels of abstraction to discuss something without just telling you what it is in a few direct sentences, like he enjoys 'the sound of his own voice' without concern for the effectiveness he is conveying information to the reader. The chapter Folk Magic III on doll magic is actually only 3.5 pages as the later sections in that chapter have nothing to do with doll magic whatsoever, so it is misleading and likely a result of poor editing. So yes I would probably recommend it, but on the strength of this book I won't bother buying High Magic (I) as I found Stephen Skinner's book Techniques of High Magic to be less full of waffle and with more background. Also the idea of UD's to include many different styles of magic for chaos magicians interested in ceremonial magic, sigil magic, evocation, folk magic etc. is ok but it omits many other types of magic that might be of interest, e.g. psychic vampyrism, reiki etc. It could also omit some of the historical information about the organisation of the HOOTGD which doesn't really give you the theoretical background of the ceremonial rituals.