Franz Bardon, Book list and contents Options

FRANZ BARDON

The following are the books written by Franz Bardon with an overview of their contents:


Frabato the Magician

This is a story based around the facts of Bardon’s life, who was a great adept of the twentieth century. I recommend reading this first as it gives a feel for the greatness of this amazing man called Franz. His life is to be one long round of magickal battles during the 1930s as he is opposed by a black lodge. Bardon starts out as a stage magician although very much a magician in the true sense of the word.


Volume I - Initiation into Hermetics

This book is foundational and set into two parts headed: Initiation I – Theory, followed by Initiation II – The Practice of Magick.

Initiation I is the theoretical background to prepare the initiate for the magickal practice. In the first forty pages, this part introduces the beginner to the four elements: fire, water, air and earth and also looks at Karma, the Akashic/Etheric Principle, the human body in terms of its occult anatomy and descriptions of the physical, astral, spirit and mental planes, finally there are short talks on Truth, Religion, God and Asceticism.

Initiation II gets you practicing magic through exercises on the inner consciousness with thought control, auto-suggestion, sensing energies of the four elements, accumulation of Vital Energy. Tuition is then turned to outward consciousness and harmonising elements, passive communication, entity creation, clairaudience, clairvoyance and clairsentience. There is mental and astral work followed by use of magic mirrors and the loading of talismans, amulets and precious stones and volting through the electromagnetic sphere. There are short talks on telepathy, hypnosis, psychometry, invisibility to mention a few. Volume I ends with final words on the power of life and death.


Volume 2 – The Practice of Magical Evocation

This book follows on from volume I and introduces the magician to the communication with and evocation of entities and in fact, you will need to have studied Initiation into Hermetics before working through this volume. This material is divided into three parts: Magic, Hierarchy and Illustrations of Seals of the Principals, Intelligences, Genii and Beings.

Part I looks at what the practitioner needs to do magic, going into details about the circle, triangle, censer, mirror, lamp and wand and how to load them. Then it looks at the sword, dagger and trident, headband, robe, belt and other magical aids, finishing the first part with the Secret Book of Formulas, being in the sphere of beings, the advantages and disadvantages of evocation, servant spirits and last but not least, magical evocation.

Part II describes the beings that Bardon has experienced either by evocation or mental travel and there is a description of the 360 Principals of the Earth, Intelligences and genii of planetary spheres. Chapter 13 is the final chapter in with on Magical Talismanology.

Part III is a graphical representation of the seals of the principals, intelligences, genii and beings, listed in Part II.


Volume 3 – The Key to the True Kabbalah

This volume in Hermetic magic takes the magician through the Hebrew Kabbalah, again it is a book ordered into three parts: Part I – Theory, Part II – Practice and Part III – The Practice of Formula Magic.

Part I has chapters covering the Kabbalah, the Man as Kabbalist, The Laws of Analogy, The Esoterics of Letters, The Cosmic Language, The Magico-Kabbalistic Word –Tetragrammaton. Following on with The Mantras, The Tantras, The Sorcerers’ Formulas, the Theory of Kabbalistic Mysticism and finally Kabbalistic Magic.

Part II teaches the magician the practicalities of pronunciation and their vibrations to colour, number, elements and planetary spheres.

Part III on the practice of formula magic with the use of alphabetical keys to influence the mental, astral and material planes.

Yes for the very first practical points bardon makes about meditation and self knowledge and taking care of yourself, i think he hits the hammer right on the head. These are all points that are made very logically and set out in a very systematic manner. Unlike regardies golden dawn (which i also own and also love - but for very different reasons) which is a wish wash of all over the place jumping back and forth with a poorly manifested attempt at communicating the informaion systrematically. Its really just old golden dawn manuscripts and a few introductory essays from regardie thrown together in the seemingly sensibilist order possible without actually having to break up or do to much editing to the info. This book could have been so much more brilliant if it was edited and broken up and reformatted with a definive system. But then this is I suppose just another case of an example of us having to rake the muck for the gold.

Godwins is by the by a good peice encyclopaedically, but is really just a time saving alternative to a good hebrew dictionary and the patience to do some gematria yourself. I admit i appreciate the time saved more often than not, but often it doesnt contain ideas or words or the like that i require in my work, and i need to go though the dictionary and do some transliterating and some gemmatri for myself. Sometimes to for words that i would have thought should be obvious inclusions. Anyway, still a great book but in no means perfect.

I must say though that if you find Bardons Initiation to Hermetics completely lacking in worth, then for myself I would be very much interested to discover what precisely is the sort of information and manner of communicating it that you do find practical and useful. If there are works published out there that are that much better in content and delivery than Bardons work as you would have us believe, then in my opinion regardie's golden dawn is not it. A great deal of the book is precise instuction on golden dawn initiation rituals, which despite the merits of the initiation rituals of any order in terms of spiritual growth, do little in some respects when it comes down to the performance of actual practical magickal work. You could just as well dedicate whole chapters to nordic runes as one to tattwas as far as im concerned, but then each to their own i suppose.

If you know of the book theif_and_a_liar that is so great that it puts the works of bardon to shame, and shows him to be the charlatan, and unusually self reighteous, self proclaimed magician that you would have us believe that he is, then please tell me what it is. Trust me ill be amazoning that little bugger.

This post has been edited by extinctionspasm: Nov 30 2006, 11:02 PM