Tell Me What You Think Options

I know probably all of ya have heard of Michael Ford. I'm thinking about buying a couple of his books. Then I read an article of his on chaostatic.com. Now I am confused. Hopefully someone here can set me straight.

It seems to me the guy can't make up his mind on whether or not the individual is the deity, the deity is within the practitioner or the deity is something outside the practitioner. From what I've read regarding his books, the deity is not the practitioner, because of the religious rites use in his books to invoke/envoke them.

The in the article he comes off as deity aspects are something within the practitioner. If this is so, why would he or any other person need/desire a rite to get in touch with these inner deities?

Finally, does anyone have any of his books? Are they any good? How about the rites/exercises in them? What were your experiences using them?

We ordered in some of his books at the occult shop that I am "affiliated" to. Initially we were quite excited when they came in, then we got around to reading them....

The first one we had was "Luciferian Witchcraft".

I guess one thing in its favour is that a lot of it is (apparently) ripped off from Andrew Chumbley. Since his material is like gold-dust you could get the Ford book instead and try and pick out the Chumbley stuff from that, although I don't think any of it is referenced.

Bad points are:

- Everything else. Seriously.
- His understanding of the myth cycles and entities that he utilises is shockingly flawed.
- His rituals are poorly constructed and poorly referenced. There were several counts on which I looked at what he was saying and realised that a) He had pinched it from somewhere else, and b) He had it out of context and was applying it incorrectly. I am sure other people would be able to spot other instances of the same thing depending on their own areas of specialisation, so this is further evidence of his fundamental failure to engage with the material. Like I say, most it is seems to be stuff he has cut n' pasted together from other sources without understanding them in the first place.
- Further to the above, the rituals aren't even that good anyway! That said, it is probably a good thing as otherwise they would be dangerous for the kind of inexperienced people that seem to buy the books.
- I get more "Luciferian" things free with my breakfast cereal. It may seem frightfully exciting and blasphemous to a 13 year old, but not for anyone that has got past puberty.

That was my opinion based on a couple of cursory flicks through the book, but a couple of people I know bought copies before any of us had looked at them, got them home and came to the same conclusions. We stuck them up next to the Satanic Bibles and Necronomicons and they seem popular with the hordes of gothic teenagers that we get trooping in on Saturdays. We also got in some more of his books (since the first one was selling to the kids) and they seem to sell through as well, although not to people over the age of 20! I mean, "Luciferian Sex-Magic"?? Please!

I have had a flick through some of the other titles and the overall quality seems comparable, so I cannot recommend them.

Edit: Here is a synopsis of one of his other titles at amazon.co.uk:

"Presenting the forbidden works of Chaos, Vampiric and Luciferian Sorcery. A grimoire which explores the dark feminine current of HECATE, Witch Moon explores ritual and dream Lycanthropy, Chaos Sorcery and Luciferian Ritual practice as well as the darksome practice of Vampirism and Predatory Spirituality. The Nine Angles and the Trapezoid workings, inspired by Anton LaVey and presented around the cult of Daeva-Yasna, the persian demon-sorcery of Yatuk Dinoih. Contains the Rituals of Dream, ritual and astral vampirism as an initiatory tool, other Cabalistic workings presenting the Qlippoth. Contains the Grimoire based on Ancient Egyptian Vampirism, LIBER AAPEP, Luciferian Magick practice, The Chaos Cult Workings of Choronzon as Vampire, The Rites of Hecate, the Infernal and Luciferian Sabbat, and the foundations of Satanic practice in Magick."

Speaks for itself really, doesn't it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/insane.gif)

This post has been edited by J*S: May 20 2007, 04:16 AM