Ideas For Spells Options

Okay, I've been on a horrifying and shameful Tolkien binge lately. Literally, horrifying. Three weeks and I read the Hobbit, all three Lord of the Rings books and the Silmarillion. I'm now working on the unfinished tales. Those of you who have access to the box of spells forum (for those who don't... you'll discover many things by the time you reach thirty posts, and access to more forums will be your reward) may have seen my spell for large-scale protective shielding. I got the idea from the Silmarillion. This is the point of this post: to point out the wonderful ideas for spells and things that books can give us. So these books have given me great ones (seeing as the majority of books that include magic are distinctly Harry Potter-esque in the style of the spells used; wave a wand and it will rain candy, the gold ideas are few and far between) and I was wondering: what books have given you great (or good... or average... or bad... you get the point) spell ideas?

Putting aside books about magick I think the old works of the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Celts, Norse and tribal narratives have given me a sound understanding of what is possible with magick and how to go about it. But for pure inspiration, and its a tad embarrassing, the Dresden Files though they are filled with admittedly Hollywood sorcery are quite useful. They tend to embellish in the results of a spell rather than play with the metaphysics of magick like Harry Potter.

Fiction is another way to understand our world- sometime is better. Goethe's Faust is a good example, though fiction it relates a humanistic perspective of a magickal practice, covering its benefits and follies. Shakespeare's Tempest relates neo-platonic rites of a mage, and midsummer's night dream contains a lot of folk/fae magick. The Tales of Alvin Maker are a good source of material for folk magick, voodoo, and natural magick - geomancy, laylines and the like- fun to read too. But in general, the best sources of information and inspiration come from ages when magick was more common. In our age magick in books and films is often just fanciful fluff.

Philosophy is a good place to look as well, C. G. Jung being the most common. My opinion being that sympathetic magick works best when one knows the architecture of the mind. Similarly, academic research into historical occult practices are full of useful inspirational sparks. The Magic in History Series is particurlay good.

--edit--
I forgot the holy books of most any religion but Jewish and Gnostic mysticism contain the bulk of human oriented magick.

This post has been edited by fatherjhon: Jul 29 2010, 08:11 AM