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.

I love Franz Bardons books especially Initiation into Hermetics (IMG:style_emoticons/default/punk.gif)

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.

I just finished reading Frabato last night, right of in front of my monitor. The book is page turner - well... mouse clicks? It is exactly what Radiant Star has reviewed, not a stage magician as in tricks and illusions, but stage occult magicians - performing seance, physcometry, healing, hypnosis, etc. Very entertaining, informative and some pages are thought provoking. A must read for anyone interested in Bardonian system.

Hey all.

I just browsed through Bardon's Initiation to Hermetics, and I feel so sick I think I will throw up. This is definitely the worst treatise on magic I have seen in my entire life. Line after line of utter bullshit and idiocy. I don't know where to begin. It's all so far fetched and missing the point as it is possible to be.

Here is something I read which started to make me skeptical:
"The so called “sorcerers” are by no means initiates but only imitators to the mysteries, who counting partly on the ignorance and partly on the credulity of the individuality or a whole nation in order to reach their selfish aims by, lies and fraud. The true magician will always despise such practices." This is at the very beginning of the book. What is he trying to prove with such a statement? Does he really think we will take his word as an authority on these matters that soon?

I'm not sure how I shall approach my critique of the rest that he writes. I'm so angered right now I hope to only need to say how I perceive it, and that is that Bardon writes so much garbage and nonsense over the subjects he chooses, the book itself is completely useless as real information.

Heh, it's funny how personal I take it when I come over books like these. Maybe it is his writing style, because he should have been much much more humble in what he wrote. He's a nobody. Don't buy this book.


-thief

Greetings Thief_and_a_Liar!
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. In the day when Bardon treatise was written the world was a smaller place and information (including misinformation) didn't flash around the world in a blink of an eye. Try reading between the lines and take it from the perspective of a man who initially was not an occultist living in pre-WWII Checholslovakia. Perhaps read up on his history before condemning him outright. If you are a follower of the present day Chaos Magic(k) then you have already been reading Bardon through the works of Phil Hine and Peter Carroll. There is no one on the face of the planet that cannot be criticized...the real progress is made when we can extract the gold from what appears to be mud.
IMHO...of course!

Phil Hine and Carroll you say. That is quite amusing since these two are of the same kind of writer as Bardon, judged from this only book I read. (To judge an author completely by one book would be an error, so I really need to look at his other books first.) However...
By same kind of author I mean an author doing guesswork and presenting it as if it was tested to work. Anyone who claims to do real progress within their systems I would personally dare say were delusional. It's just not information when the experience I get from reading their books, including Bardon's, that I myself could have, or more correctly most of the time, already have made up such ideas, only I would never be so dumb to publish them. I love speculation and free thought myself, but most of it is simply junk.

Your defence of that Bardon lived in a special time and place really won't pass as an excuse with me. You are right that I haven't looked upon his history, and from his Initiation to Hermetics I can only guess that he was very young, and only had a sudden urge to pass on second-hand information that he might have been hyped up about at the time. Because the book shows zero reflection in my opinion.

I am sorry to say I could not distract any gold from the book, but I will give his other books a chance one day. Too bad that their titles already tell me that the contents may be of the much too basic type.

edit: I know it would seem like I am only showing off my ego here, but I have always been short-tempered when it comes to bad occult literature.

This post has been edited by thief_and_a_liar: Jan 5 2006, 05:35 PM

Rakesh, a fairly new member methinks, made a recent post that was deleted in the recent craziness. Rakesh who's from Germany suggested that Initiation was in all actuality written by Bardon's secretary who took his notes and essays and then compiled them into a volume adding a lot to the rather sparse amount of information she had. I personally prefer Ed Fitch's Book of Shadows.

Well said Thief! I doubt that Bardons further works will impress you favorably. And in his defense, you'll find that many of his contemporaries (Crowley, Blavatsky, etc.) had some fairly controversial viewpoints concerning the occult community at large...Spare was accused by Crowley of being 'a black brother' ie sorceror (at that time). Those of one occult lodge would say bad things about another lodge, trying to defame one another over petty bickering or even slight philosophical differences. It's going on to this day.(*gasp*) Perhaps we should try to compile a booklist of authors that pique your interests...? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

This post has been edited by bym: Jan 5 2006, 09:47 PM

Perhaps we should try to compile a booklist of authors that pique your interests...? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Well, this will be off-topic, but alright.

I like informative and encyclopedic books like Regardie's "The Golden Dawn" and Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia. An occult book should also be free of moral or claims of authority. An example of a straight-to-the-point book could for instance be Frater U.'.D.'. 's "Practical Sigil Magic".

Nicely written review.

I've not read these books, but from what I gathered they seem like decent introductionary reading material. Not quite for the starting Magi among us, but certainly for the ones who have been with it and are near the end of their beginning stage.

It seems you should not take the books by heart, but stay sceptic. Then again this is a requirement needed for all information you get. Try it out yourself, make adjustments if needed and go on.

I'll keep an eye out for these volumes as I'm sure they'd be interesting reads and will brush up some of my older knowledge as well.

Greetings, Personally my oppinion is that Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics is a great place to begin. It is a good book to start the basics before before attempting more advanced forms of magick, no matter what path you choose. redhand

Greetings, Personally my oppinion is that Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics is a great place to begin. It is a good book to start the basics before before attempting more advanced forms of magick, no matter what path you choose. redhand

Yes it is, though it sounds a bit old fashioned and it is hard to grasp in some places.

It just takes what every magickian will need to use in the end and that is patience, determination and hard work. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_bookread.gif)

I enjoy the book but I haven't gotten past the first steps.. which he says to complete before moving on. I cannot honestly claim to hold no thoughts (much less focus on a single thought) in my head for 10 minutes without a single break. If I am correct, even Crowley and others were liable to have many breaks during their practices, especially when starting out. I have heard Bardon's guidelines are overly rigid. Any suggestions on this matter?

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

I enjoy the book but I haven't gotten past the first steps.. which he says to complete before moving on. I cannot honestly claim to hold no thoughts (much less focus on a single thought) in my head for 10 minutes without a single break. If I am correct, even Crowley and others were liable to have many breaks during their practices, especially when starting out. I have heard Bardon's guidelines are overly rigid. Any suggestions on this matter?

I just moved on, I cannot keep a clear mind for love nor money as the saying goes, but I get results in my practice.

Bardon is just a little over the top in some places, however, don't let that put you off, I believe that if you were on a desert island and could only take 2 books, then Bardon's IIH and PoME would set you up as a ceremonial magickian.

I agree with RS . . . at least in the initial work of IIH (through step 1). Go over them . . . practice them some. They will be important skills later, but initially just work them enough that your specifically aware of each one, and basically how / whats done. Then move on.
And as you move through the further sections, keep working on the earlier too. More practice, the better you'll get . . . and the faster it will happen.
(as a side note, just relax . . . no really, thats more important then you might think . . . when he says relax the whole body, really !! . . . spend some time just on that work, it'll pay off.)

You'll find later why you want to be more skilled (mastery) with those, and you'll go back and put more (lots) time in later . . . like thought control . . . you'll end up working that one over and over (and undoing bad habits learned before you go back and do it right)
(personally, I went through step 4 and am constantly retracing from rushed bad habits . . . and really just now working on 5. Wish I had been more patient with myself years ago . . . oh well.)

Yeah RS, I'd agree with you on that island thingy . . . one would certainly be set ceremonially (though a box of Tarot or the I Ching wouldn't be a bad suppliment . . . those deserted islands can get uber-boring).

This post has been edited by palindroem: Dec 1 2006, 08:20 AM

LOL Ok i will go back. I have looked at a few books with varying techniques and it is tough to try several of them out, especially when they want you to stay the course for weeks at a time.

Bardon says "don't go beyond this stage before completing these exercises" so I took him at face-value and resigned myself to not finishing. Do you think its a test of the aspirants willpower?

My opinion on Bardon is great though. I know some people may disagree but I enjoy the style of his writing. Also, we must note, it is a translation so saying he writes horribly (or very well) is not an unqualified statement.

What I really need to do is the magic mirror of good/bad qualities. It is insanely funny how I manage to put off something I really think I should do.

This post has been edited by Sparsespartana: Dec 1 2006, 11:43 AM

I think it's a matter of personal preference whether one chooses to perfect stage one before moving onto stage two. What must be remembered however, is that the if you start to find difficulty in later working it's because you never fully mastered the ideas and practices of stage one, which is a solid foundation for future magical work.

i can believe that people are not getting this system. It is riddled with secrets and hidden doors. the magick is there if you really meditate on it then you will understand. This is a big clue that will be the key to it all remember the number 3 and what it stands for then the keys will open the doors.