ARARITA

A detailed breakdown of the Star Sapphire ritual, this is not a book for the novice. Detailed associations are drawn to the Tree of Life and the Tarot. The author, 'a Traveller in Darkness', ascribes the ritual to the general arena of 'crossing the abyss', giving large amounts of space to describing why that is so. For my taste, perhaps a little too much so, but then, to write a book about a one-page ritual, its necessarily going to go into a lot of detail.

Nevertheless, this book does what far too few others do: delve into the technical details of HOW the ritual works. It's not sufficient to say that a certain ritual is a "banishing" ritual, one should explain how it banishes, and, in fact, exactly what banishing is. How the material on the page is designed to affect the operator and why. Anyone attending a catholic mass, for example, comes out transformed, refreshed (depending on the skill of the priest), and that is because various elements in the mass were designed to create specific effects on the mind (perhaps also on reality, but as we cant know reality except through the mind, its irrelevant - if the mind has been changed, everything has been changed).

Anyone looking to put this ritual into practice is given specific recommendations as to how to perform it, whereas Crowley only gave veiled hints. These practical elements may go beyond what Crowley himself intended and performed, but they certainly appear congruent with Crowley's intentions, and if they do go beyond Crowley, I would suggest that the author has done a valuable service.

I concur with the author that various groups that claim to have inherited from Crowley may beg to differ, but if that us their position, the answer would be to develop their own expansion.

Blocked in genuine gold on purple cloth, this limited edition (250) book will also look somewhat grand on the shelf, all the more because its not draped in some crappy dustjacket that cant be thrown away because it would halve the value in years to come. Not for children.
8/10