Kurt Seligmann (1900–1962)

This book is not a how-to, DIY tome; it is a history of its subjects, told in a neutral, dispassionate vein. It starts with Mesopotamia, goes through Persia, the Hebrews, Egypt, Greece, Gnosticism, the Roman Empire, the shifts to Europe and the magical arts that survived during Christian times. The author takes neither a “magic was bad and misguided” nor a “Christianity was a bully that took over and destroyed magic” that is today’s take on the subjects; he stays totally neutral. Yes, he does talk about the witch trials and the trials of alchemists, but it’s told in a ‘just the facts, ma’am” tone. I found it pretty interesting, although quite dry. When you don’t take sides there isn’t any passion in writing, I guess. The illustrations were fascinating; pen and ink drawings of magical principles and things like palmistry charts fill the book. s… (más)

From the Tower of Babel and ancient Egyptian gods all the way to the revival of European superstition in the Enlightened 18th century, this book covers a wide range of people, ideas, places, and magical beliefs. Each chapter, consisting of anywhere from 3 to 15 pages, is basically an introduction to a single magical/occult topic.

Readers will likely find themselves engrossed in some chapters and bored in others, based on whatever naturally interests them. The format of the book was helpful in covering so many different things, but then frustrating when a chapter is particularly exciting and then quickly ends.

Seligmann's book is strongest as a guide to find out what occult/magical topics interest you so you can look into them more later.… (más)

Sometimes I’m not sure if it’s the book, or that I’m not in the mood. It took a while because I was having a hard time staying focused on it, but kept at it.

The book is a little too much of a list of names and dates at times. When you’re going back to the first people on Earth, that’s a lot of names and dates. There was a lot of good information, but it was a little hard for me to tell sometimes what he was presenting as truth, what he was relating from someone else’s point of view, and what he was saying sarcastically or mockingly, since he seemed to not be a total skeptic unless I was just reading it wrong. To add to the confusion he often mocked writers from earlier times for being intelligent enough to not follow the beliefs in magic that most of their contemporaries did, but still believe in other types of magical thinking. It often seemed to me that he was doing the same thing, but again, I wasn’t sure sometimes.

Still not bad.
… (más)