Instant Magick - book review

Book Reviews: 2006

Instant Magick
By Christopher Penczak
Llewellyn Worldwide ©2006

Are you tired of magick books that require you to buy out an entire store to cast a few dozen spells? This book is all you need to create instant magick. No candles, no incense, no stones or fancy altar statues. You have everything you need right in your own mind.

Mr. Penczak offers a course of study that truly demystifies what magickal practice is all about. The book opens in Chapter One with an easily understood explanation of what instant magick is. Although the author states that he wrote the book for the beginner, I feel that this book is highly useful for all except the most advanced practitioner of magick. His direct writing style is pragmatic and enjoyable.

Chapter Two breaks down spell work into its basic parts: Altering consciousness; focusing will; and directing energy. These three actions are what all spell work is about, something that is often overlooked in the more common spell recipe books. Instead of listing a number of ingredients and laying out a set procedure, the author teaches the reader how and why a spell works. This book for all practical purposes is like the proverbial “teaching a man to fish” lesson.

Each chapter has detailed exercises that are like meditations. Each exercise is meant to build on the ones from previous chapters. The exercises help the reader to become more focused and aware of the intimate connection between the mundane and magickal planes. Exercises include such things as Elemental connection and balance, the inner temple and controlled breathing. The reader is taught how to create a magickal trigger that can be utilized to achieve in a matter of moments, the heightened awareness necessary for spell work for any daily need. The magick in Mr. Penczak’s book is the anywhere, anytime kind of magick that makes a real difference to the individual and the immediate circumstances in that person’s life.

The exercises later in the book are open-ended, leading to the creations of personal spells that are more meaningful to the individual, and in the process much more likely to actually work than any pre-formulated spells one finds in many books on the market. After all, a custom tailored suit will naturally fit better than one off the rack.

The book ends with an appendix containing a number of correspondence charts for Deities, Elements, planets and colors among other things, making the book that much more useful.

I recommend this book as an excellent addition to every magickal studies library.

5 Goats (out of 5)

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