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The Truth About Ritual Magic
Discover how magic―real magic―can change your life with The Truth About Ritual Magic by Donald Tyson.
Magic is real. It can give you inner peace and self-confidence, personal magnetism, the power to attain your goals, and a true understanding of your self and your place in the universe. This book is your gateway to understanding a powerful and once-secret
·Discover what you can expect from ritual magic―and what not to expect
·Find out how ritual magic can change your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual being through opening a channel to your Higher Self
·Explore the use of song, chants, dance, and special postures and breathing in ritual magic
·Learn about the basic instruments of ritual altar, magic circle, lamp, elemental symbols, robe, wand, sword, athame, and ring
·Practice a simple ritual to awaken your magical perception of the world
·Awaken your magical perception
As a creative, potent force, magic has been an important part of human civilization for millennia. The power to shape the world still lies within each of us. The Truth About Ritual Magic is your key to deciphering the mystery of ritual magic―and your own latent magical powers.
Magic is real. It can give you inner peace and self-confidence, personal magnetism, the power to attain your goals, and a true understanding of your self and your place in the universe. This book is your gateway to understanding a powerful and once-secret
·Discover what you can expect from ritual magic―and what not to expect
·Find out how ritual magic can change your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual being through opening a channel to your Higher Self
·Explore the use of song, chants, dance, and special postures and breathing in ritual magic
·Learn about the basic instruments of ritual altar, magic circle, lamp, elemental symbols, robe, wand, sword, athame, and ring
·Practice a simple ritual to awaken your magical perception of the world
·Awaken your magical perception
As a creative, potent force, magic has been an important part of human civilization for millennia. The power to shape the world still lies within each of us. The Truth About Ritual Magic is your key to deciphering the mystery of ritual magic―and your own latent magical powers.
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Donald Tyson
98 books154 followersDonald Tyson is a Canadian from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Early in life he was drawn to science by an intense fascination with astronomy, building a telescope by hand when he was eight. He began university seeking a science degree, but became disillusioned with the aridity and futility of a mechanistic view of the universe and shifted his major to English. After graduating with honors he has pursued a writing career.
Now he devotes his life to the attainment of a complete gnosis of the art of magic in theory and practice. His purpose is to formulate an accessible system of personal training composed of East and West, past and present, that will help the individual discover the reason for one's existence and a way to fulfill it.
Now he devotes his life to the attainment of a complete gnosis of the art of magic in theory and practice. His purpose is to formulate an accessible system of personal training composed of East and West, past and present, that will help the individual discover the reason for one's existence and a way to fulfill it.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2025
This book is a really short introduction to ritual magic (in plural). In fact, different forms of ritual magic are performed throughout the world and there’s no way that any single book can cover all of those traditions. Donald Tyson’s “Llewellyn's Truth About Ritual Magic” primarily focuses on ritual magic as used by modern practitioners of Wicca and Ceremonial Magic.
Because there is so much variation among the above, Tyson can only provide broad generalizations that give readers an idea of what might occur if they themselves participated in a ceremony. However, this is to be expected. Overall, this short book provides an overview of the basics of ritualized magic, but with an extreme bent towards ceremonial magicians within a Judeo-Christian religious framework.
Because there is so much variation among the above, Tyson can only provide broad generalizations that give readers an idea of what might occur if they themselves participated in a ceremony. However, this is to be expected. Overall, this short book provides an overview of the basics of ritualized magic, but with an extreme bent towards ceremonial magicians within a Judeo-Christian religious framework.
August 14, 2014
I guess I should start this review somewhere in the middle of I am surely not the target audience for this book and I am really tired of reading this book. For such a small book, it was very painful to spend time reading this book. It’s probably the smallest book out of all of my collection of books, in terms of page number and in terms of size. This book was a triad of poor writing, content being spotty at best [there’s several references to the author’s own books], and just the general, unpleasantness of the content being watered down High Magick from a mixture of sources like Thelema and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn rituals.
This is probably not the book you want to be reading in order to start off with in High Magick or Ritualized Magic. It’s like the diet off brand kind of soda, really metallic in the beginning and the after taste is something unearthly disgusting. I’m just glad to be done. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you already have a good background in Thelema and/or HOGD, but even then…. If you already have that background why are you reading this book?
Metaphysical What Now?
I feel, one of the most important things in having a book which is meant to explain what something is or what the “truth” is about that item, is that book clearly explains these things without any fuss or mush. The author pretty much spends the first six pages doing one of the worst jobs I’ve seen in explaining what magic is and how it works. Instead the author chooses to use a variety of mixed metaphors and flowery language which instead of helping make what’s being discussed clear, only serves to obscure it.
Here’s an example: “Magic is the flowing lifeblood of the Soul of the World.” (p. 1) “Magic is an art. In common with other arts, it draws its power from a deep well in the center of the human soul.” (p.1) – So is the drawing from the human soul, the Soul of the World? Further on: “In The New Magus I define magic as the art of affecting the manifest through the Unmanifest. The manifest is all that can be seen, touched, perceived, manipulated, imagined, or understood. The Unmanifest is none of these things.” (p. 2) So is the soul of the world the Unmanifest? And how is it that the author can understand that there is such a thing as the Unmanifest if it can’t be understood or imagined?
Likewise this bad metaphorical kind of language comes in sexist flavors as well. “Magic has almost a feminine personality. She is very seductive to the newcomer. She taunts and allures with promises of power. She tickles the imagination under the chin with her possibilities. Every time the sorcerer’s apprentice is about to turn away discouraged, she flips her veil and shows her smile.” (p. 12-13) Because those with ‘feminine personalities’ are just about seductive behaviors while playing and toying with people’s emotions, manipulating them. It pisses me off that my gender has been reduced to yet again the seductress – reproduction/sex which is what makes them ‘important.’ It’s about the organs and the jobs those organs can do that makes the ‘role’ and defines the gender.
There’s also elements of classism and ableism in the cliches that this authors use, “But it is no easier to make money by magic than any other kind of honest hard labor. If there is one eternal and unvarying law in this shifting universe, it is that there is no free lunch. Not ever. Not anywhere.” (p. 15) Because everyone is capable of doing hard labor, or wants to do hard labor. Really tired of people pushing hard labor as an “honest day’s work” because it had something to do with physically strength rather than other strengths. I also cherished every time the author brought up about the mundanity of living in a house with access to food and water verses what magic is going to bring to you and spawn in your life. That is probably the best kind of example that I have about the underlying impression that the author had of people who are looking to learn about ritual magic.
The author does love to use ableistic type things in the related explanations of things, for example, the author doesn’t understand why someone would want to have a chair in their ritual – the author views that as cumbersome and annoying. “Some practitioners use a chair, but I find this to be an encumbrance, because in ritual it is necessary to move about, sit, then move about again; and a chair only gets in the way.” (p. 30) Likewise the author says things about mental health like, “If the mind is warped, the feelings will be unhappy. If the emotions are hurtful, health will suffer.” (p. 20) These are all ways to kind of forget that there are other people out there that may need a chair or a wheel chair for that matter, likewise may have some mental illness that does not affect their health or their capabilities for doing magic or rituals or spellwork.
Oh and just a note, while we’re on the topic of isms here, there’s a few bits in here quoted from Crowley who is a massive racist. And the author brushes this under the rug a bit with, “I quote Crowley because, in spite of his faults, he is one of the few writers on magic to really think about what magic is and how it works.” (p. 12) Yeah, just ignore his anti-Semitic, his use of slurs, and racist bullshit because he writes good books on magic. You do that author, you do that.
There were definitely a couple other things that bothered me about the content of this book, like the author stating that Red is most definitely the color that causes a violent response in all humans, the author’s attempts to refute science’s ability to test the accuracy of rituals makes it very clear that there’s no point in doing rituals because you don’t have predictable outcomes, the author quoting forged documents, and maybe culturally appropriating a few rituals tools [that lamp for example] from closed initiatory practices - but probably the one thing I want to wrap up the negative aspects of this book with is the guarantee-itis and the blaming the person for not doing it right.
It’s extremely annoying to see authors telling their readers, if they do it this way, they will get results or they should get results, and if they don’t get results, then it’s the reader’s fault for not doing them properly the first time. [Throwing back to that predictability, am I right there, author? p. 3 second paragraph, why don’t you just review that one right there, author] What I find amusing is that the author, at least in this book, does not actually even bother to offer any examples from their own personal life about what changes in health, changes in how the author views the world from before, changes in the author’s behaviors from before, changes in emotions that the author had before to now, etc etc after taking up magic. How am I to believe you that if I do these things, as you’ve told me to do, that I will receive these changes if you don’t even bother to try to justify what you’re saying. This isn’t I’m going to take you on your word here, I need something else here beyond just your say so.
No review is ever complete without the good parts of things. Now what I appreciated from this book was very, very minimal. Mostly it was dealing with ethics and whether or not casting certain kinds of spells or doing certain kinds of ritual elements was something that we should be doing. Not could we do it or can we do it, are we able to do so, but questioning the should we do it. Is it morally right to do whatever it is being called into question here. That’s something I really don’t see at all in other books, and something that I’m glad was at least in this book. However, the author doesn’t spend very much time for these discussions and does from time to time imply sex and love are the same thing while discussing love spell ethics.
In all honesty, if this book didn’t have this, it wouldn’t have any redeeming factors at all.
I’d say, if you wanted a good basic review of things in terms of High Magick, Thelema, or HOGD, actually pick up a different text than this one, because it’s clear that it would be very confusing and it was confusing.
This is probably not the book you want to be reading in order to start off with in High Magick or Ritualized Magic. It’s like the diet off brand kind of soda, really metallic in the beginning and the after taste is something unearthly disgusting. I’m just glad to be done. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you already have a good background in Thelema and/or HOGD, but even then…. If you already have that background why are you reading this book?
Metaphysical What Now?
I feel, one of the most important things in having a book which is meant to explain what something is or what the “truth” is about that item, is that book clearly explains these things without any fuss or mush. The author pretty much spends the first six pages doing one of the worst jobs I’ve seen in explaining what magic is and how it works. Instead the author chooses to use a variety of mixed metaphors and flowery language which instead of helping make what’s being discussed clear, only serves to obscure it.
Here’s an example: “Magic is the flowing lifeblood of the Soul of the World.” (p. 1) “Magic is an art. In common with other arts, it draws its power from a deep well in the center of the human soul.” (p.1) – So is the drawing from the human soul, the Soul of the World? Further on: “In The New Magus I define magic as the art of affecting the manifest through the Unmanifest. The manifest is all that can be seen, touched, perceived, manipulated, imagined, or understood. The Unmanifest is none of these things.” (p. 2) So is the soul of the world the Unmanifest? And how is it that the author can understand that there is such a thing as the Unmanifest if it can’t be understood or imagined?
Likewise this bad metaphorical kind of language comes in sexist flavors as well. “Magic has almost a feminine personality. She is very seductive to the newcomer. She taunts and allures with promises of power. She tickles the imagination under the chin with her possibilities. Every time the sorcerer’s apprentice is about to turn away discouraged, she flips her veil and shows her smile.” (p. 12-13) Because those with ‘feminine personalities’ are just about seductive behaviors while playing and toying with people’s emotions, manipulating them. It pisses me off that my gender has been reduced to yet again the seductress – reproduction/sex which is what makes them ‘important.’ It’s about the organs and the jobs those organs can do that makes the ‘role’ and defines the gender.
There’s also elements of classism and ableism in the cliches that this authors use, “But it is no easier to make money by magic than any other kind of honest hard labor. If there is one eternal and unvarying law in this shifting universe, it is that there is no free lunch. Not ever. Not anywhere.” (p. 15) Because everyone is capable of doing hard labor, or wants to do hard labor. Really tired of people pushing hard labor as an “honest day’s work” because it had something to do with physically strength rather than other strengths. I also cherished every time the author brought up about the mundanity of living in a house with access to food and water verses what magic is going to bring to you and spawn in your life. That is probably the best kind of example that I have about the underlying impression that the author had of people who are looking to learn about ritual magic.
The author does love to use ableistic type things in the related explanations of things, for example, the author doesn’t understand why someone would want to have a chair in their ritual – the author views that as cumbersome and annoying. “Some practitioners use a chair, but I find this to be an encumbrance, because in ritual it is necessary to move about, sit, then move about again; and a chair only gets in the way.” (p. 30) Likewise the author says things about mental health like, “If the mind is warped, the feelings will be unhappy. If the emotions are hurtful, health will suffer.” (p. 20) These are all ways to kind of forget that there are other people out there that may need a chair or a wheel chair for that matter, likewise may have some mental illness that does not affect their health or their capabilities for doing magic or rituals or spellwork.
Oh and just a note, while we’re on the topic of isms here, there’s a few bits in here quoted from Crowley who is a massive racist. And the author brushes this under the rug a bit with, “I quote Crowley because, in spite of his faults, he is one of the few writers on magic to really think about what magic is and how it works.” (p. 12) Yeah, just ignore his anti-Semitic, his use of slurs, and racist bullshit because he writes good books on magic. You do that author, you do that.
There were definitely a couple other things that bothered me about the content of this book, like the author stating that Red is most definitely the color that causes a violent response in all humans, the author’s attempts to refute science’s ability to test the accuracy of rituals makes it very clear that there’s no point in doing rituals because you don’t have predictable outcomes, the author quoting forged documents, and maybe culturally appropriating a few rituals tools [that lamp for example] from closed initiatory practices - but probably the one thing I want to wrap up the negative aspects of this book with is the guarantee-itis and the blaming the person for not doing it right.
It’s extremely annoying to see authors telling their readers, if they do it this way, they will get results or they should get results, and if they don’t get results, then it’s the reader’s fault for not doing them properly the first time. [Throwing back to that predictability, am I right there, author? p. 3 second paragraph, why don’t you just review that one right there, author] What I find amusing is that the author, at least in this book, does not actually even bother to offer any examples from their own personal life about what changes in health, changes in how the author views the world from before, changes in the author’s behaviors from before, changes in emotions that the author had before to now, etc etc after taking up magic. How am I to believe you that if I do these things, as you’ve told me to do, that I will receive these changes if you don’t even bother to try to justify what you’re saying. This isn’t I’m going to take you on your word here, I need something else here beyond just your say so.
No review is ever complete without the good parts of things. Now what I appreciated from this book was very, very minimal. Mostly it was dealing with ethics and whether or not casting certain kinds of spells or doing certain kinds of ritual elements was something that we should be doing. Not could we do it or can we do it, are we able to do so, but questioning the should we do it. Is it morally right to do whatever it is being called into question here. That’s something I really don’t see at all in other books, and something that I’m glad was at least in this book. However, the author doesn’t spend very much time for these discussions and does from time to time imply sex and love are the same thing while discussing love spell ethics.
In all honesty, if this book didn’t have this, it wouldn’t have any redeeming factors at all.
I’d say, if you wanted a good basic review of things in terms of High Magick, Thelema, or HOGD, actually pick up a different text than this one, because it’s clear that it would be very confusing and it was confusing.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews