Familiar Spirits: A Practical Guide for Witches & Magicians: A Practical Guide for Witches and Magicians

by Donald Tyson

For centuries, familiars have assumed many forms-the heavenly lover of the shaman, the wise imp of the witch, and the elemental companion of the theurgist. But the time-honored practice of summoning a magical assistant has been mostly forsaken due to the false perception that it is both difficult and dangerous. Now, renowned occultist Donald Tyson shares his revolutionary system for safely and successfully summoning, directing, and dismissing a familiar. Accessible to dedicated beginners, these techniques do not require expertise in formal ritual, astrology, or the Kabalah.    Revealed here for the first time is Tyson's unique system for generating spirit sigils based on a set of symbols called Power Glyphs. Familiars summoned by this method become valuable assistants who will do everything in their power to fulfill your goals.

Genres: Witchcraft, Occult, Magic, Spirituality, Paganism, Nonfiction, Metaphysics

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Donald 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.

Reviews

[Claudia Loureiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must admit, I really didn't know much on this subject before I read this book.
All in all, this was a very good book, and I've found it to be quite useful. However, there are a lot of things that Tyson presents as fact, such as spirits lie, demons are debasing evil creatures, etc., that are nothing more than his own opinion and are not necessarily true.
The end of the book contains details of his own personal system of sigil creating using his own "power glyphs" which is more graphic than character based as we might find with (for example) the sigilization method of Austin Osman Spare. On the good side of things, his system is very well thought out, and can be easily adopted by a beginner. The Power Glyphs are quite excellent, and the nightly ritual he lays out is simple, if a bit time consuming. However, as with any magick, it can be adapted to any style of magickal practice with a bit of tweaking. The important thing is, his system seems to work, and given a bit of dedication on the part of the practitioner, produces excellent familiars.

[Claudio Yáñez Valenzuela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Como siempre Donald Tyson crea "nuevos" sistemas mágicos, basándoselas en la tradición para personalizarlos a su gusto estético-filosófico. Ahora que -para mi gusto- muchas de esas adaptaciones son innecesarias porque las atribuciones tradicionales siguen funcionando perfectamente; aunque siempre es interesante observar los mecanismo de práctica mágica en un mago de tan larga trayectoria.