Chinese New Year Reading

Finally, Chinese New Year celebration is almost over.

This year, I only had a few days break for the lunar New Year. Still, I managed to revise a bit of my Thai grammar, read a few pages of Strabo’s Geography, and though might not really appropriate for Chinese New Year, I had finished reading two of Lon Milo Duquette’s books, his The Key to Solomon’s Key and Aleister Crowley’s Illustrated Goetia.

Frankly, The Key to Solomon’s Key is a bit of disappointment, for a distinguish author like Duquette, this book is certainly inferior to his other books. This book, purportedly about Freemasonry and the Lemegeton, offers little on both subjects. One can get better books on the same subjects, though this is not to say the book is uninteresting. A novice might find this book easy to read and serves as a good introduction to the subject, though many others would certainly like a more in-depth book.

His Aleister Crowley’s Illustrated Goetia does not disappoint me though. As indicated in the title, this book is largely based on Crowley’s Goetia, but there is much additional information available, and Duquette’s own experience in Goetic working is a very interesting and inspiring read. The Goetic operation in this book is simplified and easy to understand; the accompanied line drawings are equally interesting, while some seems to be inspired from the illustrations of Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal, many are notably different. I always want to perform a Goetic operation, my advertisement seeking of Goetic evocation companion in several social networking websites receive no response, so I think I would have to perform it alone.

Now, perhaps it is the time to get a Triangle of the Art and the Abramelin oil…