So, a rather powerful storm that visited recently made its way through an opened window (imagine that) and managed to effectively fry my laptop, plus a Wacom tablet and an iPod touch. What work had been started on my graphic little Tarot thingy (see last post)-- which wasn't much, admittedly-- was on the computer and, hence, has been put on the back-burner. Beyond that, I want to take the time to find a more... shall we say, legitimate source of information on the Tarot.
I managed to find a PDF copy of Magic in Theory and Practice online, which I've uploaded to the Kindle Fire to read. Thus far (48 pages into the 327 page PDF) it's a pretty good read-- good in the sense that it's interesting, not so much easy to read. Unfortunately, the conversion process has rendered the tables in the book unintelligible. (The same thing happened with the version of 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley that I purchased from the Kindle Store on Amazon. As far as I can tell, tables account for roughly ninety percent or more of the book, rendering it effectively worthless.) In case you didn't know, there are myriad places spread across the internet to find old esoteric texts. The problem I have with this is their authenticity-- the degree to which they've been edited, modified, or just screwed up in general. I've read some, and liked some of what I read, but I feel as though I need a hardcover to feel secure in their legitimacy, especially after the debacle with 777.
That being said, I need a magical journal. Granted, any notebook would essentially be suitable as such a thing, but I really just don't have the four dollars I'd need to get the little notebook that I want. (I'm very particular about the notebooks and pens that I use.) I've not yet been able to get a copy of Aleister Crowley and the Practice of the Magical Diary, but I don't think it was written by Crowley himself, and I figure I have the intelligence and/or creativity to effectively create a near-proper magical journal on my own. (I'm using the terms "diary" and "journal" a bit more interchangeably than I believe they actually are. Full disclosure, the term "journal" always seemed to be the more masculine term, and so that's the one I usually go with.) I've taken ideas from the book on Tarot I read and Alan Moore's Promethea (funnily enough) for how I intend to start this journal of mine. I also found an article online about magical journals that I printed to PDF and plan to upload onto my Kindle and read-- more for inspiration than for factual content, mind you.
I've been reading quite a bit about magic(k) lately. The tenth of 777 that wasn't tables was interesting, but not anything overtly informative. I've read some into Agrippa's books, read a bit about sigil magic here and there, made my way through Promethea (comic series as treatise on occult philosophy, your mileage may vary), Scott Cunningham's Earth Power, most of Arbatel of Magic, and a few other things here and there. In reading a bit all over the esoteric map, plus doing my research elsewhere, I've gotten a clue as to what I should and shouldn't be reading. Case in point, I think I'll stay away from anything else written by Cunningham, and everything else published by Llewellyn in general. (As I stated before, I do intend on picking up the Steampunk and Necronomicon Tarot sets that are currently sitting my local Books-a-Million.) I would love a crack at a real occult bookstore on of these days, yet I'm pretty sure the nearest ones are an hour and a half to three hours away. That's pretty far for a guy who can't swing a four dollar notebook, you know.
Anyways, that is all.
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