Ritual Embodiment in Modern Western Magic: Becoming the Magician (Gnostica)

On November the 19th 2017 I downloaded this book to my Kindle-reader with high expectations. The object of study is a set of five ceremonial magicians and the author/scholar himself claims to be one, too. Reading Lycourinos' tome was to be a piece of cake - after all, I make similar claims as to my interests, and though I don't hold a Ph.D. in comparative religion, I did study the subject for several years at the beginning of my university studies.My first impression after having read 10% was slightly disconcerted. I realized from the author's style that he belongs to the phenomenological/existential school of thought. I have never really enjoyed reading text originating from that school, as its representatives tend to redefine even the most common words and write sentences that defy understanding. Take e.g. this sentence where Lycourinos states the purpose of the study:"...this study is a theoretical and methodological conceptualisation of the ideas and methods modern Western magical practitioners may employ to self-legitimise and self-represent as magicians in terms of somaesthetic strategies of negotiation of subjectivity through ritual enactment."Having waded through 25% I became more and more uncertain what was the target audience of the book and what was it trying to prove. At the same time I started paying attention to the frequency of the word "body" in the text. It also appears in the title of the book and in the quotation of the purpose of the study above - albeit in a Greek form "soma".It all became clear to me at 60% (even though I should have guessed it eyeing the table of contents). Not only is Lycourinos a representative of phenomenology/existentialism, he belongs to one of its braches called "phénoménologie de la perception ou la corporéité" which can be seen translated as "embodied phenomenology". The father of the movement is Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961).At this stage my perception of "Ritual Embodiment in Modern Western Magic" became clear and changed utterly. Lycourinos uses "embodied phenomenology" as the background theory of his study. His aim is to show with the help of his material that "embodied phenomenology" is a sound doctrine that helps us to understand and to explain better the activities of his informant magicians.Well I could not disagree more.Even at the risk of having a representative of "embodied phenomenology" thinking that my intellectual competence is inadequate to understand Lycourinos' study, I dare to state that we have in our hands an unbook, a bulk of semantic noise that may or may not be understood by an other representative of "embodied phenomenology", but certainly not the rest of us. Lycourinos naturally loves to quote likeminded scholars. Here's a definition of ritual by Stanley Tambiah according to Lycourinos' recapitulation:"Tambiah defines ritual as a system of symbolic communication grounded in culturally particular cosmological constructs and reacts against the dichotomy of thought and action by stressing the social implications of performance."I rest my case.Do not waste your money on this one.

You will find this book extremely useful, that is, one who wishes to gain a good view of the total horizon of what is truly involved in the practice of magic -- particular the actual acts and ideas that go into them, and you will find that it is overflowing with great phenomenological descriptions of the people practicing magic, their experience of the energy they feel, at what particular moments, and so forth. Highly, highly useful. The author observes others going magic, and carefully notes all that occurs.Without question there exists a storehouse to be tapped into. It is presented quite lucidly. A very enjoyable and pleasant book. Suggested highly.