Kirjahaku

A Dark Song (2017) is a cult movie that presents maybe the most realistic depiction ever of ceremonial magick.Its heroine undertakes "the Abramelin ritual", an occult process for summoning her Guardian Angel, so that it might grant her stated wish to meet again with her murdered child.Yet the ritual depicted in the film is not entirely fictional. It takes its name from an actual magical working, once attempted by the notorious Aleister Crowley, and undertaken by real-life occultists to the present day.This book explores their experiences. It examines what the real-life Abramelin ritual is and the way it works. And it answers the question of how A Dark Song offers such a realistic representation of magick when angels and demons are not supposed to exist in reality at all.

Using occultism to understand the paranormal sounds like diluting water or burying earth, but in this thoughtful and unusual book Duncan Barford draws on a deep familiarity with modern magick to provide a valuable toolbox of concepts for exploring the relationship between consciousness and the paranormal.Writing in an accessible and humorous style, Barford examines intriguing first-hand accounts of poltergeists, telepathy, communication with the dead, religious phenomena and astral projection. The essence of his unique exploration is that the paranormal does not happen only to special people and on rare occasions. In fact, to experience the paranormal we need simply turn our attention to the nature of our consciousness itself.