Ritual Offerings  is a book you need.

I have just been cataloguing my books for the first time and it made me aware that there were books that I used all the time, those that I read once, and those which should probably be sold to make room for books in the other two categories.

Ritual Offerings, which is a collection of articles is not a book which I want to be parted from.  I am not just saying that because I have a chapter in it.  Magic is divided into two camps.  There are those who talk about it and those who do it.  This book is for those who need to start doing as it answers a lot of questions that took me a few years to solve.

The writers include

Aaron Leitch:  Introduction: Magickal Offerings in Western Occultism

Aaron Leitch: Liber Donariorum: the Book of Offerings

Zadkiel: The Elements of Making Offerings: The Offering as Sacrifice

Bryan Garner (Frater Ashen Chassan):  Whispers from a Skull: Lessons in Spiritual Offerings from a Conjured Familiar

Brother Moloch: Ancestors & Offering

Frater Rufus Opus: The Back Yard Path toward the Summum Bonum

Denise M. Alvarado: Ritual Offerings in New Orleans Voudou

Jason Miller:  Severed Head Cakes and Clouds of Dancing Girls: Offerings in Tibetan Buddhism

Nick Farrell:  Offerings In Roman Deity Magic

Sam Webster, M.Div., Ph.D., founder OSOGD:  Offerings in Iamblichan Theurgy

Chic Cicero and Sandra Tabatha Cicero: Ritual for the Declaration of Maa-Kheru

Gilberto Strapazon: Offerings in Ceremonial Magick and African Traditional Religions

If you have read anything by these authors and magicians this is the sort of book you will want to read, because here they are all on form – they are saying the important stuff which they want to say, but would not necessarily fit into their more commercial books.   It is rare in an anthology that you want to read everything, however this book is the exception.  If you are serious about your magical practice you need to read the lot with some extensive note taking.

The idea of making sacrifices and offerings for spirits you are working with was never mentioned in my training in the Western Mystery Tradition.  At best, I was taught to leave a candle burning after a working as an offering to the spirit you called. This was a hang-over from the days when Christianity was the prime motivator of Western Magic. This changed as other spiritual paths, particularly afro-Caribbean and South American started to be included with some practitioner’s lives.  This provided a realisation that some magical elements which were important to those traditions were missing from the Western systems, much to their loss.

Offering sacrifices, or food to the spirits or the ancestors was such an important part of magical work in other parts of the world, it was a wonder it was missed here.  It was an important part of the Pre-Christian magical traditions too.  The experimental work that produced my chapter in this book aimed to create a system which kept the spirits happy so that they were more likely to work with us, but it drew on existing ideas.

This idea is that working with the various gods, spirits and familiars and angels is not about ordering them about or beginning a snotty being to do what you want.  It is about forming a relationship with an inner plane being or spirit.

The various rules of offerings and sacrifice make the process a two way street and once you understand that the play magic of doing a ritual and forgetting about it is impossible.

As you expect with Nephalim Press this book is beautifully illustrated and made and will make a valuable and functional part of any serious magician’s collection.  You might have to be quick though.  There are only 900 of these made, and I have Number 652 and I was one of the authors!  Needless to say the value of these will go through the roof, not only because it will be a rare and beautiful book, but also because the information it contains is vital to know.

You can get your paws on a copy here http://store.nephilimpress.com/