GORDON STRONG

Gordon is often asked to review some of the latest esoteric titles, Below is his recent review of his good friend Alan Richardson`s latest Book " Correspondences"

Alan Richardson, The Magician’s Tables – A Complete Book of Correspondences. (London: Godsfield 2007) £ 20

Books that look good and feel good are rare these days.  The Magician’s Tables certainly looks like a significant reference work.  You can almost feel the scholarship seeping out from every page. Alan Richardson lives in Trowbridge, Wiltshire and is a respected writer on all things magical and esoteric.  He has written a number of books on magicians that he personally knew and is an authority on Dion Fortune who spent part of her extraordinary and mystical life in the West Country.   

     Before we go any further I ought to explain exactly what a magical correspondence is.  Basically, it’s an association of ideas. Red = danger is the example that the author gives.  From this, whole systems of similarity can be built up, involving colours, plants, numbers, letters, parts of the body etc.  Astrology is involved, as well as ancient gods, the Tarot and the mythology of every culture and society.

     You might be thinking, what’s the point of all this? Practising magic is the answer, and in his lucid introduction Richardson equates the art with expanding consciousness and also with personal development. The author does not shy away from defining ‘magic’, not only in the way that Aleister Crowley saw it but also as a psychologist such as Jung might.  The point is also made that anyone even found reading this sort of stuff in Medieval times could be burnt at the stake. Too easily do we take for granted the freedom of information we enjoy in the twenty-first century.         

      Richardson too is sympathetic to those who might be put off by the idea of magic, and deals with the ‘black’ side very efficiently.  He points out that the evils perpetrated by the Church with their repressive attitudes far exceed the ‘wickedness’ of evoking demons. What also become evident when reading the ancient wisdoms listed in the book is that our Neolithic ancestors did not separate the material and spiritual world as we now do. ‘Religion’ as something isolated and inflexible was simply not their mindset.  Food for thought there, definitely.

     The author explains that the practice of any kind of magic happens on the ‘inner planes’ - another term for the unconscious.  As Jung believed, meditating on symbols is a way of contacting our inner selves and Richardson very eloquently puts a case for using magic in our everyday lives.  By using these correspondences it is possible to set up a flow of energy that opens what Blake named ‘The Doors of Perception. That vision is the kingdom of the imagination, an enchanting place far from the cares of the mundane world.

Gordon Strong