How to Become a Modern Magus Book Review

Introduction

Not promising light or black magick, Don Webb’s How to Become A Modern Magus offers nothing but obtainable skills. Intended as a one-year course, it contains 12 chapters, each sharing a profound magical secret. Although expecting a grimoire on Tezcatlipoca, I pre-ordered the book after hearing about it. It was almost as if I felt there would be something in it, particularly for me. Whether that’s the case, How To Become A Modern Magus is very eclectic, packing tons of information.

Beyond Right and Left

400+ pages, the book goes beyond the right and the left-hand paths. Subtitled A Manual For Magicians of All Schools, it incorporates techniques from some of the most discerned methods of West and East. Starting with Setian thought that proceeds with Shamanism, Toltec wisdom, Thelema, the 4th Way, New Thought, Eastern Mysticism, greek and other philosophies such as the author’s own devices and inventions. It also includes a refreshing perspective on the Golden Dawn, using some of the last century’s behavioral science. While addressing that in a single post would be unreasonable, I’ll examine a few of my favorite wisdom gems. If there’s an interest, I may do a second part.

The Ultimate Goal

Showing how to avoid the pitfalls and trappings of magick, the book focuses on the work’s ultimate goal — the transformation of the magician. Starting with profoundly moving real-life stories pivotal to Webb’s development as (both) magician and scholar, it doesn’t focus on one method. It provides a systematic approach to ‘self-chosen self-change through magic.’ Meaning its information can be applied to any preferred set of techniques. So you have no excuses but to make progress. Bridging different systems, How To Become A Modern Magus grounds and broadens your perspective, nurturing your practice and helping you mature as a magician…and person. This begins with four essential truths.

• “You get what you ask for.
• Enchant long, divine short (as Phil Hine doth say).
• You don’t need expensive materials.
• Where you send your signals is important as what you send. “

The Dangers of the Occult

Rather than promising enlightenment and making you the master of the universe, the author immediately addresses the elephant in the room. Namely, the common unhealthy characteristics shared by many occultists. Besides obsessions with the paranormal, seeing UFOs or being frequently abducted, that includes abusing drugs and believing one is Crowley’s reincarnation. Also, neglecting your health while using the occult for entertainment.

No Randomness and Better Relationships

Instead of relying on randomness, Webb explains, every magician must strive for self-sufficiency. Moreover, that helps the magick work, increasing the probability shifts. The section provides concise yet thorough instructions on preventing your partner from freaking out because of your practice while even improving your relationship. Thank GODS my girl never made me deal with that.

Magick and Energy

Elsewhere, the author explains that magick requires energy — that can be from transpersonal forces, emotions, or vampyric means. It also can be self-created, which is both the means and the goal of initiation.

Initiation

Existing in many forms, initiation is really a tribal thing. It is being isolated from society (for a period) to re-integrate yourself with a new perspective and abilities. You can do the same by dedicating time to mastering particular skills and knowledge, reinventing yourself, and returning as ‘something completely new.’ Let me know if you agree.

Magick is not Enough

As a (semi) self-help junkie, I wholeheartedly appreciate the author’s emphasis that magick alone is insufficient. Despite its powers, magick must be coupled with relentless self-development; otherwise, it cannot do its best, potentially causing harm.

Raising Your Sky

According to Egyptian thought, the sky rests on four pillars. According to the author, raising your sky by magick alone ‘won’t make it stable.’ If you think about it, similar is also emphasized in (both) The Seven Faces Of Darkness and Uncle Setnakt’s Essential Guide. Preceding this one, they both stress the importance of grounding yourself with philosophy and working on all aspects of your life.

The Methods of the Temple of Set

Telling the story of the author’s initiation into the Temple of Set, How To Become A Modern Magus, introduces the reader to the organization’s methods and practices. 

One aspect of the latter is Stephen Flowers’s technique of “reviving older systems as well as a clear reason to do so.” Another is Michael Aquino’s practical approach of “combining Neoplatonism with balanced self-improvement, which is masterfully outlined in Aquino’s MindStar. While the first is the author’s initiator, the second is the Temple’s founder.

The Ultimate Formula

Emphasizing incorporating magick with quantifiable science is the key to success, How To Become A Modern Magus reveals the fundamental formula behind all its tools and tactics.

The Present

The average folks, the author notes, never experience the present; instead, their minds permanently ruminate about the past. Eventually, that makes the person’s future a combination of their ‘recent past’ and ‘unscanned present.’ To help prevent that, Webb provides a formula to use in your daily life.

Elsewhere, the author provides tools for acknowledging your past’s greatness, enabling you to effectively utilize it to bring desired changes.

Elemental Magick

Like ‘more traditional’ Western Magick, a big part of How to Become a Modern Magus is about getting control over the elements. Including Enochian, it works with the keys, not the elemental tablets. Attributed to fire, the sixth key is provided in two versions, one of which is Webb’s translation and pronunciation. I may be wrong, but to me, that sounds different ‘not only to’ GD’s but also to Michael Aquino’s The Word of Set.

One Month Per Element

Familiarizing yourself with an Element takes a month — this is followed by a week-long reflection on all four. Deepening your understanding, such meditations help increase control over the Elements in both the subjective and objective universe.

Comment

In psychoanalytic and self-help terms, this means increasing mastery over your life by making the unconscious conscious, assimilating segments of your shadow. Qabalistically, you start utilizing your Nephesh’s potency by making its hidden aspects collaborate with your Ruach. And by doing so, affecting the macrocosm (or the objective). This reminds me of Crowley’s saying you receive the Angel through balancing the elements.

Not Only The Elements

Like many things in the book, that formula isn’t limited to the classic elements as we know them from greek and Qabalistic philosophers; It also applies to the Chinese and Germanic ways. And though the author doesn’t mention that “I believe,” it may be helpful when working with planetary and sephirotic spirits. Angel through balancing the elements. Given that, How to Become A Modern Magus doesn’t (merely) explain how to invoke an elemental or spirit; it teaches what being successful ‘in doing so’ actually is.

Negative and Positive

How To Become A Modern Magus stresses that each elemental force has virtues and vices, which are all part of your being. It’s just that you’ve been suppressing the latter due to external and internal conditioning. The key isn’t to deny anything but to make the most out of what you have so it serves the greater good. Having practical means, such a process also helps acknowledge your disbalances and deficiencies, so you can work toward improving them and becoming whole. As I like to say:

Personality and Emotional Deficits

A truth reiterated in the book is that the so-called occult seeker is somehow emotionally deficient. Shared by other scholars, this perspective was popularized by Israel Regardie; such as his student Dr. Christopher Hyatt, who became the reason, I started researching people like Don Webb.

Correspondences

In its Elemental sections, How To Become A Modern Magus gives basic correspondences. While most of them match, what you already know, some vastly differ. Two examples are mother-hen warmth being attributed to fire and willpower to water. Webb explains this because the first has the heat of a fire, whereas the second is depletable.

Water and Fire

Usually, Water is associated with the womb, the waters of Binah, and the Great Mother from which everything emerges. Water is the element with the most nurturing faculties, which is all motherly; also, with Jupiter and Chessed, and… pay attention: emotions. On the other hand, fire is associated with determination and discipline, which many people, due to misinformation, attempt to sustain via willpower. Fire also associates with the latter, which, IMHO, may be debatable. Attributing to fire, Mars, Geburah, is also the opposite of Chessed.

Also called the ‘resource,’ the muscle model was invented by Roy Baumeister in the 1970s. After conducting the famous ‘chocolate or cookies and radishes experiment,’ Baumeister and colleagues concluded that willpower is vastly limited and thus unreliable. They saw it as a resource or pool of energy, becoming depleted or spent as you use it. Also, as a muscle that gets fatigued after exercise. This includes making decisions, such as controlling basic urges planning, analyzing, etc.

Water and Willpower

How to Become a Modern Magus notes that Water endures, which, IMHO, doesn’t match willpower. Though some gurus adore speculating you can strengthen it with exercise, modern quantifiable science shows this also has enormous limitations. Understanding that Webb offers to structure your day so you can prevent ego-depletion. Whether the tips provided are the most optimal may be debatable.

Modern Devices

Like Regardie and Dr. Hyatt, Webb emphasizes that modern discoveries and devices are essential for the contemporary practitioner. Speaking of that, more recent research denies the notion that willpower is like a muscle or resource.

The Emotion Model

Micheal Inzlicht, a professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, explains that willpower has been vastly misunderstood for the past decades. Since there isn’t an actual resource/substance to be spent, willpower isn’t a pool or supply. After conducting a metanalysis of numerous studies, Inzlicht likens willpower to an ‘actual emotion’ having its ebbs and flows. And while Webb doesn’t mention it, that resembles Water having ebbs and flows. Though not seeing it as a resource getting spent, Inzlicht explains that what some people define as ego depletion is, in fact, very consistent with the notion of fatigue.

Infinite Water

On the contrary, the philosophical concept of Water or quintessence of Water (HCOMA) is infinite; willpower isn’t. Scientifically, the basic urges correspond to the reptilian brain, whereas ‘willpower’ comes from the pre-frontal cortex. Under stress, the latter can completely shut down. So ‘not much’ endurance for willpower.

Air and Money

How To Become A Modern Magus Money attributes to Air, which (to me) makes a ton of sense. Considering the instant effects, I’ll likely remember the first times I did elemental SIRPs without closing them. About 3 years ago, for Air, that coincidentally included finding a small amount of money right next to where I live.

Skills and Intellect

Money, the author explains, is volatile. It is not to be mistaken with wealth, which attributes to Earth.

Reflection

Air is learning and boosting your intellect and skills. I feel) those are precursors to success, which is a precursor to money. Plus, IMHO, Jupiter, the ultimate symbol of money and wealth, works very well with Air invocation. For instance, sending Paralda before Yophiel for different aspects of the same goal. Or using the Airy parts of Jupiter. But that’s just my opinion. I suggest utilizing the elemental kings via SIRP to determine what corresponds to what if you use GD or Thelema. And to learn SIRP, I offer my video, such as getting the Cheat Sheet I made..

The Golden Dawn

While noting the flaws in the Golden Dawn system, Don Webb recognizes its enormous contribution to putting the wisdom of the Greek and Qabalistic philosophers into practical action. The author explains that the GD, and therefore Thelema, really shine because of connecting four ideas very well:

The Golden Dawn system, the author explains, has some drawbacks.

Comment

Despite wanting to ensure that the order’s teachings would remain after his death, Isreal Regardie shared a similar perspective. A place where that’s evident is in his One Year Manual, a thorough examination of which you can watch on this channel.

The Role of Your Mother

Whether you like it or not, How To Become A Modern Magus recognizes your mom as the most significant influence on your life. Based on my research, this perspective is shared by Mark Stavish, the author of the best-selling Egregors. According to Stavish (paraphrasing), Your mom is your first and ultimate Guru. Scholars, gurus, angels, spirits, secret chiefs, and even God… none of them is before your mom. The section hints that whether it was intentional, your mom also influenced your interest in the occult. And (I think) she really did.

Synthesis and Distillation

Encouraging you to be proactive and stimulating your mind, Webb warns the covered material won’t make sense. You must develop a synthesis. Being a true scholar, the author explains that while vital, this synthesis will be different for each and every seeker. The reason is that the extracting process is based on more than passively meditating on the material.

Real Life

How To Become A Modern Magus actively incorporates the results of your work and unique real-life events from the past and present. As in the Essential Guide, magic and your life should be treated as one. Different for each individual, such a method was utilized by Webb’s bright student James Kirby, a fascinating artist and inspiration Unlike traditional ones, the Setian initiation is unique to the individual, not following a cookie-cutter approach. The author adds that this will form an ‘invisible college.’ Also, help like-minded individuals find each other, which (I think) may be easy with our technology.

Final Words

Flooded with information, the contemporary practitioner doesn’t need another book with promises for enlightenment, correspondence, and LBRP. They need to integrate actual self-improvement while using the latest research and devices and learning how to distill and synthesize. Addressing that need, How To Become A Modern Magus is a masterpiece with the potential of ‘coming into being’ as a Modern Occult Classic. Providing much more than schooling you on a single method, it teaches you how to become what Dr. Christopher Hyatt defined as a ‘gourmet of techniques.’ And though not the most optimal if you’re just starting, it’s essential to anyone with a year of practical work in this day and age.