Phil

Absolutely magnificent translation.

Reveals what surely must have been the true spirit of Homer, as rip-roaring tales, but told with high ideals and fine language.

I’ve tried several translations, and this is the first time I’ve got past about 20% of the book. Unputdownable.

Hmm. Even though I have Emily Wilson set as the “current edition”, this review seems to show up against some other edition.

The translation I’m talking about here is that of Emily Wilson.

This is currently a “Did Not Finish”, but only because there is no way to pause a reading in Hardcover.

It’s a good book, with a lot of very good exercises to ease a newcomer to the ideas of meditation etc. into a very sound practice based on the symbology of Freemasonry.

However, I’m only just about to take my initiation into the first degree if Entered Apprentice, so I don’t want to read further until I have done this, as I don’t want any spoilers.

So it’s four stars for now, but this is a book to come back to over time, not one to simply read through start to finish, so my rating may change as I eventually work through it.

The only reason that I DNF’d this book is that the modern editions have extra content by the Cicero’s after the text of the original book. Whilst I’m sure this will be of high quality, it’s not what I’m interested in right now, which was simply to refresh myself in Regardie’s original work.

I will almost certainly come back to the rest at some future point.

When this book came out a few years ago, it indicated that the Golden Dawn tradition is actually still going strong... somewhere, somehow...

The contents are essential reading for anyone serious about the tradition, either from a historical or practitioner perspective, or both! The series is made up of individual contributions from a selection of prominent current day practitioners who are building on the original order work in a respectful and effective way. These people are the real deal, and it's well worth hearing what threy have to say.

I'm not one of them! And I don't personally know any of them (it's a secret society, after all), I'm just an enthusiastic reader.

Very disappointing I’m afraid. I thought that SRIA was a serious Rosicrucian order, and this is a supposed to be a collection of the best papers by its members. Sadly, they are mostly (though not entirely) nonsense.

There are no citations in the vast majority, and there are many, many unfounded claims, such as that it has been “scientifically proven” that people can see into the future.

It hasn’t.

And there are many, many such claims about the most ridiculous matters. It’s also full of “it is said”… it is said by who? Where? When?

It’s just a collection of lose fantasist new age Mumbai jumbo in the large. Terribly disappointing.

2 1/2 stars because there are one or two items worth a quick read.