The Search for Abraxas

This is a re-release of Stephen Skinner's first book on magic (written jointly with Nevill Drury) which is organised as a collection of essays. At the time it broke a lot of new ground, and was enthusiastically reviewed by Colin Wilson who wrote, The authors of this book represent a new phenomenon: the serious study of the practice of magic. ... What is so interesting about this latest wave of occultism is it is more sober and rational than any of its predecessors. These practicing magicians have decided that there is something in magic, something as objective as radio waves. They have set out to investigate it in a spirit in which Yeats romanticism combines with scientific empiricism. They seem determined to get to the bottom of it, or at least, to go further in understanding it than any of their predecessors have attempted. After setting the scene with essays on the Gnostics, the Rosicrucians and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the book moves on to modern magicians such as Austin Osman Spare. In fact, apart from one privately printed monograph, this was the first book to explain Spare's genius and his system of sigil magic, long before his Zos-Kia cultus became popular in the occult world. The connection between magic and the hippie culture is examined in the context of Carlos Casteneda, and original material on Surrealist art and astral projection rounds off the book.