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Magical Alphabets
doesn't waste many of its 244 pages. There's just enough
why and wherefore to make it all hang together, and the rest is a grand
tour of magical writing systems, variants of gematria, and the history and
metaphysics of the major alphabets that are or were important to the
Western Esoteric Tradition.
It is effectively a
miniature encyclopedia of the subject matter: it goes into enough detail
that one can get a feel for each topic, but is no substitute for reading
the specialist literature, at least on major subjects like runes, Hebrew
and Greek gematria, etc. The book is diligently illustrated with line
drawings, reproductions of old plates, etc., as you would expect, and
includes appendices and a glossary, but no index, which it really does
need.
I'm probably in the
ideal audience for this book: practicing magicians or
scholarly occultists who have a broad interest in all areas of esoterica,
but do not have the matter of any of the chapters as a central focus of
practice or study.
The final chapter,
"Magic Squares, Literary Labyrinths, and Modern Uses,"
contains a brief and breezy essay on "what it all means" which I
found worthwhile. In general, in the few places in the book where Pennick
expresses an opinion, I found myself nodding along.
In sum, the book is
well worth having, even if it cannot be the only book
you have on the subject.
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