Ritual Magic Manual ebook edition is coming (David Griffin masterpiece)

At the end of his webinar today, Demons and the magic of Golden Dawn (or whatever, the title of the webinar was), David Griffin announced that The Ritual Magic Manual is soon going to be released in an ebook format.

For those who are unaware of The Ritual Magic Manual, it is a 666 page book (a solar/venusian talisman, according to the author) that basically gives all the variations (both invoking and banishing) of the Greater Ritual of the Elemental Pentagram, Greater Ritual of the Planetary Hexagram, Greater Ritual of the Zodiacal Pentagram, Greater Ritual of the Sephirothic Hexagram rituals.

[Please note that these are his labels; others use slightly different names for these rituals.]

Published in 1999 (the only book ever published by Golden Dawn Publishing), The Ritual Magic Manual, typically is either rated one star or five stars (outside of my own review, I can't remember any middle ground reviews of the book). And when it went out of print, in typical out-of-print occult book fashion, some sellers started to ask a thousand dollars for a copy.

To the best of my knowledge, no seller has ever unloaded one at that price; the highest price I have seen admitted from a buyer was $350. Even so, given the original fifty dollar price tag, it is an inflated price for the book. (That's a book seller/collector opinion, not an opinion on the merits of the book itself. Interestingly, the most I have ever been offered is what I originally paid for my copy...so I tend to think that the actual value of the book was much less than a thousand.)

The importance of the book is that this is David Griffin's version of Golden Dawn self-initiation, and what he considers to the the most important aspect of the Golden Dawn system (basically, the rituals grow your body of light [LVX] and allows you to stop having to dwell in a meat-suit).

Now, a pdf of the book has been circulating in the pirate community for years, a slightly flawed copy, a copy that even Griffin shared in a giveaway. And I have argued for years that Griffin should get with the times and re-issue it though the ebook and POD (print-on-demand) markets...because if there really that much demand for it, why shouldn't he make a few dollars from it? (While I loathe the man, especially his insistance that anyone who disagrees with him is guilty of being part of a vast conspiracy to destroy his Order, I think that writers deserve to be paid---and the secondary book market does not give the writer a single penny---hence my argument that a re-issue was in order.)

And over the last couple of years, I have watched him edge up to this, but never step across the line until now. Good for him, good for the people who actually want an ebook copy of this book.