I enjoyed books by Patrick Dunn
I just got done reading a bunch of books on magic by Patrick Dunn.
I liked them a lot. Dunn's style is gentle, humorous, and thoughtful. He encourages experimentation and playfulness in practice.
Dunn is an English professor, teaching linguistics and semiotics. He is also a classics scholar, a postmodern polytheist, and a practicing magician.
The Practical Art of Divine Magic
Contemporary & Ancient Techniques of Theurgy
2015
This book was recommended to me by Hawk. It's about theurgy, magic done to commune with gods, to hang out with them and build relationships with them. Dunn is a practicing polytheist and a classics scholar, so he writes from personal experience and from knowing something about how ancient people interacted with gods. He is focused mostly on ancient Greek practices. He describes how ancient Greeks interacted with gods (as far as we can tell -- many practices were secret) and how he communicates with his gods today. He provides exercises you can try to experience and develop relationships as well.
Dunn is self-conscious and post-modern about his practice and recommends a similar approach -- not to try to authentically re-construct ancient practice (which wouldn't really work without the surrounding cultural context), but to invent something new informed by historical polytheism. (Ironically, this turns out to me more authentic anyway, since what people did and have always done is reinvent current practice informed by past practice.)
I found this book super helpful in catalyzing my relationship with several gods I felt drawn to, but wasn't really sure how to engage with. I was surprised to find that he recommends several practices I was sort of already doing intuitively (e.g. making offerings of food, light, incense, attention), which was really validating. I'd recommend this book for anyone wanting to engage with gods, but unsure of how to start. It's quite practical and approachable.
Cartomancy with the Lenormand and the Tarot
Create Meaning & Gain Insight from the Cards
2013
This book is about how Dunn does cartomantic divination. His approach is intuitive and informed by his background in semiotics. At the time this book was written, there wasn't a huge number of books on Lenormand in English, so it gives a bit more detail about it, but really this book isn't about Tarot or Lenormand so much as an approach to divination and to these systems. About how to invent new ways of reading and kind of take cartomancy "off-road" in a more intuitive, less formulaic direction. It's more about what and how to do what you do in you mind and imagination when reading cards.
One thing he talks about is how to use Tarot and Lenormand together to reinforce and enrich each other. (This might work particularly well with a system like James Eads's Green Glyphs, which are Tarot, Lenormand, Runes, and Oracle decks with a consistent visual language and symbol system.)
I liked this book a lot -- it's given me ideas about how to develop my own reading technique.
Magic, Power, Language, Symbol
A Magician's Exploration of Linguistics
2008
This book is about language and symbol -- how they work and how they can act as an underlying structure for magic. Dunn's metaphysics are that language and symbol are the underlying reality of the World and that magic works by interacting with this ecology of meaning. This view is very similar to my own metaphysics, but he comes at it from a different direction, so I found his perspective provides a richly informative parallax on this ontology.
Dunn offers all sorts of interesting ways to magically play with language. I found his suggestions about glossolalia especially challenging and productive!
If you are at all interested in the connections between language and magic or enjoy a symbol-based metaphysics, you might like this book. A lot.
The Orphic Hymns
A New Translation for the Occult Practitioner
2018
The Orphic Hymns are a set of poems (songs, probably) used in the Orphic mystery cults to invoke and worship various Greek gods. Most translations of the Orphic Hymns are by academics who, while educated and serious scholars, do not take the religion and magic of these cults seriously. Patrick Dunn is a practicing polytheist with personal relationships with many of these gods, and uses Orphic Hymns in his practice, so this translation was done with specifically with the contemporary practitioner in mind.
I got this book in hardcover because it's more a reference than a book to read? That is: it's a book I want to have on paper so I can read from it in a candle-lit room during ritual. I've used it a bit. It's pretty moving!
If you check any of these out and want to talk about them, I'd be excited to discuss them, say hi on mastodon!