Have some free knowledge, the best gift of all (except discovering this year that Jus-Rol readymade shortcrust pastry is actually vegan; hello, homemade mince pies)!
Some of the best advice I ever read in a magick book was not to go crazy buying every other magick book you like the look of. Research before buying one and read it before buying another. Make notes in your BoS. Sell or trade in any books that turned out to not be so useful. Don't bury yourself under piles of books that may never get read, all on completely different subjects, and all collecting dust!
Introduction to The Complete Psychonaut Field Manual, listed below.
A good way to scratch that magick book-collecting itch without turning your house into a feng shui nightmare is to do free courses online in between reading your physical books/ Kindle. Here are some good ones:
- Introducing Consciousness
- Magic in the Middle Ages
- Modern European Mysticism and Psychological Thought
- Chaos Magick 10-Day Course
- Hex Sex Codex
- The Complete Psychonaut Field Manual (not actually complete yet, but plenty to be getting on with)
If you must buy a physical book and feel like blowing your mind wide open, I recommend Alterations of Consciousness: An Empirical Analysis for Social Scientists by Imants Baruss. It's the perfect primer for beginning your journey into psychonautics and is the first book I read that made me take the existence of the occult or "invisible worlds" seriously.
Season's greetings!
