David Rankine and Sorita d'Este.
I ordered this book via Amazon, and it arrived last week... I have had an interest in using planetary magic for a few years now and I was looking for a basic guide that I could use for reference. According to the author's claims Practical Planetary magic is meant as a basic guide to working with these energies in the Western Mystery Tradition.
The book did not include an index, reducing its usefulness as a reference. Also there is a brief 2 page reference glossary with only four definitions. The authors also included meditation guides to each of the seven planets, and an appendix with Golden dawn Rituals, angelic invocations and various other references.
I found that many of the resources that they included within this book can be easily found from a few grimories such as the Heptameron, Enochian magic, Kabbalism and Hermetics, and Wicca. The authors created much of their planetary references from Agrippa, [which I agree with] because Agrippa was a great source of inspiration for many magicians throughout time. However, there are other bits of references which were gathered from more modern sources like Aleister Crowley, The Key of Solomon, and the Complete Magicians Tables [Stephen Skinner] that the authors used as a replacement for some of the more obscure planetary references of Agrippa.
I did not find, as the book claimed, that the history of the planetary energies and their use in magic throughout history, were discussed in any depth. I was looking forward to learning how the use of planetary magic evolved throughout time, but instead there were factual errors and missing or incomplete histories. Most of this book is a patchwork of ideas that were developed from the Golden Dawn, Enochian Magic, and Christian grimories.
I was particularly interested in the section on Olympian Spirits. However, they provided little references as to their origins, citing that they 'Probably originated from Greece'. I was not expecting to see the word 'probably' to describe the history of the Olympians, in a book that was supposed to be a comprehensive source of information.
Also, within the chapter on Olympian Spirits, the authors mention that the Olympic spirits are a better source of planetary energies to work from, as compared to kabbalistic or angelic sources. Their reason for this was, as they said [paraphrase] 'The Olympian spirits are comprised of all the elements, while Demons and Angels are only comprised of the element of Air'.
The element of Air?
I found this to be humorous, and without an explanation of why this is so, i had to pass it off as the inexperience of the writer's understanding of the nature of ceremonial magic, and theurgic magic in general. For being so important to their system of magic the chapter on the Olympians was slight, only containing a few pages [most of which were reference charts] It also made me wonder why the majority of the book was about kabbalistic, Enochian angelic evocations, and christian angelic hierarchies and references if they claimed [within this chapter] that all of those things were only associated with the element of air.
the authors claim that their system of planetary magic can be used by anyone, from any path in magic. I wondered if their claim was true, but after reading this book it is obvious that most of the material was intended for an audience interested in Ceremonial Magick as defined by Hebrew, Christian and Enochian Grimoires. *note: I do not really have an interest in combining religious aspects with magic, especially when working with planetary energies.
There were only references to Angels, in association with the planets while the darker aspects of the planetary energies were ignored or only glossed over briefly.
However - I consider myself to be an advanced reader - so while it did not live up to my hopes it could possibly be a valuable resource and starting point for those who are interested in some light reading on planetary magic, and as a reference book. I think I will enjoy having this book in my library as a handy reference to the planets.
