Ritual Magical Methods
William G. Gray

Samuel Weiser 1980, ISBN 0-87728-498-9

"Ritual Magical Methods" is a fitting title for this book, in which its author attempts to simplify ritual magic into a set of its basic elements, teach these to the reader and thus allow him to design and perform workable rituals fitting for his individual magical worldview. Gray mostly does not compare existing ritual traditions in order to achieve this, but attempts to directly perceive and formulate the general laws of ritual.
As he takes such an extremely demanding aproach, it hardly surprises to see the author utterly fail at his task. Gray seems to believe the patterns and rules he sees are so obviously true they do not require critical analysis at all, but need only be mediated to the reader for him to be convinced. Sadly, Gray is wrong. What the reader finds is Grays ideas of the natural laws of ritual formulated as mere claims, which may be fitting in a book on actual magical practice, but appears as unreflected preaching in this rather theoretical work. The writing style, not sufficiently precise for such a complex topic, adds to this: William Gray leaves wide gaps in his argumentations, constantly intermixes rule and example and leaves the reader guessing on the basic elements of his model of magic. He readily throws about himself states of being, universes, planes and dimensions not bothering to define these terms or even make clear why he keeps using them all the time. Now after thorough reading, Grays model of reality and magic can be assembled together like the parts of a mosaic - if he had done this work by himself, however, his book would be a lot more worthwhile.
These deficits in writing are particularly unfortunate as the content of the book accessing which they make so difficult is of quite remarkable quality. Although Gray cannot reach the goal he set for himself - to define the universal laws of western ritual magic - his mix of claims, ideas and examples at least makes a(nother) magical paradigm that can well be worked with. The magical worldview described in "Ritual Magical Methods" may be limited to an almost exclusively ritualist style of magic, but seems straightforward and is better at connecting metaphysical concepts to symbols and magical ritual acts than most others. In matters of style, it is apparently derived from Butlers post Golden Dawn school and spiced up with a tiny dose of Thelema. From both predecessors, it distinguishes itself by stronger abstraction and a heavier emphasis on the metaphysical, as well as an even less orthodox interpretation of qabalah. Practitioners of both schools will find interesting food for thought to work over and improve their ritual practice.
To them, "Ritual Magical Methods" may be recommended just because Gray describes exceptionally well the concious creation and use of symbols, which both systems neglect somewhat (in favor of meditation) but is essential to ritualism. To other magical traditions, most especially the one of witchcraft, "Ritual Magical Methods" is hardly compatible. With all these restraints made, it still remains a book with a somewhat diferent viewpoint on ritual magic that can surely give new ideas especially to more advanced pratitioners.