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Phil Hine: Condensed Chaos (1995, New Falcon Publications) 4 stars

Review of 'Condensed Chaos' on 'GoodReads'

4 stars

An appealingly accessible introduction to chaos magic. I began reading Liber Null first, and am very thankful that I was pointed towards this book instead. I'll be reading other volumes about magic, but this was an ideal starting point. Only a couple of "huh." moments and nothing terribly cringeworthy, despire the book being from the 90s. The "cyber-" prefix coming in here and there dates it a bit, but overall, you hardly notice that the book is over a decade old.

The other thing I like is that Hine rarely repeats himself. A lot of "intro to" texts seem to be overblown pamphlets if they're not condensed treatises. This is neither. Hine throws in enough history and theory to lay the groundwork for more instructional portions of the book, and then takes off at a comfortable job, rather than a sprint.