Signs, Symbols & Omens: An Illustrated Guide to Magical & Spiritual Symbolism

This is an excellent, well written, easy to understand and browse, thoroughly enjoyable book. i gave it 4 stars because there weren't very many omens covered, but if you want this book for things like magical alphabets or ancient scripts or sybols and their meanings, id definitely suggest it!

This is an excellent introduction to ancient symbols from across many cultures: egyptian, aborigine, buddhist, celtic, greek, native American, chinese, roman, etc. I emphasize that this is an introduction to these since you could find whole books on the symbolism of each ofthese cultures. The section on celtic ones for example is only 5 pages long and rather skimpy as are the others but at least you can get your feet wet and then seek other books where you want to gain more depth. The images throughout the book are hand drawn but seem to be pretty well done. Throughout each chapter there are short stories/information relating to why certain symbols were used, roles of men and women in society, beliefs that the culture carried and that are expressed in the symbols. Overall a good book - having good breadth, just a little short on depth. I think the title is a little misleading since this is more about ancient cultural symbols (which I was looking for) and less about magic which the subtitle infers. I think this is a god starting point for further research.

I've always enjoyed Buckland's writing, but when I first heard about this book, I started to wonder if I'd get just a rehash of some of the same books on symbols I already own. Not the case, not at all. This book contains quite a few areas I haven't seen in my other books: Australian Aborigine, Buddhist, Freemasonry, Hindu, Islam, Rosicrucian, Shinto, Sikh, and Travelers. It also contains what are often considered "standard" categories for the practicing witch or magician: alchemy, ancient Egypt, astrology, Ceremonial Magic, magical alphabets, Voudoun, and Witchcraft. For those of you who hate fluffy books, I'm glad to say that this one isn't. It's concise, with a good bibliography at the end, and a large percentage of the books he lists are pre-1980 and are not all from his publisher, so he's done his homework. A good addition for the library!

I thought this book was very nicely illustrated, because he drew all of the symbols in the book. The book even had alphabet and runes, which I had never seen before.