A Review of Celestial Angel Magick by Corwin Hargrove

  I recently finished reading Celestial Angel Magick by Corwin Hargrove (2023). This is the first book by this author that I have read. I have not read any of Hargrove’s other books mostly because I find the marketing for them a similar flavor as BALG and other “dark fluff” books about spirit work. Really, I know almost nothing about this author or their other works so I can’t talk about their authenticity or how this book compares to any of their others. 

Having said that I will say that there are things I really like about this book and other things I really dislike. Celestial Angel Magic is all about the Mansions of the Moon. I have been researching the Mansions of the Moon for my own projects and when I find something about the Mansions I grab it to add to my knowledge. It is a slim volume, 79 pages on the ebook, Kindle version. 

First, the things I like about this book. The greatest asset of Celestial Angel Magick is the set of 28 Arabic talismans, one for each Mansion, that Hargrove calls sigils. The author claims to have come across the same talismans in two separate, handwritten, personal grimoires that collectors sold to him 12 years apart. I personally have only a little exposure to Arabic magic through my research on the Mansions but they look like other Arabic talismans I’ve seen in different contexts and the story is plausible enough. Paradoxically, the apparent lack of research that went into the writing of this book bolsters this claim. 

The second thing I like about this book I actually have mixed feelings about and that is the poetic verses that accompany each Mansion. I love the idea of poetry acting as the image, as opposed to a picture, in working image magic. I am ambivalent to them being referred to as “pathworkings” just because I recognize this term has come to mean “meditative visualization”. Personally, the talismans and the idea of verse images have justified the purchase of this book.

But my criticism of the verses themselves are that they are strikingly similar to each other. The author implies that these verses came from one of the handwritten grimoires but my impression is that they were derived from a few scrying or visualization sessions the author may have done themselves. In itself this isn’t problematic but it feels almost superficial and lacking depth. Similarly, the stated powers of each Mansion lack depth to my ear but they are written ambiguously enough to apply to a variety of applications.

The names of the Mansions are the common Arabic names but I am a little surprised that Hargrove lists the name of each Mansion as the spirit name (Al Sharatain, Al Butain, etc). No doubt the sources for the talismans lists them this way, or is ambiguous enough that one would infer this. Variations on the names of the Mansions or attributing spirit names to them are dismissed as deliberate obfuscation by some unknown  person or group who is trying to keep the truth from the reader. This is absurd and discounts the literal thousands of years across cultures in which the concept of the Mansions of the Moon existed.

What this book is not about is astrology or astrological magic. The procedure to use these talismans is simply to gaze at them, visualize or read aloud the pathworking image verse, and state your petition, then walk away. This is all fine to me but Hargrove is strangely dismissive of any kind of elaboration into a praxis. Perhaps this is simply to reassure a beginner that ceremony is not necessarily required. 

I mention earlier in this review that it seemed there was little research done in preparation of writing this book but honestly I can't know that. It seems that way because there is not much content. There is mention of the Picatrix and the Liber Lunae but only in that they mention the Mansions of the Moon. It is unclear if they lent any elucidation on the subject to the author. Hargrove explicitly says that, because this content came from private grimoires that research was impossible. And who cares anyway because it works. Similarly, Hargrove says that the reader shouldn't, and indeed can't, interpret the marks in the talisman sigils themselves. This too is strangely dismissive to me and sounds more like an excuse for why one would choose to not even try. Most frustrating to me, there is no bibliography. This reinforces the idea that, one, Celestial Angel Magick is simply a repackaging of a found grimoire, and two, that very little research went into writing this book.   

All in all I am glad to have found this book. I think the contents will lead me to some interesting experiments as I work with the Mansions and their spirits. I can't say I am impressed with Hargrove's writing or logic but there are things about this book that excite me.