A fascinating and worthy addition to new age and modern-day magic shelves, featuring step-by-step exercises after each chapter.
D. J. Lawrence, owner of chaosmagic.com and editor/owner of Konton Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 3
Based on the title of the book, my expectations of Space Time Magic was that it would be a text focusing on approaches to retroactive magic, manipulating the future, and divination. And those elements were certainly in Taylor Ellwood's Space Time Magic, but he still managed to surprise me. By far the main focus of the book was not these things but rather the very relationship of space, time, magick. Ellwood offers us a thorough and thought out understanding of how magick works and the role that space and time play in magick for manifesting results. None of this is presented in a dogmatic manner. Instead, it's a personal and intimate look into Ellwood's head, and an invitation to further elaborate and develop his ideas.
Ellwood touches on a very wide range of fields in his book: writing, art, music, science, and technology to name a few. Regardless of one's personal area of specialty, Ellwood has probably hit upon in it his book and shows new ways to look at and approach it. More importantly though, is that Ellwood shows the reader how (with no prior experience) to jump into those fields and start working with them. Many people are convinced that they could never be writers or artists (or magickians for that matter), but Ellwood's attitude is just pick up the pen, brush, or wand and start creating.
I enjoyed Space Time Magic and it has given me a lot to think about. For a Magickian who feels stuck in a routine or has been there done that with just about every paradigm there is, Space Time Magic would be a great book to kick their ass out of their rut. I'd give Space Time Magic 4 out of 5.
Seth, occult author
I loved the book.
This one is going to be a text that I will have to re-read over and over. Actually, it was a little daunting, though by the end of it Ellwood really brought things into perspective.
Just like John Coughlin, I found the synchronicity to be interesting and uncanny. I have been formulating an article dealing with quantum sorcery, and another on null-boxing (probability based martial arts). Both of these articles would have fit perfectly into the context/paradigm of Ellwood's work, and both my articles and my personal practice are benefiting tremendously merely 19 or so hours after reading his book.
I especially liked the whole approach to comic books, the panel to panel space/time manipulation and bringing together the holistic/paradoxical relationships between the panels and our perceptions of them. Wow.
I also like the exercises at the end of each chapter, that is something unique to Ellwood's style that I most enjoy.
Lisa McSherry, author of The Virtual Pagan, from Amazon.com, September 17, 2005
Manipulating perception is a key component in working magic, but we humans are frequently unable to escape the linear model of time that is a primary component of our society. Space/Time Magic provides a cogent argument for moving outside of this linear trap and into a working model of the universe in which our reality can be programmed according toour will (i.e. transformed by magic) – not only in the future, but our past.
Understanding space/time is a key to understanding our reality, and learning to consciously manipulate it is how we learn to work magic. Within this realm of shifting possibilities we can exert our will, manipulate the energy, make a choice, and in doing so we create new possibilities and a changed reality. Whether we are reaching into the space/time ‘pool’ to move outside of physical time and divine the future (or past) or focusing our attention in such a way as to slow down the passage of time (in order to get more done) we are working space/time magic.
The reading can be a bit difficult if one is not comfortable with a logical paradigm of magic (Stephen Hawking is referenced, as are notable chaos magicians Phil Hine and Genesis P-orridge), but Ellwood manages to make many of the more scientific perspectives understandable, as well as practical.
Divination is an easy way to understand space/time magic, but I found the discussion on working retroactive magic (essentially, going back in time to change our past) to be a touch frightening – and yet compelling. I would like to think that the past can not be literally changed, that only our perception changes (and that is sufficient to bring about present change) but a part of me wonders if it is possible, and if I were to do so, how I would change in ways I can not predict? Ellwood also discusses using sigils, writing, science, and technology in space/time magic, all with fascinating results. His personal experiences enhance the theoretical explanations, and make for wonderful reading.
The author of a number of fascinating and unusual books, including Pop Culture Magick and Creating Magical Entities, Taylor Ellwood is clearly someone who does not see magic as a connection to the divine, but as a rule-based, logically –defined energy source that allows any person with sufficient training to use it. Although I am more of an intuitive witch, basing my rituals on increasing my connection with the Divine, I found Space/Time Magic very useful. I am already incorporating much of this information into my own practice.
I highly recommend this book.
Jodi Wetherup, editor of Pagan Muse
Taylor has surpassed his success with Pop Culture Magick in getting the reader to think beyond what we see as magick and ritual. He's broken the mold of "mundane" practices and pulled us into a new age.
All readers will get a specific sense of this in the chapter on Powerspots and Time Bubbles. If one can manipulate the energies of the multiverse, can we not improve our personal situations? How about the human situation in general? Apparently, we can, and for once, and once again, this author is brave enough to step forward and show us all how to think outside the box.
Thank you for this lovely experience Taylor!
Lupa, author of Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic, from Amazon.com, September 25, 2005
I'm not going to say that "This time, Taylor Ellwood has outdone himself" because that would be horribly cliched and therefore not worthy of this review.
Instead I'm going to say that this is by far the most brain-twisting, reality-tunnel-shifting book I've read since I picked up RAW's "Prometheus Rising" several years ago--and mean every word of it.
Already established via his previous works (Pop Culture Magick and the co-authored Creating Magickal Entities) as an experimental magician, Taylor has pushed the envelope even further. Building on a foundation that includes writings from everyone from Pete Carroll to William G. Gray, he's produced a mindfuck of a book that will expand any magician's conception of magic.
One would think that by its very topic, Space/Time Magic would be firmly planted within the realms of quantum theory and the scientific model of magic. Not so. The chapters place everything from technology to writing, artwork and music within the paradigm of space/time magic. There's a significant portion also dealing specifically with different areas of science, but it's not that intimidating. In fact, if you can get through the first couple of chapters of Carroll's Liber Kaos you'll have no issue whatsoever with Space/Time Magic. It's worth the read, too--Taylor's writings on imaginary time alone are intriguing, to say the *very* least.
As always, Taylor includes a balanced mix of theory, and examples and anecdotes of practice. This serves to both explain the concepts more solidly but also to invite the reader to mess around with those concepts. The exercises at the end of each chapter reiterate this invitation.
Regardless of your take on magic you'll find something of use in this book. As an artist and writer I found particularly the sections dealing with those creative paradigms to be very mind-opening. The concept, for example, of writing possibility into reality gives anyone who can put words together the opportunity to create a better future for hirself. The same goes for the artwork chapter-- who hasn't wanted to walk into a world that seemingly exists only within the frame of a painting? Taylor offers ways to use meditation to enter that and many other realms of reality.
Taylor offers not only the techniques but also the reasons they work, a hallmark of someone who's speaking from experience. He makes an excellent point: "Regardless of which technique of meditation or ritual magic you apply to manifesting your probabilities, the most important aspect of all the procedures is that they work,and that you understand how they work. Knowing how to manifest the probability is the key to manifesting it when you need it, not just when you want it." (italics mine, p. 144)
Overall, Space/Time Magic is a groundbreaking work. Through it Taylor offers an entirely new idea of magic, taking it from traditional linear thought through the pioneering nonlinear model produced by Chaos magic and establishing the nonlinear model as a vital tool for improving any paradigm of magic. I highly recommend it to anyone who pratices magic with a passion and wants to further expand the possibilities for their practice and the results thereof.
Shade Silverstar, Silverstar Magazine
I have previously reviewed this author’s Pop Culture Magic, and I like this book even more. Time and Space are pretty damn mysterious, and are essentially linked to the nature of reality and the consciousness that experiences what appears to be that reality. Modern physics, however, has come to many unnerving conclusions regarding our many previous assumptions about what is going on in our universe, and it seems that nothing is as simple and straightforward as it seems. Space bends and Time curves, and the past and future are equally insubstantial from the perspective of the present. Mr. Ellwood explores many rather surprising implications of science and psychology as well as philosophy and occultism, of Chaos magick, divination, and various methods of reality-shifting and retroactive enchantment as well as future-focused operations. He also has high regard for the work of mages such as William G. Gray, Stephen Mace and Robert Anton Wilson. One of the Big Secrets of magick, by the way, is that you actually do the exercises you may well find out that they work, and that the habit of transforming your reality does indeed have a cumulative effect and an increasing momentum, and this book has some excellent suggestions for doing just that. This is a wide-ranging, thought-provoking and intelligent work with profound implications for anyone who is actually thinking about how magick works, and what we can become by practicing it.
Review by Psyche, Reviewer of Spiralnature
It's refreshing to see a book on magick which focuses on a specific topic rather than a general introductory text, and further, one which steps outside the realms of the traditional grimoires on Enochian, kabbalah, or ceremonial workings.
Until now, time magick has been a fringe branch of exploration, with writers such as Peter Carroll and Frater U.: D.: writing brief treatises on its theory and applicability. Space/Time Magic represents the first full length, in depth study of the subject, and Ellwood's done an admirable job.
Chapters cover everything from divination, to writing, art, music, science and meditation, and each chapter concludes with exercises to be performed to put the theory to use. Appendices detail further explorations, and the extensive bibliography could also serve as a great recommended reading list.
Ellwood writes in a familiar, personal tone, detailing many of his own projects, both historical and current at the time of writing with projections for the future, which the reader will presumably be updated on in future works.
With Space/Time Magic it's clear that Ellwood is beginning to come into his own; I look forward to reading his future works.
Five stars out of five
Review by S. Kelley Harrell, Reviewer of If... Journal
Several years ago I had an experience in which I realized that something I've done all of my life as a 'secret skill' was actually an ancient ecstatic technique in space/time travel. I could stand in a place and know what had occurred there, who had lived upon it, the emotions and feelings attached to it, all with my eyes closed and just being still. I never had need of naming those experiences, or how I accomplished them, but others around me did. I was "reading," I was "divining," I was "tracking." It was when I met another person some time later who understood the ability to be timeless in a space, therefore, be the space and embody its wisdom that I realized we all could travel in this way. This expansion of consciousness and the ensuing information transfer from it is the foundation for creating reality that Taylor Ellwood teaches in Space/Time Magic.
I'm always impressed with Ellwood's ability to find the Divine in the world around him, and that is no less apparent in Space/Time. The most profound catalysts for spiritual experiences are always right under our noses, so when he mentions deifying Miss Cleo and using comic books, DNA and technology to explore multidimensional Being, he has my full attention. The thing that makes Ellwood's writing exemplary is that he not only has walked the walk and shares that readily, but he understands the mechanisms for why his approach works on many levels. He presents his personal experiences in navigating new etheric territories alongside the science supporting them, the traditional model regarding them, ancient techniques evoking them, and how these all combine to remain relevant and accessible with the energies and tools available to us now.
Through artistic pursuits such as sigil work, writing, and music, life circumstances can be manipulated. However, it's not that cut and dried, and this, too, Ellwood explains wisely. He pays particular attention to the intention behind doing such work, the attitudes, the belief systems, all of which factor into affecting outcomes. Most poignant in what could be construed as quite risky magic is his emphasis on being mindful of the many potentials space/time work embodies. Ellwood dispels the fantasy that there is but one outcome, devoting significant resources to understanding why such needy impatience and limitation actually work against the magic, certainly against the magician. Encouraging independence from his readers, the points of each chapter are reinforced with exercises allowing readers to create their own experiences.
5 out 5 stars
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