DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The Baptist's Head Compendium

Magick as a Path to Enlightenment

Duncan Barford author Alan Chapman author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Aeon Books Ltd

Published:25th Jun '24

Should be back in stock very soon

The Baptist's Head Compendium cover

The intimate personal journals of two occultists practising western magick to achieve “The Great Work” (also known as “awakening” or “enlightenment”).

With its humour, honesty, and down-to-earth approach, extending beyond the cult following it gained after its original publication in the late noughties, The Baptist's Head Compendium has proved itself a seminal text and indispensable guide to anyone suspicious of or disillusioned by magick purely as a tool for personal power or material gain.

Sharing the details of their discoveries – and mistakes – in the process of making them, Chapman and Barford demonstrate how magick is a genuine spiritual tradition leading to enlightenment. They have their minds blown and the strangest experiences of their lives! By holding nothing back, but sharing all results and methods, the reader is equipped to embark on their own exploration of magick as a path to spiritual awakening.

Originally published as a trilogy, but long since out-of-print, these books are now available for the first time in a single volume, revised and updated with new introductions by the authors.

Praise for Occult Experiments in the Home (Aeon, 2010) by Duncan Barford

‘This book describes magic as I know it: teasing, tricky and never quite as expected, and yet it leaves our lives so much richer in colour and meaning. Read it, do it, and take a new look at your world.’
Ramsey Dukes, author of SSOTBME and The Little Book of Demons


“A story of two guys investigating enlightenment, which, by reading it, becomes a catalyst for the reader’s own inquiry into existence, and into what’s really looking out from their own eyeballs.” – James H.

“I found it inspiring, full of useful and applicable ideas, and, ultimately, curative for a kind of paranoia and hopelessness I had been feeling. On top of that, it’s a page-turner.”  – Dean.

“This book recontextualised for me the Western esoteric tradition.  It led me down a rabbit hole that opened up into an expansive cavern right at the heart of the underworld. If these two fools can do it, so can you!” – Feroxaper.

“Among my favourite few pieces of writing by contemporary magicians. Well worth reading for anyone even vaguely interested in the topic.” – Harry.

ISBN: 9781801521376

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

570 pages