Rating  - Life Changing
To anyone out there book bashing: feel free to ef off. This book is REAL magic, and REAL scary. You will get results if you use the methods in this book with an open mind. If you walk away from the ritual with "I knew it wouldn't work," then you don't yet qualify for having an open mind, FYI. This book has made me afraid of the dark again. Life will never be the same now that I know what is actually out there. This is not Luciferian worship, it's non secular magic that uses dark forces opposed to other types available.
Either grab this book and conquer the night, or turn away without words, because you know not what you speak of. If you'd like to remain in the world of normalcy and live without fear and the 6th sense that this tomb will awaken, don't touch this; it will damage you.
Rating - Sweet, sweet reading for all us nocturnal creatures
New York-based occult author Konstantinos (and yes, that is his real name) is a famous name within the darker aspects of the occult. Over the years he's published a total of six books with Llewellyn - books that are all aimed at and written for Nightkind; that is, creatures of the night, people with a somewhat darker (but not necessary evil) view of magickal workings and who prefer the darkness of the night to the light of the day. He's also written numerous articles and appeared on many different TV-shows. In other words, he knows what he's talking about.
And in Nocturnicon he talks about magick being done at night. As with other books of the same category (not necessarily about darker aspects of the occult, but definitely about magick), this is not a book written in an attempt to convince skeptics that magick does indeed work. And it's not some sort of summary about the history of magick and the occult, even though historical references does pop up from time to time. No, this is instead a manual for the believer, a tool that you can use to summon the dark forces that are hidden somewhere in the dark and the infinite universe that surrounds this planet of ours.
Many books about magick contain rituals that are very difficult to do, demands years and years of practice, and include accessories that aren't always very easy to find. Nocturnicon is, however, nothing like that. The rituals and exercises described here are easy to do, don't require any bizarre and impossible demands of preparation, and if you do them correct you'll see the results in no time. Konstantinos is an honest author. He discusses how the use of absinthe (not the legal stuff but rather the old, traditional version) can affect the imagination in great ways, he doesn't deny that illegal substances that help in opening up new aspects of your consciousness, and sex magick isn't too taboo to write about.
Still, please note that it's NOT a "pro-drugs book" or kinky anthology about sleazy sex. Far from it.
If you're a diehard skeptic who doesn't believe in anything that has to do with the occult and magick, then Nocturnicon is probably one of the worst books you'll ever buy. However, if you're open to new possibilities and perhaps even feel instinctively that the darkness of the night affects you in a very special way, then there's really no reason for why you shouldn't run as fast as you can to your nearest bookstore and get a copy of Konstantino's latest work.
He actually succeeds in being amusing, thorough, controversial, funny, and serious, all at the same time, and if you add the fact that the book itself if extremely pleasing to the eye you'll realize that Nocturnicon - Calling Dark Forces and Powers is a book you cannot afford to miss.
Note to the reader of this review: I usually don't give 5 stars to a book, since most books have at least a few flaws that lowers the grade, but occasionally it does happen. This time it did, but rest assure that Konstantinos' latest is worth every single one of the five stars.
I give you my reviewer's word on it.
Rating - LOVE IT!
I love this book. It was in a way freeing to me. It has also inspired me to be more creative in how I do my own rituals. It has many of the other books on the topic beat as far as I'm concerned and it's not all fluffy!
Rating - Extremly useful for the onen minded
This book is very different from anything normal in the world of typical Magick books out there. Its quality is not in the rites that it includes but in the theroy. It takes an extremely abnormal, inteligent, and still refreshing veiw on magick.
You ever have a hard time making a connection between 'raise emotional energy' and all the not so emotional, in fact dry, explination of what your suposed to do with it? That ends with this book. This book directly applies that emotional energy in a beautiful way. Rather than the highly scripted dead rite, it breathes life and openness into it.
It is dark inclined, let me try to explain that. If you love gothic and dark stuff (like vampires, skulls, new moons and necromancers in movies) that will give you energy and align you to the principles that this book works with. If you never really cared for that stuff, then this book will still be useful to you but mostly as a new way of thinking about and looking at magick. You won't draw the same energy from most of his techniques and you'll have to invent your own(techniques).
Now as far as the content of the book, is it aimed for 21 and over or for anyone? I'll say what he could not, and watch him come to contradict me! He won't because he doesn't want to.
If your inclined to use illegal drugs or alcholical beverages for purposes beyond getting drunk and high, to better your self for instance, here are some ways to do it and some things to use... (texts of the book)... If you want to be a crack addict, your stupid and it won't better you or really help you with any magick at all... but if you really want to use some things that work a littel better than a few candles and circles on the floor, don't let the law and fluffy bunnies stop you. Magick should be effective, not dry.
The author does cover Absinthe and chetreouse as well as (of course I only heard that it works... from a friend or something... not encourging you do do anything illegeal that might better you as a practicing magician, but) DTC (I think I got that right) however he deters against the use of popular 'get high' drugs even telling you what the results of spells tend to be with a few of them. They're not a surprise and not much for advocating spellwork on LSD or Crack.
About the whole Necronomicon thing, look at the name of the book, is there any way in hell he's trying to pretend that he's not trying to imatate it? No! But this book is nothing like the necronomican ( a beautiful work of fiction), however he illistrates in noctornican what he's trying to do, and thusly without guile. It's simple, by of the forboding way people percieve the necromonican they (in they're awe) give it extreme power. He's trying to apply the same concept to the nocturnicon.
Lastly I must point out that the above ploy has a small possibility of really working unless nocturnicon gets banned for some reason. All that stuff I mentioned above he wouldn't come out and say was to prevent this from happening... I don't see how his book will generate this kind of forboding aora.
Included in this book are:
Ways to use magick without centering
A little about Lucifer (he's not the devil, that's a myth)
Deamons (commonly confused with demons, they're the greek version of angels)
Workings with sigils and other symbols that instead of being based on some old quabilistic tradition somewhere actualy are created by and draw from you, the practitioner. Much more useful because they actualy mean something deeper to you than what a book told you they mean.
I won't call this book perfect, but I have come accross only one other of many books I have read that is maybe more worthy of 5 stars. This book is way outside the box, well written, fun to read, actually tried and true and based on old and tried stuff, packed with usefulness, and not long and full of boring filling, it's very refereshing and new. It's kind of an Irony, in fact, with the way it constantly tries to imply a comparison to the necronimacron, it is as new as a cold bucket of water as it hits your face! The necronimacron intentionaly comes across as somehow more ancient that you could possibly imagine or something. In fact I must say that the Irony of that is the only reason I even think that this book even could get the kind of attention konstintinos wants it to. I hope it somehow does though becuse I would love to feel it when I pick it up to reread a techniqe it explaines before I use it. I eagerly await the next book Konstintinos will pull out from whereever he pullls them from.
Rating  - A Cynic's Bible
"With the Dark Magicks that fill these pages" two types of cult could be founded: the cult of Kon-stantinos, or a cult of complete cynicism. As someone who cherishes his spiritual and magickal beliefs, I do not know which would be worse.
The author's insincerity is self-evident in every concept, and as usual he urges us to read on like we are about to encounter something earth-shattering...his tone is always "prescient" and always patronizing. The pseudo-goth aspect to Kon's writing is wearing seriously thin now and besides, any serious spiritual seeker will find the trappings insulting. His obsession with "naughty" alcohols such as the illegal absinthe is seriously sad.
His spiritual perspective is the same: he plays with a safe "bad boy" boy image but never has the balls to wrap it in anything but the "essentially I'm not so bad" image. The impression he gives to the intelligent seeker after spiritual inroads is that they do not sensibly exist in a modern and very contrived book such as this.
My one star I rate for "Nocturnicon" comes from the book cover, which is far better than the book deserves, and from the fact that he is quite a good technical writer. I have seen much worse get into print, including with his own publishing house, Llewellyn Publications. However if I was a cynic about occult arts, I would use this book to demonstrate why. As a reader I get the feeling that Kon-stantinos feels the same. He's looking to sell a concept, any concept. Here he happens to have fallen on one of the more questionable sets of references anyway - the Necromonicon - and in this case 1+1 = minus 5.
It seems that he is trying to mess us all up with that "little ****er" (he mentions in the intro) in his head. Either that or his misleading of the (mainly young deluded goth) public is incidental to his need for some kind of publicity. Which makes him a true Kon-man.
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