The title intrigued me, and once I started reading this book, I had a hard time putting it down. There are countless books about magick. This one excels because of the sheer breadth of ideas and practices the author presents.
Jake Kobrin’s a multi-media, psychedelic artist and practitioner of many esoteric paths, western and eastern, tame and edgy--the whole gamut. He divides his time between living in northern California and Bali. As a teen in the 1990s, Kobrin got into what he calls “extreme metal bands.” He discovered the work of Aleister Crowley and began an “infatuation with occultism.” He also had a weight problem.
Kobrin’s father, a psychologist, took him to the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, California where he learned to practice vipassana (also known as mindfulness) meditation. Ah-hah. A fellow traveler. I might have been one of the “adults” Kobrin says he found himself sitting with in the meditation hall at Spirit Rock retreats.
Kobrin had learned to meditate per instructions from Crowley’s books. But learning meditation in the Theravadin Buddhist tradition was life-changing. “The Dharma was the remedy I had been searching for,” he writes, “and meditation was the instrument I needed to make dramatic alterations in my life.” Daily vipassana meditation became the cornerstone of his occult practice. It helped him form new habits. He dropped his excess body weight and changed much of his identity.
The Path Within is sweeping and unique--as Kobrin’s winding path has been-- because he so eloquently works with both western esoteric and eastern practices. And, he does this without culturally appropriating anyone’s traditions and without turning the whole thing into mush! (I have to admit that I love this book because my own spiritual path is a syncretic blend of eastern and western.)
One of the cool features of The Path Within is that Kobrin includes among the pages essays by several “guest teachers,” of the occult, including Carl Abrahamsson, Mitch Horowitz, Dr. David Shoemaker, Mark Stavish, and mindfulness teacher Sean Fargo.
Kobrin begins the book with a long and thoughtful discussion of what magick is, how it involves becoming an active participant in shaping one’s reality, using mechanisms that “remain largely enigmatic to modern Western science.” He identifies several models of how magick seems to work, from the animist view, to the psychological and spirit-based views, to the idea of practicing to raise one’s consciousness to the level of a god, as “exemplified through the systems of initiation as presented by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.” Kobrin draws heavily from the Golden Dawn and from Crowley throughout the book.
He says he has “come to the conclusion that there is no real difference between magick and any other intentional or willful action… Successful magic occurs when the right conditions are met for your desired outcome.” It’s crucial to be clear and precise about one’s goals which, for success, ought to be in sync with one’s True Will, that which “springs forth naturally through you when you are in alignment and harmony” with your Higher Self which is “coequal and coterminous with the entirety of existence or God.”
Kobrin moves from “what is magick,” to how to practice it ethically. He honors the ethical principles found in traditions from yoga to the monotheistic religions. He offers the Five Precepts succinctly articulated in the Buddhist tradition: not killing, not stealing, not misusing sexuality, wise speech, and not clouding the mind with intoxicants. Living these precepts in complex societies requires skill and careful consideration.
Much of the book is a detailed set of instructions and suggestions for how to develop a magical practice, starting with ritual tools and practices for creating sacred space and working with elements. He draws from lots of sources, including, for example, the Morning Pages exercises as taught by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way. He covers how to work with affirmations and creative visualizations.
I (silently) cheered when I got to Chapter 5, on Magickal Meditation, a subject often glossed over. “Meditation is arguably the crux of magick,” Kobrin states. “Everything you do in magick is a form of meditation…. The skills you will learn through formal meditation practice –to control your nervous system, develop single-pointed concentration of the mind, develop an ability to endure discipline.. and uphold clear and vivid visualizations for long periods of time—are all extremely useful, and arguably essential, abilities to have when practicing magick.”
Kobrin notes that prior to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, formal meditation wasn’t always a priority for occultists. Meditation became a central priority within contemporary occultism largely due to the influence of the Theosophical Society and Aleister Crowley, whose Golden Dawn mentor Alan Bennett was a Buddhist practitioner who later ordained as a monk.
Meditation is crucial for occultists because, Kobrin writes, “there is nothing more important in magical practice than staying clear, centered, and grounded.” The ground corresponds to the element of Earth, which corresponds to our physical lives and bodies. “To be grounded means to be embodied, to be present and alive within our own physical vessels to be fully here in the material world.” Kobrin gives classical practices for sitting and walking meditation, how to sit still in yoga postures, pranayama breathing and concentration exercises.
The rest of the book is a jam-packed tour of foundational western occultism. There’s how-to material for performing Qabalistic rites, for making and working with sigils. There’s an overview of the tarot and a bit about astrology. There’s an in-depth chapter on dream incubation and lucid dreaming. There’s a big focus on personal ritual making.
I would have loved to read Kobrin’s thoughts on how interesting it is to juxtapose elaborate rites and rituals with Buddhist practice. Especially in the Theravadin branch of Buddhism, which is spare and ascetic, there’s little overt ritual, though meditation practice itself is a ritual par excellence. “Rituals are more than mere routines,” Kobrin writes. [T]hey are potent acts…steeped in symbolism and intention, serv[ing] as a bridge between the mundane and the mystical, allowing the practitioner to tap into deeper dimensions of consciousness and universal energies.”
With The Path Within, author Jake Kobrin models how to traverse those bridges between the mundane and the mystical, how to tap into those deeper dimensions. This book’s a welcome guide for how to go there.
~review by Sara R. Diamond
Author: Jake Korbin
Crossed Crow Books, 2025
388 pages, $26.9
