Memories of Franz Bardon Paperback – Student Calendar, June 1, 2004

I was only expecting a biographical background of Franz Bardon to fill in some blanks and that itself was only a 2 star read; very light on content. The other 2 stars were for the 3rd section, for beginners in FB's work the third section turns out to be a gem in the rough. It really adds flavor to your self-directed learning/practice of Bardon's magic.

In general, memoirs of contemporary sages, mystics and initiates,Gurdjieff, Fulcanelli, Guenon and Schwaller Lubicz to name a few, are rather lame affairs that fall short of capturing the magic behind the man. "Memories of Franz Bardon" disappoints for this very reason, not for painting the man with an human-all-too-human brush, rather for portraying the Mage from the sole perspective of the authors' limited optics. In short, we end up understanding more about the subject than about the object. If the authors are skilled writers a la Colin Wilson or Louis Pauwells or initiates with a profound knowledge of doctrine Robert Amadou, than the results can be highly informative. However, in this case theauthors Lumir Bardon and Dr. M.K, are neither skilled writers nor profound initiates in which case the result is a rather disappointing mishmash of personal recollections of the most mundane kind. The patient reader is rewarded for his labours with page after page of platitudes on Bardon's domestic life, including his home decorations, eating and sleeping habits,cars he's owned, trips to the country, etc. Hermetic matters and magical phenomenon are dealt with tersely without insight or elaboration. ie. encounters with elementals, acts of clairvoyance and naturopathic healings.The second section is written by one of Bardon's students, Dr. M.K. and covers more or less the same ground as the first section with recollections of domestic occurrences and personal anecdotes encountered over the last decade of the Magus' life."Memories" is broken into three sections; the first two as mentioned consist of fairly banal reminiscences of life with Franz Bardon from a purely bio-descriptive vista. Completely lacking is insight into the elevated and rarefied world of the man and the magus. We are left to ponder - who were his teachers, who did he correspond with, what initiateorganizations did he belong to, intellectual influences, important books - who is the noumen behind the phenomen of who Franz Bardon was/is.If the book has any redeeming qualities from a philosophic perspective, than it is found in the third section "Dr. MK Explanatory Notes on hermetics". Although written in a fairly parsimonious manner, this section is somewhat successful in relating the hermetic doctrines underlying the Bardonian magical praxis. Several clearly written passages on fundamental hermetic concepts such as developing internal powers totransform negative into positive energy, evoking, condensing andradiating energies, treating obstacles as life lessons, discriminating between micro lessons and macro destiny.Overall, one tries hard to find endearing the authors' sincere attempt to portray Franz Bardon in the way they remember him, as man and magus. However, in the end what we get from "Memories of Franz Bardon" in absence of the magical is an expose of the mundane.

This book gives a wonderful glimpse into the life of Franz Bardon. I really enjoyed it. The last part of the book has a good overview of hermetics and some tips. Great little book!

This is a review of the physical "book" itself, not the content.Merkur Publishing has some nerve to charge as much as they do for this little booklet. The copy I received of the current edition of "Memories of Franz Bardon" is printed on what appears to be cheap xerox copy paper, some pages are off center and at an angle, and are poorly glued together into a cover that is badly pixelated. The photos included inside are also very pixelated.If I hadn't ordered this direct from Amazon I would have thought it was a bootleg, but no this is very much official. I'd advise avoiding paying anymore than $3 for this very very disappointing. work.That said, the actual content is definitely of interest to Bardonites who want an insight into the mundane side of the great master.

I have all 3 of Bardon's books and have read them all many times so I thought this one might be interesting to check out. Yes it was slightly interesting although it lacked any significant detail about his magical life (which was what I really wanted).The first half of the book is written by Bardon's son Lumir and mostly contains his memories of childhood life around his father along with family photos and explanations about Bardon's incarceration and eventual death in jail.The only thing interesting in the first half of the book is the descriptions of various lab equipment and processes used by Bardon involving Alchemy and Spagyrics. It is clear to me now that Bardon was well versed in Alchemy and Spagyrics based on equipment and techniques he was using in Lumir's description.The second half of the book is written by Dr M.K. who was a student of Bardon's and his words were helpful to me in my hermetic training and show that he has obviously been trained in the 10 hermetic lessons. He had some very useful viewpoints and suggestions that did help to clarify a few points from Bardons first book.I have always held Franz Bardon on the highest possible pedestal but this book tends to bring him down ever so slightly in my opinion. The fact that he was such a heavy smoker and cofee drinker and overweight and unhealthy tends to slightly diminish my faith in his abilities.I only gave the book 3 stars but i still recommend it to any SERIOUS Bardon students. If you are not a serious Bardon student then you probably will not enjoy this book.

This book was extremely short and rather "basic" read. It doesn't go into that much detail about any aspect of Bardon's life or spiritual work. I would recommend it only to those ardently inspired by Bardon, sort of as a collector's piece. I think, despite the controversies of Frabato the Magician, that seemed a more profound and revealing book. I didn't really get much of a sense of Bardon the individual from this memoir, and it didn't touch on anything really metaphysical or meditation-wise either. However, it was still of some interest to me, in terms of my involvement with the IIH, and because I very much admire Bardon.

A great book about Franz Bardon which fills in some spaces not covered in the other biography , Frabato The Magician

I loved reading this but the quality of the book was very poor.

excellent book.

I love this book, it show how he leave his life. I recommend this book to any one. this book tick all pages