Every magical act is magical insofar as that which originated as a mental image acquired a material form and will when, through oral tradition, it found its development. The essays that make up *The Cauldron of Hermes* are like coins spinning in the air, passing from the face of Circe to that of Hermes and back again, waiting to be interpreted. The book's nine chapters are an abracadabra that was once an idea and now exists.