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Witchcraft on a Shoestring, by Deborah Blake

Witchcraft on a Shoestring: Practicing the Craft Without Breaking Your Budget, by Deborah Blake
Crossed Crow Books,1959883194, 180 pages, March 2024

Calling all thrifty witches, Deborah Blake has some great ideas in Witchcraft on a Shoestring: Practicing the Craft Without Breaking Your Budget. It’s easy to feel like we “need” to have all the things for our magical practice to be a success–statues, crystals, wands, attire, essential oils, tarot cards, and more–but this can quickly take a toll on one’s finances. I for one have found myself wanting to do a wealth spell, only to get carried away with acquiring what I thought I needed to make it a success, forgetting in the process of gathering my supplies the intention I was working towards. In this book, Blake reminds us what’s most important in our magical practices and covers the ins-and-outs of how to pursue our craft without going overboard on unnecessary expenses.

“No matter what your budget or how you decide to spend your money, there are no limitation on how well you can practice Witchcraft besides the ones you put on yourself.

You can be a powerful, talented, wise, and warm Witch without spending a penny. And you should never feel that a lack of money is an excuse for being anything less.”1

Blake’s resourcefulness comes through in each chapter. While she assures readers to practice witchcraft one only needs are belief, will, and focus, she also goes in-depth providing ways to lower costs for all the aspects of the craft that can add up to cost money. She starts generally with knowledge, providing ways one can learn more about their spiritual pursuits through books, internet, and local in-person resources, such as events and festivals. What’s extremely helpful for readers is Blake’s own personal recommendation for books on common witchcraft topics (herbs, gemstones, gods and goddesses, sabbats, etc.).

From here, she moves on to the home and sacred space. She offers suggestions for making an affordable altar and how to resource items like statues, candles, and chalices, and more without breaking the bank. She also shares tips for gardening and tending to one’s yard. There’s an entire chapter on inexpensive substitutions that can be made for items commonly used, such as firepits, quarter candles, cauldrons, and witchy garb and jewlery. There’s even specific sites listed that sell reasonably priced items, so you can add these as go-to sources if you are looking to purchase something rather than thrift it or craft it yourself.

For those who do enjoy crafting, the chapter “The Crafty Witch: Thirty-Five Simple and Thrifty Craft Projects for Magical Purposes” is such inspiration. I like to craft my own things because I feel it infuses them with my own energy, and I couldn’t be more excited to do some of the projects Blake suggests! She divides the recipes by material used, which is very useful for those who are partial to a specific medium. For instance under the Clay section, there’s directions for crafting one’s own god and goddess figurines, rune stones, and pentacle plaque, while the Fabric section has directions for a poppet, sachets, and charms. Just to share some more, the Paper section has a spell for parchment paper, creating your own herbal paper, decorating a book of shadows, and DIY tarot cards. There’s tons and tons of ideas for projects one can do using common household items, enhancing their craft without splurging.

My favorite chapter was “Feeding the Masses: Forty-Five Feast Dishes for Less” where Blake shares options for cost-efficient ingredient sourcing to make recipes for each sabbat. She even uses dollar signs ($) to denote the level of expense for each dish. Here are some of the delectable recipes: Tres Leches Pie for Imbolc, Goat Cheese Herbed Spread for Ostara, Strawberry Paradise Cake for Beltane, Yin-Yang Bean Spread for Litha, Morgana’s Tomato Pie for Lammas, Baked Apple Surprise for Mabon, Samhain Devil’s Food Cake, and Rum Cake for Yule. As someone who is ALWAYS looking for new recipes to celebrate with and share with my family and friends, you can bet I’ll be coming back to this book again and again. There’s also recipes for Full Moon Cakes and Ale. What I like about the recipes is that they’re tried and tested by Blake and people in her life; I always trust a hand-me-down recipe!

Blake concludes the book with a chapter on ways one can practice their craft for absolutely free, ranging from kissing and invoking a love god/goddess to volunteering in the spirit of service. These suggestions are little reminders that it’s how we choose to live our life that ultimately shapes our craft, rather than the material possession we buy.

All in all, Witchcraft on a Shoestring is a really fun read for those looking to do more for less. Blake is a wealth of knowledge and her suggestions are sure to help you save a bit of cash whale being reminded what is most important about your practice: your intentions and belief. I’m really looking forward to using this book to get crafty this spring and to bake around the wheel of the year with all the recipes she shares!

For those interested in other works by Blake, she is a prolific writer! Other related book include The Electic Witch’s Book of Shadows, The Little Book of Cat Magic, A Year and a Day of Everyday Witchcraft, The Goddess Is In The Details, and more. She also has published her own tarot and tarot decks:  Everyday Witch’s Familiars Oracle, Everyday Witch Tarot, and Everyday Witch Oracle. But what surprised me the most was she’s also a fiction writer too. Some of her series include A Catskills Pet Rescue Mystery series (three books), Baba Yaga series (three books), and Broken Rider series (three books). You can learn more about her at her website.

Entering Hekate’s Cave, by Cyndi Brannen, Ph.D.

Entering Hekate’s Cave: The Journey Through Darkness to Wholeness, by Cyndi Brannen, Ph.D.
Weiser Books, 1578637910, 256 pages, January 2023

From the artificial lights in our homes to the hypnotic glares of our televisions and smartphones, all the bright, glowing baubles of consumerism keep us overstimulated and distracted, diverting our attention away from the true healing power of closing our eyes, turning within, and facing our inner darkness. Even for those of us who are avidly seeking enlightenment, the false teachings of “love and light” spirituality can be perilous, reinforcing our collective denial of the shadow. When we focus on “positive vibes only,” we are operating from a place of fear, because we have become afraid that we will manifest our fears if we acknowledge them. The truth is that turning a blind eye to our darkness only further disempowers us, because the buried shadow content of our psyches has a magnetic quality, and we are more likely to manifest the things we don’t want in our lives if we continue to repress and deny them. 

In Entering Hekate’s Cave: The Journey Through Darkness to Wholeness, author and Hekatean witch Cyndi Brannen, Ph.D., is a psychopomp and healer, wielding her shamanic training and extensive experience as a professional psychologist like a blazing torch that guides readers through the labyrinthine tunnels of the Underworld to find the goddess within.

“Only by healing the shadow will we ever become whole,” Dr. Brannen says. “That is work accomplished in Hekate’s cave,”2 which is “a place of sacred darkness, a place where we awaken to our own souls.”3

Dr. Brannen is a leading authority on contemporary Hekatean witchcraft, and her previous works include Keeping Her Keys: An Introduction to Hekate’s Modern Witchcraft (2019) and Entering Hekate’s Garden: The Magick, Medicine & Mystery of Plant Spirit Witchcraft (2020). She also founded the Covina Institute, a Mystery School and Coven of Hekate, in which she is the executive director and lead instructor.

“Our journey is that of Persephone,” Dr. Brannen says, and “the journey of the cave is one of self-acceptance.”4 This resonated to my core because, when I first initiated myself, I devoted myself to Persephone, but it was Hekate who appeared to me in dreams, and in the first initiatory dream, she named me Persephone. I was already living my own unique version of Persephone’s myth in waking life, and through self-initiation, I was consciously acknowledging my archetypal identification with her. 

Based on my personal experiences and what Dr. Brannen writes, I believe that Persephone is the archetype of the witch who is initiated by Hekate and called into her service. Like Persephone, the witch has the shamanistic ability to move between the realms of the living and the dead, and communicate with spirits. She becomes queen of the liminal spaces, like Hekate.

There are fifteen chapters in this book, each one bearing an epithet of Hekate, accompanied by a unique sigil. I love working with her plethora of names because it’s like having a whole pantheon of Hekatean spirits who are each unique emanations of her multifaceted energetic current. The World Soul that is Hekate fragments like moonlight passing through a prism, bending into a rainbow of vibrant deific masks.

Dr. Brannen recommends gemstones for working with each epithet, such as “fluorite for learning and expanding awareness”5 when connecting with Hekate Triformis, the triple goddess of transformation. She also enlists one of my favorite stones, amethyst, “for awakening the soul,” “encouraging meditation,”6 and connecting with Drakaina, the ancient dragoness, or snake goddess, who “teaches us that we can shed our false skin.”7 I plan on focusing on the Drakaina epithet this year, since 2024 is the Year of the Dragon in Chinese astrology.

I have always felt an affinity with stones, and I have been fond of collecting them since childhood, but it had been a while since I meditated with them, so this was a great reminder to reincorporate them into my daily spiritual practice. I have a heart-shaped green and purple rainbow fluorite that I decided to use to connect with Hekate Triformis. In numerology, my life path number is three, and I deeply resonate with the imagery of the triple goddess. The sigil also spoke to me, and came alive, like an opening eye, as I gazed upon it.

Working with Triformis, I imagined a trio of voices, saying, “We are Hekate.” This triple-voiced Hekate reminds me to think of myself as my past, present, and future selves, and what it feels like to be all three at once, living in the present moment. Through this conscious alignment, I am a multidimensional being, present in all three realms at once, seeing my past, present, and future simultaneously. The fluorite amplified my self-awareness and surprised me with memory flashbacks. I am going to continue working with fluorite to connect with Triformis and enhance my clairvoyance.

The stones are powerful allies on Persephone’s journey, because Entering Hekate’s Cave initiates a heart-wrenching Underworld descent. Maybe it’s the sigils, or the magical power of the epithets themselves, but just reading this book is shadow work, and it triggered cathartic emotional reactions within me.

“This book is also part memoir,” Dr. Brannen says, “recounting my own journey through a difficult upbringing, sexual trauma, addiction, disease, and more.”8

Brannen’s raw vulnerability and transparency is part of the healing magic. By being open and confiding with her audience, she creates a safe space for readers to do the same, and I felt prompted to journal about my own experiences. The goddess Hekate walks through fire with us. She knows our darkest secrets and feels our hidden pain. 

I read this book during Mercury retrograde in Capricorn, which, in my natal chart, is the Underworld of my 8th House, and it was an intense experience. The most poignant insight I had was that I still suffer from a childhood abandonment wound that I never fully processed because I didn’t give myself permission to grieve.

When I was eleven years old, my mother left me and my father for a man ten years her junior. I’m now almost 40 years old, and in the dark womb of Hekate’s cave, I realized that I still haven’t healed from this wound because I have refused to acknowledge it. When my mother left, I was glad she was gone. My dad and I decided we were “better off,” and he acted like he was celebrating. He stumbled through life drunk, partying and blasting music. Both of us were in denial about how painful the abandonment had been. Soon after, he moved another woman into our house and proposed to her, but they didn’t stay together long because she couldn’t tolerate his alcoholism. That was left for me to deal with alone.

I was supposed to embrace the narrative of being better off, and side with my alcoholic father (it was us against her). Yet on some level, he probably resented me for looking like her, and he was abandoning me too. He was never present because of his addiction, and through his example, I learned to escape my own problems through alcohol. I never grieved when my mother left, because acknowledging how deeply it hurt would have conflicted with the affirmation that I was “better off without her.” I now realize that, as an adult, this abandonment wound has had a long-term negative impact on my self-esteem, my romantic relationships, and my attachment style.

Societal conditioning doesn’t permit us to properly grieve and process our wounds. We are discouraged from dwelling on our pain and validating our emotions by experiencing them. We are taught to bury our pain and pretend to let things go, to forgive and forget. The very thing we need to do to heal, we are denied, because of our own shame for being wounded, and because seeing our pain inconveniences others.

Up until she left, my mother had indoctrinated me with Christian values. I was taught to love my parents unconditionally, to turn the other cheek when people wronged me, and forgive them for their trespasses. If I showed any sign of anger or defiance, she condemned me for being resentful, and told me that I should forgive her, for my own sake. But it was really for hers.

In Chapter 9, Dr. Brannen illuminates the cathartic powers of Borborophorba, an epithet that comes from the Greek Magical Papyri and means “Filth Eater.”9 This is one of my favorite epithets because it reminds me of earthworms, the tiny chthonic serpents that eat decaying organic matter and animal waste and transform it into nutrient-rich soil. “The Aztec goddess Tlazolteotl also ate the waste of humans, then defecated it as flowers, symbolizing the transformative power of the goddess to turn filth into gold,”10 Dr. Brannen says. Borborophorba assists us in the process of eliminating the spiritual toxins that burden us and finding the hidden treasures buried within them.

In the myth of Persephone’s abduction, picking a narcissus flower initiated her kidnapping and Underworld descent. “Narcissism is yet another pitfall for some Persephone women,”11 Brannen writes. Both the personality disorder of narcissism and the flower were named after Narcissus, “who was fated to stare longingly at his own reflection but never see his own interior depths.”12 Women who embody the Persephone archetype often worry over their image and have people-pleasing tendencies, because they want to be liked and their sense of self is based on what others think of them. They may also be more vulnerable to narcissistic abuse. 

I grew up with a poor sense of boundaries due to the toxic enmeshment of my narcissistic mother. When I was little, I was sheltered and overprotected by her, so the abandonment was a relief in the sense that it gave me the breathing room I needed in order to individuate. Being abandoned by my mortal mother was also a blessing in disguise because it led me to my divine mother, Hekate, the goddess of witches. Up until that point, my strict Christian upbringing had been stifling, and in her absence, I was free to explore other spiritual paths. Ironically, after my mother left, she decided she was a witch too, and stole the thunder of my spiritual rebellion, but it was only a passing phase for her, and she ended up returning to monotheism.

When I was a teenager, my mother used to tell me how funny it was that I’m a Gemini, because “we’re just like twin sisters!” (I have a Gemini Sun and Moon and she is a Scorpio Sun with a Gemini Moon). She told me we looked alike, and that our lives mirrored each other’s. Since she saw me as her “twin sister” and best friend, she confided in me about all of her problems and traumatic experiences, and the combination of over-identification and trauma-dumping created a toxic empathic bond, which Dr. Brannen identifies as “secondary traumatic stress.”13

Now I realize that she was a narcissist who saw me as an extension of herself, and she didn’t want me to have a separate identity of my own. If I got angry at her for her behavior, she would gaslight me and say that I was the one doing whatever it was that she was doing. This confused me and conditioned me to question my perception of reality, to blame myself for any problems I encountered in relationships, and to tolerate boundary violations made by romantic partners. 

My mother abandoned me and my father to be with her “true love” because she was a selfish narcissist. Even when she was around, she wasn’t present, mentally or emotionally. When I reached adulthood, she continued to abandon me by obsessing over that “true love” who in turn had cheated on her and abandoned her. Throughout my life, we went through cycles of her smothering and abandoning me, which gave me an anxious-avoidant attachment style.

Shadow work involves deep soul searching and self-reflection, which is sometimes shamed in our society as narcissistic navel-gazing, but this is a healthy form of narcissism that dives deep into the well of the soul, bringing us into alignment with our true selves.

The irony of narcissistic abuse is that the narcissist manipulates their victim into believing that they are the selfish one. Any attempt made by the victim to break free and assert their independence is perceived as narcissistic by the narcissist. Persephone’s narcissism is actually a natural part of her individuation process and represents her quest for personal autonomy. The narcissus flower symbolizes her blossoming self-awareness, but because her identity is still so wrapped up in her mother’s, it becomes an Underworld journey expressed through her forced marriage. It’s like she traded one narcissist for another. Or at least, that’s how it manifested in my life, because I found myself in relationships with narcissistic, abusive partners who reminded me of my mother.

Chapter 7, titled “Chthonia: The Descent,”14 focuses on protecting your boundaries and honoring the sacredness of your personal space. This chapter was the most triggering for me because of my personal struggles. I grew up with a poor sense of boundaries as a result of the toxic enmeshment of my narcissistic mother, as well as bullying I experienced at school, and the cumulative abuse groomed me for intimate partner violence. 

While reading this chapter, I felt a lot of repressed rage surfacing as I reflected on the multiple instances of betrayal, abuse, and trauma I have experienced throughout my life. I felt enraged by the initial bullying and abuse that crippled my sense of personal boundaries and made me vulnerable to repetitive boundary violations. I found myself yelling and cursing all the people who have disrespected me and violated my boundaries in the past (I was alone in my home at the time), and it was a primal scream, like the roar of triple-voiced Hekate. I felt an immense sense of cathartic relief afterwards.

Beneath all the rage is the heartbreak of giving someone unconditional love and forgiveness and being punished for it with repeated disrespect and gaslighting until you are forced to cut them off for good. The last time I saw my mother, which was a few years ago, I had a vision of her as a zombie, grabbing me by the ankle and trying to drag me down to hell with her. That’s when I knew I had to make a choice: it was either her or me. I’ve been catering to her emotional needs and ignoring my own for most of my life. I felt toxic levels of empathy for her personal pain and traumas while neglecting my own. It’s time to choose me.

“As you move deeper into Hekate’s cave, your ability to discern between truly toxic people and those who are nourishing you amplifies,” Brannen says. “This may result in a cutting away of relationships with those who offer nothing but a steady diet of toxicity.”15

I have realized that, deep down, I’m terrified that if I love myself, it will make me a narcissist. I’m scared people will think I’m selfish and mean, because any time I have tried to set boundaries or stand up for myself, I’ve been accused of that, or the person offending me lashed out in anger and I felt that my physical safety was threatened. I’ve always identified as an empath, and concerned myself with the feelings of others, while disregarding my own. I was selfless, meaning I had no sense of self, because other people’s feelings were more important. I always tried to be caring and considerate of others, and I too easily forgave people who mistreated or disrespected me. 

I was leading an inauthentic life. The harder I worked, the more impoverished I became. The more I tried to please people, the more they shamed and abused me. I reached a breaking point in 2019, and completely withdrew from society. I became a ghost, hiding in the shadows. I have been in Hekate’s cave ever since, feeling like I’ve completely lost my mind, despairing over my inability to function like a normal person, and only receiving the repeated message from my oracles that I need to heal. I hated myself for no longer being able to find a place in society. This passage revealed to me the reason why I’ve had such a lengthy stay in my personal Underworld: 

“In the tales of Persephone, there is little told of the time between her entry into the Underworld and her ascension. We can imagine that Hekate pulled her into the cave so that she could adapt to her calling. During this period, she transformed from the naïve maiden to the sovereign queen.”16

Like Persephone, I need to remove the societal mask I have outgrown and embrace my soul’s true essence. I need to shed the false skin of familial and societal expectations that were projected upon me so I can be my authentic self. Just as flowers return from the Underworld in the spring, I will be able to step back into the light when I am ready to blossom into the wholeness of my personal sovereignty. 

I can’t praise Entering Hekate’s Cave enough. This book came to me because I needed it. It also validated some of my personal revelations about the relationship between Persephone and Hekate, and blessed me with new insights as well. Dr. Brannen is a gifted healer and her work is a boon for all of those who have been called to serve Hekate and illuminate the darkness.

Sacramental Theurgy for Witches, by Frater Barrabbas

Sacramental Theurgy for Witches: Advanced Liturgy Revealed, by Frater Barrabbas
Crossed Crow Books, 1959883267, 250 pages, February 2024

In the Digital Age, witchcraft has become more popular and accessible to the public than ever before. Social media is a hot conduit for witches to spread information and personal gnosis through posts and video shorts, leading to the rise of practitioners who are sometimes referred to by the derogatory term “Tiktok witches,” because the quality and validity of this bite-sized content is often questionable. These days, it seems that witchcraft can be whatever a person who identifies as a witch believes it to be. A lot of witches, perhaps due to religious trauma from monotheism, are squeamish about applying the word religion to their craft, and many focus on self-deification, with a tendency to see spirits as archetypal forces they can activate within their psyches rather than as real, conscious entities with personal agendas of their own. If every person who identifies as a witch gets to make up their own definition of what witchcraft is, claim godhood by their own right, and discard the foundational teachings just for the sake of rebellion, then I feel there is a risk of clashing egos compromising the structural integrity of witchcraft as a spiritual path.

In this era of self-serving pop culture witchcraft, it’s refreshing to come across a book that both grounds readers with the religious roots of modern witchcraft and advances them to the next level. In Sacramental Theurgy for Witches: Advanced Liturgy Revealed, author Frater Barrabbas, who has over forty years of experience as a practicing ritual magician and is “an elder and lineage holder in the Alexandrian tradition of Witchcraft,”6 offers a solid foundation, taking readers back to basics while still leaving plenty of wiggle room for creativity, personal gnosis, and experimentation.

His lore blends the theurgical practices of pagan magicians and Neoplatonic philosophers with the magical rites of Catholicism, which feels deliciously blasphemous, and brings to mind the myth of witches attending Black Mass, even though no sacraments are stolen from the Church or defiled. Frater Barrabbas claims that he has “appropriated what is no longer sanctioned or used by the Catholic church,” such as the Tridentine Mass, “and resurrected and transformed them to the service of Witchcraft liturgy and magic.”10 He proposes “that Witches and Pagans can repurpose the tools and beliefs that were once an important part of the Catholic faith from a completely modern Pagan magical perspective.”12

I love Frater Barrabbas’s incorporation of Catholic elements because I see the vast pantheon of saints as thinly veiled paganism, and I occasionally work with saints that I believe were originally pagan deities appropriated by the Church. I also take mischievous delight in rewording phrases from Christian prayers in blasphemous ways. For example, I might bless a ritual implement on my altar with the menstrual blood of Lilith instead of the blood of Jesus. I feel that a little bit of inversion and blasphemy in one’s witchcraft can be a wonderful way to break the chains of traumatic religious programming from childhood.

I was raised by a charismatic Christian, and have found that incorporating Judeo-Christian elements into my practice has helped heal my own religious trauma. By disowning monotheism, it became a part of my shadow self, so to deny that aspect of my spiritual heritage did not bring me to a place of wholeness. Initially, I wanted nothing to do with anything even remotely Christian and focused only on working with pagan spirits. But over the years (and it has taken many years of conscious effort to work through my religious trauma), I have gradually welcomed a few angels, saints, and even the Devil into my practice.

I was initially drawn to Sacramental Theurgy for Witches because I prefer a traditional approach to witchcraft. While I don’t strictly follow any specific tradition, my current practice is more strongly influenced by Robert Cochrane’s Traditional Witchcraft than Gardnerian or Alexandrian Wicca, and I love that Frater Barrabbas incorporates the use of traditional ritual tools, such as the besom of spirit flight and the stang, a forked staff that is iron-shod like a steed for Otherworld travels, which is an implement derived specifically from Cochrane’s craft.

Theurgy is a crucial element of this book, which Frater Barrabbas defines as “a magical operation that induces the Deity to perform a paranormal operation to benefit an individual or a group or to refrain or block an occurrence that would cause harm.”17

“Witchcraft Theurgy consists of two distinct categories,” Frater Barrabbas says, which are “sacramental magic and magical Mystery rites,” and the book is divided into two parts to cover these practices.18

Sacramental magic encompasses workings that bring the witch into union with a chosen deity, such as rites of transubstantiation, statue animation, and godhead personification. Magical mystery rites align the witch with the cycles of nature through the observation of lunar phases and seasonal rituals. In the chapter on “Lunar Mystery and Moon Magic,”19 I appreciate that Frater Barrabbas emphasizes the uniqueness of each Full Moon from an astrological perspective. There is also a chapter on establishing a sacred grove outside, if one is blessed with a private outdoor space that can be dedicated to the gods. The theme of honoring divinity made manifest in nature is complemented by beautiful illustrations, many of which depict the various guises of the Horned God as naked men with horned animal heads.

Frater Barrabbas analyzes the theurgic practice of godhead assumption in witchcraft, in which a priestess or priest becomes a vessel, or medium, for a deity. The most well-known example of this practice is the classic rite of Drawing Down the Moon. One of the potential risks of godhead assumption is ego inflation, in which the vessel over-identifies with the deity beyond the scope of the rite, and Frater Barrabbas suggests that this can be prevented by working with a specific deity with a very distinct personality rather than being vague and calling upon an amorphous archetypal figure. He refers to the vessel as a medium, emphasizing the fact that they are channeling a specific spirit, not an aspect of themselves. I appreciate him addressing this hazard of divine possession because I’ve noticed there is a tendency to obsess over personal power and self-deification in the occult community, which I consider to be dangerously delusional. I have the traditional perspective that a witch’s power comes from spirit allies, not the ego. I feel like this attitude keeps me grounded and protects my sanity.

In one’s personal practice, godhead assumption can be used to work magic by channeling the power of the deity through oneself. For example, when the witch temporarily becomes the embodiment of a deity during a ritual, they become a mouthpiece for that deity, granting the witch greater authority, because it is not the witch speaking the spells, but the higher power of the channeled deity speaking through them. In Chapter Six, titled “Art and Ordeal of Deity Personification,” Frater Barrabbas instructs the reader on how to proceed with the “Witch’s Ordeal of Godhead Union.”20 Godhead assumption requires intense dedication and an intimate relationship with a specific deity. The devotional practices of sacramental theurgy create alchemical transformations within the witch that lead to “union with the One,”21 a choice of words reminiscent of the language people use when talking about coming into union with their true love, soul mate, twin flame, or whatever term of endearment they have for their ideal romantic partner.

“This ordeal is a magical love spell that you are going to cast on your God, and it will powerfully affect both you and your deity,”22 Frater Barrabbas says.

Self-love is an important part of this process. Just as one would take good care of themselves to attract a mate, the witch is instructed to become an object of desire for their deity by bathing often and beautifying themselves with fine clothes, jewelry, makeup, and sweet perfumes.
I love this approach to godhead assumption because I’m fascinated with the biblical story of the Watchers descending from heaven and mating with mortal women, which can be interpreted as symbolizing the Holy Guardian Angel uniting with the witch as a divine lover. This also brings to mind the ancient concept of having a God Spouse, in which a priest or priestess becomes symbolically wedded to the god they serve. One of my favorite examples of this comes from Greek mythology, in which the Cretan princess Ariadne, the Lady of the Labyrinth and half-sister of the Minotaur, marries the bull-headed god Dionysos. After helping the hero Theseus slay the Minotaur, Ariadne flees Crete with him, but he abandons her on the island of Naxos, where she is rescued by the god Dionysos and made immortal through her union with him.

I personally believe that the New Age concept of going on a Twin Flame journey, which entails seeking union with one’s Divine Masculine or Divine Feminine counterpart embodied in an unavailable human partner, is a corruption of the idea of a God Spouse. Before Ariadne married Dionysos, she was heartbroken and left deserted on an island by the hero Theseus, and heartbreak can be a major catalyst for inner transformation and seeking a higher love with a divine counterpart.

Frater Barrabbas explores the possibility of “a sexual encounter with an embodied deity”23 in rituals of sacred sexuality, such as the Great Rite, which “is used to confer upon an initiate the third degree of a consecrated priest or priestess,”24 which is the highest degree in British Traditional Witchcraft. He also conscientiously addresses the importance of taking precautions regarding the safety and well-being of those practicing sacred sexuality, which must always honor mutual consent.

I appreciated the occasional personal anecdotes Frater Barrabbas shares that humanize the experience of being a witch. For example, before revealing a ritual titled “Erotic Mass of the Fourfold Goddess,”25 he tells the story behind it, and it really impacted me emotionally. He relates how this rite was revealed to him by deceptive coven leaders who claimed it was an ancient secret ritual. “What I found out later was that this beautiful and supposedly ancient ritual had been completely made up by the leaders of my group and passed off as legitimate lore to the members,” he says. “Since those times, these same leaders left the Craft in the early 80s and became ardent fundamentalist Christians who targeted Witches and Pagans, telling the public that we were merely dupes of Satan.”26 He shares this ritual with readers because he doesn’t feel oath-bound to keep it secret, considering its true origins.

I’m a solitary practitioner and I’ve never been in a coven, so the group rituals he shares in the book are beautifully written and inspiring, but will not be of practical use for me. One reason why I’ve never been in a coven is that most of the people I’ve met who have shown an interest in witchcraft lack commitment and sincerity. It’s a passing phase to them, and they can easily turn back to monotheism. It’s even more astounding to me, that in the author’s experience, these traitors were elders in his tradition.

I really resonated with this passage because it reminded me of times in my life when I felt betrayed by romantic partners, friends, and family, who either pretended to be accepting of my practice, or once identified as witches themselves, and then went back to Christianity and completely turned on me, condemning me as a devil worshiper and calling my gods demons. It hurt me deeply, but I think these experiences can be blessings in disguise, because tests of faith can deepen commitment.

In an initiatory vision I received well over a decade ago, I had a sexual encounter with the Horned God in the guise of Cernunnos. I remember vividly that it happened on a Winter Solstice. That night, I felt a strong calling from the spirit world to cast a circle and go into a trance, though I didn’t know why. During this impromptu ritual, I had a vivid vision of being in a vibrant green forest drenched in sunlight, and an erect Cernunnos approached me. I was so surprised by what was happening that it shocked me out of trance, and I immediately became afraid that the Christians were right, and witches really do have sex with the Devil. I identified as Wiccan at the time and up until that point I had denied the existence of the Devil, as did most, if not all Wiccans, probably due to the Satanic Panic, but this experience shifted my perspective and caused me to reevaluate my entire belief system. I had reached a dead end with Wicca, and my spirit allies were guiding me to Traditional Witchcraft. It took me several years to unravel the
religious conditioning of my childhood and I gradually understood that this experience was an initiation into the mysteries of the Horned God as the folkloric Devil, who is a shapeshifting spirit of nature, and not the personification of absolute evil. Embracing the title of devil worshipper helped me to do necessary shadow work for my personal and spiritual growth.

Sacramental Theurgy for Witches is not for the faint of heart or those who think of witchcraft as a passing phase. It’s for serious devotees who have established their own consistent practice over the course of many years and wish to deepen their relationship with the divine by not only becoming a medium for their chosen deity, but by elevating their relationship with their god to a sacred romance, and love is the greatest mystery of all. By weaving together the seemingly disparate threads of multiple traditions, and integrating their wisdom into his own lore, Frater Barrabbas promotes a sense of wholeness, rather than separation, in witchcraft. This book will be a wonderful resource for those looking to reconcile Christianity and other traditions with their practice.

Theurgy: Theory & Practice, by P.D. Newman

Theurgy: Theory & Practice: The Mysteries of the Ascent to the Divine, by P.D. Newman
Inner Tradition, 164411836X, 224 pages, December 2023

Theurgy is a Neoplatonic form of ritual magic in which the practitioner seeks mystical union with a divine being. The term theurgy, which means “to work with deity”26 in Greek, was first coined in the Chaldæan Oracles, a fragmented collection of dactylic hexameter verses, written in Homeric Greek, that were believed to have been channeled directly from the gods by either Julian the Chaldæan, or his son, Julian the Theurgist, during the late second century CE.

In Theurgy: Theory & Practice: The Mysteries of the Ascent to the Divine, author P.D. Newman, who has practiced theurgy for over two decades and is also a member of both the Masonic Fraternity and the Society of Rosicrucians, supplies a solid scholarly background on the development of theurgical practices. Even though the Chaldæan Oracles are the fundamental text on theurgy, he argues that the practice itself can be traced all the way back to Homeric times. 

In Part I, he demonstrates how the ancient Greek version of shamans, called iatromanteia (“healer-seers”), and the Presocratic philosophers laid the foundation for theurgical practices.

“Theurgy,” Newman explains, “is a process of anabasis or magical ascent whereby practitioners, such as the Neoplatonists…achieved henosis or mystical union with a deity, the Demiurge or the One,” while katabasis is “a dreamy descent to the domain of the dead and to the dark goddess who rules over that realm.”27

Plato and his followers aspired to ascend through the planetary spheres and unite with the One, the paternal Monad, using theurgical practices, while their predecessors, the iatromanteia (“healer-seers”) and Presocratic philosophers, sought Underworld descent, or katabasis, and union with the terrifying goddess that ruled there.

“For the Platonists, katabasis was understood as the descent of the soul into a body upon incarnation,” Newman says. “Hades, additionally, was allegorized and viewed as the very world that we, as embodied beings, inhabit.”28

In Plato’s teachings, the body (soma) is a grave (sema), and a prison for the soul. Plato’s famous “Allegory of the Cave” in the Republic demonstrates how the focus of theurgical practices shifted from the Underworld to the heavens. “The goal of the theurgist is not unlike that of the prisoner in the cave—to escape the sensible world of duality and penetrate the realm of ultimate, unitive reality above,” Newman says.29

I was fascinated to learn that the Sicilian stratovolcano Mount Etna was believed to be an entrance to Hades, and sacrifices to the goddess of the Underworld were thrown into the mouth of this fiery cauldron. According to legend, the iatromantis (healer-seer) Empedocles threw himself into the volcano to prove his divinity, and it erupted, vomiting out a single bronze sandal. Through self-immolation, Empedocles achieved henosis (mystical union) with the goddess Hecate. A single bronze sandal is one of her attributes as the Lady of Tartaros in the Papyri Graecae Magicae, and the Greeks associated bronze with the Underworld. This was a profound insight for me because I didn’t know that Hecate was associated with volcanoes, and this explains her fiery epithets. 

Part II explores possible theurgic elements in Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad. In Chapter 6, titled “Porphyry’s On the Cave of the Nymphs,” Newman demonstrates how philosophers often saw Odysseus as a spiritual hero, on a path of return to his celestial abode. For example, he says the Pythagoreans interpreted the song of the sirens to be the music of the celestial spheres, which is so beautiful it has the power to “lift the soul in its theurgic ascent to the Good,”30 and the Neopythagorean philosopher Numenius of Apamea saw “Odysseus as escaping genesis, the realm of ‘becoming,’ symbolized by the waters of Poseidon.”31

I loved this chapter, and the passages about Witch Queen Circe really blew my mind. According to the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry of Tyre, Circe symbolizes the cycle of metensomatosis, or reincarnation, in which eternal souls change bodies like clothes. Aiaia, the island over which she rules, is part of the land of the dead. Bewitched by the pleasures of the flesh, Odysseus’s men drink the witch’s brew and are reborn as beasts. Only Odysseus himself, who is on a path of ascension, is immune to her powers. Now that my perspective has been shifted to view the Odyssey as the tale of a hero’s apotheosis, I will never read it the same way again. 

Part III, titled “Theurgic Telestikē,” analyzes the practice of animating cult statues. This section was the most relevant for me because I have written my own rituals to awaken my deity statues in the past and I am looking to incorporate more traditional methods of doing so in order to infuse my rituals with historical authenticity. I also recently wrote a ritual to enliven a scrying mirror for Lilith, because in Jewish folklore she was believed to inhabit mirrors. One passage in particular really resonated with my intention, in which Newman quotes Plotinus, who compared the consecrated cult statue to “a mirror able to catch some image of it.”32 

In order to animate the statue, a sympathetic link is created with “theurgic talismans called synthēmata (tokens) and symbola (symbols),”33 which are similar to the planetary correspondences assigned to plants, animals, and minerals in natural magic. However, there is more to statue vivification than simply following a list of correspondences recognized by the intellect. Rather, the tokens and symbols help the theurgist align with the deity by making their divine essence become conscious, or awakened, within themselves, especially if they have psychoactive properties that alter one’s consciousness. For example, in fragment 224 of the Chaldæan Oracles, the goddess Hecate instructs the theurgist to animate her statue with wild rue, or Syrian rue, an entheogenic plant that the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder associated with vision, which is still burned today in the Middle East to repel the evil eye.

My devotion to Hecate inspired me to learn more about theurgy because of her exalted status in the Chaldæan Oracles, in which she is referred to as the World Soul, or at least she is according to my copy, translated by Ruth Majercik. Before reading this book, I wasn’t aware that there is conflicting scholarship about whether or not this epithet applies to her, and I was surprised to find that Newman presents the argument that Hecate is not herself the anima mundi, or World Soul, because her position in the Chaldæan hierarchy is too elevated.

“Indeed…in the Oracles, Hecate is said to be the cause of soul—but not soul itself, “Newman says. “Rather, Hecate is acknowledged as a goddess of liminality who exists in the space between two realms, such as she served when acting in the role of psychopomp for Persephone in the Eleusinian mysteries.”34

In an initiatory dream I received over a decade ago, Hecate stabbed me in my right side with her dagger and pomegranate juice flowed from the wound. “You are Persephone,” she said. Several years later, the dream made more sense to me when I read Fragment 51 of The Chaldean Oracles: “Around the hollow of her right flank a great stream of the primordially-generated Soul gushes forth in abundance, totally ensouling light, fire, ether, worlds.”35 If Hecate is so elevated that she transcends the epithet of World Soul, then I wonder if perhaps her lowest aspect, the maiden Persephone, should in fact hold that title.

Theurgy: Theory & Practice is an astounding work that combines shamanism, various schools of Greek philosophy, and theurgical praxis that can be integrated by modern occultists. The many branches of Greek philosophy can be an overwhelming topic to explore, but Newman does an excellent job of diluting the common theurgical elements, and a wealth of information is condensed into under 200 pages. Both modern theurgists and devotees of Hecate will appreciate this work, especially if they are interested in learning more about her significance in the Chaldæan Oracles.

Witching Hour Oracle, by Lorraine Anderson

Witching Hour Oracle: Awaken Your Inner Magic, by Lorraine Anderson and illustrated by Olivia Bürki
Rockpool Publishing, 1922785008, 112 pages, 44 cards, October 2023

Spiritual transformation, especially through witchcraft, involves the shedding of old patterns and beliefs that no longer serve the individual and the embracing of new perspectives and ways of being. Lorraine Anderson perfectly encapsulated the steps in the process of metamorphosis in the Witching Hour Oracle: Awaken Your Inner Magic. Channeling the highs and lows of her own spiritual journey, this deck guides readers in tapping into their innate power and shifting from the inside out.

“Each card in this deck represents a step on the journey back to your truest self (Deep Being).”28

Anderson explains in the guidebook how this deck came to her “in a time of extreme transformation.”29 In the midst of things falling apart, her priorities were skewed, valuing material gain over spiritual practice and neglecting self-care. Finding herself at a low point, Anderson decided to dismantle what was no longer working and face her shadow head-on. From her journey of being spiritual led through both  lows and highs, she gleaned insight to share with others on their own path, finding joy and magic along the way.

This deck consists of forty-four cards that are filled with glistening and luminous energy brought to life through the illustrations of Olivia Bürki. Nearly every card features the twinkling shine of magic, highlighting the invisible undercurrent constantly flowing around us. There’s a darker tone to the cards, yet there’s still plenty of vibrant colors that awaken the spirit within the imagery, prompting revelation for the readers as they gaze at the messages coming through. Bürki’s illustrations are truly magical, offering visual portals through the imagery of this deck.

While these cards can absolutely be intuitively read using the card’s name, imagery, and the word or sentence at the bottom, the guidebook adds interesting depth. Anderson provides guidance on how to read with companion cards. She describes how a card’s meaning changes depending on the other cards it’s pulled alongside. Using this concept, she has provided companion card descriptions for every card in the deck, which the reader can use to find further meaning in the cards they pulled.

What I like most about the companion card system is how Anderson pairs a companion tarot card for each card in the deck. I normally wouldn’t think to pull both an oracle and tarot card together. Yet I enjoyed this method and felt that working with two decks in tandem added a new flavor to my readings. Also reading the tarot companion card for each card in the deck helped me understand its energy more too.

The entry for each card in the guidebook features keywords, the tarot companion, description of the card’s meaning, and further description of significant companion cards within the deck that may have appeared in the reader together.

As an example, the card I pulled today was Invocation. The keywords are “power of words; kindness matters; criticism”31 and the tarot companion is the Page of Swords. The card’s description talks about how our words have power and so critical thoughts can be harmful both to ourselves and others. This one hit home for me since my husband just pointed out how critical I had been recently, often aiming my sharp words at him to the detriment of the quality of our relationship. Ever since he mentioned this to me I’ve been trying to be more mindful of the way I share my thoughts, and Anderson’s words “with practice you’ll learn to choose love-filled communication and your entire vibration and and situation will shift”33 was quite reassuring.

While I read this card singularly, the companion cards are High Priestess and Salt. Looking for further guidance on how I might better communicate with my husband, I went on to read each one of these cards in the guidebook too. And for those like myself who need some ideas when it comes to doing spreads, Anderson provides a ton to choose from! She provides spreads for getting to know the deck, a weekly self-care check in, discovering resources available to you, seeing the bigger picture, and more! I appreciate how these spreads are ones I can do regularly to stay attuned to my inner knowing.

Overall, Witching Hour Oracle is a wonderful deck for the witch interested in spiritual transformation, self-care, and deepening their connection to their intuition. Anderson has done a wonderful job of illuminating aspects of the spiritual path of the witch, including initiation and all the change that usually accompanies major leaps in spiritual and personal growth. I recommend this deck for everyone who walks the path of the witch, as we all need a little guidance sometimes, and the wisdom of this deck is one that has the power to usher in lasting manifestations and potent change.

Bones & Honey, by Danielle Dulsky

Bones & Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book, by Danielle Dulsky
New World Library, 1608688925, 208 pages, November 2023

While prayer comes from the heart, oftentimes we still long for the words to express ourselves. Bones and Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book by Danielle Dulsky gives voice to prayers we didn’t even know we needed—those secret whispers of the heart we can only hear when we slow down to listen. Dulsky’s words in this book are the balm to our weary soul in trying times, the catharsis that brings sweet release, to usher in a new vision.

“To pray is not to submit but to cast a spell, to speak our imaginations aloud and make manifest our most earnest requests. No spell comes to fruition without the confluence of innumerable sources, and every Witch knows this well. By extension, every spell is, in part, a prayer.”1

As a little girl, I devoutly learned to say my Christian prayers each night. Decades later, I will still find myself saying a quick Hail Mary at times, but that’s about the only prayer I can remember that feels resonant after wading through the wounds the Catholic Church inflicted on my spirit. I’ve yearned to have new prayers woven into my body and soul’s memory to call forth when needed, especially words to encapsulate what I’m feeling in the midst of troubling modern times featuring pandemics, ecological collapse, and war.

My path in witchcraft has unleashed unforeseen desires, teaching me the value of integrating all aspects of myself. Yet, it still remains a challenge to feel prayer deeply within my body, rather than as though I am being forced to prostrate myself to the limited gods available in modern religion, with hopes of calling into being my visions. Dulsky captures my sentiment perfectly in the introduction to this book, writing:

“As the veil continues to life, as the curtain rises to reveal far more sacred actors than the few famed gods whose names we all know well, we still need prayer. We have our own “earn requests,” not for forgiveness or redemption but for all beings, ourselves included, to be whole, well, and free.”2

What words are left when we cast our guilt, shame, and falsehood aside to reveal what’s left at the core (bones), instead opening up to be a channel for goodness and sweetness (honey) in the world?  Whether you read these prayers aloud or quietly to yourself, the potent force of these prayers is bound to have a ripple effect.

Now, it’s worth noting that the term “prayer” in this book might be different from what one has come to associate with the term. Dulsky’s prayers include blessings, songs, and even short stories. And they are  organized into thirteen books, each one an archetype that she believes is an important medicine for the world right now. Then every book consists of thirteen prayers related to the theme of the archetype.

Some examples of the books are “Book of Wild Lovers: Prayers for Lust, Seduction, and Majestic Relatedness”,  “Book of the Nameless Grandmothers: Prayers for Ancestral healing, Lineage Exploration, and Forgiveness”, “Book of the Botanical Babe: Prayers for Innocents, Beginnings, and Wild Children”, and “Book of Shape-Shifters: Prayers for Time Weavers, Human Evolution, and Strange Futures”

These archetypal themes are just the general essence of each chapter, and Dulsky provides an overview of the significance of the archetype and why it’s relevant to healing in modern times. And if this is all feeling a bit heady now, as archetypes can sometimes be given their expansiveness, the organization of the book makes it VERY easy to find exactly the prayer you need at any point in time.

Skimming through the table of contents, one is easily able to find the right prayer for them. The prayers are all numbered and within the title is the circumstance to say the prayer. For instance, if I was looking for “6.2 In Praise of our Wild Stories: To Sing When the Moon is New” to do a ritual, I would immediately know to go to the second prayer in chapter six.

Admittedly, I’ve mostly read the book in bits and pieces as I feel called to by prayer, rather than moving through all the archetypes sequentially. But I think there’s value in delving into each archetype and moving through the prayers to understand the archetype’s energy more.

As for Dulsky’s writing, it’s lyrical, raw, and potent. It has a boldness that cuts deep, even in the tenderest of times. I’ve been reading the words aloud and often feel I become infused with a greater power; my voice shifts as I feel the emotion run through me. The brilliance of this book quickly becomes a channel, and I have no doubt the prayers I am reciting are reverberating to create change.

I’d like to say I picked a favorite poem to share, but every one I read stirs something within me that I can hardly set one above another. Some that have felt especially potent though are “9.2 See Our Joy: To Giggle-Spit at the False Prophets”, which reads in part:

“See our joy and be on your way, preacher. We repent nothing, and you can’t sell our own belonging back to us. We’ll find our own redemption in the forest and take our communion from the  mountain stream, thank you very much.”36

I also have really been vibing with “6.1 The Old Haunted Skin: The Snake’s Dark Moon Energy”, which begins:

“Shedding this too-small skin, I am, for this serpentine queen makes herself ready for what comes.”37

Finally, the tender prayers of motherhood and wild children call to me, such as this snippet of “13.4 Love, Innocence, and Climate Change: A Prayer for Young Families”:

“Our strange souls chose each other to share a home in this time of great unraveling, in these wild moments of war, heat, disease, and rising waters. Fools might call it coincidence, the coming together of our peculiar family, the knowing ones understand the nature of fate.”38

All in all, Bones & Honey fills the reader with world-shifting, world-building, and world-sustaining words. Dulskey’s prayers defy time, connecting us to the past, present, and future, while anchoring us in our bodies. These prayers are much-needed medicine for our time, and I truly am excited to know I’ll be chanting them heart to heart with a powerful collective of heathens and witches.

2024 Witch’s Diary, by Flavia Kate Peters and Barbara Meiklejohn-free

2024 Witch’s Diary – Northern Hemisphere: Reclaiming the Magick of the Old Ways, Flavia Kate Peters and Barbara Meiklejohn-Free
Rockpool Publishing, 1922579289, 160 pages, June 2023

A witchcraft diary is a unique and personal account of an individual’s experiences and practices within the craft. It can serve as a valuable tool for self-reflection, growth, and learning, as well as a historical record for future generations. Yet as many times as I’ve made the resolution to keep better records of my magical workings, inevitably I lose focus or realize I’ve started in one journal only to switch to another, mixing up all my writing. This year, with the intention to track my practice throughout the year, I’ve done myself a favor by getting a copy of 2024 Witch’s Diary – Northern Hemisphere: Reclaiming the Magick of the Old Ways by Flavia Kate Peters and Barbara Meiklejohn-Free.

“The 2024 Witch’s Diary, a magickal tool from which you can draw ancient wisdom, enables you to thrive in balance and harmony with a sprinkle of very real magick. This practical guide will show you how to harness the magick of nature, claim your personal power through the discovery of ancient wisdom and embrace the divine feminine.”39

Peters and Meiklejohn-Free are a formidable duo as prominent leaders in the witchcraft community. They published their first Witch’s Diary in 2022, making this one their third joint creation. Peters, also known as the Faery Seer, is a hereditary witch and high princess of Arnemetia and The Morrighan. She is a medium, clairvoyant, and published author of works such as Your Dark Goddess. Meiklejohn-Free, also known as the Highland Seer, is a hereditary and eclectic witch who is an initiated high priestess of Isis and the Cailleach.

This planner is a great tool for any practicing witch. It offers a comprehensive guide to the phases of the moon and eclipses, seasonal spells, and other important dates to keep in mind when planning rituals and spells, such as the birthday of famous witches. Also included throughout the dairy are witchy tips, innovations, details about the Wheel of the Year, planting and harvesting timing, and recipes! All this information would be especially helpful for beginners on their witchcraft path, as the month to month  guidance helps to establish a year-round practice.

One of the standout features of the witchcraft planner is its beautiful design. The pages are adorned with stunning illustrations and wisdom that inspire and motivate. The contrast of black and white work in tandem to aesthetically coax out the magic within. Plus, the diary is sturdy and well-made; it will be able to withstand daily use and travel.

Even though I haven’t started writing in the diary yet, I’ve been making use of the incantation provided for October and November. For instance, there’s a really powerful chant titled “Samhain Incantation” that I recited on Halloween. It begins:

“Cauldrons boiling, lanterns are shing
Ghouls and ghosts, groans and whining
Parties sweep across the land
Children, adult, hand in hand
Time of fun but must remember
As fires burn bright and glow with embers
Our ancestors who walked before
We honour thee and ask for more”40

Other interesting things I’ve read about in the pages transition from October to November include kitchen witch information about elderberry and a recipe for making a cordial to fight the flu and sinusitis, a pentagram incantation for protection, weather magic and incantation, and moon magic ritual. The authors also provide an overview of November from a magical perspective, writing “These harsh, biting days are a good time to defend  yourself and define your boundaries with others and for darker magick to ward off harm.”41

As someone who often consults various books to find incantations, it’s absolutely lovely having so many to choose from in this planner. Even better, the authors have arranged them in accordance with the seasons, making it so the timing of the incarnation is always good. The #lazywitch in my is thrilled to have this all laid out for me in advance.

Overall, 2024 Witch’s Diary is an essential item for any witch looking to organize and enhance their spiritual journey. Its beautiful design and useful information make it a valuable tool for both individual and group practice (coven organization!). I am confident this diary will be immensely beneficial to my craft, assisting me with gaining new insights into my practice and deepening connection to the natural world through honoring the seasons of the year. I highly recommend this diary for other magical practitioners seeking an all-in-one place for tracking and planning their craft.

A Tea Witch’s Grimoire, by S.M. Harlow

A Tea Witch’s Grimoire: Magickal Recipes for Your Tea Time, by S.M. Harlow
Weiser Books, 1578638216, 208 pages, October 2023

I read the most delightful book recently: Afternoon Tea Is the New Happy Hour by Gail Greco. This book gave me plenty of tantalizing ideas for teas, small plates, and other sweet treats to enjoy, BUT it didn’t venture into the magical aspects of tea, which is what I’m always looking to include in my daily routine. Luckily, A Tea Witch’s Grimoire: Magickal Recipes for Your Tea Time by S.M. Harlow has amply provided the mystical wisdom of tea that I’ve been craving.

“In the daily practice of the magical arts, the spirit desires enlightenment but also seeks nourishment and comfort. By our hands, we create earthly substances of vast power, and by our hearts, we tend to the fires of our soul.”42

Tea witch Harlow infuses this whole book with love for her craft. She shares how her grandmother, “a true Wise Woman”43, was constantly healing family and friends with her unique conceptions, seeming to just know what remedy was needed. In the same spirit of generosity and warmth, Harlow carries on the tradition of passing along knowledge by sharing what she’s learned in her on-going journey of mastering tea magic with readers.

The book starts right at square one, providing a description of tea, guidance on how to prepare and store herbs, covering the tea tools needed for this practice. I remember when I first got into drinking loose-leaf tea that I didn’t have the right items to steep it in, nor did I have a proper tea cup. So it’s worth reviewing the basics just to make sure you’re ready for the endeavor, especially if you’ll be preparing your own herbs too.

As for the teas Harlow shares, where do I start?! Well, she beings with remedies, which includes things such as happiness tea and purification tea, but also psychic protection and astral travel tea. I see this section as having all the tea rituals for what people would usually cast a spell for (binding, courage, friendship are just a few more teas covered!). She then covers teas for the moon phases and esbats (full moon each month), tea for every zodiac energy, and sabbat teas (Imbolc, Mabon, and so on). There’s even a section on creating blossoming tea, where the leaves unfurl when put in water.

For all of these teas, not only does Harlow provide the exact recipe, she also leads readers through the entire ritual, from what items are needed, how and when to prepare the tea, and what to focus on when drinking the tea. Some tea rituals are a bit more elaborate than others. It can vary from Harlow simply recommends a certain color mug to drink it from to  a long list of specific items such as crystals, candles, salts, honey, and more.

For instance the items called for November’s Yarrow Moon Tea Esbat include “a black altar cloth, 1 white candle, heat-safe plate, 8 snowflake obsidians, an oil burner, Wisteria and lilac with a base oil, 1 bay leaf, a black and white mug, strainer.”44 I have no doubt all of these items blend together to truly create magic, but I certainly wouldn’t have these things lying around! Therefore it’s important to plan ahead and make sure you have time to gather all the ingredients and items needed for your tea ritual.

As for the ritual, Harlow guides readers to do a variety of things to enhance their spells. There’s the usual visualizations and chants, but at times she encourages readers to spit into their tea (break hexes), salute the energies around you, or speak aloud your intentions. Harlow also provides an entire section on reading tea leaves for divination, known as tasseography, where a list of symbols helps readers to know the messages coming through.

Beyond the specific rituals, Harlow provides a plethora of information about tea magic in general, including tea sigils, properties of various crystals, and uses of tea remnants in spellwork. Additionally, there’s an entire chapter on potions, as well as guidance for creating aromatic oils and vinegar, alcohol and milk tinctures, and moon water.

Finally, the chapter “Tables and Correspondences” is worth its weight in reference gold. It includes a table of brewing times based on tea type and a table of measurement conversions. There’s also a list of intentions/goals and the herbal correspondences, along with a sections on the elemental attributes of herbs and herbal substitutions  o further help readers learn how to successfully create their own tea blends or alter the recipes she’s provided based on what one has available.

The book itself is a sturdy hardcover, which makes me feel it will be resistant to the spills that will ultimately happen as I am trying to turn a page while brewing my tea! There’s a whimsical quality to the illustrations, and they really provide an aesthetically pleasing browse through the text.

For those just learning about the magical aspects of tea, A Tea Witch’s Grimoire is a great place to start, though experienced tea witches certainly will also appreciate the compendium of recipes and rituals. Readers can reference this book year-round to trying out the different tea rituals as the seasons change, establishing their own relationship with the herbs. Or they can use the guidance of Harlow to manifest their will through the tea rituals, attracting or banishing what they want from their worlds, while also looking to the leaves for messages about the future. Harlow has created a true treasure trove of tea wisdom, and I for one am excited to start crafting my next brew!

Heal the Witch Wound, by Celeste Larsen

Heal The Witch Wound: Reclaim Your Magic and Step Into Your Power, by Celeste Larsen
Weiser Books, 1578637988, 208 pages, April 2023

Personal safety is something that is of great concern in today’s society. From hate groups attacking those trying to live their lives to the “everyday” violence that is commonplace, we all just want to be safe to be who we are. While this book, Heal The Witch Wound: Reclaim Your Magic and Step Into Your Power, focuses on feeling safe with respect to magical practices, Celeste Larsen has also managed to weave in a broader spectrum of what personal safety means individually as well as on a greater scale.

The introduction begins with a simple explanation of the “witch wound”, and Larsen describes it as “a collective, intergenerational, psychic wound that is rooted in the Burning Times – an era of widespread persecution and violence against suspected witches.”43

Anyone with this wound will usually hide their spiritual beliefs and practices out of fear of being judged or shamed or rejected. Without taking away from the basis of this book, I find many parallels between this and the situation of other groups in current society. To be clear, this is a personal observation that I am making and not meant to take away from this book in any way.

Larsen has drawn on her experience as a pagan witch, writer, and ritualist to produce a work that is more of a how-to rather than a reference book. To me, this is excellent news as I need a guide and not just theory in this realm. The book is comprised of three parts that each deal with a specific aspect of the healing journey. The first section deals with the root of the wound and goes into detail around the creation of it as well as its legacy. Larsen’s writing is simple, straightforward and honest, and manages to put the reader at ease while imparting some tough information around the wound and its causes.

The second part of this spectacular book focuses on the symptoms of the witch wound, something I hadn’t even considered. In fact, as I read this section, I was struck by the number of things mentioned that I completely identified with. It didn’t even occur to me that it might be a result of the witch wound I carry.

I had a very visceral reaction to one part specifically where Larsen writes:

“Of all the ways the witch wound can show up, fear of being authentically heard and seen is undoubtedly the most pervasive. How often do you stifle your own voice out of fear of being too outspoken, too opinionated, too sensitive, too demanding, too honest, too much?”45

This specific part hit me really hard. I’ve been told my whole life to be quiet, sit down, keep my hands to myself, don’t talk so loud, “why are you laughing so loudly?”, and all that. I have never felt comfortable around people simply because I’m afraid that I will be too much of something and then I’ll be made to feel less-than as a result.

Reading this book made me realize that this wound I carry that presents in this way is something of a gift. Stay with me here. Knowing that I am holding back my awesomeness for the sake of other people’s comfort means that I am much more awesome than I think I am. And I think I’m pretty awesome.

Seriously though, reading about how this wound affects daily life if nothing is done to heal it opened my eyes to how important self-care is. Part three of the book delves deeply into this with a whole host of various ways to heal certain aspects of the wound. My personal favorite deals with moving into personal magic and power.

Here, Larsen talks about the ways in which practitioners can talk about individual magic and specific practices in a way that honors them while also maintaining a certain level of privacy. There is an acknowledgement that no two practitioners will refer to themselves in the same way, nor does their individual practices align. In this way, Larsen states that personal comfort comes before any sort of declaration that might be made concerning someone’s personal craft.

Larsen writes honestly with an authentic voice and the situations presented in the book by way of confirming the various suggestions presented feel like they have been actually lived by the author. I felt many echoes as I read and aligned with many of the situations that Larsen describes throughout the book by way of sharing her personal story. 

Heal the Witch Wound is an excellent book for those who feel they cannot ‘come out’ as a practitioner of magic and who feel they need to stifle themselves in order to fit it. You don’t have to dim your own light in order for other people to shine, and you don’t have to stay small for other people’s comfort. This isn’t to say that there shouldn’t be consideration for others: depending on what your situation is you might feel it’s in your best interest to be silent about what you do. This book is meant to reframe the way in which we look at how we express ourselves in the world we live in and helps us see where we can make positive changes to bring us into more alignment.

Pagan Portals – The Water Witch, by Jessica Howard

Pagan Portals – The Water Witch: An Introduction to Water Witchcraft, by Jessica Howard
Moon Books, 978-1-78535-955-2, 112 pages, March 2023

As a practicing witch with over twenty years’ experience, Jessica Howard has provided a blueprint for inviting the element water into personal practice. Her book, Pagan Portals – The Water Witch: An Introduction to Water Witchcraft, is full of useful information and insight. Not only does Howard talk about the various ways water could be used to develop one’s connection to the Divine, she also shares her own personal experience with the element, furthering the concept of there being no right way to practice this particular type of witchcraft.

Howard has laid the book out in both highly digestible and very practical sections in only 112 pages. The table of contents provides a glimpse of what’s contained within this book: an in depth look at the various facts of this craft. 

Personally, as a Fire sign I find water incredibly challenging to work with. Despite the great healing abilities water contains, along with various divination and knowledge seeking qualities, I have found it very difficult to use regularly. Howard’s clearly written book identifies the challenges and addresses them in the third chapter titled “Connecting With Water Energies”. In this chapter, she identifies and addresses the main root of my personal block when it comes to water: being gentle with yourself for not getting it right away. She explains why it might feel disheartening at first, saying:

“Sometimes we have shut ourselves off for so long that it can take a while to open ourselves up to these energies. So even if it doesn’t work with the first meditation or first blessing, keep at it. Try different approaches, search for more ideas than just what’s in this book, and keep at it until you find something that works for you.”46

I like the fact that Howard recognizes and fully embraces the fact that not every practicing witch is going to connect to water in the same way she has. By building in flexibility and encouraging additional studies outside of the book she wrote, she creates a sense of trust with the reader that isn’t overly cloying or fake. There is no loftiness in her language; not to say that what she writes is basic, rather, the way the book is written invites dialogue and experimentation on the part of the practitioner. Howard has not written a book telling the reader specifically how to be a water witch – she is sharing her journey and providing the steps she took in order to connect with the element in the way that she does.

This lack of information gatekeeping is so refreshing! Too many times I’ve read books that start off promising to share insight into whatever and before too long the realization that nothing is actually being shared sets in and I’m left with a book that doesn’t help my personal pursuit of knowledge. It’s disheartening and causes immense frustration. Howard has gone out of her way to ensure that if nothing else, the reader walks away with a healthy understanding of water in the context of magic and how useful it can be when used in conjunction with current practices. 

In a later chapter, Howard talks about the environment as it relates to those who follow a magical path. She is forthright in her requests to the reader in this specific framework: not only does she challenge those magical practices that instruct the practitioner to contribute to the ongoing crisis we see all around us in nature, but she gives specific thought to what we as individuals could do in order to reduce our footprint in this mass destruction. I’ve not seen anything as specific as this in any previous magical books and I am glad she took the time to remind us of the devastation our practices can cause if we aren’t mindful. Howard says:

“I’ve seen books on witchcraft which have recommended putting your petition into a plastic container and throwing into a river…pouring perfume into rivers because undines like pleasant scents. Please do not follow this advice. If you want to throw something into a river to help rid yourself of negativity, use a stick or small stone. If you want to give an offering to the undines, use a small vial of water which has had naturally grown rose petals steeped in it. Please stop and think about what you are offering and what the potential harm it could have before you make it.”47

This might turn folks off who want to just do their thing and not concern themselves with the harm they might be doing to the environment. Personally, my offerings are usually a combination of items that can be composted (fruit, flowers), and containers that are specific to the use of magic (candle holders, cast iron cauldron). While some of this might come off as sounding ‘holier than thou’, I share this only to show how simple it is to be mindful of the materials being used in your practice. 

Pagan Portals – The Water Witch is a wonderful book for those looking to expand their practice to include water work. It’s beautifully written and full of useful information that encourages the reader to learn more through other channels. A softer read than I am used to, this book both challenged my ideas around water magic and whether I could actually use it and helped me to find my own path as I navigated my deep feelings around being open to new things and performing magic.