Here's my unwanted opinion on some witchcraft books
This is a list of opinions I have on some popular witchcraft, occult and practitioner related books. I don't talk about anything I haven't read myself.
This is in no way stopping you from reading them yourself, it's just what I think of them as an experienced practitioner and pagan.
I now have a Goodreads account you can look at if you're curious what else I've read but it's a mess and I've just added my bookshelf on in bulk.
Lisa Lister - Witch
To get this out of the way. It's bio essentialist crap and we all know this by know but it bears repeating. This is an example I've used in my grimoire of how transphobia seeps into spiritual spaces and goes unchecked under the guise of feminism and women empowerment. Arguing that a witch's power comes from her womb as a bowl of nature and creative magic. If that's what you like to draw from then all power to you, I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is that Lister directly infers that the title of 'witch' is exclusive to this specific demographic of women.
I find her statements gross and dehumanising to women and her argument falls apart completely when you remember that not every woman has a womb, big duh moment I know. It correlates with TERF ideology that certain women are inherently more powerful because of a female reproductive system as opposed to women as a whole being powerful because of their autonomy as human beings. "But if that's true then what's stopping cis men, trans and nonbinary people from being practitioners?" LITERALLY NOTHING!
Sky Alexander - The Modern Witchcraft Spell Book and The Modern Witchcraft Grimoire
Very simple. Pretty cover. Overall they make for ok resources for beginners but once you're out of the beginner phase they really fall flat. Alexander doesn't provide much context when referencing certain tools and practices and tends to confuse witchcraft with wicca.
The Farrars - A Witches' Bible
Dated. Uses the G slur. Their books are all mislabelled wicca which makes sense because these books have been around since the 90's when there wasn't much of a difference and you can tell. They do not hold up to today's standards. They are a good example of how practices have historically been conflated in pop culture.
Does discuss ritual nUdity (they call it skyclad) and includes pictures. I wanted to mention it here to not surprise anyone in case any of you aren't comfortable with it.
Rachel Patterson - Grimoire of a Kitchen Witch
A book about kitchen witchcraft that doesn't include any kitchen witchcraft. It's more like a basic beginners grimoire. Very repetitive.
Features a chapter on hoodoo which I'm unsure about. I don't know anything about hoodoo or rootwork but I'm assuming it's a practice exclusive to the black community in America due to it developing during the period of enslavement in the US. I'm also assuming that Patterson isn't a part of this community due to being white and British. If I'm wrong and Patterson is genuinely part of the practice and can honestly speak on the topic please correct me.
Scott Cunningham - Encyclopaedia of Magical Herbs
A good resource for correspondences, easy to digest but Cunningham focuses on wicca (again) using wiccan practices like complementarianism and gendering nature which to me makes no sense (I know about the law of polarity but I do not agree with it). The pictures of plants are nice but the folklore provided for them is pretty minimal. You can find all the same info for free online.
Judika Illes - Encyclopaedia of Spirits
Honestly not that bad. There's a lot of information and it's pretty consistent throughout. It's a huge book though, it can be kind of overwhelming but they take from multiple sources when discussing the mythos of deities which is a plus. The pages are very thin and delicate which can make it hard to read the text.
Joey Hulin - Your Spiritual Almanac
it's eh in the broadest sense. I liked the folklore and the eco action sections but I didn't really absorb any of it. a lot of the corresponce lists was information I already knew about. It felt very repetitive. Would have loved to have seen more detailed information about the changes happening in nature each month.
Rachel Pollack - Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom
Pollack is very informative, and honestly a great resource for tarot work, she knows her shit and isn't afraid to info dump. The only thing I didn't really like is all the mentions of dualism like of mother v father, male v female but that's entirely my issue and it's the nature of tarot to be dualistic, It just isn't a necessity to me and my practice. Still a great book.
Aleister Crowley - Magick
A great example of what not to do. Appropriates dharmic practices and Jewish mysticism. When he wasn't stealing from other cultures or being a massive contrarian Crowley was writing about sex magic and it's discussed here in uncomfortable detail.
