The Witches' Trifecta!

A friend of mine on Facebook recently asked his friends what the #1 book is that they would recommend on The Craft; another friend--Wren Walker of The Witches' Voice fame--was asked to post a variety of books that had the most endearing impact on her.  I would like to offer my own contribution through the following thought-experiment: Let us imagine for a moment that The Craft was once again driven underground because of ignorant persecution.  What three nonfiction books would I (or you!) carry with me to preserve and sustain a proper understanding and practice of The Craft for current and successive generations?  (Three may seem an arbitrary number for this thought experiment, but I figure that I could comfortably carry-and-conceal them if I should have to flee!)  What follows is a brief review of the books that I have chosen from my own substantial Pagan library:

#1 on my list is Laurie Cabot's seminal classic, Power of the Witch: The Earth, The Moon, and the Magical Path to Enlightenment (Delacorte Press, 1989).  This book came to me at a time when I was desperately searching for for answers in earnest.  When I first embarked on this Path sixteen years ago the publishing market had been flooded by a "New Generation" of books on what many of us have now come to call "neo-Wicca"!  Nearly all of these latter books were frustratingly eclectic, devoid of structure, and as it turns out they were often written by novices themselves!  In one popular series that was recommended to me very early on, it took the author  the space of three large books to poorly explain what far better educated authors were able to explain within the space of a single volume.  But, I was searching for Traditional Witchcraft, not someone's poorly misinterpreted vision of it!  By the end of these books I still didn't have the slightest idea about how a Magick Circle ought to be properly cast, or how items ought to be properly charged with one's own psychic energy when casting a spell, despite the fact that the author assured the reader that that by the end of the second book in the series the reader would have reached the levels of First and Second Degree within the author's own Tradition.  (I can only say that I now have a far stricter sense of requirements for the First Degree and the Second Degree!)  Compounding my own sense of frustration was that the  author of one of these neo-Wiccan books had the audacity to say that one had to believe in spell for them to manifest, but without providing the slightest reason for their readers "to believe".

That is when Power of the Witch entered my life as the answer to an unspoken prayer.  As a practical guide to The Craft this book is exceptionally well rounded.  She discusses the legacy of the Witch in history as a benign and as a nefarious figure, the presence of our gods within pre-history, the holidays that we celebrate, but also how a Circle is properly cast, and how one may charge herbs, candles, and other ritual Tools of The Craft by underscoring the methodology and use of the Alpha state of consciousness.  More importantly, however, this book satiated the analytical side of my questing Piscean mind by achieving what no popular book had before: explaining, using recent studies in Quantum Physics, precisely how spells work by emphasizing the role that the mind plays in fashioning our perception of reality and the physical multiverse around us.  The chapters "The Science of Witchcraft" and "Alpha" is worth the cost of the book alone!  This book has had such an enduring legacy on my life as a Witch that I try to keep a copy on hand that I may give to fellow Witches as a gift if they should be facing similar hardships as I once endured; in fact, I recently went out of my way to hunt down a near-mint condition hardback copy of Laurie's book to own as a treasured keepsake.

Unfortunately,  in spite of the fact that this book is an utter Game Changer, it has met with some resistance within The Craft, though chiefly on behalf of certain High Priestesses who cannot seem to tolerate the thought that their own training might not be adequate for the needs of each and every one of their students, even if they should require a far more analytical grounding--as if these women have attained a certain level of Mastery and Acclaim that precludes them from furthering their own education within the Craft.  The very implication seems to be offensive to them and their Egos!  I have personally observed some High Priestesses balk at Laurie's teachings, purely out of their own sense of Authority and Entitlement, wanting to sorely downplay the proven techniques of Laurie Cabot as if they are "boring"--maligning them as unhelpful or even insipid--in favor of their own less-than-helpful metaphysical views.  Even more, this invaluable book is seldom recommended or even stocked by local Occult Stores who seem to be biased towards the likes of Starhawk and her psychological and feminist exegesis, The Spiral Dance (HarperOne, 1979/ 1989/ 1999), as well as a number of local High Priesthoods whom are more interested in requiring their Neophytes to read the work of neo-Wiccan authors such as Scott Cunningham (1956-1993) and his latter contemporaries.

The second book on my short-list would be Stewart (1916-2000) and Janet Farrar's British Traditional Witchcraft source-book, The Witches' Way: Principles, Rituals and Beliefs of Modern Witchcraft (Phoenix Publishing, 1984).  This book contains a synthesis of both the Gardnerian and the Alexandrian Book of Shadows in collaboration with Doreen Valiente (1922-1999), as well as the authors' own ritual embellishments.  As such, it is a monumental achievement that expands upon and explains precisely how a Circle is cast, how the Quarters are called, the  use and functions of the Tool of the Art, and several Traditional and unique Rites of Passage (thereby adding to the original Book of Shadows), including a Requiem (funeral for a deceased Witch), as well as the First, Second, and the Third Degree of Initiation.

This text is a corner-stone for anyone truly sincere about The Craft, especially if they should desire to build upon it and establish their own Tradition based upon a firm foundation!  In Scott Cunningham's Living Wicca: A Further Guide for the Solitary Practitioner (Llewellyn, 1993) he devotes the third part of his book to developing one's own Tradition of Wicca, which is an admirable gesture provided that his readers follow through and seriously consider the works of the Craft Elders whom he recommended and provided within his annotated Bibliography.  Otherwise I fear that, if his readers lack these prerequisite  skills, then they will be unable to appreciate the parting legacy that Scott has left to them--the capacity to stand on their own merit.  

My third and final selection would be the somewhat undervalued exegesis, The Elements of Ritual: Air, Fire, Water & Earth in the Wiccan Circle (Llewellyn, 2003), by Garnderian High Priestess Deborah Lipp.  This is a brilliant book that fills in many of the gaps in the knowledge of the Pagan community by focussing not so much on the how-to as a standard Wicca 101 book might, but instead she focusses on the why of certain procedures within ritual, which is of quintessential importance; she even breaks down standard ritual procedure and thoroughly examines the Mysteries of the Tools (i.e. the Athamé, Wand, Chalice, and Pentacle), etc.  Much of it is very common sense, such as keeping a "Magick Box" prepared and filled with items for every last moment contingency during a ritual, such as two spare boxes of matches, a wine bottle opener, spare candle, and so on and so forth.  Also underscored is the development of the Coven's hive-mind by stressing that each Witch in a Coven must envision the same structure or item, such as the Magick Circle.  This book is like carrying around a High Priestess with nearly twenty years experience between its pages.  I must underscore, again, that what was so refreshing about this text is the plethora of common sense material that was included which no other book on the subject to date has bothered to address.  It remains a truly profound, engrossing, and invaluable read, as a result, and one that is suitable for both the Neophyte on the Path, as well as the self-taught or otherwise eclectic High Priest/ess because it addresses the questions that a is Priest/ess is bound to be asked by his or her students.  With these three books one will walk away with an extraordinarily profound understanding of The Craft, why we do what we do, as well as a clear insight into the duties and responsibilities of the High Priesthood as an Educator.

This being said I must also state that this is the only book by Lipp that I can, in good consciousness, recommend due to historically ideological differences as it pertains to both medieval and contemporary Witchcraft studies.  Whereas I believe that the evident pagan Indo-European shamanic substrate within the medieval period deserves to be underscored; she does not.  Rather, Lipp has gone to extraordinary lengths in personal correspondences and in her later works to mitigate the importance of such scholars as eminent micro-historian Carlo Ginzburg.  I believe that this cynical view of history may derive from collective trauma experienced by the Gardnerian Tradition because many of its members, at least within the United States, may have felt burned, or even embarrassed and shameful for accepting Gerald Gardner's account of Witchcraft as a surviving Pagan religion.  In spite of recent evidence  that proves the survival of Paganism during the Medieval era by the likes of Profs. Carlo Ginzburg, Emma Wilby, Éva Pócs, and countless others from Continental Europe, a certain faction within the Gardnerian Tradition, however, will not soon forget their own humiliation caused within the first couple of years of the New Millennium by the publication of Prof. Ronald Hutton's own now-obsolete polemic, The  Triumph of the Moon (Oxford University Press, 2001).