This book is by the genuine thing: a real village witch. Paddy Slade and this book shows that real village witchcraft never disappeared in England and does so in a comprehensive way. My great grandmother was such a person but not all of her practice came down to me. Paddy’s book fills in some of the gaps that my mother and grandmother had missed and of course adds other bits that were not in my family tradition.

The book wanders through the year, putting many practices into their appropriate seasonal basis and in doing so provides spells, myths and linkages in an enjoyable and flowing well.
For those with an interest in family magical traditions and especially English forms, this is a great book that rewards careful study. Buy it.

Conversations with God is a series of originally three books, though there are additional ones. My comments will stick to the core three. These books claim to document a dialog between the author, Neale Donald Walsch, and God. The three books vary in focus, from the individual in the first, to global issues in the second and then an even wider perspective in the third, with a recap of core teachings from the first two. There is nothing really new in any of them, but they are stunning books never the less. The fact that the books contain little that is totally new may just reflect that these messages have come through many people over a very long time, rather than be a negative. What is amazing about these books is that they have such a genuine ring of authenticity about them, great humor and are extremely uplifting to read. They are a great joy to read and, at least to me, have such a ring of truth about them, that I found them compelling.

Work like Conversations with God falls into the realm of channeled communication. One thing that must be born in mind with all such communications is that the information is flavored by and limited to the vocabulary and thought processes of the channel. This sometimes accounts for the ordinariness of some of these communications and also what to many people are too many Christian references.

The three books that make up the original writings in Conversations with God are quite striking. They have the ring of truth of how you would expect a supreme being to be. So many of our pictures of God seem petty and childish for a supreme being. This will anger many conventional religious believers, and the books certainly have, but such people are probably not reading here. There is a great sense of humor flowing through these books, which certainly makes the reading easier and more enjoyable. The first and last books are pretty easy going. I found the second a bit harder, perhaps because I was still looking for personal answers and the second book has a more global orientation.

I think these are must read books. They are strange in that, at one level, there is little new in them, yet they are also amazingly revealing and exciting books and the information in them is enlightening and life changing. So go figure. But I love them, all three of them. They are witty, touching and profound.

This delightful book takes a spiritual look at crystals and their uses. Short chapters at the start of the book cover from how crystals are formed to how to look after them and do healing with them. The bulk of the book is a crystal directory that devotes from one to many pages to each of the 200 crystals the book covers.

Each crystal covered is well illustrated with representative samples, color, appearance, rarity and source specified and detailed information on the spiritual significance of the crystal and what to use it for, with a special section on its use in healing. Then if it is a crystal that comes in multiple varieties the specific characteristics of each variety is covered. So for some crystals only a single page is used, whilst for others it takes eight pages or so to do the job.

The book is great. The illustrations are clear and sufficiently varied to make it pretty easy to identify an unknown crystal. The information is solid. For those I have direct experience with, the described characteristics match well. The other sections, such as that on healing with crystals, provide good advice, though much more could, of course, be said.

This is a great 400 page book that makes a great reference, selection guide before you go off to buy crystals for a particular purpose and a pleasant recreational read. Recommended.

This is the best book on making incense for esoteric purposes that I have come across.

The book consists of three parts:

• Making and Using Incense
• Herbal
• Incense Recipes

The first part does a thorough job of describing the ways to burn incense and the ingredients and approach necessary to make each, from loose though cone to stick. The second covers how to collect and dry herbs ready to include in incense. The third, comprising the bulk of the book, are recipes for incense organized by purpose. Appendices group useful information.

This is a good, practical book that is clearly written and so causes no confusion at all when following its instructions. The recipes work well. I have tried many of them and they function well for the stated purpose.

This book belongs in the reference collection of anyone following an esoteric path where incense is important. Highly recommended.

This excellent book takes you through the core practices of ritual magic. Being ritual magic, the focus is on Hermetic practices, rather than the more commonly described witchcraft. Whilst there is much in common, there are also major differences and it is great to have such a good, clear book available that covers ritual magic.

The book is divided into two parts: Magical Theory and Magical Practice.

Magical Theory sets the scene by taking you through the underlying principles that allow magic to work. Chapters are:

• Magic and Natural Law
• The Magical Universe
• The World and the Magician
• Visualization and the Training of a Magician
• The Meaning of Ritual

These chapters do an excellent job of giving you a very sound basis for future work. The chapter on Visualization and the following one on ritual are particularly good and reward careful study.

Magical Practice gets you into activities and is divided into the following chapters:

• The Preparation, covering The Intention and the Correspondences, The Time and The Place
• The Master Rituals, covering a Kabbalistic and Egyptian master ritual
• Astral Projection
• Talismanic Magic
• The Art of Prophecy
• A Word about Demons
• Three Magical Intentions
• Death and the Meaning of Life
• The Way of High Magic

The Kabbalistic Master Ritual includes the LBRP (Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram) and thus includes the Kabbalistic Cross, working with the archangels and directions and other core practices of ritual magic. While I have seen somewhat clearer descriptions of this ritual (including full translations of the Latin into English), it does do a pretty good job. The other chapters do a great job of covering their intended topics.

Three appendices cover magical recipes for oils, salves, tonics and cosmetics , magical scripts and an occult who’s who. The scripts cover the various alphabets and scripts used in magical writing for talismans and spells. The occult who’s who is obviously now dated but covers all the classic magicians and significant ones up to the time the book was published. This is useful as it puts many people into context with the short paragraph descriptions each receives.

This is an excellent introduction to ritual magic with good, solid information that clearly comes from real experience. Highly recommended.

This is a resource book. Recognising that many of the formulas used in witchcraft have been influenced by Voodoo and its relatives, the book acknowledges this and then gets on with the good stuff.

In this case the good stuff is 96 pages of recipes, concoctions and spells for all sorts of things. The early part of the book goes through incense, magickal oils, waters, inks and powders. Many of these are just plain hard to find anywhere else and having them all in one reference book is great. These are effective recipes. They work. Where necessary they come with specific instructions for use, such as astrological requirements, etc. Take heed of these, as they seem to be valid from my experience.

Following the first fifty or so pages of recipes, the remainder of the book comprises voodoo spells. I’ve had little experience with using these. However because of the effectiveness of the earlier recipes I would tend to trust these to be accurate and effective. Many of these spells deal with areas I have little interest in, such as love spells or cursing. But other are more widely useful ad are worth exploring. You can also gain a lot of understanding from examining these spells for the basis of their construction and practice.

This is a great little book. In one place it collects together many recipes not readily available elsewhere. Very highly recommended.