{"id":2427,"date":"2015-11-25T09:23:14","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T17:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/?p=2427"},"modified":"2015-11-25T09:25:11","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T17:25:11","slug":"three-short-witchy-book-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Short Witchy Book Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Wicca<\/a>Wicca Covens: How to Start and Organize Your Own<\/a> by Judy Harrow<\/a><\/p>\n

My rating: 5 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

The late, great Judy Harrow, a 3rd Degree initiate in a BTW tradition, also had a degree in psychology, and the combination of experience, knowledge, and training makes for what is probably the most useful book out there for establishing and running a coven. She talks about group dynamics and issues that often come up for covening. Well worth the read for experienced coven leaders and people looking to start a group alike.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The Rebirth of Witchcraft<\/a> by Doreen Valiente<\/a><\/p>\n

My rating: 4 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

This was an excellent biographical story of the founding of modern Wicca through the eyes of one of its most significant founders \u2013 Doreen Valiente. The text varies between scholarly research to journalism to gossip and speculation. Overall it\u2019s a fascinating read.<\/p>\n

I liked Valiente. She had a lovable mix of scholarly intelligence and gullibility. I can only assume it was due to a desire to believe the best in people and willingness to take them at their word, which came through in her writing. She obviously also, like many of her contemporaries, sincerely believed in the existence of original hedge witchcraft and continued to seek it out through research and even channeling.<\/p>\n

Whether or not you share her faith in such a thing (I do not,) her work is still interesting as she discusses interaction with other Craft leaders and traditions as well as such details as where the use of certain tools came from and how some customs developed.<\/p>\n

I was amused to see that the same snobbery and Witch Wars that seem to be a part of the modern community were also present at witchcraft\u2019s beginnings; traditional witches questioned the legitimacy of Gardner\u2019s initiation; Gardner\u2019s followers questioned the legitimacy of Alex Sanders\u2019 initiation; both BTW groups questioned the legitimacy of the initiations of any \u201ctraditional\u201d group they encountered. And everybody questioned the North American traditions. Doreen herself was of the opinion that making up a ritual from scratch in no way determined its legitimacy as long as it worked. I think that\u2019s an excellent lesson for modern witches. Perhaps our initiations are all only as valid as we believe them to be.<\/p>\n

Valiente also strongly approved of feminist witchcraft; but cautioned that men are needed also. Again, these are sentiments that I share.<\/p>\n

I have deep respect for Valiente as a Witch, a teacher and a poet, knowing how much of the modern Wiccan liturgy she wrote (which, by the way, she admitted to in her book, when it was to the advantage of most witches of the time to claim ancient descent of their Book of Shadows passed down through generations). Her prose writing, however, suffers from a little rambling and wandering off topic. This is the only reason I did not give the book five stars.<\/p>\n

Every witch everywhere should read this book for posterity if nothing else, and it made my list of books that I think every Witch should read<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The Wiccan Prayer Book: Daily Meditations, Inspirations, Rituals, and Incantations<\/a> by Mark Ventimiglia<\/a><\/p>\n

My rating: 2 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t really fond of this book. I like the idea very much \u2014 to create a Book of Common Prayer for Wiccans, so to speak \u2014 but I didn\u2019t like the execution. To me these all read like adapted Christian prayers, grounded in Christian and not Pagan ethics, just with two deities and not one. And for those who resent gender essentialism, it was absolutely dripping from the pages of this in that the Goddess was always asked for very traditionally \u201cfeminine\u201d things, and the the God was asked for very traditionally \u201cmasculine\u201d things. Not at all my cup of tea. But it wasn\u2019t a bad book, and for a Christo-Pagan or a Pagan from a Christian background, this would probably have a lot of meaning for you.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

\n

Like\u00a0Between the Shadows\u00a0on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and never miss a post!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sable’s brief opinions on three witchy books that you may have considered reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1343,"featured_media":1383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,602,321,7,4,3],"tags":[650,81,35,494,9,399,649,28,10],"class_list":["post-2427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-between-the-shadows","category-books-2","category-reviews","category-theology","category-wicca","category-witchcraft","tag-between-the-shadows","tag-neopaganism","tag-pagan","tag-pagan-theology","tag-sable-aradia","tag-teaching-witchcraft","tag-wicca","tag-witch","tag-witchcraft-2"],"yoast_head":"\nThree Short Witchy Book Reviews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sable's brief opinions on three witchy books that you may have considered reading.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three Short Witchy Book Reviews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sable's brief opinions on three witchy books that you may have considered reading.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Between the Shadows\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-25T17:23:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-11-25T17:25:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/482\/2015\/04\/shutterstock_182869295.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"572\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sable Aradia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sable Aradia\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/\",\"name\":\"Three Short Witchy Book Reviews\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-25T17:23:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-25T17:25:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#\/schema\/person\/3fe882432cb6a380d58557a2b6fc0047\"},\"description\":\"Sable's brief opinions on three witchy books that you may have considered reading.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Three Short Witchy Book Reviews\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/\",\"name\":\"Between the Shadows\",\"description\":\"The Craft of a Liminal Witch\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#\/schema\/person\/3fe882432cb6a380d58557a2b6fc0047\",\"name\":\"Sable Aradia\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/07a24e0ef4f43a7bcaf30c4e706b913b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/07a24e0ef4f43a7bcaf30c4e706b913b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sable Aradia\"},\"description\":\"Sable Aradia (Diane Morrison) has been a traditional witch most of her life, and she is also a licensed Wiccan minister and a Third Degree initiated Wiccan priestess in the Star Sapphire tradition. She is the author of \\\"The Witch's Eight Paths of Power\\\" (Red Wheel\/Weiser, 2014,) a contributor to two Pagan anthologies (Pagan Leadership Anthology, Immanion Press, 2015, and Pagan Consent Culture, Asphodel Press 2016) and a blogger at PaganSquare, the Patheos Pagan channel, and Gods & Radicals. To make ends meet she reads Tarot, teaches workshops, makes music, writes speculative fiction, maintains an Etsy shop and works part time at a bookstore. She lives in Vernon, BC, Canada with her two partners and her fur babies. For further information, please visit her website http:\/\/www.sablearadia.com.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.sablearadia.com\",\"brandygrenier\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/author\/sablearadia\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Three Short Witchy Book Reviews","description":"Sable's brief opinions on three witchy books that you may have considered reading.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Three Short Witchy Book Reviews","og_description":"Sable's brief opinions on three witchy books that you may have considered reading.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/","og_site_name":"Between the Shadows","article_published_time":"2015-11-25T17:23:14+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-11-25T17:25:11+00:00","og_image":[{"width":572,"height":768,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/482\/2015\/04\/shutterstock_182869295.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Sable Aradia","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sable Aradia","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/","name":"Three Short Witchy Book Reviews","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-11-25T17:23:14+00:00","dateModified":"2015-11-25T17:25:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#\/schema\/person\/3fe882432cb6a380d58557a2b6fc0047"},"description":"Sable's brief opinions on three witchy books that you may have considered reading.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/2015\/11\/three-short-witchy-book-reviews\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Three Short Witchy Book Reviews"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/","name":"Between the Shadows","description":"The Craft of a Liminal Witch","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#\/schema\/person\/3fe882432cb6a380d58557a2b6fc0047","name":"Sable Aradia","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/07a24e0ef4f43a7bcaf30c4e706b913b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/07a24e0ef4f43a7bcaf30c4e706b913b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sable Aradia"},"description":"Sable Aradia (Diane Morrison) has been a traditional witch most of her life, and she is also a licensed Wiccan minister and a Third Degree initiated Wiccan priestess in the Star Sapphire tradition. She is the author of \"The Witch's Eight Paths of Power\" (Red Wheel\/Weiser, 2014,) a contributor to two Pagan anthologies (Pagan Leadership Anthology, Immanion Press, 2015, and Pagan Consent Culture, Asphodel Press 2016) and a blogger at PaganSquare, the Patheos Pagan channel, and Gods & Radicals. To make ends meet she reads Tarot, teaches workshops, makes music, writes speculative fiction, maintains an Etsy shop and works part time at a bookstore. She lives in Vernon, BC, Canada with her two partners and her fur babies. For further information, please visit her website http:\/\/www.sablearadia.com.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.sablearadia.com","brandygrenier"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/author\/sablearadia\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/betweentheshadows\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}