Serpents of Circe – A Book Review

Serpents of Circe – A Manual to Magical Resilience

edited by Laura Tempest Zakroff
published by Revelore Press – September 2024
122 pages
Trade paperback: $16.00

If the election had gone differently, things would still be difficult.

We would still be dealing with climate change (or rather, not dealing with it). We would still have state governments denying fundamental rights to half the population. We would still have wars of aggression, wars of genocide, and terrorism. We would still have the very rich doing anything and everything they can to make sure they stay rich, no matter who gets hurt in the process.

And since the election went the way it did, these difficulties and many others are going to be worse. Much worse.

This is reality. This is the environment in which we work.

How do we deal with it?

We need to develop resilience.

Resilience is a term from materials science. It represents how much energy an object can absorb without becoming permanently deformed. Rubber is very resilient – you can bend it back and forth all day and it always goes back to its original shape. Most metals are resilient up to a point. Until that point they snap back, but after that point they either become permanently bent, or they become brittle and break.

When it comes to resilience, humans are like metals. We can absorb a few things, but push us past our limits and we break. But unlike metals, our resilience is not fixed. We can do things to increase our resilience.

I’ve seen several people over the past couple years talking about how they’re tired of being told to be resilient. They don’t want to have to bounce back after being bent out of shape – they want our economic and political systems to stop bending them out of shape in the first place. They’re not wrong for wanting that, for feeling that way.

But that’s not the world we live in. And it’s certainly not going to be the world we live in over the next four years.

We need to develop resilience: the ability to deal with what’s going on without losing our composure, our core values, or our joy of life.

Serpents of Circe – A Manual to Magical Resilience

Serpents of Circe – A Manual to Magical Resilience is the third in the series of magical resistance anthologies edited by Laura Tempest Zakroff. In her call for submissions, Tempest said:

Circe is a goddess of sorcery and said to be the first Witch in Greek Mythology. She was highly skilled in the magics of transmutation, herbalism and potion-making, as well as necromancy. Spiritually and metaphysically, serpents are beings of creation, renewal, and transformation as well as protectors and guides to the underworld. The combined energy of these two ideas speak to an evolving legacy of magic rooted in wisdom, sustainability, empowerment, flexibility, and practicality.

The book has 37 entries from 33 contributors covering 122 pages. As the title suggests, this is not a deep exploration of the concepts of magic and resilience. Rather, this a how-to manual that provides hands-on guidance for things you can do to increase your own resilience.

Tempest includes four of her sigils: for promoting democracy, for reviving kindness, for shifting perspective, and for justice.

Ivo Dominguez Jr. has a piece on “Linkages & Materia for Political Workings” that could be used in any situation.

Emiliano Russo has a knot spell for protection titled “Circe: Witch and Weaver.”

Other entries include poems, prayers, spells, meditations, and brief inspirational essays. If you’re trying to figure out where to start, there’s something for you here.

The New Aradia and The Gorgon’s Guide

The first book in this series was The New Aradia: A Witch’s Handbook to Magical Resistance in 2018. The New Aradia is an inspirational and explanatory book. It helps readers understand why things are the way they are and it emphasizes that we are far from powerless to respond.

The second was The Gorgon’s Guide to Magical Resistance in 2022. It skips the explanation and goes straight into what you need to do to resist those who are stealing our sovereignty and poisoning our planet.

Serpents of Circe follows the themes of The Gorgon’s Guide, but instead of focusing on fighting back, it provides spells, meditations, and guidance for taking care of you and yours.

If you like one of the books in this series, you’ll like the others.

Who should read this book?

Serpents of Circe is intended for witches, Pagans, and other magical people. But even those who don’t believe in magic will find something useful here.

I don’t review books differently based on how I get them, but for those who care about such things, I bought my copy of Serpents of Circe. This is my honest opinion of the book. If you’re looking for something to help you get through these difficult times, give it a try.