Books for thought?(List updated again)

[ncsweet]

If you can get to you local library - ask about the Inter-Library Loan System. They can order books from all over the county for you to check out (and it's usually free).  

[Artistic Genocide]

@ ncsweet-Thanks! I'll look into that.xD

I found The Sprial Dance today!
Yeah!

But I up dated the front page.=3  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

EW. EW. CONWAY. EW.  

[Artistic Genocide]

Sanguina Cruenta

EW. EW. CONWAY. EW.

I'm guessing conway is not good?xD  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

I don't know for her books on generic Neo-Wicca. Her books on dragons are meant to be good, but I've never read them nor much else on dragons, and wouldn't be able to tell you either way.

Stay far away from anything that pretends to be of a particular culture. The "Celtic Magic" and "Norse Magic" books are inaccurate to the point of being offensive.  

[Artistic Genocide]

Sanguina Cruenta

I don't know for her books on generic Neo-Wicca. Her books on dragons are meant to be good, but I've never read them nor much else on dragons, and wouldn't be able to tell you either way.

Stay far away from anything that pretends to be of a particular culture. The "Celtic Magic" and "Norse Magic" books are inaccurate to the point of being offensive.

O.o'
yes ma'am!
Good thing i didn't grab any of her books.xD
do you know anything about the other two?  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

Ted Andrews has his fingers in too many pies. I like his "Animal Speak", because it's more of an encyclopaedia sort of thing. But he seems to think that everything animals do is to tell us something. Sometimes a sparrow is just a sparrow wink

Starhawk is fairly good, but I don't like her. I can respect that she's a decent writer, and that many people value her stuff, I just don't like her personally. I don't like her militant feminism or the way she destroys decent stories by ripping them apart, I'm not into her Reclaiming thing, and I don't like her writing style. But many people do and she's not a bad source in the way Conway or McCoy are. Her stuff is more opinion and general spirituality.  

[Artistic Genocide]

Sanguina Cruenta

Ted Andrews has his fingers in too many pies. I like his "Animal Speak", because it's more of an encyclopaedia sort of thing. But he seems to think that everything animals do is to tell us something. Sometimes a sparrow is just a sparrow wink

Starhawk is fairly good, but I don't like her. I can respect that she's a decent writer, and that many people value her stuff, I just don't like her personally. I don't like her militant feminism or the way she destroys decent stories by ripping them apart, I'm not into her Reclaiming thing, and I don't like her writing style. But many people do and she's not a bad source in the way Conway or McCoy are. Her stuff is more opinion and general spirituality.

I like "Animal Speak", but i know what you mean about the animals always telling us something thing. xD
But i always heard Starhawk was a little..."woohoo" if you know what i mean.xD  

[Artistic Genocide]

Ahhhhh!
noooo!

Mastering Witchcraft – Paul Huson
Conversations with a Witch – Lois Bourne
Hedge Rider - Eric de Vries

Are all out of print! gonk

Mastering Witchcraft has been out of print for five years...*cries*
so wrong...
-_-'  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

Hedge Rider isn't out of print, surely? I bought it not long ago from amazon.com.

It's a bit "intermediate". I quite enjoyed it in some ways - it's a particularly different sort of book - but he spent far too much time trying to convince the reader that Hel is "goddess of the witches".  

[Artistic Genocide]

I currently don't have access to amazon... parents would steal what i bought and toss it, even if i am 18.-_-'
So the closets Pagan/witchcraft shop doesn't have it anymore, at least not with their current provider. So I'm stuck.-_-'

sweet. that's good, means the shop keeper actually knows what he's talking about.xD But he told me it was a good basic book. yes?  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

Um... no. Not really. It's specifically Hedgecraft, not general witchcraft. He includes a couple of spells that require some experience in magic and some good self-knowledge. I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner.

Huson's book has the subtitle "a practical guide for witches, warlocks and covens" which makes me raise an eyebrow and immediately distrust him as an author.  

[Artistic Genocide]

Ahhh okay. I see. Well, I'll give it a good read, and if it's to far out of my league I'll save it for a bit. ;3

That's what i thought at first too, but It was on the list Violet put up, that was created by the Alexadrian HPS for recommended reading for her neophytes. >_>'  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

*shrug* After reading the comments on amazon.com, there are quite a few negative responses, but most of them are just complaining about his use of the word "warlock" (which I get, but isn't enough, imo, to warrant one star) or how his magic breaks the rede or whatever.

On the other hand, most of the positive responses don't make me want to run out and buy it. Quite a few of them seem to like it just because it's not "yay love and light glitter fairies etc".

Apparently he includes saying the Lord's Prayer backwards as a part of a spell, or something, and there's this stuff about selling one's soul. I get the idea, from a flick through the preview, that he draws some of his ideas from mediaeval magical concepts and thoughts about witchcraft. Not as practised by actual witches, you understand, but the sort of things alchemists scribbled over just before succumbing to mercury poisoning wink Nah, I kid. But it does give a strong impression of imagination. "Witch names in runes" and "fascination jewels" and so forth... I'd like to track down some fam trads and ask them what sort of resemblance this has to actual reality, you know? It seems more like the sort of thing one would imagine would be true, rather than what is actually true. Romanticised history, if you will. Fun, but....

He did mention something about "tapping into the power of mercury" or something by reciting deity names, which annoys me, and he has a section on runes that starts off incorrect at the very beginning by claiming that the runes were used for divination from ancient times (there's no evidence of this that I'm aware of). And he calls Theban "runes". Someone find me my gun.

I think if I saw it at the library, I'd have a flick through it, but I wouldn't buy it. Apparently it's an important historical volume in the history of modern witchcraft, published as it was in 1960. A lot of it reminds me of my old "Almanac of the Uncanny", which was great fun to read as an occultly-inclined child but was also full of "lord of the flies, abbadon" stuff and "the mysterious witches of suchandsuch rock" and the sort of thing you'd see on bad documentaries at 11pm. Don't get me wrong, there's stuff in my old almanac that's quite fascinating. Then on the next page they go on about UFOs. I would expect the same sort of thing from this book; good info on one page, silliness on the next.  

[RubyLight]

Edain McCoy is awful. She falsifies information and nothing is accurate. You question her and she gets really self rightous. One of the author's to AVOID.