There are no good witchcraft books. None of them are objective, not a single one. They all have authors, and all authors have inherent styles and opinions- and when every topic is a hot-button issue in the witchcraft/pagan/occult community, there’s literally no safe middle ground. It’s all bad- all we can do is try to diversify, pick out the books/authors that are less bad, and then bitch about them later on the internet.
Pursuant to that…. Specialize your focus. and…. maybe….. don’t get all your information…. from “witch books” ???
If you’re into herbal remedy and plant magic, LEARN ABOUT PLANTS. If you like space, LEARN ABOUT SPACE. If you like the ocean, LEARN ABOUT THE OCEAN.
Take that real, fundamental real-world knowledge, and apply it over whatever mythos suits you and is open to you. The Ancients believed as they believed for a reason, but the more you change the more you stay the same. The foundations are already laid… and some things change.
There is no reason that space exploration and Luna cannot exist together. No reason at all why your knowledge of plant and animal coexistence cannot be based in science and husbandry alongside the folklore and common uses to help avoid accidental poisonings.
Yes, everyone has an agenda this is true. But if you’re trying to rely on opinion and rhetoric when the entire world of scientific discovery is open to you, I feel you deserve what you get.
It’s not a good look for us as a group when neither author nor reader seem to be putting practical knowledge to use in combination with our witch stuff. It’s a shame that the rhetoric still sells, but I take a cold comfort that it still sells under many faiths that aren’t witchy.
This is another point where community pressure, just consistently saying ‘we don’t do that here’ can be maintained for positive change, I hope.
co-signed
Ok so I’m gonna share a bookshelf pic here:
Kinda messy, but look at the titles. I’ve got witchcraft-specific books, but I’ve also got, right next to them, cookbooks and informational texts aimed at a non-witchy audience. And also massage books on one end and poetry books on the other, but those are mundane interests. And yes, that’s a wineglass o’ wands. And yes, one of them is a sonic screwdriver replica.
Anyway, out of the 16 books there that I might reference for witchin’, only two of them are specifically aimed at a witchy audience, and there’s two more that kind of aim “generic new-agey” – the aromatherapy one and that “healing kitchen” book, but seriously that one has some GREAT little witch-able recipes. Four Thieves’ Vinegar, anyone? How about lemon & white sage finishing salt?
The rest are cookbooks and hipster-lifestyle recipe books, one about homebrew mead, Plant Trivia, and serious herbs-as-medicine texts.
This isn’t my ENTIRE witchy bookshelf, but it illustrates the point nicely on the herbal and kitchen-witchin side of things. I don’t own so many sciencey books about other specializations, but I do actively seek out the science info on geology and gemology and metallurgy, astronomy, physics, neuroscience and psychology, biology, botany, meteorology, history and folklore… whatever’s relevant to what I need to know at the time.
Science is not the enemy of magic. I promise, learning about the mundane properties of whatever you’re planning to use for your witchcraft will make you a better witch. There’s nothing wrong with melding your magical and mundane interests, either. I like bartending and earn my living doing it; I also make consumable alcoholic potions as a witch.
Bonus points: if you’re in the broom closet or want to work on improving your magic but most of the time you COULD spend studying is while you’re at work or on the bus or something and don’t want to be hassled by strangers for reading witchcraft books… you can read science books in public, or “fun facts about (topic)” kind of books, and the worst anyone might think is that you’re kind of a nerd. You can, in fact, presumably learn enough to be an entirely effective witch EXCLUSIVELY from books aimed at an academic-curiosity audience, with just a little extrapolation.
Thank you this is the very definition of my point 😀 Also dang I need to look some of those up now
I agree with the point of supplementing your witch knowledge with scientifically backed knowledge and promoting this better, definitely no argument against that, but I’m still in knots thinking about whether or not we can get objectively good books on witchy topics like sigil/glyph/visual magic, necromancy, polytheistic spirituality in 20XX, f’ex.
We can apply scientifically backed material to such topics, but is there a positive possible future for books written by witches on witchcraft things? Question addressed to all, rather than posters above specifically. Because I’m undecided on the probability of our community providing a majority of better books in future.
Depends on who you ask…? There ARE scholarly works out there; Morpheus Ravenna’s book on the Morrigan comes to mind; but I even had issues with that book! (Not even just on the composition and font decisions because OH MY GOD can you not???) We can do better, yes, and better is something to strive for definitely.
The thing of it is, magic is fairly subjective. It’s going to depend on your personal gnosis, your experience of your deities, and how you interact with your environment and/or worldview. No book can be perfect because we’re not perfect. Added to that, our understanding of science and how we interact with the world is continually changing.
The best we can hope for is people who don’t conflate their personal gnosis with the original lore without TELLING anyone; RavenK; aren’t horrifically racist and abusive; Galina Krasskova; don’t ascribe to cults of personality; The Piety Posse; and don’t repeat themselves/self reference to the point of ridiculous and inane; CF, TPP, GK, and Many Many Many Others.
a man: men now have to think before they speak, they are afraid to be criticized or accused of something, can we believe that we have to live like this now?? uwu
all the women that had to grown up being super self-aware of what they wear, what they think, what they say, how they act, where they are, with whom, etc in every aspect of their life, all the time, in this sexist society (especially women of color, non-straight women and trans women): good. finally you all have to learn how to behave.
…living under hyper-critical sexist social standards isn’t good for anyone, though.
like, I get that our society tends to be too permissive towards men being shitty and not nearly permissive enough to women who just want to live their own damn lives. I get that. A lot of the guys moaning about being criticised are upset that they’re being held to basic standards of politeness, and they’re damn fools.
but. but. a lot of feminists believe that men are inherently predatory and need to constantly check themselves in order to not make everyone else feel unsafe. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in theory, but in practice it winds up having fucking awful side effects for everyone. because Intersectionality Is A Thing That Never Stopped Happening.
men of colour, gay/trans men, disabled men, and other marginalised men are often seen as predatory because of the things that make them marginalised. gay panic is a thing that never stopped happening. black men getting the cops called on them for doing something completely innocent is a thing that never stopped happening. disabled men getting arrested for doing something harmlessly weird in public – never stopped happening.
on top of that, the stuff men have to do to seem Not Predatory often goes along very traditional gender-bullshit lines. in order to seem Not Predatory, men can’t display themselves as sexual beings, at all, because male sexuality is seen as inherently predatory. Now like I get it, getting hit on by skeevy guys is awful, a world where that never happened would be a good place- but policing male sexuality has lots of nasty side effects.
Men and non-passing transfeminine people can’t dress femme, because that’s crossdressing and that’s sexual.
Men can’t do innocent PDA with their partners, especially if those partners aren’t obviously women- because male sexuality, and especially queer male sexuality, is predatory, Think Of The Children.
men can’t have any interest in spending time with children or adolescents. because clearly any man who wants to work with kids is a predator.
men have to be very, very cautious about interacting with women, even in a clear mentorship/friendship context where there’s no sexual attraction on either side. even if the woman in question knows that you’re okay and is completely fine with your interactions. because the rumour mill is a thing, and one person accusing you can have drastic consequences. remember that post where the Office Gossip convinced everyone that someone was having an affair… with his wife? yeah.
(This, ironically enough, has a chilling effect on women in the workplace. If you’re scared to network or mentor women because you don’t want people to think you’re a creep, you can’t give women the same opportunities you can give men.)
Like. … there’s holding people to standards, and there’s Holding People To Standards. I see a lot of feminists falling into this trap where in order to keep men from Being Predatory, you have to Hold Men To A High Standard that juuuust incidentally punishes LGBT people, men of colour, and disabled men for existing while Different AND upholds existing toxic gender roles.
and it’s not like men don’t notice, y’all. hell, it’s not like men who aren’t feminists don’t notice the ways in which they’re actively getting hurt by this crap. and when they call you out for your BS, sometimes they don’t use the right words and sometimes they mix stuff that’s true with stuff that’s bupkis, sure. but that doesn’t make it wrong.
aaaaaaaaaand this would be why I’m not a feminist, encapsulated for everyone to read~
so I’ve been in a relationship for 5 years now. And I see a lot of posts about how people think relationships mean having butterflies forever, your heart beating faster when they walk into a room, about cuddling together every night, legs intertwined, that you’d be so happy to live together you’d sleep on a double bed with each other every night.
And its not really like that, at least not to me.
You stop getting the butterflies when you live together. Your heart no longer speeds up when you see them, but instead, everything calms down. When youre in the room with them, you feel calm, and secure. When you cuddle them you feel your heart beat slow, and the sound of their breathing carry you towards comfort. It doesnt feel like a roller coaster anymore, it feels like home.
You don’t sleep curled up with each other every night, legs twisted between theirs so tight its hard to tell where yours begin and theirs end.
Instead, you sleep comfortably, side by side, sometimes facing different directions. But every night, you find yourself scooting backwards on the bed so you bump into them. You snuggle against their arm, or stroke their hair as they fall asleep. There are nights when my boyfriend, in his sleep, reaches around me and pulls me to him, like a child with his teddybear, like I am his comfort.
In the wee hours of the morning before the dawn breaks, when the world is blue and you see through cracked eyes, you curl into their chest and inhale their scent before drifting back to sleep.
Kisses aren’t always romantic and firey anymore. But there are so much more of them now. There are cold kisses when you’re eating ice cream in the summer, and sticky kisses over breakfast pancakes. There’s “im leaving now” kisses, and “one more kiss before you go” kisses. There’s sleepy morning kisses before work, when you don’t remember the alarm going off but instead the press of their lips against yours is what brings you into the day.
There’s kisses before sleep, and, you are so sweet with the things you do kisses. There’s kisses because you treat animals so tenderly, and I’m so glad i’m with you and not someone else kisses. There’s quick kisses in the aisles of the grocery store, when its loud and you gravitate together, when instead of having your own personal space and their own personal space, its both of yours together, and you step into their chest to take up less area together.
You don’t always text each other with confessions of love and care like you used to, because that’s a given now, and you’ve moved on to quirky inside jokes about the life youve built together. You share looks of exasperation and amusement in public, your own little world against the outside one.
Relationships aren’t always a fairy tale. They’re not always fireworks and sparks, at least, after the start.
But they are a quiet rhythm and hum of love and care. It’s not a fire in your soul, but one in your hearth, keeping you warm and comfortable, comforting you as you drowsily drift into sleep.
And I love that.
*SLAMS REBLOG BUTTON!!!*
Never read anything that has resounded so much with me
demon: *sits there drawing up a long contract for a lawyer’s human soul, working out the loopholes because lawyers are sneaky* angel: i think that dude is on lsd lmao i’m gonna go talk to him in my true form demon: don’t you have burning wings and a thousand eyes or something angel: haha ye deom: *long sigh*
My mom listened to a lot of conservative radio when I was a kid and I remember when I was like 14 running errands with her and Rush Limbaugh was on and he was really cheesed up about gay people and he starting talking about how Those Liberals think that ANYTHING is okay as long as you have a consent, as long as you have that one magic word “consent” you can have a gay orgy sex party or whatever super outrageous sexual scenario he used as an example.
The point he was making, of course, was that the libs were wrong an actually, some sex acts are wrong even if everyone involved is consenting and no one is being victimized, and the people involved should be judged or even jailed for them.
Anyways super wild how tumblr radfems sound exactly like Rush fucking Limbaugh on that day, almost like horseshoe theory is a thing or something.
1lb from my pre-surgery weight, and 3lbs away from my first goal! If I can get down to 138 before I go see my baby I will be SO PLEASED~ Do you know how much better everything looks with a smaller waist and broader shoulder when you’re trans…?? LITERALLY EVERYTHING~
how bad do you think the american government and the capitalists in charge of it hate the internet for cluing in the not only the american public but the rest of the world that living in america actually sucks extremely hard
turns out it’s hard to lie to people about the quality of living in other countries when you can chat with someone in Sweden and learn that the government pays YOU to go to college there. or you can chat with literally anybody in literally any other first world country and find out that going to the hospital is Fucking Free.
like it’s no wonder captialists want net neutrality to end so badly. they’re getting exposed super hard and future voters are learning to fucking LOATHE the shit they’re doing.
SO fuckin often conservative dipshits will be like why don’t you go over to Europe and see how they live you’ll be so thankful for Republicans protecting you from taxes and regulation. And I’m like. Holy fuck youre brainwashed by fox news. It would be sad if you deserved any empathy at this point.
my favorite thing is when an american conservative politician is like “oh you don’t want to go to europe it’s a lawless hellscape where people are murdered in the streets” and then online people are like
a. what the fuck are you talking about i live in sweden and have never even seen a knife in my entire life
b. isn’t america a lawless hellscape where people are murdered in the streets every day? by COPS?
Almost each and every SINGLE time I complain about one of the 90,000 things blatantly wrong with how America is run I get a “why don’t you move then” like they actually don’t think I’d love to if I could afford to and could leave behind people I care about here????? That all my health problems wouldn’t be GONE if America worked even slightly like other thriving countries???
there is a reason social media is being locked down with buyouts and net neutrality is being torn down.
the internet was a risk and one those at the top no longer want to allow to flourish w/o heavy control
Disabled people cannot move. I have yet to find a country that will accept a disabled person into their citizenship…ry?
Australia comes close, but you have to work a certain amount of time for a length of time before you can move, and that’s just not possible for all disabled people.
‘second-world’ meant ‘part of the Soviet bloc’, not ‘somewhere in between decent and awful standards of living’. the US is not a second-world country; those terms don’t really mean jackshit anymore.
that being said, everything in this thread is completely true.
House Of Crows 