Recommended Reading

As you may imagine, I am pretty picky about the books in my magical library. Easily ninety percent of what's on the market doesn't make it past my first cursory examination.

There is one, yes, ONE book that I completely and heartily recommend: The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts. While I don't agree completely with the author, her views on magic are easily among the closest to my own that I've ever encountered in print. However, that's not the important thing. The important thing is the wide variety of genuine folk magic she managed to gather. People have been messing about with this whatever-it-is for centuries, and, although we don't have a clue why, certain things work often enough that they consistently get passed down. These are the most invaluable bits of information for the current practitioner, and often hard to come by.

Now, in general, I don't advise just living spells wholesale from a book, even my favorite one. Magic is an extremely personal thing, and it's very important that every aspect of a spell or ritual resonate for the person or people performing it. Books should be used as a reference source, and I have found a few more that I find useful for this purpose.

Grimoire for the Green Witch: A Complete Book of Shadows, while quite modern Wiccan, is a highly accessible collection of data. Chapters one and eight are by far the most useful.

The Encyclopedia of Natural Magic is another good, solid reference work, full of well-researched and useful practical information.

Now, plants are a huge part of magical practice; there are few easier ways to connect with the web of existence! While the previous books cover plants very well, this is an area where a practitioner really needs detailed resources. For many, the best book on this topic is Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (Cunningham's Encyclopedia Series), and, in a rare moment, I generally agree that nothing else does the job better. However, it has one flaw; those darn drawings! I find drawings of plants to be very difficult to translate when looking at actual plant life, so I also own the Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Magical Plants; this book is full of actual photos! Yay! These two books are best used in conjunction to get a more complete view of those plants they have in common.

Now, I'm always on the lookout for a good book, so I hope that over time my magical library will expand (and I didn't cover my divination library), but, for right now, these are the books on my shelf. What's on yours?

Comments

[Rebellibrarian]

I am quite fond of every one of Scott Cunningham's books I've read. The ones I've liked enough to buy (though some are now MIA) are

1983 - Earth Power: Techniques of Natural Magic

1987 - The Magical Household

1987 - Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem, and Metal Magic

1988 - Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner

1993 - Living Wicca: A Further Guide for the Solitary Practitioner

[Deyaniera]

While I do not agree with his take on everything, I'm a huge fan of Tad Williams' Animal Magic. I also like the book "How to find Signs and Omens in everyday life." It's an interesting read, and again, I don't completely agree with it, but it's still a good read.

[Acelightning]

A person pretty much can't go wrong with Scott Cunningham's books. They are always very informative and clear, while not dispensing dubious information that could get a person into magical trouble. On the other hand, avoid anything and everything by D. J. Conway!

[Jenny S.]

I actually actively dislike Tad Williams' Animal Magic. I find his interpretations to be almost entirely obvious/literal, except where they leap to "where did THAT come from"; on the up side, the actual research he did on the animals can be useful.

I think I will, down the road, use the comments to this as a beginning place for future reading, and, of course, I'll post reviews! :)

[Bari Mandelbaum]

Hello! Found you through brown_girl's LJ!

For animal magic, I actually am quite a fan of Lupa's Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone (found here: http://www.thegreenwolf.com/ffbb.html). I generally don't care much for Tad Williams for the same reasons you've cited. I'm not much of a fan of Cunningham's work b/c I find he makes grand handwavy gestures about his Ancient European Practices but doesn't provide any documentation of any sort. And his rune info is wrong like a wrong wrong thing :). but I'm a Norse Reconstructionist (among other things) and we believe in the power of research as a magical tool.

Actually, for magical herbal stuff (magical herbalism, medicinal herbalism, and plant food and medicine wildcrafting are some of my big passions) one of my favorite resources are plain old fashioned plant identification guides. There's a great one online: http://plants.usda.gov/. I also adore my Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants of the Pacific Northwest. Even though medicine and magic are sorta separate disciplines, I find that if you get into a space where you can really *feel* the energy of a plant, the plant will tell you if it wants to be your ally/friend/helper/guide or not. When I learned wildcrafting, we were told to basically meditate with the plant before picking it - ask it for permission. And if you feel like it says no, don't pick it. If a plant says hey let me help! it's a good idea to poke around the books to make sure one understands things like whether or not it's poisonous etc.

Yay! Neat blog! I'm glad I found you!

[Jenny S.]

I'll check it out, thanks for the rec!
I understand; this is why I am only talking about the one book by him at this point.
I also have plant identification guides, but I like the "cheat sheet" factor of specifically magical references. I will be checking out the .gov link anyway, though! :)
Really, in my view, everything should be checked for magical strength/resonance, which is the equivalent of what you describe. :)
Welcome!