Carnal Alchemy – Dawn and Flowers

August 14, 2007 at 9:23 pm (Sex Magic)

Carnal Alchemy: A Sado-Magical Exploration of Pleasure, Pain and Self-Transformation
Crystal Dawn and Stephen Flowers
Runa-Raven Press, 2001 (originally 1995)
86 pages

I finally got around to reading this book cover to cover after reading it piecemeal for a couple of years. It’s arguably the first book to focus solely on BDSM sex magic (which the authors alternately term Carnal Alchemy, Sado-magic, and Sado-shamanism, p. ix). While it’s not a huge book, it does cover the basics.

Dawn and Flowers do an excellent job of tracing the history of sex magic in general, including BDSM magic. Not only do they cover the usual suspects like De Sade and Von Sacher-Masoch, but they also get into Robert North and the New Flesh Palladium, and Aleister Crowley’s own Sado-magical journeys. There’s also basic information on BDSM and the various toys involved, and common sense safety.

Unfortunately, the book is pretty sparse as far as content goes. There’s very little description of any rituals (the authors’ magical group, the order of the Triskelion, keeps its rituals secret). There are only a couple very brief fictional examples; the reader is left largely up to hir own devices. And the actual material dealing with practical BDSM magic is pretty brief, compared to the background material given. I think they could have given some more information without compromising privacy, though they also confess trepidation with misinterpretation of the material by individuals who stop thinking after the word SEX!

However, for being a pioneering book, it’s to be given good marks. While there’s not a ton of information, what is there is excellent, and it set the stage for a number of books by other authors that followed it.

Four pawprints out of five.

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Animal Energies – Buffalo Horn Man and Firedancer

August 8, 2007 at 8:21 am (Animal Magic)

Animal Energies
Gary Buffalo Horn Man and Sherry Firedancer
Dancing Otter Publishing, 1997
40 pages

This was a tough book to find outside the internet, despite the authors’ claims of selling over 100,000 copies since 1992. It’s a slim little self-published volume that is primarily a totem animal dictionary. So how did it fare?

It’s actually pretty decent as far as dictionaries go, especially for its size. The entry for each animal starts with a bit of natural history, followed by the authors’ interpretations of the totemic qualities. Occasionally they throw in a bit of Native American lore (without citing their sources). While they do focus on Big, Impressive North American Animals, they do sometimes have a few oddities–for instance, the jellyfish is characterized particularly by the fact that it must rely on the waves to move from place to place (which isn’t entirely true–they can move with a belling motion). There are a few other details that they throw in that are questionable; for example, I could find nothing to substantiate the claim that a fox with fleas will hold a stick in its mouth and slowly immerse itself in water until the fleas are on the stick–then let the stick go. Still, for a dictionary this isn’t a bad starting place.

There are no rituals or tips on how to work with the animals–this is only a dictionary. It’s the kind of thing that would appeal to people who may not necessarily be heavily into totemism and related practices. I do cringe a bit when the authors toss around words like “Great Mystery” and “medicine” when they don’t give any tribal information about themselves other than saying they learned from a Native American teacher a couple of decades ago.

Still, cultural appropriation aside, this is a neat little booklet. It’s well-written, and a good resource if you like to have a variety of totem animal dictionaries.

Four pawprints out of five.

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Borrowed Power – Ziff and Rao (editors)

August 7, 2007 at 2:01 pm (Academic/Journalistic Approaches, Anthropology, Native American cultures, Paleopagan Cultures, Shamanism)

Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation
Ziff, Bruce and P.V. Rao (editors)
Rutgers University Press, 1997
338 pages

Every so often I get into the mood to sink my teeth into a nice, meaty chunk of….

…academic writing.

(What did you think I was going to say?)

So when the craving hit this time, it just so happened to be on the same day as the arrival of my copy of Borrowed Power. It took me almost a week to work my way through it (amid editing manuscripts and other such things) but I finished it, and I can definitely say it was a great read.

Borrowed Power is an anthology addressing cultural appropriation, the use/borrowing/theft of elements by one (usually dominant) culture from another (usually not dominant) culture. A common example in the pagan community is white pagans raised in Suburbia drawing on Native American religious practices and taking them out of context while not actually participating in the culture they draw from. While cultural appropriation isn’t always considered a neopagan topic, it’s one that’s crucial to the evolution of our community. (I deemed it important enough that I’m compiling an anthology specifically on cultural appropriation in the pagan community inspired by Borrowed Power—click here for details.)

The topics are varied; while one essay addresses “white Indians”, hippies and New Agers who try to be more Indian than the Indians, most either don’t mention the phenomenon or only do so in passing. Instead, the essays cover the legalities of property rights and copyright in the face of cultural theft; financial restitution for cultures that have been taken from; returning historical and cultural religious items to the cultures they were taken from; the impact of non-Native artists using traditional Native American patterns; ethnomusicology; and post-colonialism, among others. While some of the essays focus on Native America, other cultures are addressed. There is an excellent essay addressing the appropriation of African-American culture through music, from jazz to rap.

Most of the essays are readable even to those without an academic background. A few do get tough to chew through, particularly those dealing with legalities, and postcolonialism. But for the most part the writing is accessible, and the tougher writing styles aren’t entirely impossible. There’s an excellent variety of viewpoints and topics presented here, and much food for thought. And, as is expected, the research is impeccable, and is joined by a sensitivity to the cultures being explored that’s often missing from academic writing.

Overall, this is a wonderful read for those who want an introduction to the problem of cultural appropriation. While the specifically neopagan content is almost nil, the concepts herein are worth looking into. (I also recommend this as a source for those writing essays for the anthology I’m compiling, just FYI, along with the cultural appropriation chapter in Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves by Pike.)

Five pawprints out of five.

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Born on a Rotten Day – Hazel Dixon-Cooper – August BBBR

August 1, 2007 at 1:41 pm (astrology, Bargain Bin Book Reviews)

Born on a Rotten Day: Illuminating and Coping With the Dark Side of the Zodiac
Hazel Dixon-Cooper
Fireside, 2003
192 pages

I knew I was going to enjoy this book from the moment I got it. Born on a Rotten Day is everything the title–and the wonderful cover art–suggests. It’s a humorous look at the less-than-lovely traits of the various Sun signs in astrology at their very worst. And it contains all the things those other books may be afraid to tell you about yourself.

Each chapter is divided into sections on men and women lovers, family members, bosses, and yourself, all under the sign in that chapter. The common patterns are translated into what it means in dealing with each of these people, and solutions to the best way to defuse bad situations are offered. The book is incredibly well-written, and takes the worst aspects of each sign for an entertaining trip.

Keep your sense of humor intact, though. This isn’t meant to be taken 100% literally. What Dixon-Cooper provides is an exaggeration of the negative traits as a way of pointing them out. As a Scorpio, for instance, I may not be so bitchy that my “moods range from irritable to pissed off…on one of your good days”. However, it’s a good reminder for me to watch my temper and intensity, both when dealing with others and with myself. I got a good laugh out of that entire chapter, but I also learned a few things, too, that put me more into perspective for myself.

Of course, astrology (particularly when limited to the Sun sign) only goes so far. However, this is a great book to add to any astrological library. It’s an amusing reminder of our quirks and flaws, and the fact that they’re usually not as horrible as they could be (nor are they without counterbalances). I absolutely loved reading this, and I highly recommend it.

Five deadly venom-laden Scorpio stingers out of five.

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City Magick – Christopher Penczak

July 31, 2007 at 8:28 pm (Elemental Magic, Technomagic, Wicca and Witchcraft)

City Magick: Urban Rituals, Spells and Shamanism
Christopher Penczak
Weiser Books, 2001
302 pages

One of the advantages to being a bibliophile who marries or moves in with a bibliophile is the combination of libraries. Selling off the duplicate copies makes room for more books, and you get to read books you might never have had a chance to see otherwise. City Magick is one of the books that Taylor brought into our mutual library, and it’s my latest commuting conquest.

Having been raised in a rural area, it’s taken some effort to adjust to living in the city. Granted, Portland is pretty green, with a lot of parks in the city proper. However, I’ve also lived in places where it wasn’t so easy to get to greenspace. While I was somewhat aware of the magic of manmade objects and creations, I wish I’d had this book around to give me some extra ideas–I definitely would have coped a lot more quickly!

Penczak does a great job of taking basic (and some intermediate) magical practices and making them relevant to the land of concrete and steel. From an absolutely wonderful section on the sometimes neglected urban totem animals, to a recreation of the tree of life as a skyscraper (complete with mental picture of Spider-man as a shaman), he demonstrates that the concepts often found in green nature-based practices can also be adapted to more “artificial” environments. And that’s one of the really beautiful things about this book; it reminds us that even though the components may have been altered somewhat, everything came from nature and is subject to it. Of course, Penczak doesn’t ignore the fact that manmade creations have done harm to nature, both green and otherwise. However, he offers a realistic resource for those who do choose to (or must) live in an urban area.

There’s a nice dash of Chaos magic in here, too. I thought his variations on sigils were wonderful, especially those appropriating graffiti. It’s proof that subversion is pretty well universal, and the graffiti that’s used to mark territory or deface public property can also be taken and reworked for personal magical purposes. And he has a nicely flexible perspective on deities and other denizens, particularly those of pop culture, the modern mythology of the city. I add bonus points for open-mindedness!

Overall, this is a great book, especially for someone who’s still getting their feet wet in magical practice but thinks s/he has to be out in the middle of a field. As I said before, the basics are covered, but there are plenty of suggestions for expansion into intermediate territory. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I have some ideas for the next time I’m out wandering in downtown Portland.

Five pawprints out of five.

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Animal Messages – Susie Green

July 25, 2007 at 9:03 am (Animal Magic, Divination)

Animal Messages
Susie Green
Cico Books, 2005
64 pages + 52 cards

If I didn’t already have a good relationship with my Animal Wise deck, I think Animal Messages would be my top choice for a totem deck. This lesser-known deck is pretty much the best one I’ve seen besides Animal Wise. It’s an almost flawless tool, as far as I’m concerned.

One of the things I love about Green’s work with totems is that she’s incredibly environmentally aware. Some writers, particularly in the New Age, get so wrapped up in “higher planes of existence” and “travelling to the Underworld to meet your power animal” that they forget to connect with this reality. Not Susie Green, though–she takes the spiritual and applies it directly to the worldl around and within us. She has an acute understanding of how the animals themselves see the world, and how we can interact with them on their level of understanding, more instinctual but no less important or powerful.

For being such a small thing, the accompanying booklet has a lot of info in it. Rather than pontificating on what Native people supposedly do (with no research from actual tribes), Green packs a lot of thought about the human-animal connection, different spreads that she finds work well and why, and streamlined suggestions for figuring out what each card represents. Granted, there’s always room for more information on that last, but Green gives good starting points for people to work with–she’s excellent at making every word count, and again she focuses on an animal-centric point of view.

The artwork on these cards is absolutely astounding. Csaba Pasztors’s paintings of the animals are vividly colored and realistic. They’re an absolute joy to look at, and I can safely say this is the most visually attractive deck I’ve ever seen.

Overall, an excellent totem animal deck, limited only by the usual parameters of such things–there are never enough cards for all the animals, and there’s never really enough room for all the information on each one. An excellent tool alone, or as a companion to Green’s first book, Animal Wisdom.

Five pawprints out of five.

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My Familiar – Jenine Wilson

July 24, 2007 at 9:55 am (Animal Magic, Fiction)

My Familiar
Jenine Wilson
Jensonbooks, 2007
201 pages

I first encountered this book after the author contacted me about using a quote from my own Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal magic at the start of the book. She was kind enough to supply me with a copy, which arrived yesterday–and conveniently I was in need of something to read.

My Familiar is a lovely work of young adult fiction. Nikki, the main character, is a high school student who, upon turning 16, finds that she can no longer touch any member of the opposite sex without getting violently ill–except for her best friend, Robert. In the early chapters of the book we get to see a slice out of Nikki’s life as she goes through the last few days of the school year, deals with the gossip that flies after she has a fight with Robert, and later heads to a party hosted by one of the most popular girls in school.

Simple high school drama, right? Not quite. Remember that whole unable-to-touch-guys thing? Keep an eye on the guys in this story, as they’ve got quite a tale to tell about just why that is. I won’t give away the details (you’ll just have to read for yourself) but Wilson has woven an engaging story that leads up to a great ending. Her characters are interesting people to observe, and the story has some neat little twists in it.

I think my only complaint about the book is that the dialogue is sometimes a bit rough around the edges, and doesn’t sound quite the way someone might talk. However, overall Wilson is a great writer, and she does an excellent job of creating a setting, placing interesting characters in it, and telling the story of what they go through in a way that’s neither too brief nor too wordy. A touch of extra editing would probably help clean the dialogue up, and all told it’s a good effort. It makes me want to at some point pick up Wilson’s first book, The Shadow Within, just for the fun of it.

This would be an excellent book for kids about 4th grade and up into the early teens, especially if the younger ones are precocious readers (though be aware that there is a bit of not too incredibly graphic violence in it). Pagan parents should especially be interested, especially if their kidlets are curious about magic–while as with any fantasy-tinged work the magic isn’t exactly realistic, the mention of familiars can spark more serious conversations. However, the story will appeal to kids from any background–the magic is less pagan and more urban fantasy.

And, for the record, it’s got one of the cutest covers I’ve ever seen 🙂

Four and a half pawprints out of five.

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Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor – Ruth E. St. Leger-Gordon

July 23, 2007 at 8:31 am (Cryptozoology/Paranormal, Mythology, Wicca and Witchcraft)

Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor
Ruth E. St. Leger-Gordon
Bell Publishing Company, 1972
196 pages

I first picked up this book because it dedicates a couple of chapters to black dogs/whisht hounds, one of my favorite ghosts/cryptozoological entities. The author collected a variety of stories and tales of everything from hauntings to dancing stone circles to wart healing white witches and created this nice compendium of folklore specific to Dartmoor in the UK. Apparently Dartmoor has more than its fair share of etheral and paranormal activity, as evidenced by the rich abundance of examples the author was able to give.

The folklore chapters are much stronger than the witchcraft ones. St. Leger-Gordon collects a nice variety of local examples involving ancient stones and ruins, as well as tales of souls condemned to transformation and impossible feats before they can rest, as atonement for their wickedness. She manages to fit a lot of these stories in without shortening them too much–in fact, she does an excellent job of managing her space, tying the stories together without adding too much filler. And rather than only relying on older stories, she brings up a number of relatively recent (to her time, anyway) examples, showing that haunts and hunts and other such things do persist into modern day (though she worries for their continuation amid “progress”).

The witchcraft chapters, on the other hand, are heavily littered with a lot of Margaret Murray’s bunk. The author also takes Gerald Gardner’s claims of Wicca’s antiquity as truth, which damages the integrity of the book as a whole. However, the examples of both healing and cursing done by local witches (who use Bible verses in their wart charming, rather than dancing to Diana) show once again the local folklore in practice. St. Leger-Gorden would have been better off sticking to the traditional folklore rather than attempting to bring in modern, unverified sources that draw less on the traditions and more on 19th-century romanticized reconstructions.

Still, overall I really liked reading this book. Beyond the poor modern research it’s an excellent look at the tales and traditions of a particular part of the world shown in detail, written by a skilled author. Definitely a keeper!

Four pawprints out of five

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Sex and Magic – David Farren

July 19, 2007 at 8:49 pm (Sex Magic)

Sex and Magic
David Farren
Simon and Schuster, 1975
192 pages

I picked this up used on a lark not too long ago. I’d never actually heard anyone refer to this particular text, and at first glance it didn’t seem like one of those sensational “OMG SEX AND SATAN!” books that you occasionally find. So I decided to give it a try.

I liked it overall. The author isn’t a magician himself, but he did a good job of researching magic in the mid-1970s. Along with discussions of Wicca and gypsy witchcraft, he also brings in ceremonial magic and LaVeyan Satanism, as well as Eastern philosophies and the Western traditions they inspired. As for the sex part, it’s rather subdued, though he does talk a lot about the need to change attitudes in society overall–something that Taylor and I talk about in Kink
Magic over three decades later.

In fact, this book is primarily theory, written by a philosopher. There’s a lot of material on symbolism, as well as expose’s that the supposedly lurid and kinky evil rites of various magical groups down through the centuries were a lot more hype than reality, with a lot of glorified circle jerks and bits of *gasp* homosexuality. Having read “Brave New World” recently, the accounts of the feelies in the latter book seemed a lot more interesting than what Farren describes.

There is a bit of practical material in here, though it’s almost entirely limited to folklore and a bit of I Ching divination. The long subtitle of the book, “How to use the spells, potions and ancient knowledge of magic to improve and enhance your sexual life” made me think that this would be a lot more hands-on (so to speak). It’s not a bad book, mind you–just don’t expect a lot of step by step how-tos. I believe it was more written for the nonmagician, and makes for a good source in that respect. Farren makes a good argument for the place of both sex and magic in a healthy society, while promoting positive attitudes towards the body and recommending the abolishment of sexism.

Overall, an interesting find.

Four pawprints out of five.

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Spells for Cats – Daisy Pepper

July 16, 2007 at 9:32 pm (Animal Magic)

Spells for Cats
Daisy Pepper
Gibbs-Smith Publisher, 2002
96 pages

This is one of those cute little hardcover gift books you find at the chain stores. When I first got it from Amazon, I wasn’t sure what the premise would be–would it be yet another “Here are some cat deities, and how about reading your cat’s astrological chart?” book in the vein of Enchanted Cat and Your Magickal Cat. Or would it be something entirely different?

Well, it’s definitely a book of spells, and cats are involved. They range from spells to keep cats safe to sabbat celebrations that are centered on the feline who owns you. Creative ideas include a spell to be sure the cat only kills vermin, and one that blesses an herb garden planted especially for an older cat. There’s even a touching ritual for marking the passing of a kitty friend. The spells are simple and sweet, nothing too incredibly complicated; this book is meant for a broader audience than just the pagan community.

That also means it’s not a particularly theory-heavy book; it’s mainly just the spells. This is a light-hearted gift book, not a serious treatise on feline familiars. Still, the material is quite practical to the average witch or pagan who might like to involve hir cat a bit more in hir magical work. There are occasional historical inaccuracies or oddities, and the information is pretty simplified, but no huge glaring errors. My only real problem is that for all the spells that are meant to protect the cat, the author advocates letting cats roam unattended outdoors, where they’re more at risk for getting injured or killed by dogs, cars, or pedestrians. Cats can’t be contained in the safety of a yard like a dog, and so IMO need to be kept indoors.

Still, it’s a cute little book and would make a nice gift for a pagan–or for a pagan-friendly acquaintance (and hir cat(s)) who might get a kick out of it. The whimsical drawings of cats accentuate the text, and it’s a very aesthetically pleasing work. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more than what it is, and for that I like it.

Four kittyprints out of five.

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