Anyone know any good books on Witchcraft?

[shadowkat]

Friend of mine is researching the topic and asked for a few good books on it. Anyone who knows anything that I can pass on to her - let me know.

Thanks!

Only one could think of was Margot Adler's "Drawing Down the Moon".

Comments

[fara-shimbo.livejournal.com]

Starhawk's books are good. Can't remember the titles, but I think there are two.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

History of witchcraft or the Wicca religion?

[superplin.livejournal.com]

Does she want to know about the actual practices, the origins, or something else? And does she have a specific kind of witchcraft in mind, or just generally speaking?

If she is writing a book and wants to know about practices, it depends a lot on whether she is focusing on a specific tradition, or kitchen witches, etc. However, a few books that come to mind:

- Marian Green's A Witch Alone
- Deborah Lipp's The Way of Four
- Patricia Crowther's Lid Off the Cauldron
- for more cultural background, especially for the British/Celtic strains of witchcraft, there's Hutton's Triumph of the Moon

Most of these are skewed towards Wicca, in the traditional sense. For more neo-eclectic Wicca, she could check out books by Scott Cunningham; Starhawk's Spiral Dance has a mix of practices, largely-discounted history (although I think the latest edition acknowledges the inaccuracies), and politics; and there are a number of books on hedgewitches/kitchen witches, etc., i.e., those who practice without a religious component.

I've no idea which (if any) of these would be most useful, but that's all I can think of right now.

[harmonyfb.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend The Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton (for a history of, rather than a primer on).

[ruthless1.livejournal.com]

Felicitas Goodman, an anthropologist, has written a very interesting book on meditation postures found in terra cotta figures and cave paintings around the world. It's called Where the Spirits Ride the Wind and her findings are quite fascinating. Although this is not witchcraft per se - more of a book on shamanic postures, it has loads of information since the figures she talks about are from all over the world. There are follow up books on this subject - Ecstatic Body Postures that are a little bit more up to date. I think these books might be a good resource for a fantasy novel because they describe in detail what some of the inner workings of these meditations are. It's really interesting stuff.