- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Citadel Press; illustrated edition edition (5 Jun 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0806523522
- ISBN-13: 978-0806523521
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,982,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Synopsis
With over 20,000 ordained members and thousands more practitioners in England alone, Wicca is fast becoming the most popular alternative religion in the world. Citadel now provides a much-needed line of second-level Wicca literature for the more experienced witch. Many Witches are now second or even third generation practitioners and crave more advanced concepts beyond the basics of casting a circle and calling the quarters. Here is the guide that will teach readers the more unfamiliar and abstract concepts of magic and Witchcraft, including: - The Veil between the worlds and how it works - Direct contact with the Divine and how to handle it - Ecstatic worship techniques and shamanism - Fae magic techniques, including the use of glamourie - Explorations into the illusory nature of reality - Group dynamics and working with different kinds of energy flows - Scientific proof that magic works, backed up with case-by-case evidence - Intuitive magic: Allowing yourself to sense and believe The only book of its kind, this is an essential book for the serious seeker and for all readers committed to finding their way.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
This is a book attempting to describe more advanced topics on magic for Witches whatever their tradition; although as a non-Wiccan Witch I felt what was discussed within the book was heavily bias towards Neo-Wicca somewhat. I got through this book relatively quickly, it's very easy to read and quite humourous at times. The contents lists the following chapters: 'The Science of Magic', 'Reality is an Illusion', 'The Veil Between the Worlds', 'Shamanism and Ecstatic Worship', 'Fae Blood, Fae Magic', 'When the Spirit Moves You', 'Trust Your Intuition' and 'Group Dynamics and Energy Flow'.
I found the first three chapters to be of the greatest interest, whilst the other techniques and topics discussed in the chapters after these were things I'd encountered before. For instance, in the 'Shamanism and Ecstatic Worship' chapter I find it hard to believe that the average Pagan is not aware of vision questing or the uses of a sweat lodge -- so too was the idea of trusting ones intuition and merging with a god as a way of 'channeling' esoteric knowledge during ritual. These hardly felt like advanced concepts to me. The first two chapters however, were excellent and sought to examine the nature of magic using science. I won't go into explaining it, but really, for those natural skeptics among us (including myself!) will find these two chapters to be invaluable for giving an excellent discussion of magic in a scientific context. Ms Polson does a phenomenonal job here and provides a great theory using up-to-date science that presents the reader with a convincing argument for magic's existence.
The chapter on Veil work was fascinating, but I felt it could have been far longer. The chapter on the Fae and the concept of 'Otherkin' (people who believe themselves to have once lived as Fae in the Otherworld in past lives) was interesting, and something I had come across before -- but I do have a hard time believing it so whilst I accept people may feel this way, I don't really think 'Otherkin' exist. Therefore that chapter was rendered moot for me.
One thing that annoyed me about the book was that it was dreadfully bias and highly advocative of group work; I had to roll my eyes when Polson claimed that a person should not astrally travel to the Otherworld alone, without anyone grounding them. Obviously this woman has never come across a real witch who was not a Wiccan in her life! Absolutely preposterous! Really, don't listen to most of her nonsense about group work which she expounds ad nauseum throughout the book (I found this to be very tiresome). Quite honestly, if you cannot even travel to the Otherworld without someone holding your hand then you have no business practicing Witchcraft -- indeed most witches/the Cunning Folk worked alone in the old days for fear of persecution of being caught working in groups, so covens are a relatively new form or working. Thus you really don't need other people to practice what's in this book as long as you have plenty of intelligence, experience, skepticism and common sense in abundance you'll be perfectly fine.
Overall, an interesting book. I do recommend it especially for the first three chapters alone; it also provides some great starting points for further research and practice. Enjoy!
I found the first three chapters to be of the greatest interest, whilst the other techniques and topics discussed in the chapters after these were things I'd encountered before. For instance, in the 'Shamanism and Ecstatic Worship' chapter I find it hard to believe that the average Pagan is not aware of vision questing or the uses of a sweat lodge -- so too was the idea of trusting ones intuition and merging with a god as a way of 'channeling' esoteric knowledge during ritual. These hardly felt like advanced concepts to me. The first two chapters however, were excellent and sought to examine the nature of magic using science. I won't go into explaining it, but really, for those natural skeptics among us (including myself!) will find these two chapters to be invaluable for giving an excellent discussion of magic in a scientific context. Ms Polson does a phenomenonal job here and provides a great theory using up-to-date science that presents the reader with a convincing argument for magic's existence.
The chapter on Veil work was fascinating, but I felt it could have been far longer. The chapter on the Fae and the concept of 'Otherkin' (people who believe themselves to have once lived as Fae in the Otherworld in past lives) was interesting, and something I had come across before -- but I do have a hard time believing it so whilst I accept people may feel this way, I don't really think 'Otherkin' exist. Therefore that chapter was rendered moot for me.
One thing that annoyed me about the book was that it was dreadfully bias and highly advocative of group work; I had to roll my eyes when Polson claimed that a person should not astrally travel to the Otherworld alone, without anyone grounding them. Obviously this woman has never come across a real witch who was not a Wiccan in her life! Absolutely preposterous! Really, don't listen to most of her nonsense about group work which she expounds ad nauseum throughout the book (I found this to be very tiresome). Quite honestly, if you cannot even travel to the Otherworld without someone holding your hand then you have no business practicing Witchcraft -- indeed most witches/the Cunning Folk worked alone in the old days for fear of persecution of being caught working in groups, so covens are a relatively new form or working. Thus you really don't need other people to practice what's in this book as long as you have plenty of intelligence, experience, skepticism and common sense in abundance you'll be perfectly fine.
Overall, an interesting book. I do recommend it especially for the first three chapters alone; it also provides some great starting points for further research and practice. Enjoy!
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having just finished reading this book i have to say that i really am impressed. There is a lot of new content, and its nice to read an original book on magic in the midst of all the rubbish out there at the moment. The first 2 chapters are particularly intriguing as they are on the theoretical physics behind the concepts of magic, which explains in a scientific manner how magic really works. The rest of the book is more to give ideas on different techniques of more advanced magic. I especially liked the shamanic angle the author gives which helps to put the practices in perspective. Overall, i highly rate this book and would reccomend it to anyone who wants to delve deeper into magic.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
17 reviews
31 of 36 people found the following review helpful
A great book, but I wish it went further
22 Dec 2003
Format:Paperback
There is a sad dearth of books for advanced pagan audiences. This is the first book that I've heard of that addresses the topic of magick from a pagan perspective beyond the 101 level. I thought it was very well done. The theory of how magick works that Polson presents was interesting and believable, but the great strength of the book, in my opinion, lies in the step-by-step guides to exploring different advanced magical techniques.
I say advanced, but this is more of a 202 book than a seminar level work. I am very glad that it was published, and think it's a great first step (or next step?) but I wished that it went further. I am not a serious magician, and I did get some new ideas from the book, but I would've liked it to have been twice as long and covered two or three times as many topics. Sweat lodges, astral portals, and god-hosting are great, and they're definitely not beginner topics. Polson covers them in depth. But what about interacting with non-deity spirits, healing, and creating magickal objects? Most of those topics were mentioned in passing but could easily have gotten their own chapters, and these are just examples. An additional second-to-last chapter talking about further boundaries for the experienced and enterprising magician to push and expand would have been very welcome, at the least.
Nonetheless, this book is an important contribution to the body of accessible neo-pagan material, and I'm awfully glad to have read it. Thanks, Ms. Polson!
I say advanced, but this is more of a 202 book than a seminar level work. I am very glad that it was published, and think it's a great first step (or next step?) but I wished that it went further. I am not a serious magician, and I did get some new ideas from the book, but I would've liked it to have been twice as long and covered two or three times as many topics. Sweat lodges, astral portals, and god-hosting are great, and they're definitely not beginner topics. Polson covers them in depth. But what about interacting with non-deity spirits, healing, and creating magickal objects? Most of those topics were mentioned in passing but could easily have gotten their own chapters, and these are just examples. An additional second-to-last chapter talking about further boundaries for the experienced and enterprising magician to push and expand would have been very welcome, at the least.
Nonetheless, this book is an important contribution to the body of accessible neo-pagan material, and I'm awfully glad to have read it. Thanks, Ms. Polson!
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
An interesting book for intermediate to advanced Wiccans
14 Dec 2004
Format:Paperback
I read "The Veil's Edge" by Willow Polson recently.
The book is very interesting but it is not one I'd recommend to beginners. You really need to have a solid grounding already in working magick to get much out of the book. Intermediate to advanced Wiccans in particular will likely find the book of interest as it goes into topics that are barely touched on in most other books.
The book is not difficult to understand; Willow does a really good job of explaining what could be a very complicated topic. Anyone who wants to use the information in the book needs to have a solid understanding of magick before they start reading this book as it doesn't rehash all the 101 info that readers should know.
The book is basically about other planes of existence, whether they are described as the astral realm, the world of spirit, the land of faery, or something similar. It's about the possibility of there being other dimensions of existence that are invisible to us normally in this physical realm. The book is about how these other realms might be explained, and how people who use magick might interact with those realms.
The book starts by trying to explain the possibility of these invisible realms by drawing on the ideas of quantum physics. It was very interesting to read (and admittedly these theories are presented in other books in a similar way) but the skeptical side of me wonders whether real-life quantum physicists would say their theories are being misrepresented. There were a number of ideas, like the concept of observer-influence on things observed, which I suspect might be misinterpreted and made into something they aren't really in order to validate paranormal claims.
Regardless whether the scientific claims made are valid or not, the book does provide some useful ways of thinking about working at least some types of magick. And even if the scientific claims are not 100% accurate, it's good to have books like this which will challenge us to reconsider what we think we know about the nature of reality -- the truth is often much stranger than what we can imagine. It would be nice if we'd see more books like this, ones which present new ideas or even old ideas presented with new understandings, instead of the many books that come out which are nothing more than old material rehashed and presented again for the hundredth time.
Wiccans and those who practice magick who already have some solid experience who are looking for some fresh ideas for their magickal practice would find this book refreshing. People new to Wicca or magick should probably wait until they're more experienced before picking up this book and checking it out.
The book is very interesting but it is not one I'd recommend to beginners. You really need to have a solid grounding already in working magick to get much out of the book. Intermediate to advanced Wiccans in particular will likely find the book of interest as it goes into topics that are barely touched on in most other books.
The book is not difficult to understand; Willow does a really good job of explaining what could be a very complicated topic. Anyone who wants to use the information in the book needs to have a solid understanding of magick before they start reading this book as it doesn't rehash all the 101 info that readers should know.
The book is basically about other planes of existence, whether they are described as the astral realm, the world of spirit, the land of faery, or something similar. It's about the possibility of there being other dimensions of existence that are invisible to us normally in this physical realm. The book is about how these other realms might be explained, and how people who use magick might interact with those realms.
The book starts by trying to explain the possibility of these invisible realms by drawing on the ideas of quantum physics. It was very interesting to read (and admittedly these theories are presented in other books in a similar way) but the skeptical side of me wonders whether real-life quantum physicists would say their theories are being misrepresented. There were a number of ideas, like the concept of observer-influence on things observed, which I suspect might be misinterpreted and made into something they aren't really in order to validate paranormal claims.
Regardless whether the scientific claims made are valid or not, the book does provide some useful ways of thinking about working at least some types of magick. And even if the scientific claims are not 100% accurate, it's good to have books like this which will challenge us to reconsider what we think we know about the nature of reality -- the truth is often much stranger than what we can imagine. It would be nice if we'd see more books like this, ones which present new ideas or even old ideas presented with new understandings, instead of the many books that come out which are nothing more than old material rehashed and presented again for the hundredth time.
Wiccans and those who practice magick who already have some solid experience who are looking for some fresh ideas for their magickal practice would find this book refreshing. People new to Wicca or magick should probably wait until they're more experienced before picking up this book and checking it out.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Great Material to Fuel Exploration for Beginners
20 Jun 2006
Format:Paperback
It's like reading a written out lecture. It's a very easy read and there are very few actual examples of work. It's a topic based `talk' in written form that walks through some of the basic areas where `veil work' is performed. It is a very broad discussion ranging from scientific `proof' of magic through topics like posession.
A great amount of general information and opinion is presented on each subject. To that end, it was very disappointing to see that on some topics, on which volumes could be written, it was summed up with only a few statements or pages. In a book that basic, I was also rather suprised to note that one of the subject in which the most instruction was given was posession.
I have ~12 years of magical experience ranging from tree huggin' Pagan to ceremonial paths. Nothing in this book was anything new to me. That said, it was a refreshing lecture that put several subjects in context with one another and added some tidbits of examples here and there that I had not heard before.
If you are fairly new to witchcraft (about or less than 5 years exp), and have ever wondered exactly WHAT `the veil' is or what some of these more advanced practices are, this is a great book. it would be an excellent launching pad for further exploration. If you are an advanced practitioner, you are not likely to get much out of it - except, as I mentioned earlier, a refreshing one sided conversation about topics you are probably already familiar with.
A great amount of general information and opinion is presented on each subject. To that end, it was very disappointing to see that on some topics, on which volumes could be written, it was summed up with only a few statements or pages. In a book that basic, I was also rather suprised to note that one of the subject in which the most instruction was given was posession.
I have ~12 years of magical experience ranging from tree huggin' Pagan to ceremonial paths. Nothing in this book was anything new to me. That said, it was a refreshing lecture that put several subjects in context with one another and added some tidbits of examples here and there that I had not heard before.
If you are fairly new to witchcraft (about or less than 5 years exp), and have ever wondered exactly WHAT `the veil' is or what some of these more advanced practices are, this is a great book. it would be an excellent launching pad for further exploration. If you are an advanced practitioner, you are not likely to get much out of it - except, as I mentioned earlier, a refreshing one sided conversation about topics you are probably already familiar with.
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