I just finished reading a book that surprised me in many ways. I didn’t know what to expect when my copy of Crafting a Tradition of Witchcraft: Creating Foundations for Your Spiritual Beliefs & Practices, by Raven Grimassi, arrived. I was just excited to read it. I’ve been curious about how a tradition of Witchcraft is established, and found that was something this book explained in great detail!
Cover to Crafting a Tradition of Witchcraft by Raven Grimassi [Crossed Crow Books]
- Publisher: Crossed Crow Books
- Publication Date: October 07, 2024
- Print Length: 250 pages
- Tags: History, folklore, mythology, spirituality, witchcraft, traditions, nonfiction.
- Editor’s note: A previous edition of this book was published as Crafting Wiccan Traditions: Creating a Foundation for Your Spiritual Beliefs and Practices by Llewellyn Worldwide in 2008.
Crafting a Tradition of Witchcraft will help better identify your own magical and spiritual beliefs, while showing you how to use these ideals as the building blocks for your own magical tradition. This book encourages you to reclaim your power and forge your own path to magical empowerment.
By showing you how to articulate your own beliefs as they pertain to the practical and spiritual aspects of the Craft, Raven Grimassi encourages you to break free from the constructs of preexisting or outdated magical structures. Working through this book will show you how to build your own tradition from the ground up, making you stand at the forefront of a Craft tradition that is tailored to your own personal ideologies.
Whether you are a solitary witch or a member of a new or existing coven, all practitioners will benefit from an in-depth study of their own core magical beliefs, as encouraged by the author. From exploring your beliefs on the witch’s god and goddess, the seasonal calendar, lunar and solar mysteries, as well as the practice of magic itself, each witch can rise up with a newfound sense of empowerment.
With a simple yet detailed prose, one of our late elders guides the path through a series of ideas, important aspects worth considering carefully when creating a Witchcraft tradition. Grimassi explores all the big and small details, from the holidays to the tools and management of a tradition that might or might not result in a coven.
While several binary and gendered ideas are included, Raven Grimassi does so to teach the readers about the traditional, basic ideas that have been in place for a long time. Those guidelines can be changed to suit each group and their needs. I liked how he explained different formats, not only the Goddess-God binary approach so popular in Wicca branches, but also alternatives such as working with the Oak King and Holly King.
While not perfect in every aspect, Crafting a Tradition of Witchcraft is a fascinating addition to the modern reader and the new generation of witches. We live in very stressful times, and need creates change. There is a need for a Witchcraft that listens to what we are going through, a Witchcraft that makes sense of injustice, fear, and bigotry, and teaches how to fight back, a Witchcraft that gives hope and healing when there seems to be none.
I don’t mean to say that the traditions that are here right now are useless. Far from that. But we need to know exactly how those traditions adapt to our needs. As Gustav Mahler said, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”
Fire burns as long as we take care of it, recognize what it needs, and how to keep it alive. We can’t do it the same way during summer and winter. Raven Grimassi also kept this in mind. A tradition doesn’t stay frozen in time, but grows with its members as they shape its ideas and work.
Only one thing took me out of the reading and genuinely bothered me: the repetition of phrases like “we will see more of this in X chapter.” It seemed repetitive and useless because I knew what to expect from each chapter. An early mention of this or that topic is just an aperitif of sorts if we’re not on that specific chapter, so I saw no need at all to include this so often.
Addictive from the beginning to end, Crafting a Tradition of Witchcraft is a powerful book that empowers the witch in need of change, of reflecting their idea(l)s in the practice, while also constructing a system that makes sense. I would recommend it to both witches looking to create a personal practice and to groups looking to establish a formal tradition. Regardless of the case, there is a lot of insight that will help the reader.
Thanks to Crossed Crow Books for the review copy!
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