Celtic Magic (Llewellyn's World Religion & Magick) by D.J. Conway
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.91 You Save: $4.08 (51%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Celtic Magic (Llewellyn's World Religion & Magick)
Book Review: Informative!
Summary: 4 Stars
The author wrote a wonderful poem at the begining that moves one to tears. The rest of the text is queit informative especially for beginingers. Tables are abundant with proper spellings.Book Review: A guilty pleasure (with some redeeming qualities)
Summary: 3 Stars
I reviewed this book many years ago when I was still a high school student, but I find that review to be inadequate now. Thus, I now offer you an older and hopefully wiser opinion. - May 2009
Celtic Magic has some of the most ridiculously inaccurate lore imaginable, and yet I still find myself recommending the book to friends. Here's why: For a measly few dollars you'll come away with a couple of nice correspondence tables, a simple ritual for opening and closing your circle, the Ogham alphabet, a beginner's understanding of Wiccan holidays, and a few decent spells. There are correspondence tables in the book for stones, candle colors, herbs, deities, incense, and trees. To replicate this information in another book (or books) I would have to spend at least $10.00 or more. When I bought this book in 1997 it was only $4.99, so it was quite a deal.
To this day I still use Celtic Magic's circle casting method and "Bind a Trouble-maker" spell, albeit slightly modified at times. *They're really solid.* And the book itself makes a nice, portable quick reference guide when I can't be bothered to lug around my Cunningham encyclopedias or my big hardcover correspondences book.
Despite its thrift and usefulness, the book is plagued with historic inaccuracies. This is not a book for Celtic Reconstructionists! It's really just a sampling of Wicca with some Celtic flavoring thrown in and a bunch of fantasy stories at the beginning of the book. Given what I've read of the author's other works, she seems to live in a dreamworld of elves, faeries, dragons, and otherkin. Reading her works is like having a discussion with a schizophrenic, yet brilliant, mathematician - you have to be careful to distinguish the gems from the hallucinations. And believe me, there are some gems... because unlike some of Llewellyn's fluffier books, Conway acknowledges (albeit briefly) combat magic, justice, revenge, and doing spells that benefit oneself. Unfortunately the 'hallucinations' are loud and proud, and really hard to ignore for some people.
In summation, this book is a cheap little resource for beginners and veterans alike, as long as they know what they're getting into.
Book Review: You could do better; you could do worse.
Summary: 3 Stars
This was the first book I bought on the subject of Celtic paganism, and I have mixed feelings about it. It isn't _good_, but it isn't exactly _bad_ either. (...)This book won't hinder your spiritual search, and hopefully it will help in some way.The book begins with a generalized, idealized history of the Celtic peoples, focusing too much on the Irish Celts, and presenting Celtic society as some sort of utopia. But I'm sure readers will realize this is too good to be entirely true, and look to other sources for their history.
There is also a section on Celtic myths and deities. This is mostly taken from Charles Squire's book of Celtic myths, a book MUCH LARGER than the single chapter in which Conway tries to impart the same amount of information. The result is choppy and hurried, and reminds me of those term papers I wrote in the ninth grade, in which I tried to narrate the history of the world in 5 pages. There is just enough information on each deity to maybe capture the reader's interest in two or three of them, and hopefully this will lead the reader to books that go deeper into the myths.
The most useful parts of the book are the sections on rituals and spells. They're not ancient Celtic rites; they're modern Wiccan practices adapted for the Celtic-influenced Wiccan. For a beginner just starting out in Wicca, they are simple enough to perform right away, and easy to adapt and modify once the beginner advances a little and wants to try her own hand at ritual-writing. They can serve as the skeleton of a Celtic Wiccan practice, and be fleshed out by the practitioner.
If you're advanced within Celtic-influenced Wicca or another Celtic-based path, don't read this book. There's nothing new in it for you. If you're a beginner, you might find this useful, as I did when I started out. Hopefully, the tantalizing glimpses you catch of the Celtic deities in this book will inspire a deeper search.
Book Review: A simple "how to" treatise with a Celtic flavor
Summary: 3 Stars
This is NOT a scholarly work on the ancient Celts or Druidism. What it is is a primer on Wicca which incorporates celtic imagery and names for ritual visualization, atmosphere, and inspiration. YES, it is practically the same book as "Norse Magic" with the celtic deity names substituted for the Norse ones and with ogham script explanations in place of the Germanic rune correspondence table. OK, so it's not historically accurate; you'll have to read the works of T.G.E Powell, Anne Ross, Miranda Green, Proinsias McCana, Daithi oHogain, and Stuart Piggot-Smith for historical accuracy. But the truth of the matter is, we STILL don't know exactly HOW the druids worshipped their gods. Sure, they DID NOT use tarot cards, pentagrams, and the zodiac in their rituals...and they DID practice human sacrifice from time to time. I understand that Celtic purists may have a problem with this book, but i don't see why Wiccans should not find it useful for their own spellwork if they are inspired by the Celtic cultural legacy (as I am, being of Welsh and Scottish descent). Perhaps the best book on the market for the "pure" Wiccan is Ray Buckland's "Complete Book of Witchcraft". For the Norse "neo-pagan", I reccommend "The Rites of Odin" by Ed Fitch (VERY historically accurate). So, even though the celts had a male-dominated society ruled by a military aristocracy (and they were not vegetarians or astrologers), this is an easy to use book with some helpful advice and beautiful rituals.Book Review: Kind of Confusing
Summary: 3 Stars
This was the first book I ever read about any kind of magic/witchcraft/Wicca. At first (I was 12) I thought it was awesome; I loved learning about the Celts (that info was at least interesting) and loved the idea that magic could be a part of your everyday life. But then after reading it twice all the way through (I was on a bus for 8 hours) I realized that I was confused about what was Celtic and what was Wicca. Because even in sixth grade, I knew they couldn't be the same thing. This book made this very unclear, and failed to mention that, although some Wiccan traditions and practices come from ancient Celtic ways, the religion is relatively new. This book doesn't teach Wicca, and it doesn't really teach Celtic magic; instead, it teaches a confusing mix. I wouldn't buy this book as your first magic book; if you are Wiccan but interested in Celtic stuff, buy it after you understand what the difference is. There were, however, some helpful sections, like the Celtic legends and deities and the tables of correspondence, but if you are looking for a book on how to practice a certain kind of magic, choose a different one. If you want to learn the beginnings of Wicca (whether you want to practice it, or merely find more information on it) I recommend Cunningham's "Wicca: A guide for the solitary practitioner". It is a short book, and pretty basic, but it is clear and accurate; you won't be confused by it like you will be by Celtic Magic if you don't know anything about Wicca.