Book Review: Witchcraft: Theory and Practice by Ly de Angeles

I know I haven't posted a book review in quite sometime but that doesn't mean I've stopped reading them! I will update on previously read books later on but this one I just finished tonight. I wanted to go ahead and write about it since it's fresh on my mind.

So I gave into reading this book because everyone seemed to be reading it. In fact, I felt like there was a fad going on with this book for awhile. Usually I don't like reading books that seem to be taking the Pagan community by storm because I feel like they may not be as authentic. However, I feel that the author of this book is extremely intelligent and for the most part I agree with what she says about the Craft. The things that I disagree with are of course personal to my own Craft and are irrelevant to discuss since it has to do with my beliefs which will obviously differ from everyone else.

Ly de Angeles has some incredible and highly valuable information within this book's pages. Some of it I've even recorded (with a few personal tweaks of me own) into my Grimoire. Of course she has meditation techniques, instructions in self-initiation, stuff on Astral projection, and many things on protection, banishings, and helping out your fellow neighbor. All of this information is great...I just wish it was presented more clearly. While reading this book, I felt like it skipped around or jumped rather quickly from topic to topic. There weren't really any set chapters even though she tried. There were a bunch of sub-topics that seemed to have no relation to one's before or after them. I felt disorganized while reading it and dare I say a little anxious. You could clearly see her thought process was a little scattered and unfocused. Some sections or sub-topics I felt were irrelevant and made no solid points.

Much of her information given seemed to be for more advanced Witches instead of first degree initiates. Her intro material seemed rushed which I assumed because she believed her target audience were already veterans at meditation, visualization, and basic ritual and spellcrafting but that's simply not true. This book was being read by first time people in the Craft and de Angeles is already talking about hexes and at least intermediate banishings of entities. I felt like that was a little bit of a leap from the couple of visualization techniques she gave in the first section of her book.

I wouldn't recommend this book to beginners as I don't feel like there's enough information to be of value to them within this book. I would say if you are intermediate or experienced in your Craft this would be a better book selection for you. Also, I saw more practice than theory in this book. In fact, I'm not even sure why the word "theory" is in the title. I thought there would be more background information on Witchcraft thus leading to some sort of thesis but I didn't really see it. Other than that I would say this was an okay book to read but it's not my favorite and certainly nothing to rave about like everyone seems to be doing.

Blessed be, everyone!