Customer Reviews

American Folk Magick

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The title of this review ought to say it all. Silver Ravenwolf (i.e., Jenine Trayer)has, in her own way, attempted to tackle the subject of Pow-Wow and hexerei. She does the practice a grave injustice with her incessant wiccanizing. "Ravenwolf" has had timerity to wiccanize such elements as the biblical Psalms and traditional Christian prayers, throwing in for good measure New Agey concepts such as chakras, etc.

In spite of her having been taught by a Pow-Wow, Preston Zerbe, she displays little respect for the art. For those who don't have their heads in the sand, it is a well know fact that the wiccan religion (as practiced today) is a mere 50 or 60 years old (and that's being generous).

Through out the text Trayer makes stellar comments where she laments that Pow-Wows no longer acknowledge or utilise the "Rede" or "Law of Three". These are thoroughly modern concepts only found in wicca. Within the book she attempts to show Pow-Wow as merely a Christian cover for American witchcraft. Now, hexerei is witchcraft. Witchcraft is a practice, not a religion. As a practice, it can be worked within any religious context. However, Trayer wants everyone to believe that Pow-Wow is "actually" a bastardized form of Wicca (which she obviously believes predates Pow-Wow and other traditional magical practices).

While witchcraft can be worked within any religious context, Trayer does Pow-Wow a disservice by trying to make it so generic that it will fit anyone's fancy or fantasy, thereby removing it from its cultural roots. "In the name of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost" is 'corrected' by Trayer as "In the names of Maiden, Mother and Crone". Prayers to Isis find their way in the text, too.

New Age wiccan writers such as Trayer are jeopardizing the survival of true traditional witchcraft practices such as hexerei with their lousy 'scholarship' and historical revisionism. Witchcraft is, indeed, pre-Christian in the sense that *every* art of civilization predates Christ. Witchcraft is as much a skill or art as fire-making, cooking, blacksmithing, basket-weaving, etc. Just because house building, for example, predates the advent of Jesus doesn't make it a "pagan" craft. Thowing out, minimizing, or tokenizing the Christianity within Pow-Wow subtracts form the cultural organic whole of the practice instead of adding to it. Llewellyn Publications and its authors are quite guilty of this manner of cultural rape. It's too bad there can't be laws against this manner of reprehensible 'scholarship' and its publishers.

For a truely decent book on Pow-Wow see Karl Herr's book *Hex and Spellwork*. Also, get a copy of Lee Gandee's *Strange Experience: an autobiography of a hexenmeister*. These texts, plus the traditional Pow-Wow books *Long Lost Friend*, *Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses*, and *Albertus Magnus Egyptian Secrets* are invaluable to the study.

I first ran into this book when it was called "Hexcraft." As a hereditary, traditional pow-wow, I was imediately suspicious of what looked like another shallow attempt to graze on the fertile field of occult literature. To my surprise, Silver treats the subject with respect and actually does know what she is talking about with regard to pow-wow and how it works. I think that many traditionals wince a bit with her attempt to remove the christian trappings and make it palatable to the wicca crowd, but even we know the tradition adopted these trappings to avoid the conflict that surely would have resulted from keeping the "old names". The magic works regardless of in whose name you invoke. After all, most of us have never had a quarrel with Jesus, only the organization that rose up as a religion about him rather than as the religion of Jesus. I also wish Silver would have addressed the spirit-world aspect of pow-wow in greater depth, but maybe that's for another book. Speaking of books, get yourself a copy of "The Long Lost Friend" to get a sense of more traditional pow-wow incantations. Well done Silver, you've done a nice job presenting our sacred art.

In the past, Silver RavenWolf would write her books in general context, trying not to let her traditional teachings overshadow her writing so that her readers may find their own paths to walk on. While this was perfect for beginners, many began to wonder whether or not Silver was capable of teaching her tradition. This book proved she could. She did an excellent job at teaching the ancient art of Pow-Wow, adaptable to both Wiccans and other religions. I'd recommand this book to thoose looking into both folk magick and alternative/faith healing.

Although this book may not appeal to many Wiccans as much as her previous book, this is a book based on tried and true methods. This will complement anyones magical library. I love RavenWolf's work and she has amazed me again. This book is based her training and it has helped me to look into more than just the realm of Witchcraft in which I am trained.I reccomend this book to anyone.

I was very disappointed with this book. Being very familiar with Pennsylvania Dutch country and having grandparents that lived all of their lives and ancestors dating back to 1722 in the area, I can say that this book is not "authentic" pow-wow. Instead, it is a conglomeration of the author's beliefs and stories that were "Wiccanized" for individuals who want to practice a form of Christian magic, but are uncomfortable with the Christian part of it. I also took a double take at some of the author's assertions or implications that some sort of goddess worshipping groups were resident in the area during the late 17th and early 18th century and had come over from Europe when the Swedish first came to Pennsylvania. This is really a ridiculous assumption. Pow-wow had no roots in pagan religions as many want to imply. I have never heard of any old-time pow-wow practitioners who worship the goddess. Most of them were/are members of the Reformed churches (now the UCC), Lutherans, or members of the Church of the Brethren. For an interesting discussion of the origins of Pow-wow see the works of Don Yoder.

I also found the "updated" charms slighlty amusing. All of them, including some of the Psalms, were "updated" to make them more comfortable for individuals who apparently are uncomfortable with Christianity. God had been changed to Goddess, Christ to the lord/lady and etc. The author did have enough sense to leave the 23rd Psalm alone - I guess reading "The Goddess is my shepherdess , there is nothing I shall want" seemed silly, even to her.

However, all that being said, I do admire the author for attempting to keep the vestiges of a dying practice from becoming extinct. By bringing pow-wow(Hexerie or Braucherie)to the mainstream, it will definitely help more people to explore this interesting practice. Again, however, she does some disservice by trying to pass of what is in the book as "pow-wow". I would definitely recommend other books for those truly interested in Hexerei, Braucherei or Pow-wow. Those books would be the Bible, The Long Lost Friend by Hohman, the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses and etc. Use the original sources and much of the practice can easily be discovered.

I'd like to clear up a few things about this book. It is not witchcraft, it is not Pow-wow/Braucherei/Hexcraft, it isn't really anything except the debased mess that $ilver Ravingwolf made out of this living, breathing folk magic tradition.
I believe the title of this book used to be Hexcraft, but the new title is just as misleading as the original one. There isn't a unified American folk magic tradition, there are many: Pow-wow/Braucherei, Curandismo, Brujeria, and Hoodoo to name just a few. The one thing all of these folk magic systems have in common is that they are all created and informed by the culture that produced them, which in this case, is Christian culture. They are *all* rooted in the Christian religion so deeply that they can not be separated from it and still retain any authenticity or integrity. If you "de-Christianize" Pow-wow the way Ravingwolf has it is no longer Pow-wow, period. Doing so also disrespects the people and culture that created it, and is the worse kind of intellectual fraud that I can think of. This doesn't mean that if one isn't a Christian one can't practice Pow-wow, but the would-be practitioner needs to be at peace, or make peace, with Christianity if they want to truly understand Pow-wow and work with it authentically. If the practitioner can't do this they will need to find another form of folk magic to work with because Pow-wow, like many of the folk magic traditions found in the US, is a "majority rules" system. In other words, something isn't Pow-wow unless the majority of practitioners recognize it as such so it isn't a tradition in which "I can make it up and call it Pow-wow" or "Pow-wow is what I say it is". Work with the system as is or walk away and leave it to those who can.
That said, this book is based primarily on Johannes George Hohmann's "Pow Wows or the Long Lost Friend," which uses German source material that Hohman translated into English in the 19th century. Ravingwolf asserts the existence of a German Braucherei folk magic that was, and remained, "pagan" in the United States, but then she takes such bizarre impostures as the invocation of the Irish goddess Brigid! Not only is the entire premise itself a lie Ravingwolf made-up, but the author has the nerve to imply that she is returning German-American spellcraft to its pre-Christian Pagan (meaning IRISH as far as she's concerned) origins when it never had Irish or Pagan origins to begin with! As stated above Pow-wow is, and always as been, Christian-based and despite the erroneous belief held by many Neo-Pagans that Christians don't practice magic..nonsense, Christians have always practiced magic and this is one system they created. If you really want to see authentic Pow-wow read Hohman's "Pow-wows or The Long Lost Friend" for starters, but take this mess with a boulder of salt

I am insulted by this book. I'm also from the PA Dutch country and have been around Pow-Wow. It's not all the shiny happy stuff written in this book. It has a Dark Side to it as strong as the healing side to it. Silver presents it in false light. She also does a bigger diservice by removing it totally out of the Germanic Asatru Religion where most of the first practitioners started and trys to make it something Wiccan. If you have a copy of "the long Lost Friend" you are closer to true Pow-Wow.

I thought that this book was great. I had never really been into Pow-Wow much before, but I decided to get this book to see what it was all about. Pow-Wow is a very interesting, very simple form of magick that can be practiced by any religion and has been for thousands of years. Thanks for another great one, Silver!

Pow Wow magick sometimes called Hex magick was primarily practiced in the state of Pennsylvania. It was a combination of Norse magickal practices, Christianity and Native American magickal practice. The state of Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, a member of Britain's upper class. His father was a judge. William was a rather free thinker who believed in the rights of women and the right to choose your spiritual practices. He was rather outspoken about these beliefs and his father worried that could cause lots of problems, these were the times that anyone who disagreed with the church could be tried for witchcraft and burned at the stake. Eventually Great Britain gave him a tract of land as one of the colonies. He did so and it was one of the colonies that granted lots of religious freedom.

This was a boon for Europeans who engaged in magickal practices. Many of the colonist who came to settle in Pennsylvania hailed from the black Forest which the Rhine River flowed through. There were two groups of Germans who settled there. THe first group were protestants who tended to be simple austere people. The second group were German Catholics who tended to be wealthier and more colorful.

Pow Wow practitioners tended to be a quiet lot of people who did not want their practices to be associated with Witchcraft or magick. They tended to use herbs and chants for healing people. They also had spells to catch criminals, stop fires and wild dogs. Very rarely did they have practices pertaining to obtaining love or money.

Silver Ravenwolf has written a great book about this dying art of Magick. Herself a Wiccan she does note that there are differences between the two magickal systems. The Pow Wow being relatively inexpensive in terms of gathering material. While Pow Wow has been primarily Christian in it's outward orientation she has reworked some of the chants to a Wiccan perspective which is just as effective. Some may like this and some may not. Then again what magick is totally pure. They all have borrowed from others.

Pennsylvania was home to a variety of practioners. Some people practiced European Ceremonial Magick while others were Mason or British witches. There were also Rosicurians in Penn state as well. They all had to have had an influence on each other, Some Pow Wow practitioners communicated with these Ceremonial magicians via letter writing.

I originally got this book from the library but I was so impressed with it that I went ahead and ordered a used copy from Amazon.com. The book is out of print but if you are a beginner in magick this book is an excellent starting point.

I found this book to be informative and practical, as well as useful. But some people do not seem to realize that this book is about Pow-Wow magick and folk charms, not Wicca or the Craft. The traditional healing and other useful charms and spells of the Pennsylvania-Dutch Pow-Wow artists is what is featured in this book, not Wiccan theology or religion. Thank you Silver, for another great publication