Customer Reviews

Animal Spirit

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Telesco's Animal Spirit is a nice concept, but poorly written and sometimes even useless. The best way to review it is by going through the chapters:

what is animal magick? Discusses the general idea. Petricia does one of the most common and annoying things a wiccan author does - invents her own tradition, in this case, "wild witchery".

2 - The scientific dimension: this chapter is actually the most usable and I was really happy to see a wiccan book that doesn't ignore the scientific point of view. The author discusses animals not by their cultural attributes but by their habitat, feeding habits and such.

Animal omens: Instead of giving us a long detailed list of animal attributes, somehow the author thinks giving us several lists (animal totems list, omens list, dream symbols... there are maybe twenty hard-to-reference lists in this book!).

Fur, Feather and Fin: Is a useless chapter. She gives you general information on how to reserve dead animals found in the woods or on the highway. Not only this is dangerous, if the readers would actually want to follow this idea, they would probably read a book by an expert, and not just a set of tips.

The Circle of Life: discusses the general idea about using animals in rituals. Note there are no real rituals or spells in this book, although the word "spells" was added to the book's title, to allure buyers.

Zodiac and Beyond: A general overview of western and Chinese astrology. Very superficial and short, but I guess it was nice she mentioned it.

Feng Shui Bestiary: Gives you, again, a general idea about feng shui. There are no actual tips here - just again, 4 lists of correspondences, that repeat the same information.

Totems, Guides, Familiars and Teachers: A chapter with general tips about finding your totem. Of course, no rituals or any practical ideas, just another list of correspondences (with the same animals...).

The most useful part in this book, besides the scientific point of view in chapter 2, is appendix B with one big list of (yet again) animal correspondences, only this time it is very general and altogether helpful.

Overall, this is a nice superficial book that gives you ideas about how to live closer to nature with animals. It repeats itself often, and has no practical point of view at all, but is nice to keep as a reference.

A nice book with some interesting information. I think my only real complaint about the book is that it seems to generalize a lot of what paganism before the modern era believed and did so without any citation or more information. Another annoying thing is that the constant use of animal dictionaries for meanings and symbolism everywhere throughout the book for everything. One thing I do like about this book is that it goes kind of go into some interesting new territory with using animal magic and animal imagery. Besides just talking about totems and spirit guides it also using animal remains, animal symbolism, and even some animal-based feng shui. Overall, a nice introduction book though it does have a few problems to me.