HexCraft: Dutch Country Magick (Llewellyn's Practical Magick Series) [Paperback]

Silver RavenWolf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 8, 1997 | Series: Llewellyn's Practical Magick Series

The roots of American witchcraft can be found in a 17th-century settler tradition comprising witchcraft and native American magics. This book analyzes the history and growth of this elusive tradition called Pow-Wow. It brings to life the chants, charms, spells and healing methods of this heritage that is nearly extinct today. "Hex Craft", also known as Pennyslyvania Dutch Country Pow-Wow Magick, is explored through the vivid examples and testimonials of those connected with its occult practices. The book shows how to bring this Earth-honouring culture to life with the step-by-step instruction by Hex Craft-trained author Silver Raven Wolf. It presents Pow-Wow's simple nature and easy implementation in a format that encourages individual interpretation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Silver RavenWolf (Pennsylvania) is a nationally recognized leader and elder of Wicca, and through her writing has been instrumental in guiding the future of one of the fastest-growing faiths in America today. The author of seventeen books, she has been interviewed by The New York Times, Newsweek Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal, and her work has been featured in numerous publications, including Bust Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, the St. Petersburg Times, the National Review, Publishers Weekly, Body & Soul Magazine, and Teen Lit Magazine.

Her many titles include the bestselling Solitary Witch, Teen Witch, To Ride A Silver Broomstick, To Stir A Magick Cauldron, To Light A Sacred Flame, American Folk Magick, Angels: Companions in Magick, Silver’s Spells for Prosperity, Silver's Spells for Protection, Silver's Spells for Love, Halloween, and the Witches’ Night Out teen fiction series. Her new book Hedge Witch is forthcoming from Llewellyn in September 2008.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 1st edition (June 8, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567187234
• ISBN-13: 978-1567187236
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #355,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Silver RavenWolf (Pennsylvania) is a nationally recognized leader and elder of Wicca, and through her writing has been instrumental in guiding the future of one of the fastest-growing faiths in America today. The author of seventeen books, she has been interviewed by The New York Times, Newsweek Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal, and her work has been featured in numerous publications, including Bust Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, the St. Petersburg Times, the National Review, Publishers Weekly, Body & Soul Magazine, and Teen Lit Magazine.
Her many titles include the bestselling Solitary Witch, Teen Witch, To Ride A Silver Broomstick, To Stir A Magick Cauldron, To Light A Sacred Flame, American Folk Magick, Angels: Companions in Magick, Silver's Spells for Prosperity, Silver's Spells for Protection, Silver's Spells for Love, Halloween, and the Witches' Night Out teen fiction series. Her new book Hedge Witch is forthcoming from Llewellyn in September 2008.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Considering the topic, not a bad try, April 24, 2001

By 

Saffire "magicklady" (Southeast, Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HexCraft: Dutch Country Magick (Llewellyn's Practical Magick Series) (Paperback)

Being PA Dutch myself and having grown up with the tales of PowWow and the powers of Hex, I was very interested in this book. It is a difficult subject to research, firstly. Not much has been written about it, old timer Dutchmen tend to keep those things spoken, not written (we're talking about a culture that has a language best spoken, rather than written, lest you start fighting over proper spelling) and the new Dutchmen have distanced themselves from the old and unfortunately have made it near impossible to understand some things. So we speculate and get a book such as this. A nice attempt.

Getting Dutchmen to agree on history is like getting cats to herd, easier said than done. So even speaking with old timers isn't gospel truth. My mom mentioned PowWows to me as a child, said it was strange, as religious as her mother was that in times of need or great misfortune, a trip to PowWow would be in order, though never spoken about it. She was raised Old Order Mennonite; my mom's mother did not condone ANYTHING pagan, though PowWow wasn't seen necessarily as Pagan.. ironic.

What the book does do though is summarize what is a dead art and a dying power. Hex signs, whether they worked or not, were a roadside beauty to behold on many a barn. The artists work, choice of colors and design all meant something... if only to themselves. Trying to capsulize the meanings is okay, but futile as some would paint what they wanted, regardless of meaning. They were all signs of prosperity, growth, fertility, hope, love and joy.. for these were all things needed and wanted in daily life on the farm. The hex sign and the bank barn are both indigenous to PA and a dying roadside view.

45 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It's OK, but your money is better spent elsewhere..., October 27, 2002

By 

Powwowdoctor - See all my reviews

This review is from: HexCraft: Dutch Country Magick (Llewellyn's Practical Magick Series) (Paperback)

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.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is not real Pow-wow or Hexcraft, June 25, 2008

A Kid's Review

This review is from: HexCraft: Dutch Country Magick (Llewellyn's Practical Magick Series) (Paperback)

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 this book is now called American Folk Magic, which in itself doesn't make sense either because there isn't a unified, cohesive 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 and they are *all* rooted in Christian faith 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 I that 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 as I go 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 sources for it's information. Ravingwolf asserts the existence of a German Braucherei folk magic that was and remained "pagan" in the United States, which is nonsense in itself, but then she takes such bizarre impostures as the invocation of the Irish goddess Brigid! Not only is the premise itself a falsehood, but the author has the nerve to imply that she is returning American-German spell-craft to its pre-Christian Pagan (meaning IRISH) 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.