High Magic's Aid: Wonderful Tale of Medieval Witchcraft [Import] [Paperback]

Gerald Brosseau Gardner (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 98 pages
• Publisher: Pentacle Enterprises; New Ed edition (August 1993)
• ISBN-10: 1872189962
• ISBN-13: 978-1872189963
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #5,120,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting book, well worth the read (and the money), October 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: High Magic's Aid (Paperback)

This is a book that should be in all Wiccans libraries! The magickal operations are correct and the 'wiccan' operations are also correct(ish) But apart from that, it is a warm, sometimes humorous, sometimes horrifiying story of two brothers fight to reclaim land that once was theirs, with the help of a magician and a witch. It gives alot of good background information on what the craft might have been like way back when...

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Historical Curiousity, March 20, 2001

By	Elderbear (Loma Linda, Aztlan) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)

This review is from: High Magic's Aid (Paperback)

If you want a guide to Wicca, look elsewhere (Janet and Stewart Farrar, Starhawk, Doreen Valiente, to name a few). Although this was Gerald Gardner's first book on the Craft (published under the pen name Scire), most ritual presented within is ceremonial magic. At this time, much of modern Wicca had not yet been developed (The Charge of the Goddess had not yet taken its current form). Gleaning useful information from this text is a great deal of work--far more complete distillations may be found in the works of the authors named above.

Scire was not a great novelist, either. His prose is OK and his story development is adequate. But this isn't a real page turner. If you want to read occult fiction from this time period, *anything* Dion Fortune wrote is better written than this novel. Contemporary novels, such as Katherine Kurtz' Adept series & Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde tales seem much more palatable for anybody who just wants to entertain themselves with "Witch Novels."

I am, however, deeply grateful for having taken the time and effort to read this book. It is a piece of History. Without Gerald B. Gardner and his antics, it is unlikely that the Craft would be available to the general public today. This book was the prodrome to the popular revival of the Craft. To read it is to partake of History. Because of this--not for its instructional merits, nor for its entertainment value--I give it five stars.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting, Very hard to get into...but, well worth it, April 8, 2003

By	Larry M. Smith (USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: High Magic's Aid: Wonderful Tale of Medieval Witchcraft (Paperback)

I can say that by reading this book, you can see how Gardner thinks and you will (when you read the book) see how he tries to form his Gardnerian tradition . Whats great about the book is that Gardner puts himself into the book. Also another note, this book is the first time he mentions his own BOS within the book. Whats hard about the book, is the wording of "old world language", so, you'll have to read it slow. If your a Gardnerian such as me, you'll enjoy every bit of it.Even though this book is out-of-print, its not that hard to find..trust me!.