Customer Reviews

The Magical Crone: Celebrating the Wisdom of Later Life

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I have just finished reading the MAGICAL CRONE and it has been a wonderful experience that I'm passing along to other friends of crone age. It was most empowering of all to see the wealth of material throughout the past centuries that refers to the powers of the crone. The book is extremely well researched and documented with an excellent bibliography, which I plan to explore further. The authors seem to have examined every shadowy corner where crones are hiding and brought this information to light. I was especially interested in the Indian, Middle Eastern, Greek and Native American aspects of the crone. It is gratifying to see that major cultures worldwide have considered this time of women's life. Being an American, I am aware of a general worship of youth and tendency to dismiss the importance of those who grow older, especially women.

Besides the scholarship, I also made use of the spiritual aspects. It is a great thing to connect one's spiritual beliefs with what we know of our roots and ancestors (no matter how far away they may be in human time.) Besides offering much information, the book is a good read with many meditations and verses that can be used in rituals, such as the following one of my favorites:

Mother of One Thousand Names
I hear your voice in the wind
As rustling leaves speak your many names:
Bare Branch, Ripening Fruit, Unfurling Green
You are all...vast and enchanting
You are every power that is.

For many coming into cronehood or who are crones themselves, it is good to be reminded that the crone contains aspects of all three stages of life - mother, maiden and crone. So there is much wisdom to draw from studying the crone. With a charming cover and engaging pictures, the book is an excellent compendium of all things "crone" from Magical Seasonal Sabbats to Wise Woman Crafts (which I have tried) to bios of the Crone in Modern Culture. It's a book for all seasons.

"The Magical Crone" is really a deeply moving book, not only for those of us women who are a bit older, but for young women who also recognize the power of the Crone inside of them. Reif and Haleff see the Crone as containing Maiden-Mother-and Crone, and so all of the powers of the Great Goddess triune are hers. Here is a view that sees women as increasing in power as each day passes by. I love this.

Resource information includes some history of the Crone, a great review of Goddesses, Dark, and Wise and Magical, wonderful Wise Woman Crafts, Crone Symbols, Rituals and Meditations and so on. The info on herbs, herb gardens, and incenses were of special interest to me, and the chapter on Wise Blood really grounded me in the awareness of my Crone Power.

By the way, the cover is really spectacular. I swooned over it for a bit ! Don't miss this terrific book, its a treasure.

A flurry of feminine refreshment! A necessity for those inclined towards a magical life! This book is rich with knowledge and a great assistant to reawakening the majesty within each of us. A long overdue writing that finally addresses the eminence of cronehood. The activities provide for real bonding and are such great fun! Thank you and thank you and we so look forward to your next publication.

For me (and my women friends), the heart of this book is in the Crone Journal work, the rituals, and the chapter on Wise Blood. We are working with the material as a group and have found a great sense of support and encouragement through doing this work. The journal work includes not only things like "Your Wisdoms," and "Your Talents," but also things like "Your Follies," so this may not be for the feint of heart. Goals, accompliments, dreams, health issues, and more are covered. Serious internal work, as well as fun are part of this path. Shared, the journal work becomes healing and deeply profound. It makes us realize that we all have not only talents and dreams, but imperfections and short comings, and that we can heal and be joyful with it all.

Loved the chapters on the various Goddesses Dark, Wise, and Magical; there were some we had not yet come across. The chapter on Wise Blood has some primary Goddess energies featured: Tara, Kwan Yin, Binah-Isis, and Shakti-Lakshmi. We were already familiar with these, however they were accompanied by some lovely original rites and poetry, as well as suggestions for interior work.

The Magical Crone is a very valuable book, not meant just as something to read, but as something to actively use to improve yourself and your life. Highly recommended. I say hail to the Crone!

My favorite thing: toward the end of the book there is a great group ritual titled 'The Crone Zone'. I experienced it with a group of women and I really recommend it. It addresses the Crone's power, talent and wisdom within every woman. In a later part of the rite each woman enters Hecate's cave and a personal rite of power is done. Death is faced and yet the immortality of the soul is affirmed. There is a magical drink made in a central cauldron, with the blessings of each woman contributed to the elixir. Then, we 'drank' the combined blessings. I found this group rite to be very empowering. That night, everyone that was present said fairwell with a smile on their faces. Still feel the glow.

Witches on broomsticks? Wizened old ladies with warts? Not in this book. The Magical Crone was written to dispel the ageism that many women find hamper them in older life. In the pages of this book you will find history, rituals, spells and meditations all aimed at the older woman. There are many close looks at the three forms of Goddess as Maiden, Mother and Crone.

The authors start by defining what a crone is. They take us on a journey of self-discovery through intimate workings with four Goddesses. Each Goddess is honored and explored for a set period of time. We are instructed in the writing of a "Crone Journal" where we examine our life's accomplishments and foibles as well as our dreams for the future. Afterwards we are treated to special crafts with blessing rituals to sanctify the results. The last chapter in the book turned out to be my favorite. That chapter was a series of short biographies about elder women who the authors considered exemplary crones.

I was disappointed with the book as a whole. I am approaching my crone-hood. I had expected there to be more ritual and information specific to the Crone. I would have liked to see at least one ritual of Croning. Instead I found that the rituals, meditations, crafts and spells could easily be used by anyone of any age or gender. In fact some were very similar to ceremonies I had attended in my twenties.

The book seems to be trying to be all things to all people. I'm not sure the authors focused on a particular audience as they wrote. Some portions of the chapters are written for the beginner and other areas are written for those with more experience. In my opinion, the book is Wicca 101, Part II. It is not at all what a woman reaching the status of Crone, an elder in the Craft, would want or need.

W. Lyon Martin Author/Illustrator of "An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child"

I appreciate what the authors are trying to do here. Applying the threefold model of the Goddess as Maiden, Mother, and Crone to the lives of mortal women, they wish to show us the divine strengths that older women -- crones -- can particularly possess, use, and pass on. They seek to redress the balance in our culture that shamelessly worships youth, by showing us that getting older is nothing to fear and indeed holds amazing power for those who embrace it. I appreciate all this, and I agree with it. However.

Excellent as the goal here is, the actual telling of it is terrible. For starters, the two authors have written some chapters together and some independently, which would have been fine had they remembered to proofread. At the very least, their editor ought to have caught their constant redundancies. These interruptions don't actually disrupt the flow of the arguments, but this is largely because there is no flow to begin with. The writing is choppy, awkward, and unpolished; I am an avid reader of many genres, but I had so much trouble wading through the prose here that it was difficult to finish the book. Even in the retelling of goddess myths -- a section which, though unoriginal, could have been lovely -- the telling is uninspired and without grace. I was disappointed.

Worse than the writing is the history. Throughout the book, both authors constantly reference outdated and improbable historical and archaeological theories, like the one that says Europe was a peaceful place full of matriarchal cultures living in harmony with nature, until the Indo-Europeans swept in with their war-chariots and their male-domination and put all the matriachs to the sword. I'm sorry to burst bubbles, but this and ideas like it are fanciful generalizations without a shred of really good evidence -- and they're not at all necessary to validate the rights and power of women. Neither are blatantly false statements like "Arabia had a matriarchal culture for more than a thousand years before the advent of Islam" (pg.55,) and dieties that didn't exist, like "The Great Goddess of the Stone Age" (pg 50,) who is a nice idea but a product of our own times; possible goddess figures dating from the "Stone Age" certainly have been found, but there is no indication that they represent a supreme being worshipped by all "Stone Age" peoples. (There is, in fact, a possiblity that the figures are not goddesses at all. We simply do not know.)

In fairness to the authors, I am sure none of this was done in a purposeful effort to mislead, but the fact remains that much of the "historical fact" in this book is flawed or downright false, and if they wanted to be taken seriously, the authors really ought to have done their research. Some of their rituals and verse prayers for getting in touch with various Crone goddesses are lovely, and their journal, craft, and meditation ideas could be helpful for understanding yourself as a Crone or -- if you are not at that stage yet -- other women who are, or the Crone aspect of the Goddess within you.

Unfortunately, even the good parts of the book are difficult to consider valuable, because the authors -- quiet unnecessarily -- base their entire argument for the power of the Crone in faulty research and history that is much more opinion than evidence. The lack of scholarship lends the book an uncomfortable "new-agey" feel: no wonder non-Pagans won't take us seriously. Books like this make me think we don't take our own faiths seriously enough if we think we must pin their validity on speculation and fantasy.