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105 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Breath of Fresh Air, July 1, 2006
This review is from: Protection and Reversal Magick (Beyond 101) (Paperback)
Finally, a book that's not only aimed at Wiccans but witches as well! (If you don't know the difference, you might be part of the problem.) It's so nice to read a book that actually equates witchcraft to a *craft* and not a religion.
Anyway, now that that's out of the way, I'll talk about the actual content of the book. This book is exactly what it says it is: a defense manual. While it doesn't go into full-blown cursing, it does present some very interesting techniques of counter-magic. I'll do a chapter by chapter summary now. There are nine chapters in this book, but I'll ignore chapter nine since it's just an epilogue and does not really present any info. Chapter one is titled "Recognizing Attack" and talks about possible sources and symptoms of psychic/magical attack. Chapter two, "Daily Practices," discusses some practices that the author considers to be important, like: meditation, banishing rituals, and offerings (to spirits, etc.). There are techniques offered for each of these if the reader is interested. Chapter three "Personal Protection" and chapter four "Protection for the Home" go hand in hand. The first discusses things such as personal shields and cleansing baths while the latter focuses on protecting the home via wards, amulets, and spirit traps. Chapter five, "Exorcism," talks about "possession" and "obsession" and how to deal with each. It also discusses the dangers of inexperienced (and even experienced) practitioners performing such rituals. Chapter six, "Spirit Guardians and Servitors" talks about working with various spirits and even creating your own (my favorite magical topic!). Chapter seven, "Reversals and Counter-Magick," is the chapter with the most "meat." It shows you what to do when everything else fails. And lastly, chapter eight ("Healing and Recovery") shows you what to do *after* the attack has been successfully averted and how to repair any damage that might have been done.
Another interesting thing about this book is that the focus of its rituals is the goddess Hekate. I've been interested in this goddess for a couple of years now and it was nice to finally see a book with practices focused around her. "Appendix B: Hekate" is excellent and it dispels the myth that Hekate is always viewed as a "crone" goddess. Besides its focus on Hekate, I also like how the book used different traditions/practices throughout, including the always fascinating practice of hoodoo (baths, washes, powders, etc.).
Overall, I think that this might be the most interesting meta/magic book I've read so far (and believe me, I've read *A LOT*!). It's obvious throughout the book that the author actually practices what he preaches, unlike many books on the market today that just repeat the same old info over and over again.
I'm looking forward to this author's next work.
Even if you're not very interested in the topic of protection magic (I wasn't) you will still find this book of great interest and value.
A breath of fresh air, indeed!
Recommended.
-Ater
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82 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good book but major problems!, July 8, 2008
This review is from: Protection and Reversal Magick (Beyond 101) (Paperback)
This is an excellent book with tremendous information. The one problem I have with this book is there are no phonetic pronunciations for the words used in the rituals. In fact, just about every ritual or spell is loaded with all types of words that one cannot pronounce. In fact, you are calling on spirits to aid your spell work without any background information on the spirits used. You are also left to sometimes guess how to pronounce long incantations without any pronunciation guide at all.
I find it surprising that NOT one review of this book mentions the lack of a pronunciation guide. The rituals seem to use incantations from Latin, Greek, Voodoo, and a variety of other languages. To be honest, if I had known this in advance I would have never purchased this book.
Why did I give the book 3 stars?
The author put a lot of work into this book- it will be obvious the moment you start reading. The book is loaded with excellent tips, and it really does give you something to think about. However, if you can not pronounce the spells your in trouble and here lies the problem.
I just wanted other readers to be aware of the high and low point of this book. Now you have the facts, you can decide for yourself.
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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A well thought out and easy to use guide to magickal protection, August 1, 2006
This review is from: Protection and Reversal Magick (Beyond 101) (Paperback)
Jason Miller's Protection & Reversal Magick: A Witch's Defense Manual, is a fine book that I could recommend, without reservation, to anyone with an interest in magick and witchcraft that goes beyond the typical Wicca 101 books so prevalent in every chain bookstore in America. It dives head first into a topic that is almost never mentioned in so many books on witchcraft, and that is that there is some risk associated with magickal practice.
It's an all too common problem with many books on witchcraft to completely gloss over or sugar coat the idea that magick is real and can effect you negatively as well as positively in order to appeal to a wider audience.
This book does not strip down or sugar coat its contents to appeal to the dabbling magician. That being said, it does book provides a practical, easy to understand, step by step guide to magical protection that can be put into use really by anyone with a desire to try. In other words it delivers exactly what it promises, the information you need to help you protect yourself from outside forces as well as conditions brought on by your own actions. It draws from a variety of sources without the all too common pit fall of "being eclectic for eclectic's sake". It also provides many new spells and ideas straight from the author's practice. Not only does this give you a great starting point from which to begin working from but also gives you a head start from which to do your own further research into the topics presented if you wanted to. In addition to being grounded in tried and true methods, this book is able to appeal to all readers by not being grounded in one tradition or religion and instead focusing on the craft and techniques of magick.
An amazing book that I can only hope will be followed up by more from this author.
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