Ritual Body Art: Body Painting for Ritual & Magic [Paperback]

Charles Arnold (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001

This fascinating new book covers:

• a brief history of body art and how it works
• symbols (and their meanings) used in body art
• meanings of the colors
• ritual and makeup, jewelry, apparel and props
• masks and masking
• scents, with and without art
• uses in sabbats, esbats and other rituals
• everyday uses for body art
• 16 pages of color photographs

Editorial Reviews

Review

Ritual Body Art is a wonderful book by a Wiccan Priest who has studied and practiced the art of ritual body painting and decoration for over 20 years. It is a grimoire extraordinairea `must-have' for any magickal library! -- Oberon Zell, Church of All Worlds, Green Egg magazine

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix Publishing (WA) (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0919345743
• ISBN-13: 978-0919345744
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,849,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing book, January 3, 2004

By 

Mistaken Missive "MM_5" (Richardson, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ritual Body Art: Body Painting for Ritual & Magic (Paperback)

I recently purchased (online) "Ritual Body Art: Body Painting for Ritual & Magic" by Arnold, Charles. I am a pagan body artist, so I thought for sure I would like this book. The rave reviews also made me think it was a wise choice.

I must say it was very disappointing for me. Aside from the very lengthy non-subject-related areas, about 75% of the body art displayed and discussed were for fertility and birthing! Is there nothing we pagans have better to do than breed like bunnies? (sigh)

There was extensive "mourning miscarage" stuff and a slightly offensive "mourning abortion" bit. (It assumed that we all feel/should feel the same way about abortions - guilty as sin!)

The quality of the art was poor. The artist may have been going for "tribal" or the like, but it just looked sloppy to me. Overall, it mostly just felt like "Woohoo pagans can run about naked with paint smeared on them to mean stuff!" instead of what I was expecting. I was looking for a book that would have meaningful body painting rituals and techniques, and some good examples of personal intentional works done for individuals (not genaric "2nd trimester" number 1, 2, and 3 pics). Body art can be very personal and meaningful, but this book made it feel very cheap and cheesy. "Look ma, I got war paint!" Very disapointing for me.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must have for anyone who's Pagan, April 5, 2003

By 

Marc Wicoff (Beachwood, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ritual Body Art: Body Painting for Ritual & Magic (Paperback)

Mr. Arnold's book is a treasure trove of information. Much of it is a virtual dictionary on symbols. The rest a succinct guide on how and why body art is used in ritual. I have met Charles on several occasions and he is, bar none, the authority on ritual body art today. He presents workshops up and down the East coast, if you get a chance to see one of his classes, you wont be disappointed. He also gives many workshops on Sacred Spirituality, hopefully he will give us all a book on that topic some day soon. For those who would call him intense, I just need to say Buckland, Bonewitz, Gardner and Crowley. Intense? Maybe, but their knowledge is worth their weights in gold.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!, November 22, 2003

By 

Barbara (Sacramento CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ritual Body Art: Body Painting for Ritual & Magic (Paperback)

A tremendously useful and educational read. I picked this up at a time when I was getting pretty tired of the same ol' same ol', and I cannot recommend it enough.