Customer Reviews

Ritual Body Art: Body Painting for Ritual & Magic

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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.

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.

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.

Charles Arnold's years of experience in the field of transformational magic make this book positively sing with the wonders of healing available through this newly applied, yet ancient form. Finding the proper symbol(s) in the colors that speak to the heart can and do make positive changes in the people who are his "canvasses" This is healing, this is magic, this is effective, this is good psychology. I highly recommend Ritual Body Art as the definitive text in a powerful medium. E-mail me for more info.