Customer Reviews

A Wiccan Formulary and Herbal

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wow. Yet another herbal reference manual. At a stiff price, I found this book a so-so read. Again if you NEED an herbal and this is the only one on the shelf, grab it. If you already have one by either M. Grieve, Paul Beryl or Scott Cunningham, save your money and buy something else.

My hat is off to Mr. Drew though in some parts of the book especially pages 11-13 where he discusses knowing what sorts of allergies you may have before diving into working with herbs.

Chapter 1 is seriously redundant. Do the authors and publishers of these books really believe that their book will be the ONLY one that a newbie will pickup and have read? I find this to be an arrogant assumption on their part really as well as unnecessary filler that can help promote the appearance of `more for your money' and keep the price inflated as high as it is. In other words, how many damn primer chapters do you have to put into such a book?

I found chapter 5 "Herbal Recipes and Remedies" to be quite dangerous because it treads very close to the border of prescription remedies again which only a qualified medical physician has the training and legal authority to prescribe. I forewarn you now that if you contemplate taking any of the herbal remedies in this book, please make absolutely certain you know what are you are doing, you know your own body's allergies AND you've shared what you plan to do with your medical physician.

The foods outlined in Chapter 6 were somewhat interesting but hardly anything new. I believe Cunningham covered the "Magic of Food" in one of his cliched offerings. The classifications were nothing that you couldn't dig up in any other reference manual.

Chapter 7's recipes for "Making Magick" sounded a lot like they were patterned after the Cunningham & Tarostar school of Kitchen Witchery and a quick look in the Bibliography shows that indeed they're on the reading list.

Part of the problem I have with a series of recipes like this comes from my own training in Root-Conjure Sorcery where I was taught that these recipes are "generalized' and their application may or may not work. The idea is that the practitioner will need to truly learn the recipe by studying how each ingredient in the recipe works as well as how it interacts with the other ingredients as they are applied to the situation for which they were blended. Plus given the fact that problems generally arise from people (ourselves AND others) and our interpersonal interactions with one another, thus a practitioner should custom make each recipe after knowing the given set of circumstances and all parties involved. This way you will know if you need to add more or less of any one or more ingredients to help treat the situation correctly.

Finally the last part focuses on the plants themselves. Drew follows the basic outline of both Grieve and Cunningham (minus a couple of things) to try and make a cohesive list of herbs, their folk names, Magical uses Astrological data and medical uses. The pictures of the plants really doesn't help someone like me who does not go out into the wild and grow or harvest all that many plants. I have a few things I go in the woods for but for the most part, I buy my herbs and roots from reputable dealers online.

All in all, it's a so-so book to me. His anecdotes didn't really didn't click with me but that is purely an individual taste sort of thing. Again if you don't have an herbal reference, and can't find one of the others I mentioned, this isn't a bad book to get. I think the price would be justified IF the publisher opted for more graphic representations of the herbs in the wild & dropped the redundant chapters on the basics. I rate this 2 stars out of 5 for unoriginality and redundancy.

too much dross and not enough wisdom -- the first rule of herbal arts is: if one can cure, two can kill. And while it seems like every publisher wants a magickal herb book, too many aren't versed enough in this field to choose the best materials. There is a difference between medicinal herbalism (folk remedials), magick, and other more "pleasurable" applications of herbs, and I don't feel like that was clearly defined on several levels. Additionally the lack of anything overly clever or new here leaves me wondering how much time/effort/thought went into the pages.

I think Paul Bereyl's work along with Susan Weed are better options and complimentary (along with one book on more modern outlooks on herbs including toxicity)

Within the first few pages of this book, I found like three mistakes, but the one that really bugged me, was the statment he made about no previous groups practicing withcraft before gardener brought it to the United States in 1950. This is not true, the Strega of old Italy practiced withcraft (Strega/Stregone= Female witch/Male witch) called Stregheria (Italian Witchcraft), which was being practiced for years, long before Gardener, and the first book on modern day witchcraft was created by Charles Godfrey Leland in the 1800's. Anyways, dont say that until Wicca, there was no previous groups practicing witchcraft, contarary to populaur belief, Gerald Gardener did NOT create Wicca off of old celtic folk tradtions, but actually from Stregheria and Lelands book, he took old family Strega traditions and turned them into his own little religion, (not saying Wicca isnt valid in practice, but its plagarized in belief and tradition).

A Wiccan Formulary and Herbal is an informative and well written book and fun to read.

A really outstanding work on the subject. Exhaustive and practical. If you're looking for a magical herbal look no further than this.

Wicca and new age followers will find A Wiccan Formulary And Herbal a wonderful reference addition: a set of home remedies, herbal cures, recipes for incense and oils, and more. Methods featured are based in science and applications more than rituals: from plant herbals and tinctures to kitchen witchery, here are all the practical formulas for making real 'magic'.