Witches: True Encounters with Wicca, Wizards, Covens, Cults and Magick [Hardcover]

Hans Holzer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2002

A wide-ranging exploration of witchcraft, featuring documents, interviews, spells, rituals, eyewitness accounts.

Witchcraft is known to the initiated as "the Old Religion." If the word "witch" conjures up images of a Halloween hag on a broomstick, you will be surprised to meet the many real witches, both ancient and current, presented here by Hans Holzer. An expert in the subject who has documented and participated in many forms of witchcraft over the years, Holzer explores its myriad forms and factions, taking readers inside secret rituals and ceremonies, recording spells and incantations and offering personal testimony from practitioners of all kinds. Using the unprecedented access and trust he has developed over many years, Holzer sheds light on "the craft" as no one before has done, creating a rich and vibrant chronicle of witchcraft: a subject of never-ending fascination, awe and mystery.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Professor Hans Holzer, Ph.D., is the author of 120 books, including The Truth About Witchcraft, The New Pagans, Hans Holzer's Travel Guide to Haunted Houses, and Witches. He lives in New York City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers (September 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579122612
• ISBN-13: 978-1579122614
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,183,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Leftovers from the 70's, January 25, 2003

By 

Boudica (Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Witches: True Encounters with Wicca, Wizards, Covens, Cults and Magick (Hardcover)

I remember Hans Holzer from the 70's, as THE "Ghost Hunter" and his association with Sybil Leek. He was into ESP and psychic experiences and he wrote many books which I explored at that time. I do remember his stories about ghosts and approached this book with an open mind.

I am surprised at this book. There is so much information in here that is just wrong and some of his sources are questionable.
While there are a few groups and names that are easily recognizable, he does not interview those but merely mentions them. Those individuals that he does interview are very new to the path. Some of the covens he interviews are not very well known and those that are have very dated interviews.

His information, like Wicca being an "ancient religion" is inaccurate (actually founded by Gerald Gardner in the 1930's/40's), he does not differentiate between Wicca and witchcraft. He calls Ms. MorningGlory Zell "Mountain Glory", and a picture of Yvonne Frost is labeled "Alice Frost". Typos abound showing very poor proofreading. There is no bibliography, no references to where he found his material. This is just his personal experiences, beliefs and pictures.

Photos are misleading. There are photos of him and Sybil Leek but they do not relate to the material being discussed other than to mention a remembrance or two. Many of the photos are out of focus.

A lot of the material is from the 1970's. He tells the stories as he remembers events and interviews from that time period. Very little, if anything, is updated to today's current pagan community. What we read is a vignette of what the craft was like in its early years but not what it has evolved into today.

Some of his memories of people like Tim Zell (Oberon Zell Ravenheart) and Dr. Leo Martello and the Frosts are interesting. His coverage of the "Witch Wars" of the 1970's is an interesting viewpoint from a different perspective. There is some truth to the events that occurred but there is some omitted information or he just didn't get the entire story.

He includes rituals from some groups he practiced with back then, and this becomes so much filler to beef up the book. It is interesting if you are looking for older reference materials. He also goes into "Satanism" and again, while it may be interesting to the curious, it has nothing to do with "witches" and should have been done in a book separate from this book.

All in all, the book lacks authenticity, is not factual or current and has interest only from the standpoint of the author himself.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Since Drawing Down the Moon, October 14, 2002

By 

Thabion "Thabion" (Orange, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Witches: True Encounters with Wicca, Wizards, Covens, Cults and Magick (Hardcover)

Reviewed by Poke Runyon

This book is large (8.5x11"), heavy, thick (670 pages), black and intimidating. The dust jacket screams "Witches" in inch-and-half high type garnished with a flaming red pentagram; just the thing to leave on your coffee table when your Christian maiden aunt pays a call (obviously shock value is part of the publisher's marketing strategy). However, if we can get past the book's appearance and take an unbiased look at the contents we will find a treasure trove of modern Pagan, Wiccan, and Magical history going back forty years (and in some instances brought up to date). Professor Holzer might be called the Herodotus of modern witchcraft. He reports on what he has observed first-hand, and gleaned from interviews, among the several personalities and groups he has visited over a period spanning four decades; and all this graphically documented by nearly a hundred photographs. He writes for the general reader, avoiding academic technicalities. His viewpoint is empathetic, in pleasant contrast to the expose journalism so often associated with this subject matter. He does not attempt to write a comprehensive history of the modern Pagan/Magical revival--but, when such a history is written, Holzer's contributions will figure prominently in its corpus.

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the money, January 2, 2003

By 

R. Whitman "Me" (Salt Lake City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Witches: True Encounters with Wicca, Wizards, Covens, Cults and Magick (Hardcover)

I'm at a toss with this book. It's big, it's black, and it boasts of "true encounters with Wicca" and so on.

While this book is written from the perspective that Witchcraft isn't a bad religion, in the first 100 pages, it feel into some might deep stereotyping.

A couple examples:

* In the history section, the author declares firmly that practitioners of the old religion long ago did not worship the Devil. That they, in fact, worshipped one god (a goddess, really), known only as The Moon Goddess. He's not talking about the modern practices, but those that took place during the Witch Hunts.

* He states that the practitioners are all young and beautiful. On another page, he says that most of the practitioners are those born ("Natural Witches") or are young. And the only reason the youth are interested is because the "wild dancing and frolicking" of the Sabbats are like those one would find at a rave where they would take drugs.

He plugs his other books a lot and I'm wondering if a lot of his material for this book wasn't left over from his others. (He was a prolific writing in the 60's and 70's.) Most of his examples come from that time.

While some of the chants and that are good, over-all, this book is dry and boring and not worth the $30 to buy it. If one finds in cheep, I'd still not suggest it.