A Witch's Book of Answers [Paperback]

Eileen Holland (Author), Cerelia (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2003

An everything-you-wanted-to-know and somebody asked compendium. This book grew out of the authors' Open-Sesame website, where more than a million readers a year asked questions. From the most basic, like Do witches fly? to the most sublime, including How do we explain the things that happen in our lives?, A Witch's Book of Answers provides the answers--answers you can apply to your life and your practice, whether you're an interested newcomer or have been practicing your whole life.

A Witch's Book of Answers is widely informative and contains essential information modern witches need to know. In addition to the questions and answers that are the foundation of the book, Holland and Cerelia also provide exercises and general information throughout, including how to use visualization in magic, how to ground yourself after a ritual, and what to do if a Tarot reading predicts something terrible. Learn about covens and how to find the right one, how anger can affect magic, and the power of dream interpretation. Including an Index of Magical Workings and a glossary of Wiccan terms, A Witch's Book of Answers provides a comprehensive guide to what it means to become and live as a witch.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eileen Holland is a Wiccan priestess, a solitary eclectic witch, and the author of The Wicca Handbook, Weiser, 2000. She is also the webmaster of Open-Sesame, a popular withcraft site that is visited by over a million people each year. Eileen lives in upstate New York.

Cerelia has been a practicing pagan and witch for twenty years. This is her first book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser; 1 st edition (April 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578632803
• ISBN-13: 978-1578632800
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #521,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eileen Holland is a Wiccan priestess, a solitary eclectic witch who writes about magick, witchcraft, and the Wiccan religion. Her website Open, Sesame (www.open-sesame.com) has been online over a decade and had millions of visitors. Eileen likes to write books that are both serious and useful. She loves research, especially the kind that involves ancient sources, and always has several books-in-progress. Her current project is a book about mythology.

Eileen lives quietly in upstate New York, with her husband and son.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Only Two Witches Opinions, June 25, 2004

By 

Leigh McCormick-Roberts "Ardriana Cahill" (Las Vegas, NV United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Witch's Book of Answers (Paperback)

I didn't get past page 30 before I had a problem with this book. If this is a beginner's first book, please gods, don't let it be your last.

For as much as they might seem generous in their responses, there is as much contradiction, prejudice and narrow mindedness. They often respond to questions with cookie cutter, dualistic thinking that implies a different answer to the question is wrong. These women, however sincere and well meaning - are not qualified to tell anyone (P. 6) what kind of ATTITUDE a witch is supposed to have! They definitively say that witchcraft as a religion (P.3) and a witch is someone who "finds" the goddess (P.5), then later explains that some witches reject the term Wicca, Wiccan and the concept of witchcraft being a religion (P.27). (Questions that are not in the book might be...So, is there is such a thing as a witch who does not belong to your religion? Yes. Then, that first definition is conditional to one group of witches? Yes.) They define anyone who uses the term "fluffy" as a black witch (P. 16), hereditary witches are "whiners" (P. 17 ) and a natural witch as a solitary (P.18). I'm sorry if I offend, but these responses are unfair, unkind and somewhat childish.

Seekers - read this book with a critical eye and know that these 700 answers - are not nearly enough. Wiccans (or wiccans, without the capital "W") do not own the word Witch, Witchcraft (or even witch and witchcraft). Within the community there are non-Wiccan covens and solitaries who strongly favor a god, not a goddess, who worship a pantheon of separate divinities in which a goddess is one in many, who follow a balance path of magick that has no color (black or white), who defines prayer and magick as two separate things, who practice ethical magick without a set of religious rules and (gasp) consequently there are witches who are not pagan but follow ancient mystery traditions within Jewish and Christian philosophies. If your path as a witch leads you to any of these possibilities - don't let this book tell you that your definition of a witch is wrong.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not always the right answers, June 6, 2003

By 

Cunning Woman (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Witch's Book of Answers (Paperback)

Wicca is a very eclectic religion. There's not a central organization or a definitive reference or a guru who defines everything Wicca. That's a big part of why it's appealing to people. What bothered me about this "book of answers" was that, although most of the answers were pretty good, they gave the impression that there is one right way (theirs) to do things, and that everyone else is wrong and doesn't deserve the title of Wiccan or Witch. Of particular concern to me is their definition of Witch as exclusively Wiccan. There are a lot of Witches (myself included) that don't subscribe to all the religious tenents of Wicca, and so wouldn't consider themselves Wiccan. That doesn't mean they're not Witches. Elsewhere, they state that there is no such thing as a Christian Witch. I know around ten. It would be all right if they said that they disagreed with it, but to say it doesn't exist is denigrating. In short, if you want to learn about witchcraft and Wicca, pick up one of the many beginning Wicca manuals out there instead of this book and find the answers for yourself.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh the horror, January 16, 2005

By 

M. Phaneuf - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Witch's Book of Answers (Paperback)

This is one of the only books that I will tell people never to buy as it is a pure waste of money. Witchcraft (or Wicca for that matter) is not black and white. There is a whole spectrum of color involved. I have to agree with a previous poster who said that this should have been called The Witch's Book of Opinions. And not very good ones at that. There is no one right or wrong way of doing things in Witchcraft. And to totally dismiss one of the key figures in modern Witchcraft and call all of his work trash is ignorant, disrespectful and childish. They obviously do not realize that Crowley and Gardner were major influences on each others works. If you dismiss Crowley's teachings then you must also dismiss many of Gardner's.