The Magic of Shapeshifting (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Did werewolves ever exist?..." (more)
Key Phrases: wolf shifters, animal etheric body, cat shifters, Montague Summers, Native American, New Age (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Greene guides us through the levels of reality that lie outside our physical world and into the infinite universe that exists both within and beyond the limited boundaries of our senses. We read about opening to our inner animal self normally dwelling within the subconscious and letting it pervade more of our conscious waking mind. Includes detailed explanations and exercises teach shifters about their animal side, the animal spirit guide, and how we can become shifters. Glossary. Index.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: RedWheel / Weiser (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578631718
• ISBN-13: 978-1578631711
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #564,168 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Speaking as a therianthrope...., October 20, 2007

By	Lupa (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

As someone who has been conscious of being a therianthrope (what the author terms a "shifter") for over a decade, and been exhibiting characteristics most of my life, I decided to finally review it after having read it four times over the past five years.

Needless to say, I'm less impressed each time.

One of my biggest complaints is that the author (or three authors, writing under one name, according to one rumor) accepts anything about historical shapeshifters as totally true. She asserts that because of this, "shifters: (including physical shifters) have existed for millenia, well known to the populace but only recently suppressed. She relies particularly on questionable sources such as Montague Summers, and she takes no critical eye to any of her material.

Her magic is a mixture of spiritism/Theosophy and a smattering of Asian concepts of energy work, and assumes that the subjective biases of these systems are universal. This creates a rather dogmatic approach. And she doesn't cite any sources for the practical aspects of her work, which could have been strengthened by showing that other people have gotten similar results, though not necessarily using the techniques she utilizes for the same end. I was left wondering where she got her inspirations for the more hands-on material, and from what sources she learned to acquire the building blocks for her magical work.

My biggest annoyance about this work are all the huge assumptions and pigeonholes she applies to therianthropes in general, many of which are inaccurate. She uses no sources other than anecdotal information from other, often unidentified, people that we're supposed to expect are telling the truth--despite the fact that even in the late 1990s when the book was probably being compiled, there was already at least some information on therianthropy available online (more on that in a minute). Given the gullibility of the author in accepting whatever Mr. Summers wrote without question, I have to wonder how much critical consideration went into whatever her informants told her, or if she ever questioned her own experiences to any degree. If she did ever look at the possibility that not everything in this book was literally true, she doesn't show any evidence of having done so.

Some of the inaccuracies are blindingly obvious when viewed by anyone with more than a passing involvement in the therian community. One example is her assertion that most therians go through a "phase" as a fox shifter before "maturing" into another species; that all therians have totem animals that are the same species as their therioside; a bunch of terms she claims are "common" among therians, when in actuality I've never heard most of them anywhere except from her book; that therians have an aversion to turquoise; and her overemphasis on the existence of organized therian "packs". Going on this book alone could lead people to some really wrong assumptions about therians.

Additionally, she seems to have some weird ideas about physical animals. This includes strange esoteric "facts", such as the idea that black animals attract evil spirits, or that the color of an animal's fur or eyes determines its magical prowess and even personality. Last I checked, this didn't hold true for humans, and I haven't found in my decade-plus experience with animal magic that it does for nonhuman animals, either. She also has some blatant biological mistakes in there, such as the "fact" that foxes have retractable claws (they don't).

There are a few good parts amid the dross. I found her descriptions of some of the features of mental shifting to be accurate to my own experience. And there are some exercises in there that could actually be useful for gaining control of one's ability to shift, or to improve one's relationship with the part of the self that is the therioside. Her methods for raising levels of "shifting energy" are simple psychological triggers that can be used by anyone in a ritual setting to help achieve the proper altered state of consciousness for invocation (of another entity or a part of the self). It's nothing new, though it could be useful.

The author comes across as someone in the furry community who has a serious grudge against the therian community. She holds up the furry community as the best place for a "shifter" to go find other "shifters", while her very scant opinions on the (online) therian community is that it's full of cultists and other unsavory people. (There's nothing wrong with furries, of course, but even many members of that community will quickly tell you that "furry" and "therian" are not the same thing, though there are some furs who are also therians--but they're a minority.) Her "facts" about fox therians closely mirrors furries, in which there are a LOT of fox fursonas (though it's common for people to create new fursonas as they get more involved in the community). She also emphasizes costuming (fursuits) in the book quite a bit as an aid for getting in touch with the animal, and even gives a diagram for the leg extensions used in quadsuits, or quadrepedal fursuits.

In short, this reads like a furry who has a personal vendetta against the therian community. Granted, not everybody gets along with everybody else in the community-but welcome to life. There's nothing that says a therian can't be a part of the furry fandom, but when a book on therianthropy (which it pretty obviously is despite the use of the word "shifter") quite conspicuously eliminates almost any reference to the therian community except for a couple of sharp-toothed remarks, this strongly suggests personal rather than professional issues.

If you read this book, keep a shaker of salt very handy. There are some magical/psychological techniques that some therianthropes may find useful for becoming more comfortable with shifting and gaining better internal balance. However, the bulk of the book is essentially poorly-researched drek based mainly on personal bias and conjecture.

50 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh please..., July 12, 2004

By	Katrina Stone (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

I bought this book because I find shapeshifting an interesting subject, but by no means do I consider myself to be a "shapeshifter". In "The Magic of Shapeshifting", she states some obviously weird and inaccurate things, such as on page 47, "The same wolf etheric body that lends a wolf's abilities to a berserker, can, at a more physical level of manifestation, actually become material enough to be a physical thing, via either bilocation of physical shifting."

First, Berserkers were people who took on the qualities of BEARS while fighting, not Wolves. That would have been an "Ulfhednar". Second, physical shifting?? Does she expect those of us with any semblance of sanity to believe that somehow a human body is going to shift into the body of a wolf? I think she's either pulling the leg of people who would read that and say to themselves, "Hey, I wanna be a wolf!" or she's certifiable.

In subsequent chapters, she just states some really dumb things, such as "Black familiars are evil, white familiars are good" (I'm paraphrasing). She advises you to have a pet as a familiar, but avoid black dogs because they're "demonic" unless they have a white spot on them to "balance" them out. Crimeny. Statements like that just make me question the rest of the book, which is, actually, filled with more stupid statements like that! No wonder she considers herself a "lone wolf". In a small community of people who are viewed as nutjobs by the rest of society, I would think they would want to distance themselves from her as much as possible.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sad sad sad, July 4, 2005

By	FateDancer (Italy) - See all my reviews

This book starts out almost nicely subdividing shapeshifting methods in categories, but falls apart when the writer goes on babbling about animals... She thinks Black dogs are "eviler" than other dogs, she thinks animals with natural red eyes are not good familiars beacause of the eye color, she puts herbivorous animals in a second class wagon to no where... She thinks a load of stuff on animals that is not absolutly true. I am not arguing on the shapeshfting part that is not totally bad (could be worse), but on some things this writer puts in the book that make you wonder if she actually does know animals as she claims she does and if she does know shapeshifters as she says...
If you are not new to this argument and feel like separating the loads of dumb stuff from the usefull stuff it could be good, if you are new to this kind of topic,DONT BUY IT, buy something else or the author could put you on the wrong path and make you think things that are absolutly not true.