Besom, Stang & Sword: A Guide to Traditional Witchcraft, the Six-Fold Path & the Hidden Landscape - Softcover

Orapello, Christopher; Maguire, Tara-Love

Softcover

ISBN 10: 157863637X ISBN 13: 9781578636372

Publisher: Weiser Books, 2018

Synopsis

Regional traditional witchcraft is an animistic form of witchcraft that moves away from the religious harvest festivals and fertility-minded practices associated with the more common Wiccan form of witchcraft. Very few of us in this age are farmers or dependent upon crops and harvests. Regional traditional witchcraft teaches people to find their craft in their own backyards, in the uncultivated land or urban cityscape alike, and in their ancestors rather than in ancient foreign deities or in a neopagan-styled religious form of witchcraft. It's not about where you're from but where you are.

The material is adaptable to any region in which the practitioner lives. Although the lack of deity worship and holy days is a significant part of the authors' nonreligious approach, this book presents a complete system of practice utilizing ritual, chant, trance, the six paths of witchcraft as defined and explained by the text, and the practices associated with traditional witchcraft.

About this title

About the Author

Christopher Orapello is an artist, witch, and animist with a background in Western occultism, ceremonial magick, and Freemasonry and has been on his journey for over 20 years. He cohosts the podcast Down at the Crossroads with his partner, Tara Maguire, and is a signature artist with Sacred Source, a leading producer and distributor of ancient deity images in North America. After a growing desire for a more locally based form of witchcraft, he and Tara founded the Blacktree Coven in 2014 and set out to forge a modern approach to traditional witchcraft for a new era of praxis. Tara-Love Maguire has been a practicing witch for over 30 years. Her path has been crookedly influenced by Isobel Gowdie, Marie Laveau, and William S. Burroughs (among others). Growing up in and around the New Jersey Pine Barrens, she found witchcraft within the tales and shadows of that folkloric landscape. She cohosts the podcast Down at the Crossroads with Christopher Orapello and is one of the founders of the Blacktree Coven, which exists in the heart of southern New Jersey.

Review

"As an Appalachian witch, bioregional witchcraft is the only witchcraft that touches me, the only sort that reaches backward and forward, roving the spiritual as well as the physical landscape. This knotty and fine book is old and new, too--beautifully written, deeply researched and growing from the furrows of a genuine practice. Much to learn here and much to do. Bury yourself in Besom, Stang & Sword's evocative spirit." --H. Byron Ballard, witch and author of Earth Works: Ceremonies in Tower Time

"In Besom, Stang & Sword, Christopher and Tara-Love have crafted an approachable yet artful guide to the practice of traditional witchcraft from a uniquely North American perspective. This in-depth handbook provides an inspired foundation with workable material in the form of rituals, spells, and explorations that both novice and experienced practitioners alike will find compelling and enlightening." --Laura Tempest Zakroff, author of Weave the Liminal, Sigil Witchery, and The Witch's Cauldron

"Besom, Stang and Sword: A Guide to Traditional Witchcraft, the Six-Fold Path, and the Hidden Landscape ensorcells witchcraft back to its primal roots, still hidden and alive beneath the surface of the dark soil of mainstream magickal traditions. The book reorients the Craft to return to the primordial forces, animism, baneful plants, folk magic, ecstasy, and hedgewitchery without gatekeeping, armchair pseudo-academia, pretension or pomposity; making it incomparable to other books in its niche. The unclouded and grounded manner in which Orapello and Maguire write displays that they not only fully understand what they're writing about but that they are well-seasoned, knowledgeable, and insightful regarding the cosmology and praxis contained within its pages which allows them to teach it with crystal clarity." --Mat Auryn, author of Psychic Witch and blogger at For Puck's Sake on Patheos Pagan

"Besom, Stang & Sword details a beautifully wrought and immensely practical system of modern traditional witchcraft, born of personal insight, working experience and dedication rooted deeply in the spirit of place. This is a book which offers the reader both clear guidance and the freedom to craft a path of witchcraft which is personal and meaningful to them and the landscape they live in." --Gemma Gary, author of Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways, The Black Toad, The Charmer's Psalter, Wisht Waters, The Devil's Dozen, and Silent as the Trees

"Orapello and Maguire's beautiful prose draws the reader into a modern take on traditional witchcraft. The craft as they present it is without pretension and strikingly elegant in its simplicity, and it stresses the practitioner's sovereignty and relationship with the spirits of the land. Besom, Stang & Sword is easily the most eminently practical book on traditional witchcraft available today." --Nicholas Pearson, author of The Seven Archetypal Stones and Stones of the Goddess

"When I first met Christopher Orapello and Tara-Love Maguire, I knew I was in the company of witches. Despite the commonplace setting, I could feel the stir of the wind between the worlds and smell the scent of deep earth and moonlight. Their book, Besom, Stang, and Sword fulfills the promise of that first encounter. They have performed the Great Work of witches and have made the old become new and live again. Chapter by chapter, they lay out the tools and the paths of their system of witchcraft. If you do the work described, you will claim your place in a broader reality filled with majesty and power. There are a thousand and one ways to be a witch. This may be your way, but if it is not, it will still be worth your careful attention. All the magicks of the world are intertwined, each a twisting path forming the weave of things." --Ivo Dominguez, Jr., author of Keys to Perception, Practical Astrology for Witches and Pagans, and other books of magick

"What an absolute treat to the senses it has been to delve into Besom, Stang & Sword! This text presents a cohesive system of practice, thorough in exploring the fundamentals of magic, yet unafraid to delve into the dimly lit corners of witchcraft. Christopher Orapello and Tara-Love Maguire offer their own meticulously curated system based on theory, history, folklore, and trusted praxis. They cover an astonishing array of topics in a refreshingly concise manner and offer clear instruction along with their own rituals and spell work. What they present to us is intelligent methodology, and a powerful and spirit-fueled practice that reminds you that your tradition is a living creature to be respected and nurtured. Though a primer for their own magical system, there is no feeling of witchcraft-light here. This book encourages a deepening of your magic, a connection to your own bioregion, and a passion for the work you do with the land and your own spirits. This is sure to become a foundational text among magical practitioners. Orapello and Maguire have offered a treasure to their community with this tome. "Magick is magick" they say, and this book truly is just that." --Jen (Rue) Holmes, blogger and herb mistress at Rue and Hyssop

"From this moment on, when someone in North America asks me for a book on Traditional Witchcraft, I will be recommending Besom, Stang & Sword from Christopher Orapello and Tara-Love Maguire. Why? Because this book takes what I feel is the most essential truth of any real witchcraft and places it front and center: All witchcraft is local." --Jason Miller, author of The Elements of Spellcrafting: 21 Keys to Successful Sorcery

"With Besom, Stang, & Sword, Chris and Tara open the doors to their own practices, laying out the materials of magic for all to see. The results drive home the central point that magic--specifically witchcraft--is available to anyone, but that it requires time, effort, patience, and thought along with a dose of fate and a sizeable amount of risk. They build a hexagram of approachable practices that asks anyone picking up this work to root their magic in the land surrounding them and their own personal history, rather than taking secondhand sorcery from others. Chris and Tara reveal their Blacktree tradition without pretense or artifice, but instead with clarity, insight, and acid wit, which testifies to their talents as both seasoned occultists and engaging writers. This is a book that will reshape a reader's encounters with magic and the landscape around them." --Cory Thomas Hutcheson, author of 54 Devils and host of the podcast New World Witchery

"Thoughtful, incredibly practical, and rooted in reality: all of my very favorite things! In their book Besom, Stang, and Sword, Chris Orapello and Tara-Love Maguire beautifully articulate everything I hold dear." --Deborah Castellano, Glamour Magic: The Witchcraft Revolution to Get What You Want

Edition details

• Publisher: Weiser Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 157863637X
• ISBN 13: 9781578636372
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304