violetwitchcraft:Solitary Witch - Silver RavenWolfOverall Score: 2.5/5Is It Worth Buying: Not if it
violetwitchcraft:Solitary Witch - Silver RavenWolfOverall Score: 2.5/5Is It Worth Buying: Not if it costs anything above $3.Quick Overview: Has a few good moments but otherwise filled with inaccuracy, difficult to follow and requires several hundred pinches of salt if dared to be read.I’d like to leave a note that these thoughts on Silver regard this book and this book alone. While other transgressions she has made in various other publications certainly built up a profile of her in my mind before I even read this, I try to do things with an open mind and as such I won’t be talking about anything she has said in any other book, only what I have learned from this one.Yes. I can hear your cries of indignation already and I am thriving upon them. The infamous, the legendary, Silver RavenWolf. Mention her name to one person and they will give you a glowing story of how she helped the individual take their first steps into witchcraft. Mention her to someone else and they will tell you she is the death of the modern pagan movement. So. Who is in the right here? Is she the problematic underqueen of hell, or is she misunderstood? I suffered through almost 600 pages and a month of reading to find this very answer out for you.You’re going to hate me for saying this, but in my mind, she is a little bit of both. I DON’T mindlessly hate her at all. This book has some points that shocked me in how fresh and unique they were. It also had countless pages of garbage. One of my biggest stipulations with Solitary Witch is that it is an organizational disaster. The book is separated into five halves, covering different very broad subjects. Shadows of Religion and Mystery, Shadows of Objects and Tools, Shadows of Expertise and Proficiency, Shadows of Magick and Enchantment and last but not least Shadows of Magick. There are several sections after this at the end of the book where she covers her finishing thoughts and leaves the bibliography and index. While this sounds organized in practise, each section contains a seemingly random collection of topics in no kind of structured order. While I understand that this is meant to be a resource and reference book instead of following any real narrative, even from that point of view the shambles of these pages seems odd.This begins from the very first pages. We are told that this is a section on religion and mystery yet the first topics are different blessings you can do and the charge of the goddess. While I am surprised and glad to see that she noted down Charles Leland’s Aradia: Gospel Of The Witches as Doreen Valiente’s inspiration for this because it’s a piece of history most people don’t know about, it still seems absolutely absurd that we are given ritual blessings and notes before the beliefs, structure, history and basic practises of Wicca are even mentioned. Then follows a section on Honi and the Rain, which contains information so incorrect that I actually laughed reading it. We are given the notes on how to cast a circle and to call down Honi. So. In brief summary. While I can forgive that Silver uses Wicca and Witchcraft interchangeably as if they are the same thing because let’s face it, almost every witchcraft author from her time period does the same, what I can’t forgive the the complete lack of context. She is telling people to summon an entity after giving a completely false portrayal of them within the first 10 pages of the book. She has told us how to do blessings for goddesses when we have no idea who those goddesses are. The book continues on in a similar fashion. Bits and pieces from various cultures are randomly splattered across every page. We are told about guardian angels and spirit totems in the same casual tone. She gives us powwow spells. She talks of chakras. She takes buzzwords from cultures that have sacred traditions that they definitely do NOT want to share with people outside of their religions and waters them down then places them within these pages with either incorrect context about their origins or even worse, no context at all. She trivialises the sacred beliefs that others hold and offers them up to people as tools to be used with little to no respect. The entire book reads like she googled every single vaguely spiritual bit of information from any and every religion she could find and slapped it all together. Her obvious disdain for Christianity and encouragement to young people to hide their spirituality from their parents borders on worrying. She makes countless contradictions to herself; at one point stating that Wiccans can choose any pantheon and follow that creation story, then several pages later flips back to the miscommunication of the “Wicca is an ancient religion and we are all born of the Goddess and the Lord.” fable. Later on in the book she then says that many people choose not to follow the Wiccan path. She says that witchcraft is a religion, and magic is the system. It’s like the book is written by 6 different people who all have very misinformed opinions. She mentions many fantastic healing properties of various herbs and how you can use them for various ailments without mentioning that if you are allergic to some, make the wrong consistency or ingest certain herbs when you are not meant to it can make you violently ill. And the fact that they are medicines, which could easily interfere with any pre existing medication you are currently taking and make you feel worse. It’s a hot mess.However, the book also has some shining moments. If you are heavily into Astrology then you might want to pick this up for that section alone. She lists countless planetary movements, oils and incense you can use based on your signs, and various other vaguely mathematical things that I only half understand. She lists common tools of witchcraft, how to use them and how to make them. There is a lot of information on magical scripts, divination, etc.The biggest standout for me are the spells and the lifestyle moments. If it wasn’t for this section I would call the entire book garbage, but these pages had words that offered even me some reassurance. She has a section on suicide and offers comforting words as well as listing phone numbers people can call in a crisis and advising medical help BEFORE going to witchcraft for answers, which I find very honourable of her. She gives a spell on how to cast away a stalker. She teaches young girls that it is ok to say no to their boyfriends if they are not ready for sex. She even speaks to those who have found themselves in jail. She does not judge you and she is there for you and I think this is why her books are so popular among young people. Older pagans can scoff all they like and call it ‘fluffy bunny magic’ to cast spells to do well in school and to gain clarity from their crush, but the things you experience as a child and a teenager shape your perception of the world and how you handle things for many years to come. I think this is a very serious time in the life of everyone, witch or not, and I like to treat young people with respect because I know what it is like to be in their shoes. I think this is something we should all remember these days and is a nice message from Ravenwolf that we can all take to heart.My conclusion to this review is that Silver Ravenwolf and her books are like the internet in human and paper form. There are some honestly fantastic moments, but most of it is full of incoherent, misconstrued and incorrect rubbish. Given from the hefty list of books she lists on her bibliography it’s clear to me that this is not a book of her knowledge or beliefs or even witchcraft and wicca practises she has been taught, but simply a ramshackle collection of things she has learned from other misinformed authors. Which saddens me, because in the moments she has been writing as herself, such as the tools and spells sections, she has had some very useful points. I know that she has some stand alone spell books out there and i’d be curious to see how they read in comparison. Is she evil? No. Is she severely more uneducated on world religions than she lets on? Definitely. But so are most witchcraft authors and I do believe the level of hate she receives when almost every other spirituality author perpetuates the same things she does receives no hate at all. Her books inspired a generation of witches to explore their paths in new and exciting ways and for that, whether you like to admit it or not, you have to give her credit for.Thanks for reading this guys! Let me know what other things you would like me to review, books, divination tools or even other blogs. -- source link
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