booksontrails 's review for:

The Crooked Path: An Introduction to Traditional Witchcraft by Kelden

3.75

informative fast-paced

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Kelden offers a non-nonsense introduction to traditional witchcraft in a conversational style. Giving a sample to many different options for practice throughout, I believe this does what he set out to do which was "to create a down-to-earth guide to Traditional Witchcraft, one that cuts through the unnecessary pomp and gets right into the practical methods for working magic, connecting with the Otherworldly, and relating to the natural world." I enjoyed the focus on bioregionalism and not overcomplicating things. Introductory witchcraft books tend to recycle mostly the same information, because there's only so much people can do, so this happened but I did notice some things that were helpful especially when explained simply. Much of the work appeared to be influenced by Robert Cochrane and the spells, nice and simple, have that Charmed-inspired simple rhyming system that many of us are used to. I found the usage of witch trial confessions as helpful information or inspiring very problematic. Reminder to any reader that Traditional Witchcraft does not mean "old." I did enjoy the focus on customizing and defining one's own practice.