I’m currently also reading Rune Magic by Nigel Pennick and SPQR by Mary Beard, but I haven’t finished them yet. These are the books that I have read this month.
Continue readingMonth: October 2021
Book review: Queer Qabala
Queer Qabala by Enfys J Book
Incredibly clear, beautifully written explanation of the Hermetic Qabala and its inherent queerness, expressed in the idea that there are three pillars (force, balance, and form), and that the Divine includes all genders and sexualities.
The book is written with style and wit by an expert in the subject. There are pathworkings to help you fully experience all aspects of the Qabala, and journal exercises to deepen your understanding of the worlds, spheres, and pathways of the Tree of Life.
All the aspects of the Tree are related to queer experiences and life events like coming out to yourself and others, and finding queer community. It explores both the wonderful and the scary aspects of being queer, including queer joy and sorrow.
This exploration of the many aspects of the Tree is grounded in a deep knowledge of the Qabala, and the overlapping Pagan and queer communities. This is a vision of Qabala that understands the importance of cyclicity: growth and decay, death and rebirth, darkness and light, immanence and transcendence, the manifest and the unmanifest.
It offers magical workings based on queer Qabala which relate to each sphere of the Tree of life and everyday experiences like getting a job or finishing a project. It is pragmatic and fun, accessible and inclusive.
This book will be valuable to everyone from beginners, who will find the subject thoroughly explored and explained, to people who are already working with Qabala, who will gain a fresh perspective on it. Sure to be a contemporary classic!
If you enjoyed this post, you might like my books.
Conspiracy theories and witchcraft persecutions
Contemporary conspiracy theories and older witchcraft beliefs have a lot in common. Both are networks of ideas, mostly unconnected with each other, but linked by tenuous theories. This comparison has been explored by a team of researchers at UCLA and Berkeley using AI and folklore to map the key people, things, and relationships in thousands of social media posts.
Continue readingPlace names
Indigenous people frequently and correctly point out that Indigenous place names in North America are based on geographical features or things that happened in that place, whereas settler place names in North America are either named after the first person to settle there, or a place in Britain or Europe. This is true.
What’s more, the place names in Britain and Europe are named after geographical features, things that happened there, Pagan deities, and previous inhabitants’ names for the place. So it makes no sense to transplant them to a place with different geographical features (though I assume people did it for nostalgic reasons).
Continue readingBooks I read in September 2021
Reading about hygge, which seems very akin to Pagan ideals of comfort and pleasure, and about the Indigenous sense of humour, gives me hope that one day all of humanity will again see the Earth as sacred. I also reread some Dion Fortune.
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Dowsing for Divinity 