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Home > Books & Reviews > Pagan > Mini-Reviews: Pagan Books Search

Mini-Reviews:
Pagan Books

Here are some some mini-reviews of Pagan books. These reviews are shorter and somewhat less detailed than our full reviews.


2004 Sun Sign Book


Author: Terry Lamb
Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Llewellyn
Publication date: August 2003
ISBN: 0738701254
Price & More Info: Click Here


Llewellyn's 2004 Sun Sign Book: Horoscopes for Everyone is Llewellyn's contribution to the annual sun sign horoscope book market. Although many companies produce a separate sun sign book for each sign of the zodiac, Llewellyn produces one book that covers all twelve signs. This makes good sense to me as there is only so much information the sun sign alone can give.

The book begins with a brief introduction to astrology. Astrologer Terry Lamb then provides the forecasts for each sign, including a summary of the sign's strengths and weaknesses, a summary of the year, forecasts for each month, and a table of the best dates within 2004 for selected activities such as asking for a raise or starting a diet. Over 70 pages of articles round out the book. There are seven articles including "Signs of Healing" by Jonathan Keyes and "The Elements of Love" by Dorothy Oja.

There's usually not a lot for a reviewer to say about a book like this, and this volume is no exception. It is competently written and you get sun sign information on all twelve signs for about the price of one of the single sign books. If you are looking for a sun sign book for 2004, this book will fit the bill. -- reviewed by Randall Sapphire

2004 Witches' Spell-A-Day Almanac


Editor: Michael Fallon
Trade Paperback, 264 pages
Publisher: Llewellyn
Publication date: August 2003
ISBN: 0738702285
Price & More Info: Click Here


Llewellyn's 2004 Witches' Spell-A-Day Almanac provides a short spell or ritual for every day of 2004, accompanied by some basic astrological information useful for magick. The spells included cover a variety of areas of life. Health, home, protection, travel, money, and love spells each get a day of the week (Sunday through Friday). Saturday is a grab bag of spells that don't fit any of these categories. This regular sequence is interrupted with special magick for new and full moons, the major Wiccan festivals, and certain other important days.

Most of the spells included have a light tone, but seem generally useful. A few seem almost pointless to me, but that's to be expected in a collection of 366 spells. Some days include interesting holiday lore -- and not just for the holidays of Pagan religions. Many of the spells seem to have been specially selected to match their day, which makes me wonder if the "Banish an Adversary" spell selected for November 2nd, the day the US will be electing its next president, is a subtle political message. As with previous editions of this book, the spells are nothing spectacular, but there are a lot of them for a very low price. I do have one major nitpick: the book really could benefit from a spell index. -- reviewed by Randall Sapphire

Essential Energy Balancing II


Author: Diane Stein
Trade Paperback, 172 pages
Publisher: Crossing Press
Publication date: October 2003
ISBN: 1580911544
Price & More Info: Click Here


Diane Stein is probably best known as the author of Essential Reiki, an excellent book on non-traditional Reiki. Therefore, I was really surprised and disappointed by the contents of her latest book, Essential Energy Balancing II: Healing the Goddess. The back cover makes the book look interesting, explaining that the first book in this series covered healing the effects of negative karma suffered on Earth and this book deals with releasing the karma of past lifetimes. There was a bit about releasing karma "through the universe" and bringing Goddesses to live permanently with us, but I ignored that as marketing hype. Sadly, it was not.

The first part of this book talks about how the human species originated in other universes and traveled the stars to get here, how various entities from beyond oppose us, and how a few people on Earth, including the author if I'm reading this correctly, have been selected to have Goddesses incarnate within them. The BS detector in the back of my mind was sounding the same type of alarms I get when I read books on UFOs or when I listened to Nixon say he was not a crook. The second part of this book is filled with twenty-four rituals for releasing karma and protecting oneself, the earth, and perhaps the universe from the various evils from beyond. Like Stein's other books, this one has a pronounced feminist slant.

If you are a feminist who is into UFOs and is willing to believe all of our problems might be caused by evil entities from beyond our cosmos and their spawn in our universe, this may be just the book you are looking for. Personally, I think it was a waste of trees and is a waste of reading time for most people. -- reviewed by Randall Sapphire

Signs, Symbols & Omens


Author: Raymond Buckland
Trade Paperback, 244 pages
Publisher: Llewellyn
Publication date: May 2003
ISBN: 073870234X
Price & More Info: Click Here


In Signs, Symbols & Omens, Raymond Buckland provides an overview of the signs and symbols of 25 different groups as well as information on magickal alphabets and a brief description of omens. Over 800 symbols from religions, magickal traditions, and cultures from around the world are illustrated with line drawings and, in many cases, briefly discussed. Symbols from alchemy, astrology, ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, ceremonial magick, Christianity, Freemasonry, Islam, Rosicrucian, and many others are included.

Symbols are grouped in chapters by origin. Each chapter briefly describes the group or culture that created the symbols and provides commentary of some -- but usually not all -- of the symbols depicted. Buckland did the symbol illustrations and they are quite good. I wish the commentary were as good. Unfortunately, from looking at the groups and cultures I'm most familiar with, the commentaries are sometimes incomplete, lack details and context, or give "minority" interpretations of the symbols. Nevertheless, this book can be a useful resource because it covers so many different types of symbols in one volume. The book's bibliography often provides useful references to solid books for further stuff. Academic books are even listed for some of the groups. This book is not a must have by any stretch of the imagination, but it is somewhat more interesting than I expected. -- reviewed by Randall Sapphire

Healing Ground


Photography: Trish Tuley
Poetry: Myra Dutton
Trade Paperback, 138 pages
Publisher: Celestial Arts
Publication date: September 2003
ISBN: 1587612011
Price & More Info: Click Here


Healing Ground: A Visionary Union of Earth and Spirit is an art book. I normally don't receive art books for review. This is fortunate because I can't tell good art from bad art. I only know what I like -- and I like this book. It is an over-sized volume of nature photography and poetry. Tuley's photographs, mainly landscapes, are beautiful depictions of the grandeur of the unspoiled wilderness -- as well as being a subtle expression of its fragility. Dutton's evocative poetry is a perfect complement to the illustrations. So perfect in many cases, that it is hard to believe that Tuley and Dutton worked independently and then correlated their respective material to create this work as they state in their introduction.

Tuley's photography has won awards and is often used by environmental groups. Even a casual look though this book demonstrates why. Each of her photographs -- from soaring mountains jutting up against pristine skies to grasslands and fields of flowers -- speaks strongly for the need to preserve such places. Dutton's poetry has a very Pagan feel and, as I mentioned above, seems written especially for the picture it accompanies. This review cannot begin to do justice to the photos in this book, so you owe it to yourself to at least flip through this book at a book store. However, be aware that it may be hard to put down. Healing Ground captures the beauty of the Earth and in doing so, soothes the weary soul. -- reviewed by Randall Sapphire


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