Author: M. A. Madigan and P. M. Richards
Book and Oracle Set
Publisher: Llewellyn
Publication date: November 2003
ISBN: 0738701947
Price & More Info: Click Here
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The Witching Stones is a unique divination (and magickal) tool. It is a set of thirty-five small plastic stones. Each stone has a symbol associated with Wicca or witchcraft on one side. This oracle is read something like runes are read. You place the stones symbol side down, mix them up, draw one or more of them, flip the ones you drew over, and interpret the symbols thereon. With thirty-five symbols, the symbol set of this oracle is larger than that of the runes, but much smaller than the symbol set of even the most symbol poor tarot deck. The symbols on the stones are Altar, Athame, Autumn, Balefire, Bane, Besom, Candle, Cauldron, Censer, Chalice, Deosil, Full Moon, God, Goddess, Herbs, Magic Circle, Moon, Moonrise, Moonset, New Moon, Pentacle, Rebirth, Salt, Spring, Summer, Sun, Sunrise, Sunset, Wand, Waning Moon, Water, Waxing Moon, Widdershins, Wine, and Winter. The stones are small enough to be a choking hazard to small children, however -- as the box clearly states.
The Witching Stones set comes with the above mentioned stones, a small bag to hold them, and a 192 page trade paperback book, Symbols of the Craft. The introductory portions of this book describes the oracle and how to use it -- including a pictorial table of contents that makes finding the information in the second section on the stones you draw easy. The second section of the book covers using the oracle, including layouts and the meanings of the stones. Unfortunately, no general meanings for the stones are given. just the meanings for the three positions of the first layout. This makes the other three layouts given very hard to use. The third part of this book explains how to use the stones to perform simple magical spells.
To be honest, I'm not impressed with the Witching Stones. "Stones" made of plastic simply do not feel right, especially when the religion they claim to be based on is nature-oriented. Clay or stone would feel much better. The book is poorly written. I've already mentioned the lack of general divinatory meanings makes three of the four layouts given hard to use. This book also uses "witch" and "Pagan" interchangeably at points and talks about Wicca being ancient. The spells section is okay, but nothing that isn't in many another spell book -- and there are only specific spells, no general instructions on how to use the stones in spells of your own. The Witching Stones oracle is an interesting idea that suffers from poor execution. Perhaps a future second edition can correct the problems with this initial version.
Reviewed by Randall
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