This comprehensive guide to North American folk magic covers more than twenty diverse magical traditions that have taken root on the continent. You will discover the Northeastern maritime practice of "buying the wind," the Mexican Curanderismo method of energy cleansing with candles, the Irish- American custom of making fairy houses, and much more. Drawing on the expertise of twenty-five renowned practitioners, this book explores authentic magic from New England to the West Coast and everywhere in between. Learn about Appalachian folk magic from H. Byron Ballard, Voodoo from Lilith Dorsey, Ozark folk magic from Brandon Weston, and Brujería from J. Allen Cross. Filled with history, tools, and spiritual beliefs, this new entry in Llewellyn's Complete Book Series showcases the rich and varied magical traditions of North America.

Llewellyn's Complete Book of North American Folk Magic: A Landscape of Magic, Mystery, and Tradition (Llewellyn's Complete Book Series, 16)

Politics & Social Sciences

Dorsey, Lilith

Ballard, H. Byron

Bird, Stéphanie Rose

Casas, Starr

Weston, Brandon

Wen, Benebell

Schreiwer, Robert L.

Richards, Jake

Cummins, Alexander

Phoenix, Robert

Hedera, Via

Ivanco-Murray, Melissa A.

Santiago, Sandra

Coviak, Kenya T

Cervantes, Paloma

Social Sciences

Llewellyn Publications

In The Starry Rubric, Alexander Cummins shows how astrology and magic offered analysis, interpretation, and solutions - locating humanity in a shifting web of interrelation with the stars and, indeed, the cosmos as a whole. Through analysis and example, Cummins demonstrates the ways in which astrology and magic were crucial to early modern perspectives on human life, time, and meaning.

The Starry Rubric: Seventeenth-Century English Astrology and Magic

History

Europe

Hadean Press Limited

"The unearthed witch-bottle is something of a murky treasure. Sealed and secreted, they encapsulate magical ideas and sorcerous strategies for undoing the blights of bewitchment." - Dr. Alexander Cummins, Foreword WITCH BOTTLES by Daniel Harms is the first in-depth exploration of the history, culture and magic of this little-known practice used to protect against and remedy the believed effects of misfortunes attributed to witches. The author defines a Witch Bottle "as an object, usually intended to fight off maleficent magic, that employs at least two of the following three ingredients: a bottle, urine, and sharp objects, which may include needles, pins, or thorns". In the East of England these witch bottles were used from the 17th century onwards as a protection against the effects of witchcraft. From here it spread all over the British Isles and Ireland; and then to America in communities that feared witches. The author carefully presents research taken from history, folklore and archaeology, including examples of household deposits and domestic magic records, with detailed footnotes and examples of full incantations. Harms' work is essential reading for scholars, practitioners of folk magic and all those interested in witchcraft. "Witch bottles are rapidly becoming part of the heritage, not just of one person, but of the world, and granting them to our public institutions and museums will do much to help us to unlock their meaning, to the people of both the past and present." - Daniel Harms, author of Witch Bottles.

Witch Bottles: History, Culture, Magic

Harms, Daniel

Avalonia

Nazarth is a treasurehouse of geomantic incantations. Its nineteen keys were received and wrought through a combination of spirit communications, dream incubation, ritual cut-up, and judicious co-editing alongside tutelary shades and attendant spirits. This Angelical psalter offers prayers for opening and closing rituals of geomantic divination, as well as for clearing the potentially dangerous miasmas of "halted" shield charts, and presents calls for directly working with the spirits, virtues, and materia of each of the Sixteen Figures of Renaissance European geomancy - to remediate deleterious conditions, transmute obstacles, stir and direct spirits, and galvanise blessings. It offers the enterprising diviner-sorcerer resources to explore the Adamical roots of the so-called Enochian language, as well as imagery and spiritual landscapes to engage with the oracle of geomancy through more visionary lenses. It also presents an approach to Angelical charms for practical sorcery, spiritwork, and spellcraft that welcome further experimentation and individuation by practitioners.

Nazarth: A Geomancers' Angelical Psalter of Calls, containing vessels 19 with which to water the Earth

Religion & Spirituality

New Age & Spirituality

This book traces the cult of the Magi through their lore: their history, art, legends, rituals, and devotions. It examines their political and social influences as well as their cultural and religious impact, showing them to be cast both as legitimisers of established power structures, and as figures who foment profoundly radical dissent.
Cummins presents and weighs historical prayers to the Three Holy Kings for their mythic structures and ritual possibilities. In particular this book discusses historiolae found in these prayers – appeals to mythic actions or origins, often by imitation, fit for both devotional meditation and operative sorcery.
Finally, this text collects, analyses and explores the spellcraft of the Three Wise-Men: examining the various magical operations calling on Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar found in grimoiric handbooks of magic and folk custom alike. These include workings for travelling, for conjuring spirits, for detection, for protection, for healing, and even for dominating authorities.
Overall, A Book of the Magi makes a case for the veneration of the Magi as a loci and catalyst for furthering a folk necromantic practice of working with ancestral magicians. It does this by examining the history, devotion, and magic associated with the Three Kings, as well as demonstrating how components from old manuscripts can be explored and incorporated into a personal practice through awareness of context and careful ritual design.
A Book of the Magi is the third volume in the Folk Necromancy in Transmission series, conceived by Alexander Cummins and Jesse Hathaway Diaz, available through Revelore Press.

A Book of the Magi: Lore, Prayers, and Spellcraft of the Three Holy Kings (Folk Necromancy in Transmission)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Revelore Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cummins, Alexander. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cummins, Alexander