Book Review: Secrets of the Witch: An Initiation into our history and our wisdom by Elsa Whyte, Julie Legere and Laura Peraz (illustrations)
Genre: Spirituality, YA, Teens
Publishers: Quarto Publishing Group - Wide Eyed Editions
Release Date: 4th August, 2020

If you are looking to be initiated into the world of Witchcraft then this book is a great place to start. Even though it is only a small book, at 80 pages, it packs in a lot of information about the history and philosophy surrounding Witches.

I would say that this book is definitely for beginners and is aimed at the younger audience. It is a great starting point and breaks the information down into small chunks, covering: etymology and definitions of key terms, history, symbols, crystals, lore and tools associate with the Craft.

As the guide is short and aimed at a younger audience it doesn't go into great depth, certainly not the detail a more advanced practitioner would be looking for in terms of the history of Witches.

Most of the book, about three quarters, covers the history of Witches. It explains the basic roots of Witchcraft from the Greek Gods and Goddesses, through to Ancient Egypt, the Druids of Celtic societies, the rise of Christianity in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and finally, the 20th Century's melding of Witchcraft and activism and portrayal of Witches in popular culture. It was interesting to read a book that considers the history of Witches after the Witch-hunts and the way Witches were viewed during the Victorian era and the years preceding and succeeding.

The last quarter of the book focuses on a brief guide to: magical symbols, animals, tools, crystals and herbs. But again this is very much a guide for practitioners when they are just dipping their toes into the Witchy pool.

What I really loved about the book was the message that is delivered throughout; the idea that Witches were and are women who want freedom and independence. Therefore, this book does have a feminist vibe throughout. As I mentioned it looks briefly at pop culture representations of Witches such as, Hermione from Harry Potter and Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how they are positive role models.

Even though the book doesn't provide the depth I usually like, it did offer references to other literature, written by figures throughout history, that I will definitely be adding to my reading list. There were quite a few quotes that stuck with me, non more so than one from Matilda Joslyn Gage, who was a Women's rights activist;

"When for 'Witches' we read 'women', we gain a fuller comprehension of the cruelties inflicted by the church upon this portion of humanity"
- from, Woman, Church and State (1893)

One way in which the book did not work for me was that some of the information given about notable 'Witches' throughout history was given in first person; as though they are talking to the reader. This was definitely not something that appealed to me, but may to younger readers. It felt very odd the way it was delivered, as if they were putting words in to those people's mouths, when really we have no way of knowing what they were really experiencing internally.

Overall this was a quick read, with some notable pieces of information that I added to my Book of Shadows. I imagine the physical copy of the book, with the illustrations, will be really lovely and something to show off on your witchy bookshelf.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This is a great book for children interested in witches, magic or witchcraft.

The book starts off with a history of witchcraft and witches and then goes on to explain about many different things relating to witchcraft - runes, tarot herbs, plants, talismans, crystals etc.

This is a beautifully illustrated book that could serves as an introductory grimoire for children.

A cute little introduction to the craft! I found the information to be just enough to get readers who know next to nothing about witchcraft excited and interested to search out more details.

I also really loved the art, it really added something special to the book.

An informative and wonderfully illustrated book. I liked the style of writing and how it is organised.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

While Secrets of the witch is short you'll find inside all kinds of interesting stories, myths, historical facts, and information about tools witches have used over the centuries.

It's a perfect book for YA readers as well as for those who are interested in learning more about witchcraft but don't want to get started with books with hundreds of pages.

You'll read stories about witches from all over the world from Japan and Africa to Ancient Greece and the Americas.

Our favorite thing about this beauty was the stunning illustration. This book is so beautiful it could very well become an interesting and fun addition to your cafe table collection as well.

In case you're looking for a witchcraft book for teen readers or art lovers you should also consider picking up this book.

* I received this ARC in exchange my honest review. Thank you!

Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for sending me a copy to review.

I loved this book. It was so well thought out, beautifully laid out with some absolutely stunning illustrations and really brought across the history of witches and witchcraft from practically day one.

My only nag was that it could have been a little bit more inclusive to other cultures - there was mention of voodoo as well as famous witches such as Baba Yaga but there needed to be more Black and POC representation in my opinion.

Overall a great book to get youngsters into reading about witches!

"Secrets of the Witch" is a very beautiful and instructive book filled with magic and witchcraft history, definitions and instructions. The artwork is stunning and gave a perfect insight into the world of withcraft.

Looking to find a easy but quite comprehensive look on witches, their history and powers? Well this is a great option!

Secrets of the Witch is a beautifully illustrated book that takes you along for both a historical and mystical field trip, allowing you a great insight of what it meant, is and will be to be a witch.

Along it's first chapters, one can address historical context, issues and uses of the concept "witch", understanding it's strong relation with the role, power and empowering of women though out the centuries.

Following chapters provide more practical "magical" information that will be of great use as a "101 for witches" referencing relevant symbology, artifacts and much more that might come in handy.

A very short book (it's only downfall, since as a reader I wanted more information and more in-depth analysis of some elements) it sets itself as an interesting read that will be a starting point for those begginers in the topic, but also a beautiful addition to an ever growing collection for the more advance connoisseur

ARC of this book was provided for free by Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

A great book into the background and history. but I will say that there are so many of these books lately that the info is getting repetitive. This one stands out because of art and language, in a positive way.

ARC eBook provided by Netgalley.

This book features two sections, one an overview of the history of witches, the other being an overview of things witches utilize, like crystals, herbs, etc. The text of the book is closer to that of a physical encyclopedia than anything super descriptive, with each person/topic only having around a paragraph of description/context. It's an excellent primer, but should definitely be backed up with external, more extensive research by anyone wanting to actually utilize the information.

On another note, this book was GORGEOUS. The illustrations are jaw-dropping and it earns five stars just based on them alone. I could look at the illustrations in this book for hours because they're so intricate and beautiful, and I may end up buying a physical copy to do just that!

This book can definitely use the fine eyes of an editor. There were a lot of grammar mistakes and some parts were in French (luckily I speak French). I think that once those parts are corrected, it would be a 5 star book. The artwork featured through was stunning. It’s also very information heavy, but in a very clear way. It’s split partially as a historical text and partially as a beginner’s guide to witchcraft, but the second half felt rushed and less rich than the first half. Ultimately, I’m in love with the potential of this book and can’t wait to see how it gets better.

I wanted to review this book and I anticipated liking it, but unfortunately, large portions of it are untranslated from the original French and I can't read, write, speak, or otherwise comprehend French. Very confused why this was listed as an English-language book - the number of poorly translated or non-translated passages made me unable to even read this book, let alone enjoy it.

This book is worth it just for the illustrations, but it's also very informative. I know a lot of the history of witches, but this gave me some new information, and the latter half was about amulets, crystals, etc. which I always find fascinating.

'Secrets of the Witch' is a beautifully illustrated introduction to a history of witchcraft.

With the nature of a short book such as this, the information is often very brief and one should consider that it means only certain things have been picked out to focus on, often not giving the full story on events, individuals and their circumstances.

The last quarter of the book then turns to looking at the symbolism and modern practice of witchcraft including a very small selection of correspondences.

This book is an okay introduction to a variety of things with a lot left to build upon.

Thanks to Wide Eyed Editions for the DRC!
The illustrations in this book are absolutely beautiful!
Each page brings us several curiosities about witches, descriptions of symbols and objects, stories about famous wizards and their influences into pop culture. Anyone interested in this universe should certainly read this book.

A shallow dive into the history, symbols and other facts about witches/witchcraft. Geared towards Young Adult readers it is light, fun and informative. Gorgeous illustrations throughout.

((Absolutely gorgeous illustrations and layout))

I only actually read about half.. there are SO MANY misspellings or typos that I struggle to fathom how anyone else got to the end of this book, without feeling the need to say something about it. Maybe I'm being harsh, but it's a big pet peeve of mine.

Here's a list of the ones I picked up on..

"conconct", "couldrons", "forst", "sorceres", "who who", the use of both "travellers" and "travelers" (which one is it?), "vesus", "magine", "princiople", "black magic would is evil", "not many difference kinds of magic", "godess", "herbsto", "maintainised".

I understand that this book appears to have been translated into English, but it's still not an excuse, especially when this book is being pitched as the final copy.

A previous reviewer has also mentioned historical inaccuracies which is very troubling to me.

This ARC was provided thanks to Netgalley and Quarto Publishing Group.
The illustrations in this book are probably worth 5 stars. However, the content within is historically inaccurate or lacking in historical context. It's downright misleading at times. I wish it wasn't - but it's about as flimsy as Silver Ravenwolf's writing is. And had this book been writing in the 90's or early 2000's, it might be understandable. But it's 2020, and there's no discussion of cultural appropriation or closed traditional practices, and it relies on tried old tropes.

Here's an example:

page 19 seems to be continuing a coverage of ancient religious practices. But It discusses "Hermes Trismegistus," and the Emerald Tablet. It would seem to make sense if it was all a spread about the ancient world - after all the other sections include "magic of ancient Egypt," and "ancient celtic druidesses," and "Circe." But Hermes Trismegistus's writings are no earlier than perhaps the 1st century CE, and certainly not written by any ancient Egyptian. Most scholars would actually date well known "Hemes Trismegistus" works to 300 CE or later - and we have well moved out of the truly ancient world and into Late Antiquity. Actually, the Emerald Tablet is 6th-8th century, and its earliest references are from a book in Arabic. Which, makes sense! See, Hermeticism is largely Greek (not Egyptian) with Jewish and Persian influences. These texts were written in a world far more exposed to monotheist theologies than this book seems to think, and in fact, uses Judaism to steal some of its mysticism from. Hermeticism is well known for developing alongside early Christianity and Gnosticism, so why bother disguising this?

The way Secrets of the Witch is set up, you wouldn't realize it, especially because the very next page tells us that "our rituals and practices began to be judged, misunderstood, and eventually associated with the Devil, culminating in magic being taken as the embodiment of absolute evil in the Christian religion."

This is troublesome for a variety of reasons. As someone who spent the majority of my academic career working under medievalists, I'll just present the highlights:

- The ancient world (yes, even the polytheists) were still highly misogynistic, and also persecuted women who were seen to have too much power as witches
- there is zero acknowledgement of the fact that hermeticism gained most of its popularity in the late middle ages and renaissance (and was largely made for and by men).
- there is no mention of the demonization of Jews and Muslims, especially their mystical-spiritual practices and involvement in the sciences, which is an appalling oversight given who the Spanish Inquisition really targeted, the reconquista, the expulsion of Jews from England, then later Portugal and Spain. See: Joshua Tratchenberg's The Devil and the Jews for an excellent overview of how the fear of witchcraft and devil-worship was explicitly and specifically antisemitic.

The oversight is again frustrating - there's no hidden mystery here about why medieval christians called it the "Witches' sabbath" or "sabbat." The word derives from the Hebrew "shabbat" and therefore explicitly links the two in the Christian mind. The fact that the book outright argues against this (page 64) is just...well it's offensive to bring it up, half-admit to the issue, then dismiss it out of hand.

That's not to say that gentile women were not also persecuted or attacked for knowing herbal medicines and the like, but the primary targets were *not* gentile women, and there certainly were not many women who would've called themselves witches in the era. Midwives, healers, and so on might be called witch, but more often than not, these women were just nurses, more or less. Also no mention later of the persecution of romani people.

Moving on to the Renaissance, the history doesn't get more thoughtful. It thankfully doesn't try to claim 9 million women were murdered, but the move on to the Enlightenment and Romanticism is...rather shallow, honestly. No discussion of Colonialism and Imperialism, really although there's maybe two whole paragraphs mentioning slavery and voodoo (voudun). It's unfortunate, especially because this was a much larger scale atrocity than the whole of the witch trials, and yet, there's 2 measly paragraphs that mention it. It's jarring when taken into consideration the fact that our next jump is right to the 20th century and political witchcraft and feminism. No mention of a romanticism of the other, of imperialism and plastic shamanism, of the European Victorian obsession with the occult (again, from a largely Christian world to begin with).

There's thankfully no mention of Native-American practices (I say thankfully because the abridged historical section proves the author doesn't have the background to even vaguely approach it). It still feels missing, though. The sigils and amulets again show off the fact that this book is far too short and lacking in depth -- and again, no mention of cultural appropriation yet the use of Hebrew as magic comes up briefly.

Lastly, I'm concerned there are no safety warnings in the herbs or minerals section. As a blanket statement it's valuable to teach young girls to not consume certain herbs in combination with each other, or specific medications. Likewise it's good to know which stones and minerals should never be placed in a drink that you might consume, because some rocks have toxins leach out into water and you can seriously harm yourself that way. It would be excellent to teach girls how to not accidentally injure or poison themselves - certainly basic folk-medicine safety would be the most responsibly "witchy" thing you could instill, but sadly this book doesn't provide that either. (It also promotes the idea that women are connected to the moon, which is scientifically untrue, the menstrual cycle has nothing to do with the moon directly.)

I would have also liked to have seen something that questioned some terribly binary and patriarchal views of sex and gender (surely young trans girls/teens could get something from this, as well as gender non-conforming girls!) but that's not here either.

Beautiful pictures, terrible history and very little useful information about any traditions or practices.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc of this book! My opinions are my own.

When I was a teenager, like many others, I was trying to find out who I was and what my place was in this world. Reading the 'Wicca' book series by Cate Tiernan was wat got me interested in Wicca and pagan culture. I went to the library and read some (non-fiction) books on the subject, but there weren't that many books that truly spoke to me as a teenager. 'Secrets of the Witch' is the book I would have loved to read back then. Even now as a thirty-something, it's been a wonderful read!

As the title suggests, this book is specifically meant for younger readers who are interested in, but still new to the world of witches. It first deals with the history of witches, the witch trials and ends with an introduction to (among other things) symbolism and herbs.
There are small blocks of text, which makes it easy to read. Those text blocks are surrounded by stunning illustrations. I would buy this book for the illustrations alone, they are that beautiful!

This book is not an in-depth book of everything there is to know about witchcraft and magic, but it's a great start if you're new to the subject and it inspires you to read and learn more about it. It's just one of those books you need to have on your shelf!

This book was very interesting. You have a lot of informations about witches and witchcraft in History.
You can read about the Renaissance or The Salem Witch trials
The art style was so so beautiful and this added a lot in the book!!

I really loved it

Thanks to Netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review