by Sandra Kynes

 

This is a Llewellyn book, definitely targeted at Pagans and Wiccans and about using crystals in magic to enhance magical ritual with the use of crystals.

 

Unlike a lot of books of this kind, it has a wealth of practical information that would be of interest to anyone interested in gemstones or any mineral that might be used in jewellery. There is some history of the use of gemstones in medicine as well as cosmetics and information about their constituents, followed by a science chapter that I found very interesting indeed. This included information about how crystals help to support life and how crystals are formed and reformed in nature. Also about crystal structures and non-mineral crystals like Amber, jet and petrified wood. The information about optical properties of stones was especially fascinating.

 

There are many pictures in black and white, but of such good resolution that they work in a book where color might have been expected.

 

Chapter 3 is about Selecting and Preparing Stones. This one hit my 'new age' meter and I questioned some of the advice, particularly about putting salt water on stones. For many that will do no harm, but opals, especially Ethiopian opals, would lose their color, at least for several weeks.

 

Chapter 4 on using crystals in magic, however, mostly impressed me. There was some good advice for charging crystals and color correspondences given that actually matched up with older information about associations. I liked the explanation of crystal grids, though I've heard of this idea before.

 

There were two things I thought needed a warning. One was that you should never stare directly at a candle flame during a divination as it can harm the eyes. I can see the method of watching the flame through a clear stone working okay if the stone was big enough, but I did feel some caution should have been given about keeping the flame completely behind the stone at all times.

 

The other thing was about using oils. Oil an opal and it will lose its color forever. Other than that, the part about herbs and oils was very interesting as was the mention of the significance of birthstones, though it seemed to skirt around some of the disagreement about which stones belong to each month.

 

Much of the book is a compendium of stones, giving information about more that a hundred varieties of minerals. It was strong on history and description, but didn't give hardness index.

 

Appendix A deals with magical properties of stones, while Appendix B lists associated deities. I'm not knowledgeable enough to judge the accuracy of either of these, but found the information interesting and the extensive bibliography suggests that the author did a lot of research.

 

Over all this was a very good book on the subject with its strengths being on history, science and thoroughness. I may well get a hard copy to keep on my reference shelf.

I have been interested in Crystals and stones for years. I have several books on crystals btu one can never have too many books or stop learning about something that interests them. This is without a doubt one of the most in depth books I have read on Crystals. It does more then show you a picture of the crystal and give you a 1 paragraph history and uses of the crystal. The book actually teaches you how to choose your crystals, how to care for them, and most importantly how to use them.

 

This is definitely not one of those books you read once and put away. This is a reference book and while using your crystals you will want to pull this book out again and again. The book is very well written in easy to understand terminology so everyone will benefit from this book whether you are a beginner or have been working with crystals for many years.

 

I received this book from the Author or Publisher via Netgalley.com to read and review.

One of the difficult things about a book featuring the thoughts of 101 Pagans, is finding some Pagans who are not in it to review it! It doesn't seem so very long ago that finding 101 people who would admit to being a Pagan was an unlikely prospect, and this community book goes a long way to expressing how far out of the broom closet we now are.

 

Facing North said "One of the things I like most about this book is that it welcomed all paths and put them on an equal footing. I’ll say right now that as I read through this book, there were things I didn’t agree with. If you are a practicing Pagan and you read this book, you are going to have the same thing happen. I look at that as a good thing." Full review here -  http://facingnorth.net/Reference/paganism-101.html

 

Participating in community projects like this is a great way for new writers to develop their skills and confidence. In this blog post - http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2014/01/paganism-101-introduction-to-paganism.html - Lucya Starza talks about her involvement. This year sees the release of her first book as a solo author - Candle Magic.

 

It's been a very popular book, not least because having 101 voices in it, there's no room for dogma or narrow vision. Each section has a topic covered by a well established Pagan writer, and then other writers offer their own experiences and perspectives, so everything from ethics and nature to ancestors and the afterlife is explored with multiple voices. I was asked to contribute a piece on prayer and meditation - having written 'Druidry and meditation' and being then in process with 'When a Pagan Prays'  - so I'm an entirely subjective commentator on this book.

 

The experience of being a participant in a community project was so powerful for me, that when Trevor Greenfield (editor of this title and publisher of Moon Books) asked me if I'd like to take on the Pagan Planet project, I jumped at the chance.

Fall of the Pagans and the Origins of Me... If you have a casual knowledge of the history of the Christian Church, you have probably heard the following two quotations:

--"The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church," (Tertullian, 2nd-century)
--Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. (a common factoid)

The above statements are not true according to these lectures. The persecution of Christians was more scattered and inconsistent than commonly imagined, and there is no evidence that the percentage of the population that was Christian changed appreciably in response to persecutions. Also, Christianity wasn’t made the official religion of the Roman Empire until 380 AD which was 74 years after Constantine became emperor in 306 AD. What Constantine did was recognize Christianity as a legitimate sect under Roman law, and he made funds available for construction of basilicas.

Even after Christianity was adopted officially as the state religion, over half of the population remained pagan well into the 5th century. It wasn’t until the implementation of a “persecuting society” by Justinian (527-565 AD) that one could finally say that Christianity was pervasive throughout the Western world.

So how did such a dramatic change in the course of history come about? These lectures do a good job of answering that question by describing a complicated story with numerous twists and turns. Those of us on this side of history presume that the eventual outcome must have been a sure thing. But for those living through the history the outcome was not evident.

These lectures provide a historically focused discussion of the interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and paganism from the 1st to the 6th centuries. The lectures explore the reasons why Christianity was able to emerge and endure and, in turn, spark a critical transition for religion, culture and politics.

Those of us living today in a pluralistic society where everyone is free to chose (or not chose) their own religion should feel some sympathy for the pagans of this era. They had a pluralistic society that was accepting of all gods and religions. Most of the persecutions that occurred of the Christians were because they were unwilling to indicate loyalty to the Emperor (by making token sacrifice to the Emperor’s genius). As long as any cult or religion didn’t cause civil unrest, they were tolerated in the early Roman world. But by the 6th century when the Christians were completely in control, anyone who wasn’t a Christian was persecuted. Here's a LINK to an interesting Huffington Post article about the "Myth of Christian Persecution."

The following is a quotation from a 4th century pagan:

"The problem with you Christians is that you empty the world of gods and you make it a lonely place. The human and the divine no longer interact. Henceforth the divine is transcendent, it is a great magistracy of the universal God. But that God can only be approached by the holy ones and through the imperial Church.”

Most of the resistance from the pagans was in the form of inertia of customary belief and actions. Many pagans were pragmatic about it and concluded that sufficient Greek Platonism had been appropriated into the Christian culture that they could live with it.

Synopsis:
When her fiance, Kelvin, deserted her in Greece, Martine was grateful for Luke Leoros's proposal. It gave her a chance to show Kelvin he meant nothing to her.

Luke had also been hurt in love, and now he no longer believed in it, dismissing it as a purely imaginary emotion. So when Kelvin returned and asked her again to be his wife, Martine was faced with a terrible choice. Should she marry a man who loved her, a man she could no longer love? Or should she stay with a man who would always mock emotion, the husband who had stolen her heart?