The story behind …

The Story Behind …

 Every book has a story behind the story of how it came to be written. It may be about a life-long passion, a personal journey, the need to share an experience or knowledge. It may have been fermenting in the brain for years, or sprung fully formed from a blinding epiphany.  Whether it be fact or fiction, sometimes the story behind the story is almost as interesting as the published book itself …

Traditional Witchcraft and the Path to the Mysteries

This was the six and last book in the Traditional Witchcraft series and came about from the questions being asked by members of Coven of the Scales who were working towards Initiation and was not originally intended for publication.  It was a way of going over old ground, much of which had already provided the basic material for the first four books in the series – although I have been asked if reading the whole series qualifies the reader as being an Initiate!   Err … n-o-o!  Preparing for initiation is a long and torturous process and it is necessary to re-visit old lessons and path-working to view them from a different perspective and Traditional Witchcraft and the Path to the Mysteries was my way of bringing all those elements together.

Lucya Starza very kindly wrote of the book on her Bad Witch Blog: “More and more often these days I get asked what books would I recommend for solitary witches who have gone beyond material aimed at beginners. The truth is, there aren’t that many. The Deep Heart of Witchcraft, by David Salisbury, is one I’ve recommended in the past. Now I’ll be adding Traditional Witchcraft and the Path to the Mysteries by Mélusine Draco.

The journey that is described within its pages is both symbolic and literal. It advocates embarking on a walk from where a great river meets the sea, back along its course past the estuary and urban sprawl, through water meadows, dark woods, and up into the hills to the original source. You can read the book and visualise the journey – but it would be far better to travel out into the real environment and experience nature in the raw. The book explains what the different kinds of environment can symbolise and also how different types of geology and environment can affect us psychologically and spiritually. As Melusine says: “Observing Nature is an equally valid expression of spirituality as meditation within the Circle.”

There are exercises to do, meditations to perform and questions to answer along the way. However, the only answers you will get are the ones you find yourself as you search for your own path and your own truth about the inner mysteries of witchdom.  Although Traditional Witchcraft and the Path to the Mysteries is aimed at traditional witches in the style of British Old Craft, I would say that the lessons offered within its pages are applicable to witches of other schools too. I am an eclectic Wiccan, yet I would happily recommend this book to other Wiccans training towards their second degree or even beyond. Reading it has certainly given me the urge to embark on a Great Walk – using a term from the book On Walking – travelling lightly on foot along a river from sea to source.”

For those who have not made a serious study of traditional British Old Craft the content will not anything new but those who have come to it well-schooled have come away with the idea that the book was written for them personally.  I doubt if this one will ever hit the best-seller lists but at the end of the day it was decided it was a title that needed to be written because it might be a guide for those who want to understand what will be expected of them should they choose to begin the journey.

Traditional Witchcraft and the Path to the Mysteries is published by Moon Books as part of the Traditional Witchcraft series.   For more information go to www.moon-books.net