Herbal Magick: A Witch's Guide to Herbal Enchantments, Folklore, and Divination

Good source for understanding and learning about herbs and the easy guide to putting them together. Great gift idea for anyone.

As beginner magical herb books go, this has everything you need to start practicing. From giving us lists of lucky and unlucky herbs, and other superstitions, to how herbs are used in divination, dreams and healing, as well as, how early witches, hoodoo practitioners and gypsies used herbs for love, protection, hexing, and so forth. Dunwich finishes her book with a very basic list of correspondences.While I gave Herbal Magick only three stars, it’s not because Dunwich failed to deliver, it’s just that, there are many other books that do a better job of discussing this topic. For instance, Scott Cunningham’s classic, Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs.Does this mean you should not buy her book? No. If you have the money, by all means, buy her book. It is a great addition to a witch’s library. But if you have to choose, I would suggest Cunningham’s. I will say this though, Dunwich is a great writer and her anecdotal stories were very enjoyable.

In Herbal Magick, Dunwich sets out to provide a general introduction to herbs: their magical use, folklore, planetary and elemental alignments, and relationship to the gods. Such a broad scale in so few pages means that almost nothing is covered in detail and while Dunwich sets out to do a lot, she actually accomplishes very little. Magical herbal uses generally consist of sachets and divination methods: beyond putting herbs under their pillow and following a few diverse divination rituals, the reader is taught nothing about the use and power of herbs. The sections that claim to be cultural or historical contain no references, and it is difficult to discern their veracity (if any exists at all). The encyclopedia of herbal correspondences at the heart of the book contains plant name, planetary ruler, elemental ruler, and gods that held it sacred (if they exist) and lacks any information about magical role of or ways to use the herb. Furthermore, the text is eclectic to an extreme and contains no footnotes and very little attribution (and where it does exist, it is mainly to Reader's Digest and Scott Cunningham), making the information it does contain extreme diverse, unsupported, and difficult to find more information on. Dunwich draws on every culture under the sun but appears to know next to nothing about any of them. The best parts of this book are the personal tangents about the author's personal and family relationship to herbs and herbal magic, which briefly explore a few aspects of living herbal traditions and systems of use. Outside of those tangents, this book has little to offer.There is very little in this text that could be considered a saving grace. It is a quick read, and as mentioned the personal tangents are interesting and even inspiring. Dunwich describes her personal relationships with cultures and individuals that used herbs for spiritual/magical/superstitious purposes. These living traditions, modified to suit the needs of those who lived them, may inspire the reader to explore herbalism and create a practice that serves the same purpose in his own life: to bring luck, to protect, to worship, to aid, even, as necessary, to prevent or to revenge. However, these sections should be viewed as inspiration only, and not as written law: they are localized and personal, without attribution or guides for further research, and therefore shouldn't be trusted as any sort of official or final word. The same is certainly true for the larger cultural/historical aspects of the book, which discuss sorcery, hoodoo, and gypsy herbalism. Dunwich provides absolutely no footnotes or attribution and her bibliography is incredibly short. These sections have little to no historical/cultural accuracy, and while they may serve as inspiration they should be taken with a grain of salt and cannot be viewed as fact.The Herbal Correspondences section is divided from the section on Pagan Herbal Lore, weakening both parts of the text: in the section on correspondences, no description of the herb or information about how to use it is provided, and while some of this information is found in the lore section, the section is disordered and difficult to cross-reference with the correspondences. For detailed information about an eclectic approach to herbal magic that includes both correspondences and descriptions/uses for each herb, I highly recommend Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, which appears to be Dunwich's primary source text. Cunningham's book is a better reference, contains more information, is laid out better, and actually contains an adequate bibliography. While it may not have the same personal mystique as Dunwich's text and should not be the be all and end all of herbal exploration and research, it is a much more useful book.On the whole, I was unimpressed by Gerina Dunwich's Herbal Magick. She sets out to do so much, but in 240 pages she manages to achieve very little; moreover, the complete lack of attribution and the skimpy bibliography moved this book from eclectic to fabricated. I don't believe that this text should be trusted, and I think that at best it can serve as inspiration or a very early introduction. The personal tangents are more useful than the instructional material by far, and the "facts" shouldn't be taken as such. I highly recommend that you avoid this book and, if you do read it, that you go beyond Dunwich and do research of your own. Cunningham's text works as a better reference and introduction if you want to avoid Dunwich.

Im not a huge fan of Gerina Dunwich, however, this book is truly wonderful and very well put together book. A lot of good facts on herbs and a lot of very well interesting folklore. Ms. Dunwich has put together a very good book that teaches towards the beginners of Wicca. This book is very well done and should be along with other great wiccan/pagan books.

This book cited Scott Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Herbs entirely too much. Dunwich also got several facts wrong, such as saying that Foxglove is the same thing as Nightshade. MOST of the herbal formulas in this book are of the "put it under your pillow and dream of your true love" variety. I cannot recommend it to anyone.

Have not bought it yet but looks good. I have read Gabriele Morgan's book on Secrets of Herbal Wicca and it is good.