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Witches of America

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Witches of America

By: Alex Mar
Narrated by: Amanda Dolan
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When most people hear the word witches, they think of horror films and Halloween, but to the nearly one million Americans who practice paganism today, it's a nature-worshipping, polytheistic, and very real religion. So Alex Mar discovers when she sets out to film a documentary and finds herself drawn deep into the world of present-day witchcraft. Witches of America follows Mar on her immersive five-year trip into the occult, charting modern paganism from its roots in 1950s England to its current American mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area. Along the way she takes part in dozens of rituals and becomes involved with a wild array of characters: a government employee who founds a California priesthood dedicated to a Celtic goddess of war; American disciples of Aleister Crowley whose elaborate ceremonies turn the Catholic mass on its head; second-wave feminist Wiccans who practice a radical separatist witchcraft; and a growing "mystery cult" whose initiates trace their rites back to a blind shaman in rural Oregon.

©2015 Alex Mar (P)2015 Tantor Magic Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts Religious Social Sciences Spirituality Magic Users Witchcraft Witches & Wizards

Critic reviews

"[Mar takes] readers on an expertly crafted spiritual journey." ( Publishers Weekly)

Featured Article: 25 of the Best Witchy Listens to Cast a Spell for Halloween


Spooky season is upon us, and it's the perfect time of the year to sink into some wonderful witchy listens—although to be honest, we don't need an excuse to enjoy great stories about the fascinating world of witches. Whether you're into fantastical fiction tales of magic, the more practical informational guides on how to practice witchcraft, or historical tales about the real lives of famous witches, we've rounded up some of the very best witch audiobooks.

Featured Article 25 of the Best Witchy Listens to Cast a Spell for Halloween
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I wanted to find out how far Alex would go in the world of witchcraft. Good history of the American practice, in regions as well as covens.

Great intro to American Witchcraft.

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So great that I got a hankering to listen to it again about a year after listening the first time. It was more autobiographical than I expected and typically I do not enjoy autobiographies but this was truly fantastic.

Love it!

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while an extremely interesting read at the same time it is ultimately disappointing .

both fun and meh

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I listened to this for my pagan book club and we loved it. I know the reviews are very mixed, but I really think it's like with any journalistic piece - if you don't like how you are portrayed, you complain. I think it's a great piece for those who have found themselves sometimes lost and I don't personally think it was unflattering to the subjects. Morpheus in particular is such a dreamy, interesting character in this. Sad to hear about the backlash.

Gripping

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easy to listen to, well written, great view on the struggle of finding what works for you.

great book

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This isn’t a book about witches in America. This is a book about the author’s experiences, perspectives and opinions, peppered throughout with random and sometimes questionable “history”. She shadows a handful of groups and people, and talks about her experiences, but it is in no way an account of or review of the actual varieties of witchcraft in America, as we are lead to believe in the summary.

Frankly, by the end, I was thoroughly sick of hearing the author talk about other cultures only through the lens of her own personal experiences. Don’t bother with this book unless you want to read an account or how the author personally relates to some people in some groups some of the time.

Don’t bother if you want to learn about witches in America

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This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I came onto the app to find out how to return this book but I can't figure out how. I don't enjoy this book, from the description I anticipated a more fact based documentary but it comes off as more of a pre-teen book report. I'm so mad that this book is so bad because all the descriptions make it sound like it's going to be so cool. I would love to have experienced all that Alex has but not from her point of view. I couldn't finish the book, and I really tried. There are parts of the book that were interesting when she would talk about the facts of a certain group but as soon as she started talking about herself again I would tune out. I don't like all her opinions on everything it creates a negative attitude toward most of what she is witnessing and makes everything come off very childish. She turns something interesting into something "not for her" which is so obnoxious since she's writing the book she should probably be more interested in the subject. Now if literally anyone she met along the way had written this book then I would have enjoyed it. Someone who is serious about the topic and who believes in what they're writing about. This book is maybe for someone who is skeptical about witchcraft and wants to be proved right that its weird.. which is obviously not her target audience and not what I was looking for when I purchased it.

Would you ever listen to anything by Alex Mar again?

No I would not.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Amanda Dolan?

The reader is fine.

What character would you cut from Witches of America?

The main character

Any additional comments?

I was so disappointed in this book, I had such high expectations and I was really let down.

Nope

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A disservice to all real Witches who embrace the light. A voyeur's witch hunt.

Terrible Rag!

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What would have made Witches of America better?

Perhaps it's that there isn't a lot of substance and not much rooted in genuine history (other than 1960s drug abuse), but the subjects of this study are quite boring, despite the author's desperate attempts to elevate them beyond their mundane counter-culturalism.

Has Witches of America turned you off from other books in this genre?

I have little desire to explore this topic further. If I wanted to know more about fringe "Wiccan" misfits, I would attend Burning Man.

Have you listened to any of Amanda Dolan’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

The performance of the book is clean and engaging; without it, the book would be entirely intolerable.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The little devil on this sub-par author's shoulder can be heard--amid the din of this text--screaming to her to embrace this juvenile rustic communal lifestyle against which the better angels of her (insufficient) skepticism wimper their protests.

Any additional comments?

Do not read this unless you want to feel an abiding sense of pity that this author has wasted what seems to be an enormous portion of both her (and now my) fleeting time on Earth with these idiotic people that call themselves "witches." If you're looking for a seasonal Halloween read, find one of several books about Celtic mythology or the Salem Witch Trials that explore consequential historical episodes, as opposed to this (lavatory) rag that will give you more insight than you could ever hope for into the modern gothic--still as ridiculous as it was when Austen wrote Northanger Abbey, and even more despicable for its link to adolescent 60s indolence.

A Half-Witted Survey Into the Hippy Occult

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While listening to the book, I was under the impression that it was written by someone who had become a pagan. She had written some very rude observations throughout, but I thought, hey, maybe that was her journey. By the end of the book, I was scratching my head and did some Googling.

This book has been criticized by many pagans, including people who appeared in the book, such as the Coru Cathubodua Priesthood. The author divulged information given to her in private settings without stating that they would be in the book. She provided copies of the book to some precious few subjects of it just before it went on sale--not just before it went to print, as she had promised. I see no apology on her part either, and I've scoured around the Internet. She's shameless and exploitative.

Interesting in some parts, but disrespectful

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