Besom, Stang & Sword
A Guide to Traditional Witchcraft, the Six-Fold Path & the Hidden Landscape
by Christopher Orapello and Tara-Love Maguire

Regional traditional witchcraft is an animistic form of witchcraft that moves away from t

the religious harvest festivals and fertility-minded practices associated with the more common Wiccan form of witchcraft. Very few of us in this age are farmers or dependent upon crops and harvests. Regional traditional witchcraft teaches people to find their craft in their own backyards, in the uncultivated land or urban cityscape alike, and in their ancestors rather than in ancient foreign deities or in a neopagan-styled religious form of witchcraft. It’s not about where you’re from but where you are. 

The material is adaptable to any region in which the practitioner lives. Although the lack of deity worship and holy days is a significant part of the authors' nonreligious approach, this book presents a complete system of practice utilizing ritual, chant, trance, the six paths of witchcraft as defined and explained by the text, and the practices associated with traditional witchcraft. 

Christopher Orapello is an artist, witch, and animist with a background in Western occultism, ceremonial magick, and Freemasonry and has been on his journey for over 20 years. He cohosts the podcast Down at the Crossroads with his partner, Tara Maguire, and is a signature artist with Sacred Source, a leading producer and distributor of ancient deity images in North America. After a growing desire for a more locally based form of witchcraft, he and Tara founded the Blacktree Coven in 2014 and set out to forge a modern approach to traditional witchcraft for a new era of praxis. Photo: Tara-Love Maguire.

Tara-Love Maguire has been a practicing witch for over 30 years. Her path has been crookedly influenced by Isobel Gowdie, Marie Laveau, and William S. Burroughs (among others). Growing up in and around the New Jersey Pine Barrens, she found witchcraft within the tales and shadows of that folkloric landscape. She cohosts the podcast Down at the Crossroads with Christopher Orapello and is one of the founders of the Blacktree Coven, which exists in the heart of southern New Jersey.  

#BK-BSS 304 pages, 6" x 9" trade paperback #BK-BSS

 

Reviews: 

 

    "With Besom, Stang, & Sword, Chris and Tara open the doors to their own practices, laying out the materials of magic for all to see. The results drive home the central point that magic—specifically witchcraft—is available to anyone, but that it requires time, effort, patience, and thought along with a dose of fate and a sizeable amount of risk. They build a hexagram of approachable practices that asks anyone picking up this work to root their magic in the land surrounding them and their own personal history, rather than taking secondhand sorcery from others. Chris and Tara reveal their Blacktree tradition without pretense or artifice, but instead with clarity, insight, and acid wit, which testifies to their talents as both seasoned occultists and engaging writers. This is a book that will reshape a reader’s encounters with magic and the landscape around them." --Cory Thomas Hutcheson, author of 54 Devils and host of the podcast New World Witchery

 

    "There are some who would like their witchcraft to be of the kind that would be very comfortable sitting down for tea with the local vicar. There are also those who want to keep the teeth within the practices of the tradition. If you are of the latter persuasion, you’re going to love Besom, Stang & Sword." --Damh the Bard 

 

    "As an Appalachian witch, bioregional witchcraft is the only witchcraft that touches me, the only sort that reaches backward and forward, roving the spiritual as well as the physical landscape. This knotty and fine book is old and new, too—beautifully written, deeply researched and growing from the furrows of a genuine practice. Much to learn here and much to do. Bury yourself in Besom, Stang & Sword’s evocative spirit." --H. Byron Ballard, witch and author of Earth Works: Ceremonies in Tower Time 

 

    "In Besom, Stang & Sword, Christopher and Tara-Love have crafted an approachable yet artful guide to the practice of traditional witchcraft from a uniquely North American perspective. This in-depth handbook provides an inspired foundation with workable material in the form of rituals, spells, and explorations that both novice and experienced practitioners alike will find compelling and enlightening." --Laura Tempest Zakroff, author of Weave the Liminal, Sigil Witchery, and The Witch's Cauldron