Discover, for the first time in one complete work, the rich legacy of magick and ritual handed down by Italian witches through the generations. Ways of the Strega reclaims the beliefs and practices of southern European Pagan spirituality. Learn the secrets of Janarra (lunar) witches, Tanarra (star) witches, and Fanarra (ley lines) witches. This book also details the how-to's of modern Strega traditions.
Italian Witchcraft (previously titled Ways of the Strega) by respected author Raven Grimassi is more than just a book about Witchcraft. It is a complete Book of Shadows. In it you will find the history of this ancient tradition, its legends and myths, as well as the rituals and rites that you can do today. You can be a Strega! The book includes a full set of rituals that you can do. You'll find rituals for all of the Italian Witchcraft holidays including Shadow Fest, Lupercus, Tana's Day and more. You'll also find rituals for the Full Moon, births, funerals. There is a practical side to this book, too. It is filled with instructions so that you can cast spells and work with the powers of incense, oils, herbs, and candles. You'll learn to work with the magick of the Moon and Stars. You'll be able to do protection rituals and learn how to cure someone who has received the "Malocchio" (Evil Eye). Many of the mysteries revealed here have never been published before. You'll learn secret gestures of power and secret symbols. And you can use them all! Also revealed are the secrets of the tools of the Italian Witch. You'll learn how to prepare the "Spirit Blade" and the ritual wand. You'll learn how to make the Spirit Bowl and use to consecrate other tools and talismans. If you're looking to discover real Witchcraft, or if you're already a Witch but are thinking about other traditions, this is the book for you.
In this fascinating journey through the magical, folkloric, and healing traditions of Italy the reader learns uniquely Italian methods of magical protection and divination and spells for love, sex, control, and revenge. "Mary-Grace Fahrun's Italian Folk Magic is an intimate journey into the heart of Italian folk magical practices as they are lived every day. Having grown up in an extended Italian family in North America and Italy, the author presents us with the stories, characters, saints, charms, and prayers that form the core of folk religion, setting them in context in an authentic, down-to-earth, and humorous voice. A delight to read!"—Sabina Magliocco, Professor of Anthropology, University of British Columbia Italian Folk Magiccontains: magical and religious rituals prayers divination techniques crafting blessing rituals witchcraft The author also explores the evil eye, known as malocchio in Italian, explaining what it is, where it comes from, and, crucially, how to get rid of it. This book can help Italians regain their magical heritage, but Italian folk magic is a beautiful, powerful, and effective magical tradition that is accessible to anyone who wants to learn it.
A remarkable tale of witchcraft, folk culture, and persuasion in early modern Europe. Based on research in the Inquisitorial archives of Northern Italy, The Night Battles recounts the story of a peasant fertility cult centered on the benandanti, literally, "good walkers." These men and women described fighting extraordinary ritual battles against witches and wizards in order to protect their harvests. While their bodies slept, the souls of the benandanti were able to fly into the night sky to engage in epic spiritual combat for the good of the village. Carlo Ginzburg looks at how the Inquisition's officers interpreted these tales to support their world view that the peasants were in fact practicing sorcery. The result of this cultural clash, which lasted for more than a century, was the slow metamorphosis of the benandanti into the Inquisition's mortal enemies—witches. Relying upon this exceptionally well-documented case study, Ginzburg argues that a similar transformation of attitudes—perceiving folk beliefs as diabolical witchcraft—took place all over Europe and spread to the New World. In his new preface, Ginzburg reflects on the interplay of chance and discovery, as well as on the relationship between anomalous cases and historical generalizations.
Discover the real sources of many of the traditions, beliefs, and techniques of modern Witchcraft! And what author Raven Grimassi reveals in Hereditary Witchcraft is the documented ancient roots of the Old Religion. One-by-one, Grimassi goes through the tenets of Witchcraft and shows their ancient sources. The association of the pentagram with Witchcraft goes back at least 2,500 years. The idea of the four elements goes back to a philosopher named Empedocles of Sicily in around 475 B.C.E. The practice of many covens today of having a Priestess, Priest, and Maiden can be traced back over 2,000 years to ancient Pompeii. This book is filled with history, myth, and folklore. But it is also filled with rituals and techniques that you can do. On these pages you will learn how to prepare and banish a magic circle. You'll learn rituals you can do by yourself, including those for the Solstices, Diana's Day, and Cornucopia. With this information you can become a follower of the Old Ways! Of course, one of the most famous aspects of Witchcraft is magick. Grimassi doesn't disappoint here, either. You'll learn runic magick and divination; you'll learn about doing magick with the Moon and stars; you'll learn secret symbols and the powers of herbs. If you are a Witch--or you're thinking about becoming a Witch--this is one of the most important books you could possibly have. You'll find the documentation to support the antiquity of your beliefs and the way Witchcraft is practiced today. This book is both a guide for everyday life and a resource to discover Wiccan origins. If you don't have a copy of this book, get one today. You'll use it for the rest of your life.
Karyn Crisis has been able to sense the "unseen world of passed-on relatives, angels, and ghosts since childhood. Training as a Spiritualist Medium as an adult, she became a popular platform Medium and healer in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2009, she took a fateful trip to Italy's Tuscany Region, which would have a lasting impact far beyond what she could have ever imagined: Goddesses from Italy's history suddenly began appearing to Karyn as clearly as other spirit people had, and they began transmitting to her the information of a most interesting cultural melting pot in Italy that gave rise to its unique and complex spiritual landscape. Among the information shared was the knowledge of Italy's own indigenous Lineage healing, a female shamanism hiding in-plain-sight that can be traced back to pre-pagan times. One thing was clear: Mediumship was and is the cornerstone of all these traditions by advancing the quality of life through previously hidden knowledge from the spirit world handed down to earth. Following the guidance of the Goddesses, Karyn returned to Italy where she embarked on a long and intensive research study. Taking cures from "streghe," meeting herbalists on mountain tops, experiencing a 6 hour ancestral fire ritual with secret shaman called Benandanti, interviewing local authors and museum curators and folk lore experts, and walking on the remains of the Goddess Diana's 2,000 year old temple, Karyn found the historical evidence to support what the Goddesses had shown her in visions. Volume 1 also provides a comprehensive spiritual history of the "Italian Witch" and reveals an important matrilineal living practice supplanted by the patriarchal invasions of pre-pagan times, whose acts of repression still affect the world today, revealing a groundbreaking history of women. Also find practical tips to reconnect with this female Lineage.
Shamanism is thriving as an exotic import and a hidden native tradition in Italy today. This ethnographical work uncovers two faces of Italian shamanism. The first is trans-cultural shamans who creatively adapt rituals and beliefs from indigenous cultures worldwide. Second, extensive fieldwork shows how regional folk magic practices of segnatoriand segnatrici constitute a little-known but enduring form of native Italian shamanism. By documenting these parallel worlds, contemporary magic workers appear to be the heirs of ancient local healing traditions. Offering rare insights into vernacular religion, this book vividly portrays shamans' past and present on the Italian peninsula.
Though his work was little known outside Italian intellectual circles for most of the twentieth century, anthropologist and historian of religions Ernesto de Martino is now recognized as one of the most original thinkers in the field. This book is testament to de Martino's innovation and engagement with Hegelian historicism and phenomenology--a work of ethnographic theory way ahead of its time. This new translation of Sud e Magia, his 1959 study of ceremonial magic and witchcraft in southern Italy, shows how De Martino is not interested in the question of whether magic is rational or irrational but rather in why it came to be perceived as a problem of knowledge in the first place. Setting his exploration within his wider, pathbreaking theorization of ritual, as well as in the context of his politically sensitive analysis of the global south's historical encounters with Western science, he presents the development of magic and ritual in Enlightenment Naples as a paradigmatic example of the complex dynamics between dominant and subaltern cultures. Far ahead of its time, Magic is still relevant as anthropologists continue to wrestle with modernity's relationship with magical thinking.
Based on extensive archival research, this study of European witchcraft and sorcery takes into account major new developments in the historiography of witchcraft.
