Raven Grimassi's name crops up in discussions of southern European witchcraft frequently. He has produced a number of books on "stregheria", the Italian folk-magic/religion which may or may not have been a major influence on authors like Charles Leland in the 19th century. He also presents a lot of information on Wicca and other neo-Pagan topics to the public through his work. His latest outing, entitled "Old World Witchcraft: Ancient Ways for Modern Days", gives readers Grimassi's system for working herbal shamanic practices into the fabric of his Italian folk religion. If that were all this book did, it would be a spare but somewhat enjoyable look at one man's practices.
Instead, Grimassi spends the first portion of his book building up a series of arguments against "scholars," whom he generally does not name or cite claiming that they've had it all wrong, and that he has pieced together historical threads to form a tradition similar-though not identical-to the kind of witchcraft done through the centuries by other herbal shamans (who may or may not have called themselves witches). He then proceeds to present a novel form of practice which leans heavily on ritual tools like the mortar and pestle and on plant spirits. Again, not in and of itself a bad thought experiment, but Grimassi certainly goes out of his way to make this seem like the only logical practiced that can be gleaned from historical evidence.
He engages in a number of pseudo-historical fantasies, claiming that no complete history of witchcraft exists because scholars rely almost solely on witch trial evidence to say what witches do or did in the past. He does occasionally name these scholars-Owen Davies being the most notable-but seems to gloss over their arguments and evidence (Davies would hardly suggest that witch trial evidence is a good source of reliable facts, nor would other scholars like Norman Cohn or Keith Thomas who remain unnamed in Grimassi's text). He also mis-cites or outright fails to cite a number of his sources. For example, he claims early in the book that God limits human lifespans after the "sons of God" mate with mortal women, citing Genesis 5 to support his point. In fact, the passage he is citing appears in the next chapter of Genesis (which he later cites correctly, so this is likely just a failure to proofread on his part). He also quotes from scholar Ronald Hutton at one point, then completely fails to cite Hutton in the bibliography. His endnotes are a joke, often rambling or unrelated to the text at hand, and when he cannot find enough evidence to support his viewpoint, he jams his opinion into an appendix with only the loosest connection to the rest of the book (I'm thinking here of his odd "Appendix A: The Invisible God of Witchcraft" which could have easily been left out of this book without detracting from his points).
Perhaps the most aggravating element of this book for a practical magician are his bizarre claims about tools and ingredients. He says that graveyard dust should not actually be dirt taken from a grave (a practice which can be found in several cultures, such as African American conjure work) but rather it should be the powdered ashes of leaves taken from a tree in a graveyard, which seems to have no basis in historical practice whatsoever. He also tells witches that they should learn to work with poisonous plants not by growing monkshood or belladonna, but by using his sigils to get in touch with the plant's spirit. I'd be very interested to hear from practical herbal shamans like Sarah Lawless or Harry at The Alchemist's Garden just what they think of that notion.
All in all, this is a book which suffers from broken clock syndrome (as in, "a broken clock is right twice a day"). He occasionally hits on interesting ideas or brings up worthwhile concepts, but mostly he seems to be posing an elaborate fantasy as a pseudo-historical reality, with very little scholarly backbone to support his claims. When someone prods the gear works, the whole contraption just seems to fall apart. [Full Disclosure Note: I received this book for free as a prize in a contest. I have not been paid or otherwise coerced by the publisher to write this review. No good or bad review was expected by the publisher, and an honest review has been given by the reviewer.]
You also may enjoy these free books:
Aleister Crowley - Mortadello Or The Angel Of VeniceMargaret Alice Murray - The God Of The Witches
Charles Godfrey Leland - Ariadia Or A Gospel Of The Witches
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