The Book of Witchcraft

I really wanted to like The Book of Witchcraft by Semra Haksever. I truly did.

From the little research I did on Haksever before writing this review, she seems like a warm, creative person who genuinely enjoys what she does. That honestly made this review a little difficult to write. I read the book once, then went back and read through it a second time because I thought perhaps, just perhaps, I had been too critical the first time around.

Unfortunately, I came to the same conclusion.

There just isn't much depth here. The Book of Witchcraft covers a tremendous amount of material, but it doesn't really stay with anything long enough to dig very deeply into it. You get a little spellwork, a little divination, some correspondences, runes, metals, scrying, and so on. A very wide net is thrown, but you are mostly given little bits and pieces of everything without actually catching a fish.

And perhaps that is exactly the point.

It reminded me quite a bit of Silver RavenWolf's Teen Witch, which I read many, many years ago. Teen Witch did something very similar. It introduced the reader to a little of this, a little of that, and then moved on to the next subject before going into much real depth.

In all honesty, I could see The Book of Witchcraft being a good modern replacement for Teen Witch for someone just beginning to explore witchcraft.

Although, I still prefer Teen Witch. RavenWolf included personal stories and anecdotes throughout the book, and whether you agreed with everything she wrote or not, you got a sense of who she was. There was a person behind the information. I found myself wishing Haksever had done more of that here. I wanted more Semra Haksever in a book written by Semra Haksever.

There are certainly some interesting spell ideas in the book, and I marked a few things that I could see myself playing around with later. But much of the material felt very familiar to me. Many of the spells, correspondences, and magical ideas are things that an experienced practitioner has probably encountered dozens of times before in other books, websites, and general witchcraft resources.

Some sections really illustrate the problem. The Elder Futhark runes are reduced to extremely short descriptions. Metals receive roughly a page. Scrying receives roughly a page. That is enough information to tell someone, "Hey, this exists. Maybe you should look into it." But it isn't really enough information to teach someone how to do much with it. And perhaps that is the better way to look at this book. It isn't really a comprehensive guide to witchcraft. It is more like a catalog of possibilities.

For someone brand new to witchcraft, that could actually be very useful. You might read the section on runes and decide that you want to buy an entire book about the runic arts. You might stumble across scrying and realize that you find it fascinating. You might try one of the spells and discover that practical spellcraft is what interests you.

There are plenty of doors here. The problem comes when you have already opened most of them.

And I should probably acknowledge my own bias here. I have been reading books about witchcraft, magic, paganism, and related subjects for close to thirty years. At this point, it is becoming increasingly difficult for an introductory witchcraft book to show me something I haven't already encountered somewhere else. Perhaps I am simply becoming jaded in my old age.

Most importantly, I am just not the target audience for this book. And that matters. I don't think The Book of Witchcraft is a bad book. I think it is an introductory book being read by someone who is very far beyond the introductory stage. However, if someone came to me and said, "I am interested in witchcraft, but I have absolutely no idea where to begin," I could see this book being useful. It gives you a taste of a lot of different practices and allows you to figure out which ones interest you enough to explore further. If you already know what interests you, though, you would probably be better served by buying a book devoted entirely to that subject.

For me, The Book of Witchcraft earns 3 out of 5 stars.

It is attractive. It is approachable. It covers a lot of ground. I just wish it had slowed down occasionally and dug a little deeper. And I really wish we had gotten to know Semra Haksever a little better along the way.