City Magick by Christopher Penczak

City Magick: Spells, Rituals, and Rituals for the Urban Witch, Christopher Penczak. San Francisco: Weiser Books, 2001 and 2012. e-book, 238 pps.


     Christopher Penczak is to witchery as Issac Bonewits is to druidry. Both men are scholars and I like that. Both are respected within their communities and neither one caters to the McWiccans. Both are authors with extensive publication histories behind them. And I've read quite a few books by each one of them.

     This version of City Magick has been updated with a new intro. In it, Penczak points out the different "feel" of each urban area. He also believes that the sacred is all around us. This belief is borne out in the rest of City Magick. 

     The mythology and archetypes that urban dwellers have created are no less real for the believer than those that have been inspired by woods or ocean. The practitioner who makes the city his or her home may find different items to use as tools, different symbols, and different animals roaming around the streets than the more traditional stuff of the rural or suburban dweller. With the ongoing emphasis on holding circles in wooded areas [or conversely, online] the modern pagan is apt to forget that there were temples in the cities of old. 

      
sapphoq reviews says: Weiser Books is noted for publishing arcane and occult subjects for the more serious among us. City Magick is no exception. Although I personally do not care for the "New Age" talk that abounds in so much of the modern day witch material, I like Penczak's writing in spite of such material included in his books. The exercises are helpful to those who are unfamiliar with them, but basic for the rest of us. Recommended to those pagans who are tired of being told they must "get back to the land" and who are finding their way in urban environments.