The Night Journey - Witchcraft as Transformation

There’s a real shortage of good books on advanced witchcraft. The Night Journey – Witchcraft as Transformation is therefore a much-needed new publication aimed at Wiccans and witches who have reached second degree or who are running their own covens.

Author Yvonne Aburrow explains the title:

The night journey was one of the key themes of
medieval witchcraft legends. Witches were believed
to travel out of their bodies to attend a nocturnal
feast in some wild place and consort with faeries,
devils, daemons, and deities of the night and the
underworld. It involved leaving everyday reality and
entering a liminal zone between the worlds. Here
the witch could learn new knowledge, consort with
otherworldly beings, and perform rituals and magic
to transform reality. 

The work at second degree involves looking at the darker sides of our own psyches, confronting our fears and challenging our perhaps long-held beliefs. The goal of this is transformation, and this book is a guide to ways of enabling that to happen.

The Night Journey follows on from the first book in this series, Dark Mirror – The Inner Work of Witchcraft. That was aimed at trainee witches and first degree Wiccans. Rather than just being about what words to say or actions to perform for rites and ceremonies, it was about how to feel the energy and what happens in the practitioner’s psyche.

The Night Journey continues that focus, but also covers the practicalities of enabling covens or other groups of people to work well together. It has sections on group dynamics and various styles of leadership. But the book is also looks at ways in which witchcraft, when it is working well, is essentially transgressive. It is empowering and offers practitioners ways to change society for the better,

Yvonne Aburrow is a social justice campaigner. In this book she looks at how witchcraft, historically, was resistant to authoritarian versions of reality, but also how we can make our own covens and public events more inclusive and welcoming.

The description of The Night Journey on Lulu says:

This book is aimed at witches who want to deepen their engagement with their Craft. It explores modes and types of ritual; how rituals work; the uses of sound and silence in ritual; the witch’s journey through life; the stages and pitfalls of the inner work. It shows how Queer Witchcraft is an inherent aspect of the archetype of the witch; how witchcraft relates to the land; witchcraft as resistance to oppression; working with ancestors; the witch’s pact with spiritual powers; the relationship between madness, shamanism, and witchcraft; and the concept of the night journey, another very old image from the history of witchcraft; how to use insights gained from the practice of witchcraft in everyday life; group dynamics; being a coven leader; teaching and learning in a coven; egregore, lineage, upline, and downline; power and authority; the process of challenging oppression; how to evaluate your Craft; the meaning and purpose of ‘spirituality’, religion, and magic; the archetype of the witch and what it means.

You can view The Night Journey on Amazon and view the book’s Lulu page.

Previous related posts:
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2018/03/review-dark-mirror-inner-work-of.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2014/12/review-all-acts-of-love-and-pleasure.html

To read more posts like this visit A Bad Witch’s Blog at www.badwitch.co.uk