Basic Witches: How to Summon Success, Banish Drama, and Raise Hell with Your Coven

Basic Witches: How to Summon Success, Banish Drama, and Raise Hell with Your Coven - Jess Zimmerman, Jaya Saxena Full review on my blog.


If you're already a practicing witch, I might not recommend this. It's definitely not like the stuff I had to work with when I started out (like Silver, Scott, Edain, and all the others that many of us agree, now, should mostly be avoided or read critically because of the misinformation, appropriation, etc.), and that's not a bad thing. It just might not be very helpful for anyone actually practicing witchcraft for any length of time.

But if you're curious, or really new, or even if you've been at it a long time and want something different from the other books on witchcraft, this might be for you.

It's been mentioned that this book uses the word "witch" to, basically, mean an independent woman/feminist/etc., and I agree. That was slightly annoying for me, because the description is a little misleading, but I still enjoyed this book after I adjusted how I was reading it (less for the witchy stuff, more for the advice).

The spells are very simple with very few items used, and everything that's "required" is easy to come by (paper, candles, your phone even). There are things in here to help you with anxiety for a doctor's appointment, to figure out what you want out of a romantic partner, to give yourself permission to practice self-care, to heal your heart, and a lot more.

It's definitely more like a fun self-help book than a book on witchcraft, but that's pretty cool because witchcraft is constantly changing, and lots of us use it for the things covered in this book. Even the structure of the spells is similar to what many of us seem to be doing these days (obviously I can't speak for all witches, I'm just basing this on what I do and what I've seen others share online about how they do things).

Regardless of how you feel about the witchy side of things in this book, I would still recommend it for the advice in it and the little historical bits about witchcraft and women. I really think just about anyone could find something helpful in this book.

I received a free copy to review from Net Galley