Reading Recommendations From Madeline Miller

For the Re-enchantment Issue, we interviewed, Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles. For those who loved her reworkings of classical myths and want more, the author has kindly recommended us some books inspired by myth.

Transformations of Circe: The History of an Enchantress by Judith Yarnall

Says Miller: “This is a work of non-fiction, but if you want to know more about Circe I think it’s a wonderful overview of Circe’s different iterations in society and literary sources.” In Transformations of Circe, Judith Yarnall examines Homer’s balance of negative and positive elements in the Circe-Odysseus myth, and concludes with a discussion of more recent works where Circe finally speaks with her own voice.

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Based on the myth of Geryon and the Tenth Labour of Herakles, Autobiography of Red is a novel in verse. Like Miller’s Circe, it centres on an individual’s coming-of-age experience while also telling a mythical story. It explores that territory between the mythic and the mundane.

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler 

Wild Seed is the fourth in Octavia Butler’s Patternist series, a chronology of science fiction novels that tell of a secret history that starts in 1390 in West Africa and continues into the far future. This secret history involves telepathic mind control. Butler explores themes of racial and gender-based animosity, sexuality, the ethics of biological engineering, power, and what it means to be human. “I’d recommend Wild Seed and the whole Patternist series—really the whole of Octavia Butler’s work!” says Miller.

The Earthsea series by Ursula K LeGuin

The late Ursula K LeGuin gained recognition in her lifetime for showing how the fantasy genre could be literary. Many of us grew up reading her Earthsea series, which Miller recommends: “I think my favourite might be The Tombs of Atuan, and Tehanu.” Earthsea carries Taoist themes about fundamental balance and centres around the story of Ged, a young mage who attends a school of wizardry. Significant in this magical word is language, and the importance of knowing the true names of people, other animals, and things.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Children of Blood and Bone is a young adult fantasy novel that draws inspiration from West African mythology and Yoruba culture and language, but also from the Harry Potter series. It’s a coming-of-age story about Zélie Adebola, who attempts to restore magic to the kingdom of Orïsha, where it is suppressed by the ruling classes. Adeyemi recalls historical precedents, including the oppression of cultural practice and belief during colonial times, racism and slavery.

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley

“This modern re-telling of Beowulf was really interesting—so sharp and insightful,” says Miller. We read The Mere Wife for our first book club and community event. Described as ‘Beowulf in the suburbs,’ the old English epic is transplanted to America, where it becomes the story of a hardened war veteran and her son Gren.

Read our interview with Madeline Miller in the Re-enchantment Issue.

Re-Connecting With The Natural World: A Reading List

Nature has long been something to fear; in ancient literature, our distant ancestors personified it as monsters and fought it, from Scylla to Beowulf. Nudity and bodily fluids such as menstruation are still taboo in most cultures. Paradoxically, nature is also something we love and regard as sacred; we can’t afford to lose it, so we fence off green spaces and cultivate gardens. If we image a future post the climate crisis, it looks bleak and dystopian.

Historically, nature has been a place individuals go to seek creativity and wisdom. A period of reclusion in the mountains or woods was considered vital for artists, writers and spiritual practitioners of the past. Solitude is still a catalyst for innovation. We often talk about re-connecting with nature, as if it were something separate to us. But we are nature. In literature, leaving civilisation and stepping out into the wilderness presents an opportunity for the hero to re-connect with themselves and their true nature—or something akin to the divine. Many cosmologies have myths that emphasise humans are part of the natural world, not its masters, and this is reflected in their consumption habits as moderation. Today in Western culture, we are in need of new stories to repair this relationship. We are taking too much and as a consequence endangering organisms that enrich our lives, or the resources on which we depend for our own survival. In other words, in harming nature, we are harming ourselves.

Here are some reading suggestions for learning more about our place in the natural world.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Often considered the world’s oldest surviving great work of literature, this epic poem from Ancient Mesopotamia tells the story of Gilgamesh, a young king who fights against monsters sent by the gods, and goes on a quest to seek immortality. He eventually must come to terms with nature and the inevitability of death—and in turn becomes a good king. We encounter along the way a parallel to the Hebrew Bible’s Garden of Eden, in the Garden of the Gods. Enkidu and Shamhat are made by a god and live in harmony with plants and animals. Endiku, like Adam, is introduced to a woman (always the scapegoat) who tempts him, Shamhat, like Eve. In both stories, a man accepts food from a woman, becomes ashamed of his nakedness and covers it, and must leave the garden, unable to return. On leaving the Garden of Eden, or the Garden of the Gods, harmony was lost. Nature became something terrifying to be fought. This story is the first to play with this dichotomy, the wilds versus civilisation, and shows that the Utopian dream of living harmoniously with nature existed pre-Abrahamic religions, and was not a reality for Ancient Pagans.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

The idea that Native Americans lived in harmony with a pristine natural world as simple hunter-gatherers is an enticing one, but it is not altogether true, according to Mann. The issue with resorting to the “Nobel Savage” trope is that some communities were environmental stewards, others weren’t—and for the most part, the situation was more complex than that. “The Maya collapsed because they overshot the carrying capacity of their environment,” he writes. “They exhausted their resource base, began to die of starvation and thirst, and fled their cities en masse, leaving them as silent warnings of the perils of ecological hubris.” Before the European colonisation of the Americas, Native Americans actively moulded the land around them, though their methods were more sustainable than that of the colonisers, who swiftly wiped out species that had been around for thousands of years. There is evidence that 70-80 percent of the Amazon forest was grown by humans. The complexity of societies Pre-Columbus was comparable to Eurasian counterparts. “In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than Songhay in the Sahel or powerful Great Zimbabwe in the West Africa tablelands, bigger than the cresting Ottoman Empire, bigger than the Triple Alliance (as the Aztec empire is more precisely known), bigger by far than any European state, the Inka dominion extended over a staggering thirty-two degrees of latitude—as if a single power held sway from St. Petersburg to Cairo.” 


Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer 

Drawing on her experiences as a mother, scientist, and writer of Native American heritage, Robin Wall Kimmerer invites us to look closer at something we normally don’t see: the mosses that carpet our temperate forest floors. Part memoir, part scientific treatise, Kimmerer shows us that we have much to learn from these inconspicuous organisms, and in turn the natural world as an interconnected web of which we are part. “I think that it is this that draws me to the pond on a night in April, bearing witness to puhpowee,” writes Kimmerer. “Tadpoles and spores, egg and sperm, mine and yours, mosses and peepers—we are all connected by our common understanding of the calls filling the night at the start of spring. It is the wordless voice of longing that resonates within us, the longing to continue, to participate in the sacred life of the world.”

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

It’s often said that we know the moon better than we know our oceans. An odd thought, considering they constitute 99 per cent of the living space on this planet. Our understanding of the inhabitants of our deep oceans is shallow. One known but often misunderstood creature is the octopus, an eight-limbed predator. It has inspired alien creatures in science fiction, but it is also remarkably intelligent, and strangely familiar if we get closer to it. The author, Montgomery, befriends octopuses across the globe, showing another side to this mollusc.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben

Our world is full of magical places—one such place is the forest. When we walk through a forest, most of us are unaware that the trees can communicate—that they, like us, have families with whom they share nutrients. Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the social lives of trees and forest etiquette, and puts up a persuasive argument for protecting this living, breathing community, for the benefit of the trees, the planet, and our own mental and physical wellbeing.

The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary by Caspar Henderson

Bestiaries were popular illustrated manuscripts in the Middle Ages and typically contained detailed descriptions of exotic species and those native to Western Europe, alongside imaginary animals such as dragons and unicorns. The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is another book on this list to expose our ignorance of the organisms with which we share this world; it captures the beauty and weirdness of many living forms we thought we knew but didn’t really, from the Axolotl to the Zebrafish. Writes Henderson: “Life on Earth is basically a giant microbial vat and eukaryotic organisms are merely the bubbles on its surface? Are we—the froth—deluded in valuing ourselves so highly?” 

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (2018) Michael Pollan

When LSD was first discovered, it was compared to the atom bomb. It was believed that both would shake up society in a significant way. Research into LSD and psilocybin mushrooms was conducted in the past, though the funds dried up, in part a consequence of the recreational use of the drugs during the hippie years. In the last decade, new research is underway, and scientists are again examining how psychedelic drugs might be helpful in psychiatric treatment, and for helping us better understand the nature of consciousness. Pollan explores how psychedelics have been used effectively in different cultures’ rituals, and in turn shaped culture. In taking psychedelic drugs himself and observing others who took them in lab studies, he changed his mind: “The usual antonym for the word “spiritual” is “material.” That at least is what I believed when I began this inquiry—that the whole issue with spirituality turned on a question of metaphysics. Now I’m inclined to think a much better and certainly more useful antonym for “spiritual” might be “egotistical.” Self and Spirit define the opposite ends of a spectrum, but that spectrum needn’t reach clear to the heavens to have meaning for us. It can stay right here on earth. When the ego dissolves, so does a bounded conception not only of our self but of our self-interest. What emerges in its place is invariably a broader, more openhearted and altruistic—that is, more spiritual—idea of what matters in life. One in which a new sense of connection, or love, however defined, seems to figure prominently.” Elsewhere he writes: “You go deep enough or far out enough in consciousness and you will bump into the sacred. It’s not something we generate; it’s something out there waiting to be discovered. And this reliably happens to nonbelievers as well as believers.”

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

In the second chapter of Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer tells readers to eat dogs. Among his reasons: many cultures around the world eat dog. Millions of dogs are euthanised yearly in the US and it is costly to dispose of them—their meat is rendered into food for cows. Most people will feel nauseated at the prospect of eating dogs directly—our beloved companions—but regularly eat cows. The author reminds us that life is sacred in all cultures, but the place where we drawn the moral line between what we can kill or can’t is cultural. “If nothing matters, there's nothing to save,” he writes. This so closely follows The Hidden Life of Trees, where we read that perhaps plants have complex lives too. “Save a carrot, eat a vegetarian,” might be a tempting retort in jest, but it would be inaccurate, and is one of the many myths surrounding vegetarianism that Safran Foer debunks. Vegans harm fewer plants, because eating plants directly, rather than feeding them to animals you go on to eat, requires far fewer plants—and involves less deforestation. If research one day proves that plants are sentient beings which feel pain, which isn’t clear at present, veganism would still be the path of minimal harm. “If we are not given the option to live without violence, we are given the choice to centre our meals around harvest or slaughter, husbandry or war. We have chosen slaughter. We have chosen war. That's the truest version of our story of eating animals.” “Can we tell a new story?”

The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wolf 

“Humboldt ‘read’ plants as others did books–and to him they revealed a global force behind nature, the movements of civilisations as well as of landmass. No one had ever approached botany in this way.” This is the biography of the Prussian naturalist Alexandra von Humboldt, but also a journey through Western thought. Humboldt, whom many parks, streets and species in South America are named after, was insatiably curious about the natural world and our place in it. He learnt directly from nature, from other scientists, but also from artists including his friend Goethe. “Humboldt wrote that nature had to be experienced through feelings,” writes Andrea Wulf. Reading The Invention of Nature, we witness the division of the natural sciences into the separate scientific disciplines recognised today. But Humboldt, Wulf emphasises, saw nature as an interconnected web of cause and effect. Disrupt the balance and you harm the entire ecosystem; inevitably, that also means causing harm to ourselves. In that respect, he was one of the earliest environmentalists, and there may still be something to learn from this earlier, more holistic perspective. “The effects of the human species’ intervention were already ‘incalculable’, Humboldt insisted, and could become catastrophic if they continued to disturb the world so ‘brutally’. Humboldt would see again and again how humankind unsettled the balance of nature.”

8 Poetry Collections That Double As Grimoires

Poetry has always been intrinsically linked to spellcasting; from creating rhyming rituals to Shakespeare’s wyrd sisters. The rhythm of the language in both poems and incantations makes them almost interchangeable. It’s difficult to demonstrate where a poem ends and a spell begins, or vice versa.

Terri-Jane Dow has collated some occult poetry collections to get you started.

WITCH, by Rebecca Tamás

Rebecca Tamás’ first full-length collection is full of spells (quite literally; it includes “spell for reality,” “spell for agency,” and “spell for online porn,” among others) and hexes. It’s also full of feminism and fire, history, and the need for change. It’s a phenomenal collection. You can read a sample from Penned In The Margins.

The Collected Poems, by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes both dabbled in the occult to help them write. Using a tipped over glass and a homemade ouija board, they invoked a spirit they called Pan, and at various points, both mused on Pan’s influence on their writing. Plath’s poem, Ouija, found in The Collected Poems, being one of the more notably inspired by the occult.

Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry, ed. Rebecca Tamás & Sarah Shin

Opening with the reminder “spells are poems : poetry is spelling,” this collection of thirty-six poems brings together the best modern poetry on the occult. It includes poems from Amy Key, AK Blakemore, Emily Berry, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Kaveh Akbar, among others.

Animal, by Dorothea Lasky

Spells contributor and half of @poetastrologers, Dorothea Lasky’s latest full-length collection, Animal, comes out in October, giving you just enough time to read up on her other writings. We’d start with Snakes, or her previous collection, Milk.

While Standing In Line For Death, by CAConrad

Written following the murder of CAConrad’s boyfriend, Earth, While Standing in Line for Death won the 2018 Lamda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. Veering through grief and anger to clarity, it’s a journey through the poet’s depression, containing 18 rituals and the poems that follow them. You can read more about CAConrad’s (Soma)tic Rituals for poetry writing, and learn how to make your own poetry rituals, here.

Unicorn, by Angela Carter

Better known as a novelist, Angela Carter was also a poet. This posthumous collection contains poems written between 1963 and 1971, and shows Carter’s early explorations of myth reworkings and magic. These poems begin to pick up the darker sides of the folklore stories we know, and which Carter expanded on in her later writings, such as The Bloody Chamber. You can read her poem Two Wives and a Widow here in The London Magazine, where it was first published in 1966.

Selected Poems, by Aleister Crowley

This wouldn’t be much of an occult reading list without including Aleister Crowley, would it? A prolific writer of works on the occult, Selected Poems gives a broad look at Crowley’s poetry, including his famous poem Hymn to Pan.  

The Collected Poems, W. B. Yeats

And finally, we cannot mention Aleister Crowley without mentioning his poetic rival, W. B. Yeats. Yeats was also part of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and was one of the members who ousted Crowley from the Order in 1900. Crowley, of course, went on to create his own society, but apparently never overcame his envy of Yeats’ writing talent. Yeats’ own interests in the occult were far-reaching; he claimed that “the mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.” Read The Second Coming here.

Where To Begin? 14 Books To Re-Enchant Your Worldview

Stepping into an esoteric bookshop can feel like clambering through a dark forest. With this list, we hope you will find one of the many crisscrossing paths through those wild woods. The recommendations here are mainly from Western esotericism, but much of what we think of as Western has at some point come from the East. Many of the books below are available to purchase from our friends at Treadwell’s Books in London.

Illustration by Rachael Olga Lloyd

The Book of English Magic by Richard Heygate and Philip Carr-Gomm

England has a long, albeit quiet history of magic. This book takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of our enchanted past through to our magical present. Along the way, the author explores how magic has both fascinated and scared us. We are introduced to scholars who practised alchemy, authors of fantasy and their magical inspirations, some of the places that were sacred to our ancestors or had a significant role in myths and legends, and the Neopagan beliefs alive today.

That Sense of Wonder: How to Capture the Miracles of Everyday Life by Francesco Dimitri

As children, wonder comes naturally to us. I remember lying on my childhood bedroom floor, at 8, surrounded by beautiful books, open atlases and encyclopaedias. The world was vast and exciting then, and I wanted to explore it. Francesco Dimitri argues this simple impulse, wonder, is the driving force behind many works of scientific enquiry and creative endeavours, from the monuments that grace our skylines to the stories and art that move us. Wonder encourages us to light candles in the dark and set forth into unchartered territory in search of something new. This book explores how life sometimes gets in the way of that. Caught up in a society that values certainty over mysteries, distracted by the burden of mortgage repayments and endless bureaucracy, we can lose that sense of wonder; Dimitri reveals how to reclaim it.

Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Arguably one of the best starting points for understanding western occultism, practitioners of ritual magic and literary authors still draw inspiration from Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy today. The books were published in 1531 in Paris, Cologne and Antwerp, and are noted for being more scholarly and intellectual in content than many of the other grimoires around at the time. The three books concern themselves with Elemental, Celestial and Intellectual Magic, and include extracts from obscure work by the thinkers such as Pythagoras and Plato. The topics covered include the classical four elements, Kaballah, astrology, the virtues, scrying, alchemy, ritual magic and geomancy. A tome at 1,024 pages, this doesn’t make for light reading.

The Lesser Key of Solomon - anon

An anonymous grimoire from the mid-17th century, The Lesser Key of Solomon is another occult classic—and a good illustrated introduction to demology. It provides detailed descriptions of its 72 daemons, and instructions for successfully evoking and manipulating them. Amazon reviews warn: “not for beginners.” Most readers will read this out of curiosity, rather than a desire to summon spirits. This text is often referenced in films and novels that involve demons.

The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie

For those who have read Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, the content here will be familiar. Borrowing ideas from Kabbalah, Tarot, Theosophy, Freemasonry, Paganism, Astrology and many more, The Golden Dawn puts forward a viable system of magic. When Israeel Regardie published the teaching of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn after the order’s dissolution, Crowley said the publication of this material was “pure theft,” despite having incorporated ritual magic gained from the order in his own magical system. Regardie wanted to ensure the Golden Dawn ritual system wasn’t lost—and wanted to make these ideas accessible to more people.

The Book of the Law by Aleister Crowley

This short but dense book feels like it was written during a drug-induced high, though Crowley sustained he was merely transcribing the words of a mysterious messenger, Aiwass, who he encountered in the Egyptian desert. The book has however, like the infamous author himself, been hugely influential in the occult. It remains the central text for Thelemites. The central premise, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” is often misunderstood as “descend into anarchy and do whatever the hell you want.” The true meaning is closer to “find your true path.”

The Golden Bough by James Frazer

Published in 1890, The Golden Bough is a wide-ranging study of comparative religion and myth. Authored by the Scottish anthropologist and folklorist James George Frazer, this books documents the similarities and universal motifs among magical and religious beliefs around the world. The mythologist Joseph Campbell drew heavily from it when writing The Hero with a Thousand Faces, describing The Golden Bough as “monumental.”

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell gained international recognition when George Lucas credited this work as influencing the Star Wars Saga. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, published in 1949, chronicles the hero’s journey in its many iterations. It’s a classic still used by screenwriters and authors today. Based on an introduction to myth class he taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Campbell dissects myths, exposing the universal themes disguised beneath the clothing of a specific cultural context. He also considers the relevance of myths to our lives today.

The Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton

Perhaps the definitive academic history of Neopaganism, and in particular of Wicca, one of the fastest growing homegrown new religions. Hutton examines the history of ritual magic, deity worship, cunning folk, 18th century revivalist movements and secret societies through to strands of modern day witchcraft. Many practitioners of magic today claim an unbroken connection with a Pagan past, which Hutton contests. Hutton maintains an unbiased and rigorously academic objectivity, though is never dismissive. Instead, he argues persuasively that the origins of Wicca go beyond Gardner, and sees Neopaganism as an arena for creativity.

Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey

Animism is the belief that all objects, places and creatures possess a soul or spirit. But what relevance does animism have in our modern world? Through a series of case studies, Professor Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. Emphasised is the maltreatment of animism, often patronised by social scientists of the past. As we face global warming, one big takeaway is the ecological implications of animism. Maoris, we’re told, see themselves as “an integral part of nature.” They feel the have “the responsibility to take care of the whenua (land) and, tangata (people).”

The Earth, The Gods, and the Soul by Brendan Myers

Europe's first philosophers were Pagan and The Gods, the Earth, and the Soul restores the spiritual coherence of that intellectual legacy for the modern reader. Arguing the work of ancient sages across Europe sets out Humanism, Pantheism, and Platonism are core tenets, Myers' provides an accessible introduction to each in turn. An inspiring and rigorous review of the moral and conceptual lessons that Pagan ways have to teach.

Witches, Sluts and Feminists by Kristen J. Sollee

“Witch,” like “slut” and “feminist,” has often been used pejoratively. Sollee has noted these terms also pertain to a lineage of resistance. The book presents a compelling argument for reclaiming these terms—and archetypes. The witch, says Solleee, is “someone who can shift perceptions and create change.” We are shown, among other things, how Hillary Clinton was often cast as a witch during her campaign, the reconsideration of the term ‘witch’ during the suffrage movement, and the fear among men of women’s bodily autonomy. The author also reminds us of the continuing persecution of witches in some parts of the world.

What is a Witch? by Pam Grossman

What does the word ‘witch’ evoke for you? Written by Pam Grossman and illustrated by Tin Can Forest, this graphic novel-come-poetry collection-come-grimoire-come-illustrated manuscript is a deep and beautiful reflection on the witch archetype—that ultimate icon of feminine power. “Daughters, mothers, queens, virgins, wives, et al. derive meaning from their relation to another person,” said Grossman in 2013. “Witches, on the other hand, have power on their own terms.”

A Treasury of British Folklore by Dee Dee Chainey

A concise yet entertaining collection of folk stories, legends, and superstitions from Britain. Many of us know about Maypoles, fairies and kelpies, but do we know the beliefs behind them? It becomes apparent while reading that many of our regional stories and rituals derive from a universal need to converse with nature.

Cunning Folk Book Club - July

The Mere Wife

by Maria Dahvana Headley

For our first Cunning Folk book club in July, we’ll be reading Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife.

In this modern reworking of Beowulf, the Old English epic is transplanted to America, where we find ourselves told the story of a woman and her son living in the mountains above a gated community, and its most affluent residence, Herot Hall. In an abandoned train station, using concealment as a form of safety, Dana gives birth alone to a child with teeth. She names him Gren, and worries for his future: “His eyes are black gold. He’s all bones and angles. He’s almost as tall as I am and he’s only seven. To me, he looks like my son. To everyone else? I don’t know. A wonder? A danger? A boy with brown skin?”

Headley’s novel plays with the original text, with reflections and refractions following Dana and Gren, their Herot Hall counterparts Roger and Willa Herot and their son Dylan, and police officer Ben Woolf.

We’re very excited for you to join us for a discussion of this feminist retelling.

Join us at Brill Exmouth Market on Monday 29th July, 7pm. Tickets are on sale here.