Practical Magic: A Beginner’s Guide to Crystals, Horoscopes, Psychics, and Spells

The world of New Age mysticism encompasses a lot of different fields — spirituality, holistic medicine, herbalism, magical studies, astrology, crystals, and more — and it can feel like an overwhelming melange of peculiar, overlapping fields where highfalutin concepts trump actual technique, where ritual overshadows methodology.

Practical Magic helps cut through all the ambiguities of the New Age movement, presenting verifiable facts about these various topics and then spinning outward to explain the more spiritual elements associated with each field. Focusing more on positivity and evoking the most of what you put into these rituals, Practical Magic is informative and engaging, neither patronizing nor overly hippy-dippy.

The pagan-holiday details were particularly interesting, as they tied the ritual aspects into a historical background. (Plus the pronunciation guide helped; I had no idea I’d been mispronouncing Samhain and Beltane all these years!)

Practical Magic is the perfect starting point for skeptics and enthusiasts alike, demystifying the mystical and never making promises it can’t keep. If you’re looking for a magic spellbook or other mumbo-jumbo, cast your gaze elsewhere.