(Editor’s note: While I will often revise or edit reviews I felt that since this one referred to my own work I should leave it alone except to correct a few misspellings.)
Lisa has sent me her latest work on groups and group structure. Like her other works, this is an outstanding book on dynamic and magickal connections.
While she is an excellent writer, this book repeats a lot of material covered in her previous works on the basic structures of groups, what they do, the evolutionary cycle of a group, especially a coven, and what to do when the group relationship sours. (I should explain this a bit; I have a couple unpublished or small circulation works by Lisa in my collection. I have also attended a workshop by her on this topic. That is why I say much of this material is repeated. However, Lisa assures me that this is the first book that has wide circulation in which this material appears and that the previous books I have from her were actually the basis of this book.)
In this book, she explores how to make a healthy group work even better. She talks in depth about maintaining magickal consciousness, how to keep conflict to a minimum and how to resolve conflict when it starts to infiltrate your group.
Lisa does a good job illustrating these concepts with anecdotes of her own life in groups, her cyber coven and its growing pains, and the people she has met over the years. Most of the stories that I read were personal in nature, and the names had been changed to protect the innocent or guilty as needed.
She wisely includes exercises in this book, to help attune you to each other, yourself, the group mind and other purposes.
She also talks extensively about mentoring and the relationship that exists between mentor and protégé. The wisdom she offers will be of help to those who like the mentor/protégé dynamic for teaching others.
Honestly? If I didn’t have her other books, I would buy this one. Having her other books, while there is new information in this, much of the content is repeated. If you have never read or bought her other works, then this is the one you want to get, for it contains all that she has to teach on this topic within the covers. If you are a wise aficionado and have her other works, you may want to skip this one if you are short on money.
What’s my rating for this book? Four out of Five stars for Magickal Connections and Ms. Mc Sherry. Once again it is a needed tome for all those who work as a group leader in any capacity.
~review by Daven
Author: Lisa Mc Sherry
New Page Books, 2007
$14.99
Originally published at: www.davensjournal.com and reproduced here with permission.
Please see our other review at: http://facingnorth.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=755&Itemid=34
