Casey Zabala’s A Confluence of Witches: A Modern Witches Anthology, is a collection of short essays, thoughts, insights, experience, and spells brought together in one book with the aim of, “reconnect[ing] a generation of witches to a multitude of pathways of practice, philosophy, and spiritual experience.”
A part of the Introduction that particularly resonated with me was where Zabala says that “[g]enuine witchcraft is an anticapitalist project…Nature is not separate from our bodies.” (p.2, Intro). I found myself saying, “Yes! Exactly!”
The book itself is broken into chapters that cover a variety of ideas: moon worship, traditional magick and modern technologies, coven-work, healing… a little something for everyone that might have a specific interest, or curiosity.
Within each chapter is a short essay from a different author, all well practiced within their own traditions and beliefs, that offer insights and new ways of thinking that are helpful for any witch looking to expand their knowledge and understanding of other practices - and of themselves in relation to nature, magic, and spirituality.
Each chapter also has a short preface by Zabala to give an overview of the chapter’s contents, and the ways in which the reader might approach the essays and overarching thoughts contained within – and these prefaces though short, are succinct and thoughtful and well worth reading.
Overall, I think that whatever your specific interest in terms of practice, this book will have something that will catch a reader’s eye and interest.
~review by Mara McTavish
Author: Casey Zabala (Ed.)
Publisher: Weiser Books, 2024
Pp. 208, $18.95 (USD)
