Book Review – The Witch’s Path by Thorn Mooney
I recently read ‘The Witch’s Path’ by Thorn Mooney, a book on advancing your craft at every level. This book had been recommended to me after I tweeted my annoyance at the lack of books for intermediate and advanced witches. I quickly snapped up a copy and got to reading.
Thorn Mooney does an excellent job of putting into words a lot of things I feel about modern witchcraft practices. This is not a book about learning witchcraft, instead this book is a way to refine your practice and help it morph into something sustainable that will fit into your modern life. She helps answer the question ‘What do you do in those moments when you feel stuck, lost, burned out, or just unsure of how to take that next step?
She has grouped exercises by element and experience in your craft so a beginner would read and complete the task listed under air and a wizened elder may complete the earth task. It is a unique way to address people at all levels. I do wish the explanation for each element was listed in a more easily accessible place because I read it at the beginning and could not for the life of me find it again so when you see it, mark the page!
‘The Witch’s Path’ holds a lot of wisdom within its pages. I want to share one favourite quote from the book.
“Other Witches will also inevitably challenge you, whether or not they mean to. As much as we may wish to avoid conflict, it eventually finds us. Sometimes getting uncomfortable – because someone challenges our assumptions, offends our sensibilities, or calls our choices into question – is exactly the thing that kick-starts a new stage in our practice.”
Thorn Mooney includes an excellent Air (beginner) exercise under study skills (pg 151) where she helps the reader critically evaluate their reading material. Something everyone should practice. Some of the questions are.
- Who is the author?
- When was it written?
- Who published it?
- What groups of people are included and more importantly, who is not included?
- What kinds of sources do they cite?
A perfect checklist for developing discernment and critical thinking when reading a book and I applaud her for including this.
She follows this up with “It’s perfectly possible to read something questionable and not be “ruined” by it (and reading only really great books, by the way, is not an assurance of wisdom or moral character).”
As you can see I took a lot out of this book and I do think it deserves a read from all practitioners. The length was just right, not too long as to lose the readers interest and not too short either. I agreed with essentially everything she wrote and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this to anyone on a witchy path.
I give this book 5 out of 5 witches hats.
My witches’ hats rating system:
0 - Problematic, this book should be burned.
1 - Did not like this book, do not read
2 - It was ok, wouldn’t recommend it though.
3 - I liked it but it might not be for everyone
4 - I really liked it and think most people will like it
5 - AMAZING, I loved it and everyone should read it
Meet Hana
Hana O’Neill, the Suburban Witch is a professional Tarot & Astrology reader, Intuitive Coach and the host of the Witch Talks podcast.
