Review of Besom, Stang & Sword
From this moment on, when someone in North America asks me for a book on Traditional Witchcraft, I will be recommending Besom, Stang & Sword from Christopher Orapello and Tara-Love Maguire. Why? Because this book takes what I feel is the most essential truth of any real Witchcraft and places it front and center: Witchcraft is Local.
Chris and Tara have been profoundly influenced by the scholars and practitioners of European Witchcraft, they know their Chumbley, Huson, and Ginzburg like nobody’s business, but they don’t pretend to be European. They recognize that if you simply mimic the cunning craft of Essex, Cornwall, or Devon that you are on a fools errand. You can call on the Lord and Lady of the Sabbat, but you can you really be said to practice Witchcraft if you do not know the spirits of the land you are dwelling on? I would argue that even the gods choose different masks when called upon in different lands. Thankfully Besom, Stang and Sword gives you not just an introduction to the BlackTree tradition that Chris and Tara founded here in NJ, but an guide to the principals and methods they used to start it. This is what constitutes real traditional craft.
I also appreciate the way that Chris and Tara have embraced the Devil as part of the craft, something that would have been impossible during the satanic panic of the 80’s, but which now should be more or less an accepted idea yet somehow isn’t. They are unafraid to draw upon inquisition records, because lets face it, some of those confessions are not just lies made up to stop torture. Besom, Stang and Sword is also free of the… lets call it cumbersome… writing style that plagues much of the genre. They do not sound like they are trying to win a game of scrabble, gain thesaurus points, or emulate Andrew Chumbley. Like proper New Jersey natives Chris and Tara say what they mean and mean what they say in unpretentious language.
