Women's Voices in Magic

Publisher Marketing: Magical cultures like all communities encode expectations about gender. Women are witches; men are magicians. Women use receptive energy, men use active energy. Intuitive women embody the moon, focus on dreaming and enjoy making things, while intellectual men embody the sun, focus on accomplishment, and enjoy doing ritual. The essays in this book explode gender stereotypes and survey the spectrum of women's experiences in magic. Women are witches, but also ceremonial magicians, Satanists and sex magicians. Women dream, use intuition and make magical tools but they also argue, create ritual, and fiercely contest their right to achievement. In these essays, pregnancy is an occasion for analysis, alchemy exists in the lab and in the kitchen, desire is a path to self-knowledge, and gender itself is a door to the deep contemplation of the meaning of magic. In this book women's voices whisper their secret experiences, narrate lives of women magicians in the past, speak of the usual and the unusual, roar their triumphal discoveries, and sing the joy of life. Contributor Bio:  Williams, Brandy Brandy Williams (Washington) is a Wiccan high priestess and ceremonial magician who has been practicing and teaching magic for over 25 years. In 1997, Williams founded the Seattle Pagan Scholars, and she has served as director ever since. She also is involved with numerous organizations including Ordo Templi Orientis, and the Temple of Light and Darkness, a Ceremonial group based on the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn. She served as President of Covenant of the Goddess in 1990 and 1991. Williams has conducted many lectures and workshops on the subject of practical magic, including the School of Night, an intensive non-denominational course with six other teachers. She also gave a presentation entitled "Wiccan Devotionals" to the Parliament of World Religions in 1993. Williams has made numerous festival appearances and continues to present lectures and workshops about her work.