The Untamed Witch: Reclaim Your Instincts. Rewild Your Craft. Create Your Most Powerful Magick.

This handy introduction to witchcraft by witch Pradas (The Complete Grimoire) explores how practitioners can personalize their craft. The author details the basics, which include grounding (strengthening one’s “link to the current moment”); bringing one’s body, mind, soul, and environment into alignment; and tapping into one’s “inner energy.” She encourages readers to develop their own style of magic by considering such questions as “What attracted you to practicing witchcraft?” and “What are your views on death, reincarnation, and the afterlife?” Pradas discusses common methods for practicing magic and notes that candles can be powerful “ritual tools” that are well suited to sending one’s “energy to the web of fate,” while crystals are versatile and can be arranged in geometric patterns to enhance their energies. Exercises include befriending trees by merging their energy with one’s own and creating a personal “wheel of the year” that marks annual events of significance to the practitioner. Pradas’s mix-and-match approach to spirituality is this volume’s greatest asset, though the Taoist and Buddhist influences (she discusses the life force qi and the eightfold path) go underexplored. This thorough primer will appeal to novices who want to practice witchcraft on their own terms. (Oct.)