Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

  (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2021). ISBN: 978-0-7387-6445-0 For those who follow my blogs, read my novels, and listen to my podcast, it will come as no surprise that I embraced the opportunity to read and review this book and get to communicate with its talented author. I have been fascinated since I was a boy with all things werewolf and lupine. It of course began with films like The Wolf Man , although, as I got older and embarked on my journey as a writer and spiritual practitioner, I began to explore in increasing depth the history of European werewolves, Viking berserkers, Celtic/Teutonic werewolf lore, Absaroka and Navajo skinwalkers/shapeshifters, and animal totems. I also have a child who, during their teenage years, identified as a therian with a special relationship to the wolf—even wearing a two-foot faux wolf fur tail everywhere they went. First and foremost, I want you to be aware that Werewolf Magick is a serious work of scholarship and magickal pract...

  (Creative Short Book Writers Project, 2022). ISBN: 979-8351885292 At 423 pages, Within Grasp is a considered, detailed exploration of the possibility (probability?) that what was termed God in the Old Testament (and various books that were deemed “apocryphal” or otherwise unworthy [undesirable?] of what became the Bible) was actually extraterrestrial beings advanced enough to appear to humans as god-like . This thesis calls to mind Arthur C. Clarke’s third law that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Using numerous approaches: his own close reads of biblical passages; interviews with reverends, ex-military, spiritual practitioners, and lay people; and the complete texts of the Gospel of Thomas, Book of Enoch, Gospel of Mary, and Apocalypse of Baruch (the latter of which comprise roughly half the book), Wagner presents a compelling case. He also graciously leaves a great deal for us to work through on our own. Although the matter at hand is c...

(Dimensionfold Publishing, 2023). ISBN: 978-1-989940-77-8 As a spiritual practitioner, I believe in using a wide variety of tools in the quest for a fulfilling experience as I walk the “good red road.” Over the past two decades, I have collected a variety of Tarot and other guidance decks for my toolbox. Ranging from the traditional Tarot, to thematic versions (from baseball to pirates), to pathmaking, oracle, angel, archetype, and dream decks, I have used them with varying degrees of satisfaction. Some decks are akin to fortune cookie messages and horoscopes—too general to be of any use. Some get by solely on their images and themes. Several months ago, Barbara M. DeLong, podcast host, author, artist, ordained minister, and “seeker of the mysteries of spirituality,” after being a guest on my podcast to talk about the book she cowrote with Ken Goudsward, Before Roswell (based on the extensive research of her deceased husband), asked me to work with her Cosmic Deck of Initiation. I r...