It's been a hot minute since we talked about this book.
Once upon a time, a young teenage witch—proudly and unabashedly calling herself a Christian Witch—went looking for books to tell her how to approach her unorthodox and mysterious new spiritual path. However, with Amazon link after Ebay page after very poorly formatted blog post, she found little more than fluff. Memoirs, personal opinions, books on "Trinitarian Wicca" (which was not what Little Christian Witch was looking for), and obviously self published books that made circular, confusing arguments: that was all that was available.
2011 was a rough time to be a Christian Witch—especially in the wake of all the Wicca-influenced stuff that was still going strong at the time.
Fast forward to today, and it seems you can find books on Christian Witchcraft just about anywhere. On Amazon, there's a good deal of books with Christian and Witch somewhere in the title. More than just the one single Adeline St. Clair memoir, The Path of a Christian Witch, there are books promising beginner guides and "initiation rites" (which still confuses the now older Christian Witch) and a plethora of specialized books, like Jesus and the Goddess, Jesus Through Pagan Eyes, When God Had a Wife, Magic in Christianity, and much, much more.
And yet there's still nothing that this Christian Witch, now twelve years a practitioner, would say catches her eye. Nothing properly academic. Nothing that gives Biblica, historical, and modern justification and account for the concept of Christian Witchcraft.
At least, there won't be until early 2024.
This Christian Witch, Sara (@srazzie97)—and her partner, Mimi, or @feralsouthernhousewife—are in the thick of things, pulling together an introductory resource that provides a roadmap for where beginners in this path need to go. It provides Biblical and historical context, explores the magic of Christian folk throughout the ages, and gives real, practical tips and information on things as simple, yet oven undiscussed, as what the very thing we call magic even is.
Today, I'd like to update you a bit on where we are, as well as give you an overview of what's in it.
The General Flow of Discovering Christian Witchcraft
As Mimi and I got to writing, we decided we needed five sections on Christian Witchcraft:
The breakdown of some of the most common Old and New Testament verses used against witchcraft (and why they don't say what people think they do
The political, cultural, and personal argument for Christian witchcraft, as well as modes of deconstruction and yet more sociopolitical context into how the word Witch shifted so much to begin with
The "fun stuff": learning about magical tools, divination, creating spells, and getting an understanding of what magic is in itself
The discussion of the "Unseen World," namely focusing on angels, demons, and nature spirits, as well as their place in Christian witchcraft.
These groups of topics create a comprehensive overview of everything the budding magician would need to know to get their feet wet and get more comfortable in the world of witchcraft. However, it should be noted that this isn't a compendium of any kind; it's not a massive tome full of everything one could ever know (as I don't think such a book is even possible). But it is something that will give the witch their basics and show them where they might look for more information on any of the specialized topics that are touched on within.
Interested in angels and demons? You have the basics to start with.
Interested in finding a divination tool you like? It's easy to start making heads or tails of them with this book.
Interested in the political and cultural shifts and arguments for a new mode of religion? By God, is this book a good one.
Interested in just getting the knowledge to put your family at ease (or shut up the wayward naysayer online) around witchcraft and the Bible? That's the very first part of the book.
All in all, Mimi and I expect this to be a wonderful, easy to digest, and solid resource for the beginner to get their bearings and situate their identity in facts and sturdy philosophy before they go further into other aspects of the craft they're interested in.
When Does Discovering Christian Witchcraft Come Out? How Far Along is the Book?
When Mimi and I announced this book last spring, we knew people were dismayed with the date, because it was an entire year away: March 1, 2024 (Mimi's birthday!).
But books like these take time. As is the case with most writing, what you see on the page is only a fraction of what the author knows, because while I'm sure everyone would love to become an expert overnight in these topics, the fact is that it takes a long time to curate, read, notate, and then properly present the many scattered sources of information a "simple" introductory guide requires. I mean, do you want to sift through over 9,000 pages of a PDF rendition of St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica just to get to the source of where we understand our angel hierarchies? Or keep track of the arguments in the 500 page philosophical yarn ball that gets unraveled in Jurgen Moltmann's The Crucified God? Probably not. That's why this book is being created: so you don't have to do that. Because it's too much for someone just trying to make heads or tails of how this path is even possible in the first place!
Now, you'll notice it's October. That means this book is only five months away. In the next few months, you can anticipate a lot of activity (and activity not unlike the flurry of logistical stuff that came with Where the Gods Left Off). Luckily, this is a much more straightforward book than that one, which means that formatting and designing this won't take as much time, but boy, it'll be a long haul nonetheless.
The timeline, for those wondering what a book writing life looks like behind the scenes for us independent presses (which Sveta Lisica is), goes like this:
October/mid-November: finish writing rough draft
Mid-November: Large scale edits and shifting of content into second draft
December: edit second draft into final (and get some beta readers, if possible).
January: format final manuscript for print and ebook
February: order print copies for pre-orders and finalize ebook format
March: Ship first books and celebrate a good launch!
Trust me when I say this timeline will creep up on us. Sooner than we know, it'll be February, and I'll be losing my mind with those final details. But if we made Where the Gods Left Off happen, then by God, we can make basically anything happen (because that absolute monster of a book came together in about three months, believe it or not—from editing and re-writing chapters to formatting the entire fifty interview set). There was a good 24-hour stint in there, as well as multiple "I'm only getting three or four hours of sleep" days. It is what it is.
But that's the plan for Discovering Christian Witchcraft! If you're excited and want to get in on the first print, then all you need to do is go grab that bad boy from my shop (or pre-order the ebook on Amazon, if that's what you're into). Check it out!
Sara Raztresen is a Slovene-American writer, screenwriter, and Christian witch. Her fantasy works draw heavily on the wisdom she gathers from her own personal and spiritual experience, and her s
piritual practice borrows much of the whimsy and wonder that modern society has relegated to fairy-and-folktale. Her goal is to help people regain their spiritual footing and discover
God through a new (yet old) lens of mysticism.
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