1. my occult archive

opening portals with my esoteric library

Hello, from your resident wyrd-witch, Casey! I’m delighted to be introducing my new substack series all about BOOKS. Borrowed, Bought, and Bookmarked is a series devoted to the archive of my occult library. Some of these books have been haunting my shelves since I was a teenager, others are more recent reads, and each book I share has a story, a message, and a healing note for you, dear reader (you who are likely a creative, magical, interdisciplinary bibliophile too.)

I have been collecting magical, esoteric, occult, poetic, prophetic, and mystic-centered books for a very long time... I have found them at sidewalk sales, in dusty used bookstores, at the library, and in artfully curated shops. I have been suggested titles that changed my life by drunken relatives, by strangers in soup kitchens, and by trusted guides and healers. The red thread woven through this collection is the impact they have made on my magical and spiritual practice, as a witch curating my own personal healing lineage. Perhaps some of these titles and bread crumbs will lead you to your next fountain of inspiration.

Books are portals to other worlds. They are keys to the betwixt and between. They are hedges filled with medicinal remedies, just waiting for us to forge their fruits. May you be nourished and fortified by whatever speaks to your magical quest.

I’m starting this experiment with two books that I read most recently, and one of the most foundational magical books, for both practical and sentimental reasons, in my collection.

BORROWED:

Currently finishing “The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic” by Lindsey Stewart. A powerful education on the backdrop of early American healing and spirituality. Stewart has drawn powerful portraits of the roots of medicine and spirituality from enslaved people, conjurers, a tradition and practice that has been intentionally ignored and repressed from our history books. A must read for any healers, herbalists, and witches working in the so-called United States today. As a witch with settler-colonizer roots, this is an all important read as I relearn our history and ancestral impact.

BOUGHT:

The first book I purchased and finished this year is “In the Dark Places of Wisdom” by Peter Kingsley. Every once and a while I book reaches out of its cover and grabs you by the collar and pulls you in. This book altered my reality, and I have been waiting for it to find me.

I came upon this book at the Pt. Reyes Bookstore after a silent walk on Limantour beach on the anniversary of my mother’s passing. The silence within me was reverberating through me, the sea wind still howling in my ears. A human shell. I picked up the book, and opened it up to this sentence, “If you’re lucky, at some point in your life you will come to a complete dead end.” It’s days like these when everything is an omen, and you just have to listen for the alchemy to take place.

I finished this book in 48 hours. In awe that I had been collecting so many similar fragments over the past few years of what Kingsley so artfully arranged for us here. If you are seeking answers and clues to how humanity has become so untethered from true wisdom, this book will fire up your longing for more mystery, and more magic in all of our lives.

BOOKMARKED:

My first truly very witchy book, which I found at the primed age of seventeen. At the age of wild witchcraft. “A Witches Bible Compleat” by Janet and Steward Farrar came to me by way of an antique mall in Petaluma, right by the Amtrak station. Maybe it’s still there, maybe I will find out… My friends and I had just spent five days backpacking in Point Reyes (a psychic link there) and were killing time as we waited for our train by rummaging through a very disorganized (in the best way) antique mall. I picked up this hefty black book and felt a magnetic dart move through my body. I showed it to my friend KellyJoy and she said matter-of-factly, “Oh yes, my mother had that book. A true witch’s book.” This was all the confirmation I needed.

I took that book home on the train, and later to many places around the world. Thumbing through it in the bath, taking it on hikes with me, practicing ritual with it by daybreak. This book provided me with a footing in Wicca, taught me how to cast a circle, taught me about shadow work and visualization, and introduced me to the gods and goddess of the witches. The included photographs of these British witches from the 60’s working sky-clad was enough to make my teenage heart aflutter (and let’s be honest, still does.)

While I have since learned more about the historical roots of Wicca, and the work of Stewart & Janet Farrar, and have distanced my magical work from their practices, this book was the first to grace my witches altar. It feels like an old friend, a favorite t-shirt (despite a few holes), a stepping stone that will always be in my collection.

MY OCCULT ARCHIVE ~ will be an ongoing series. A space to explore the magical texts that have inspired me, and a love letter to the magic that books unlock on and off the page.

Tell me, have you read any of these titles? What magic have these books inspired for you?

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