Gemma Gary has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 1 narrator, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 8 ratings. The most-rated is Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways.
Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways
Summary
"First published in 2008, this is a revised and expanded second edition of the author's well-received book on modern Cornish traditional witchcraft. As Gemma Gary says in her new preface, there is no 'set in stone' organised witch tradition in Cornwall, and folk magic practices have always been unique to their individual practitioners. However, in this excellent book she has managed to expertly draw together a workable new tradition from historical sources and the surviving rites, charms, and folk customs of Cornwall and the West Country. It provides a valuable resource and guide for beginners interested in practiscing Trad Craft. However this reviewer is sure that experienced practitioners will also learn from its contents. Very highly recommended." (Mike Howard, The Cauldron) "Traditional Witchcraft - A Cornish Book of Ways is a 21st century version of traditional Cornish witchcraft, of the kind recorded by Hunt, Bottrell and others. This is no neo-pagan or modern wiccan manual, but rather a deep drawing up into modern times of some of the ancient practices of lore and magic practised by the white witches, charmers, conjurers and pellars of the Cornish villages. Their presence was still current when the 18th and 19th century antiquarians and collectors recorded them, and, although the 20th century largely put paid to their activities, nevertheless their lore never completely disappeared, and it continues to provide inspiration for practitioners today. Gemma draws on this knowledge, not only from published material, but also from the experiences and workings of 'wise women' and country witches living today. Topics include the Cunning Path, the Dead and the Underworld (Fairy Faith), the Bucca, Places of Power in the villages and landscape, the Tools used by Cunning Folk (working versions of what can be seen, for example, in the Museum of Witchcraft), Village cunning, substances and charms, and Rites of the Year's Round. This book gathers much material together, some of which has not been seen in print before, and thus provides a sourcebook of magical workings in Cornwall today, which will be an invaluable reference." (Cheryl Straffon, Meyn Mamvro)
©2008 Gemma Gary (P)2015 Circle of Spears Productions
The Devil's Dozen
Summary
The operations of magic and witchcraft deal with the hidden worlds of spirit and the powers innate within the natural world: within plant, stone and magical loci. The "Old One", who in folk tradition is often named "The Devil", embodies both the "rend in the veil" and the spanning bridge between the worlds of the material and spiritual, the revealed and the hidden. It is through union with this entity that witches and folk magicians gained access to the powers that reside within the hidden realms and the natural world, and could awaken the potent fire within. In traditional folk belief, the Devil existed also as an embodiment of the chaotic forces of nature, a belief quite distinct and separate from that of the Church with its "Satan" figure. To the witch, he might also represent the "darker" aspects of the divine: the keeper and the revealer of the divine light, the psychopomp guide of souls, and the sentinel at the threshold unto the mysteries of death and the Otherworld. Something, it would seem, of the "elder divinity" and the old "spirit of the wild" has lingered through to the present, permeating regional faery lore, the calendar of ritualistic seasonal folk-customs, and traditions attached to ancient landscape features. The themes of untamed, wild nature: its freedom, its spirits, its power and its magic, so repugnant and threatening to the Church, were grafted onto the diabolical, affording yet greater preservation of the Old One for those who sought to stray from the path of limitation and conformity, and tread instead the hidden ways of the witch and magician. Historical witch-lore records varied rites of initiatory contact, via which the worker of magic and witchcraft entered into a close, working relationship and union with the Old One and the spirit world. Via such union, would the ways unto curing ailments, exorcising ill influence, the attainment of desires, and the destruction of the oppressive be known, and the old artes of the circle, the spirits, the knotted cord, the pierced candle, the witch-bottle, the magical image and the spoken, inscribed and herbal charms be mastered. From this wellspring of inspiration The Devil's Dozen, a modern "gramarye", or "black book" of 13 Craft rites of the Old One has been created and is offered by a present day initiate of the "Old Craft". Within this audiobook there are to be found 13 rites - for both the lone practitioner and the assembled companie - of vision, sacred compact, dedication, initiation, consecration, empowerment, protection, illumination, union, transformation, and devotion. "They are my own creations all; given in hope that they may provide usefulness or inspiration, and each a personal offering of devotion unto the starlit and smoking altar of the Old One"(from the introduction).
©2015 Troy Books (P)2019 Circle of Spears
The Black Toad
Summary
The Black Toad explores potent examples of the folk-ceremonial magical practices and witchcraft of the south-west of England; dealing especially with Devon and the author's homeland of Cornwall. Within the West Country, the popular belief in witchcraft and its attendant charms, magical practices and traditions continued to be observed and survived long after such ways had faded in most other parts of the British Isles. Described within The Black Toad is a collection of some of the fascinating magical practices and lore of the West Country's cunning folk and early modern witches; ways that have survived and evolved within the rarefied Craft of the area's modern day witchcraft practitioners of the old persuasion. As this book affirms, these ways of the Old Craft and Cunning Arte include a belief in and working relationship with the spirit forces of the land, the Faerie, animal and plant lore, as well as the magical use of Psalms to cure or curse, the invocation of Christ and the power of the Holy Trinity. For all those who are interested in learning about the Old Path as it is taught and practised today by West Country witches this book of practical magic and sorcery will be a revelation. As the late Cecil Williamson, founder of the witchcraft museum in Boscastle, North Cornwall and a modern cunning man himself, said and Gemma Gary's excellent book proves - It still goes on today.
©2016 Gemma Gary (P)2017 Circle of Spears Productions