Book Review: ‘Magicka – Finding Spiritual Guidance through Plants, Herbs, Crystals and More’* by Carlota Santos
Publisher: Artisan / Workman Publishing.
Release Date: 11th July, 2023
About the Author
Carlota Santos is an illustrator living in Spain. In 2020 she began sharing her drawings on instagram as @carlotydes and has now amassed over 160,000 followers. Her works focus on topics related to astrology; teaching in a visual way and from her own perspective, with a touch of humour. She is considered a vibrant and unique voice in astrology.
Her other published works include an astrology book; ‘Signs of the Zodiac’, a tarot deck; ‘Tarot de Carlotydes’ and a jigsaw puzzle featuring illustrations from ‘Signs of the Zodiac’.
About the Book
Here’s the blurb:
“Use the power of magic to uncover your deepest potential.
Discover how ancient body rituals and traditions can help us get in touch with our spiritual side, take better care of our mental health and physical selves, and forge a deeper connection with nature. Start by setting up an altar in your home with candles, incense, salt, and the day’s tarot card. Plant your own herbarium. There are instructions for charging crystals, keeping a grimoire (a magic journal), reading palms, writing in runes, and working with a Ouija board. Filled with beautiful illustrations and ancient knowledge on everything from the meaning of each month’s moon to the cycle of pagan holidays and how to celebrate them, Magicka is a tool kit for true self-exploration, helping you to focus your intention, trust your intuition, and see what’s so often invisibility in our daily lives.”
My Thoughts
Let’s start with what I liked most about this book – the illustrations! Carlota’s art style is beautiful and adds so much value to the book, particularly in the herb and crystal sections. That’s probably part of the reason those chapters were amongst my favourites.
As well as beautiful representations of the herbs and plants, there is useful information relating to their element, planet, place of origin, medicinal and magical properties. Any good witch would have a go to herb reference guide like this. Similarly, the chapter exploring crystals contains all the necessary information regarding, cleaning and charging your crystals, their properties, and again stunning illustrations of crystals in their various forms.
My favourite chapter was the one devoted to the wheel of the year. As this is a starting point for most new witches, it details everything you need to honour the various festivals. There are a few pages dedicated to each festival. As well as key information about the traditions, it features ideas for decorating your altar, lovely spells, ritual baths and food and drink recipes to try.
The astrology chapter is probably the most informative and useful, as this is obviously the authors specialism. Carlota has already written a full book dedicated to the zodiac. She shares ideas about working with the moon phases and useful, quick, bite size guides for the moon phases in the twelve zodiac signs. This chapter did make me want to check out Carlota’s astrology book, ‘Signs of the Zodiac’ as it is her area of expertise. I found the overall layout of information; using tables, charts and diagrams, along with the illustrations and text to be more enjoyable, and easier to read and digest.
As Carlota has created a tarot deck, you’ll find the divination section mostly comprises of tarot, and explores interpretations of the major arcana accompanied with illustrations of the cards from the ‘Tarot de Carlotydes’.
‘Magicka’ is aimed at beginners and explores a very traditional path in terms of the magical content discussed. The information, however, is quite ‘bitty’, in that it gives a brief overview of the key areas. For example, when it comes to explaining a protection circle it focuses on ‘drawing’ and ‘visualising’. There is no background provided as to why a circle may be cast, how it works or the key energies needed to create it. Personally, I don’t believe a beginner would be able to cast an effective circle from the little information given. It seems the information provided, especially at the beginning of the book, is more of an introduction to the topics and further reading would be needed to start any practical magic.
Whilst reading the book I came across a few issues; things that I wouldn’t expect to see in a new, contemporary release. Whilst explaining ‘basic concepts’ the terms ‘white’ and ‘black’ magic are used. Most witches and magic users today would consider these labels outdated and prefer to use light and dark to distinguish between the two magic types. I believe that using the most up to date terminology is especially important in books for beginners. People new to magic don’t have much familiarity with the concepts, therefore don’t understand the historical context behind the language choice and the potential harm caused when using it. In most of the new releases I have read the author will explain why certain terms are no longer used.
In a similarly way, the author refers to ‘smudging’ and ‘smudge’ sticks when what they are referring to is smoke cleansing using incense or bundles of herbs. Smudging is a sacred ritual specific to indigenous people in the Americas and has tools and ceremony surrounding it. What most people are doing when cleansing a space using bundled herbs is smoke cleansing. I myself made this mistake when I first started practicing, however again, I would hope authors writing new books would aim to be up-to-date with their knowledge of practices.
Although these discrepancies did make me a little wary when reading the rest of the book, I am sure the author meant no harm, and there is still a lot of good information and ideas throughout. Overall it is a lovely book with the illustrations being a stand out feature. The content is good as a starting point, specifically for beginners who are looking to follow a traditional magical or witchcraft path, but more in-depth reading would be needed to develop a deeper understanding.
*Book was gifted by the publisher in exchange for a review.