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Magic Maker: The Enchanted Path to Creativity
“Rich descriptions of creativity and magic are paired with a practical roadmap for making a life in devotion to both.” —Jessica Dore, author of Tarot for Change
A magical guide to enhancing your creative process, from “the Terry Gross of witches” (Vulture)
Creativity and magic are one and the same.
Creative people often speak of being channels for inspiration, while others refer to communing with their muse. For many, this is more than mere metaphor, as artists throughout history have employed magical techniques to tap into their creativity, express powerful messages, and make contact with the sacred. From the songwriting divination of David Bowie and the bewitching shapeshifting of Beyoncé, to the Ouija board poetry sessions of Sylvia Plath and the abstract painting séances of Hilma af Klint, to the manifestation method of Octavia E. Butler and the daily meditation of David Lynch, mystical practices have been responsible for generating some of the world’s most beloved creations. While there are many books on creativity out there, none of them examines the specific ways that magic has been embraced by creative visionaries throughout history, nor do they explore how makers can start using these methods in their own creative processes.
Magic Maker is the first. In this book, critically acclaimed author of Waking the Witch Pam Grossman shares how you can use magic to enhance your own creative practices.
Smart, captivating, and gorgeously written, Magic Maker is filled with stories of artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and other creatives throughout history who have applied magic to their process. Grossman shows us how we can tap into the same inspiration for our own creative pursuits, whether it’s writing a song, a novel, software code, or figuring out our path in life.
Delving into topics such as spellcasting, invocation, spirit communication, divination, and more, Grossman provides an enchanting and practical guide for anyone who wants to unlock their own creative magic and make whatever it is you’re meant to in this lifetime.
A magical guide to enhancing your creative process, from “the Terry Gross of witches” (Vulture)
Creativity and magic are one and the same.
Creative people often speak of being channels for inspiration, while others refer to communing with their muse. For many, this is more than mere metaphor, as artists throughout history have employed magical techniques to tap into their creativity, express powerful messages, and make contact with the sacred. From the songwriting divination of David Bowie and the bewitching shapeshifting of Beyoncé, to the Ouija board poetry sessions of Sylvia Plath and the abstract painting séances of Hilma af Klint, to the manifestation method of Octavia E. Butler and the daily meditation of David Lynch, mystical practices have been responsible for generating some of the world’s most beloved creations. While there are many books on creativity out there, none of them examines the specific ways that magic has been embraced by creative visionaries throughout history, nor do they explore how makers can start using these methods in their own creative processes.
Magic Maker is the first. In this book, critically acclaimed author of Waking the Witch Pam Grossman shares how you can use magic to enhance your own creative practices.
Smart, captivating, and gorgeously written, Magic Maker is filled with stories of artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and other creatives throughout history who have applied magic to their process. Grossman shows us how we can tap into the same inspiration for our own creative pursuits, whether it’s writing a song, a novel, software code, or figuring out our path in life.
Delving into topics such as spellcasting, invocation, spirit communication, divination, and more, Grossman provides an enchanting and practical guide for anyone who wants to unlock their own creative magic and make whatever it is you’re meant to in this lifetime.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published October 14, 2025
55 people are currently reading
2241 people want to read
About the author
Pam Grossman
13 books409 followersPam Grossman is a writer, curator, and teacher of magical practice and history. She is the host of The Witch Wave podcast (“the Terry Gross of Witches” - Vulture) and the author of Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power (Gallery Books) and What Is A Witch (Tin Can Forest Press). She is also co-editor of the WITCHCRAFT volume for Taschen’s Library of Esoterica series. Her book Magic Maker: The Enchanted Path to Creativity will be out on Oct 14, 2025 (Penguin Life).
Her group art shows and projects, including Language of the Birds: Occult and Art at NYU’s 80WSE Gallery, have been featured by such outlets as Artforum, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art in America, New York Magazine, and Teen Vogue.
Pam’s writing has appeared in numerous mediums, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, TIME.com, and Ms. Magazine. She has maintained Phantasmaphile, a blog that specializes in art with an esoteric or fantastical bent, since 2005.
She is also the co-organizer of the biennial Occult Humanities Conference at NYU, Associate Editor of Abraxas International Journal of Esoteric Studies, and co-founder of the Brooklyn arts & lecture space, Observatory (2009-2014), where her programming explored mysticism via a scholarly yet accessible approach.
Pam is a frequent lecturer on such topics as “The Occult in Modern Art 101,” and “Witch Pictures: Feminine Magic and Transgression in Western Art,” and she also teaches classes on spellcraft and ritual. As a featured guest on WNYC’s All of It, NPR’s 1A, HuffPost LIVE, and myriad other radio shows and podcasts, she has discussed the role of magic in contemporary life. She has also consulted for such brands as Charlotte Tilbury and Treadwell’s Books, as well as for film and television, including The Craft: Legacy (Blumhouse/Sony Pictures).
Her group art shows and projects, including Language of the Birds: Occult and Art at NYU’s 80WSE Gallery, have been featured by such outlets as Artforum, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art in America, New York Magazine, and Teen Vogue.
Pam’s writing has appeared in numerous mediums, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, TIME.com, and Ms. Magazine. She has maintained Phantasmaphile, a blog that specializes in art with an esoteric or fantastical bent, since 2005.
She is also the co-organizer of the biennial Occult Humanities Conference at NYU, Associate Editor of Abraxas International Journal of Esoteric Studies, and co-founder of the Brooklyn arts & lecture space, Observatory (2009-2014), where her programming explored mysticism via a scholarly yet accessible approach.
Pam is a frequent lecturer on such topics as “The Occult in Modern Art 101,” and “Witch Pictures: Feminine Magic and Transgression in Western Art,” and she also teaches classes on spellcraft and ritual. As a featured guest on WNYC’s All of It, NPR’s 1A, HuffPost LIVE, and myriad other radio shows and podcasts, she has discussed the role of magic in contemporary life. She has also consulted for such brands as Charlotte Tilbury and Treadwell’s Books, as well as for film and television, including The Craft: Legacy (Blumhouse/Sony Pictures).
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 10, 2025
I could go on and on about Pam Grossman. I am such a huge fan, but I'll keep it to my review of the book itself.
The Enchanted Path to Creativity indeed. As an aspiring author myself, this piece of art gave me the inspiration to continue writing a novel I started earlier this year and have unfortunately neglected since the summer. Thanks Pam.
I absolutely loved this book, and per usual with any of her media, podcast, or work, I will listen over and over, take notes, add my own thing, and apply it. Even outside of being an artistic inspiration, this book is very informative and well researched.
The Enchanted Path to Creativity indeed. As an aspiring author myself, this piece of art gave me the inspiration to continue writing a novel I started earlier this year and have unfortunately neglected since the summer. Thanks Pam.
I absolutely loved this book, and per usual with any of her media, podcast, or work, I will listen over and over, take notes, add my own thing, and apply it. Even outside of being an artistic inspiration, this book is very informative and well researched.
October 26, 2025
My slam-dunk pitch for this book: it’s The Creative Act, add witchcraft. Grossman is a respected teacher of magical practice with a wildly popular podcast (The Witch Wave) and several lauded books about the subject under her belt. Her writing is both sophisticated and accessible—Grossman’s guidelines for weaving spirituality and magic into creative work are refreshingly intersectional and allow for plenty of modification and personal interpretation.
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December 16, 2025Magic Maker: The Enchanted Path to Creativity by Pam Grossman explores creativity and magic as inseparable forces: spellcasting and invocation, divination and spirit communication, all in service of making whatever it is you’re meant to make. A song, a novel, a path through this strange world.
She writes about preparatory rituals and consciousness-shifting, about anointment and adornment and alter egos, about the tingly sensation of being “activated” when Big Inspiration strikes. About how chaos must shimmer behind the veil of order—the way the back of embroidered work is a riot of tangled threads and knots, what I call “the nightmare side” of any pristine creative surface. Her references range from Remedios Varo to Orville Peck, from Chelsea Wolfe to Beyoncé to Prince, from David Lynch talking about catching big fish in the depths to André Breton insisting that all art is magical in its genesis. She describes ekphrasis as speaking out about a piece of art and adding your own embellishments through unique interpretation, which made me sit up and think: that’s exactly how I write about art. Magic, she says, is an intentional means of collaborating with Creative Force to transform a state of being, and creativity is the truest expression of our magic. They’re the ouroboros eating its tail, the lemniscate looping forever—two sides of the same sparkling coin, flipped and spinning through infinite possibility.
I haven’t finished this book yet. Normally I would wait until the end before writing about anything, and there was that familiar pull to rush through it, to consume it all at once so I could discuss it properly and give you the full picture. But I think it’s actually more helpful to write about a book like this in stages because it is teeming with insight and revelations. There’s so much here to absorb and sit with. I can always come back and write more later. But I prefer to experience Pam’s books parceled out more slowly, letting each idea land and resonate before moving to the next, giving them space to breathe and bloom and burrow their way through my wriggly brain noodles, setting off sparks and lighting up pathways and making unexpected connections.
I’ve been in awe of Pam’s work for what feels like forever now; she’s been a continual source of inspiration, and what she does thrills me to the deepest gloops of my marrow. We’ve known each other online for nearly twenty years, fellow travelers on similar creative wavelengths, sharing the same fascination with where art and magic collide. Her words have this particular power to bewitch and transport, to ensorcell you completely, leaving you utterly immersed and somehow changed. I trust her to take me places both wondrous and magical.
Essential for anyone who’s ever felt that tingle beneath their skin when inspiration strikes, for those who understand that getting out of your own way means making space for something grander to move through you, for anyone who wants to see their tangled nightmare-side threads as proof of magic working rather than evidence of mess, and for those ready to remember that making and magic have always been the same shimmering, infinite thing.
She writes about preparatory rituals and consciousness-shifting, about anointment and adornment and alter egos, about the tingly sensation of being “activated” when Big Inspiration strikes. About how chaos must shimmer behind the veil of order—the way the back of embroidered work is a riot of tangled threads and knots, what I call “the nightmare side” of any pristine creative surface. Her references range from Remedios Varo to Orville Peck, from Chelsea Wolfe to Beyoncé to Prince, from David Lynch talking about catching big fish in the depths to André Breton insisting that all art is magical in its genesis. She describes ekphrasis as speaking out about a piece of art and adding your own embellishments through unique interpretation, which made me sit up and think: that’s exactly how I write about art. Magic, she says, is an intentional means of collaborating with Creative Force to transform a state of being, and creativity is the truest expression of our magic. They’re the ouroboros eating its tail, the lemniscate looping forever—two sides of the same sparkling coin, flipped and spinning through infinite possibility.
I haven’t finished this book yet. Normally I would wait until the end before writing about anything, and there was that familiar pull to rush through it, to consume it all at once so I could discuss it properly and give you the full picture. But I think it’s actually more helpful to write about a book like this in stages because it is teeming with insight and revelations. There’s so much here to absorb and sit with. I can always come back and write more later. But I prefer to experience Pam’s books parceled out more slowly, letting each idea land and resonate before moving to the next, giving them space to breathe and bloom and burrow their way through my wriggly brain noodles, setting off sparks and lighting up pathways and making unexpected connections.
I’ve been in awe of Pam’s work for what feels like forever now; she’s been a continual source of inspiration, and what she does thrills me to the deepest gloops of my marrow. We’ve known each other online for nearly twenty years, fellow travelers on similar creative wavelengths, sharing the same fascination with where art and magic collide. Her words have this particular power to bewitch and transport, to ensorcell you completely, leaving you utterly immersed and somehow changed. I trust her to take me places both wondrous and magical.
Essential for anyone who’s ever felt that tingle beneath their skin when inspiration strikes, for those who understand that getting out of your own way means making space for something grander to move through you, for anyone who wants to see their tangled nightmare-side threads as proof of magic working rather than evidence of mess, and for those ready to remember that making and magic have always been the same shimmering, infinite thing.
December 9, 2025
This book traces the connection between magic, spirituality, and the making of art. This transcends culture, region, and time, and Grossman has done extensive research on how interconnected the world of spirituality and the world of art, truly are. This is not a "how to" or a "workbook" per see; it is an overview, a scope or lens, at how we can look at the act of creation as an act of worship of divinity or connection. I appreciated the section on the "demons" that set up back (perfectionism, imposter syndrome, lethargy, etc) as well as another section on how to release your work into the world. I read this book slowly, as I was also reading Word Witch by Kate Belew. These two books and voices became part of my morning ritual of dialog and growth.
November 9, 2025
Came across this book at my fav book shop on the venice board walk, opened to a random page that said "I make a living as a writer and a witch" and immediately bought. Absolutely loved this book. I've read a lot of creativity craft book which often all highlight similar themes (blocks, how to get into creative flow, etc.) but finding one with a magical lens on it was so lovely.
The poetic language - flashlight vision & twilight vision, there was so much that felt like it was plucked out of my own head (<< scarcity demon, iykyk).
If you are a creative witch: a must read!!
The poetic language - flashlight vision & twilight vision, there was so much that felt like it was plucked out of my own head (<< scarcity demon, iykyk).
If you are a creative witch: a must read!!
December 20, 2025
I loved this book! Will be rereading it throughout my life. Thank you, Pam, for being.
November 3, 2025
As with Waking the Witch, I am joyfully predisposed to love Magic Maker because I know and love Pam. But I am here to tell you that you are going to love this book too, especially if you are looking to invite more creativity into your life. The writing is hilarious and insightful, often in the same sentence, and Pam brings her deep erudition to the intertwining of spirituality and creation.
Bottom line: you finish every chapter inspired to pick up your tools and make something.
Bottom line: you finish every chapter inspired to pick up your tools and make something.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews