What do you think?
Rate this book
Witchcraft: A Mystery Tradition
Understanding the Mystery Teachings of Witchcraft is essential for anyone wishing to enrich their Craft. World-renowned author and scholar Raven Grimassi guides readers down the well-worn path to these Mystery traditions by exploring their roots in myths, legends, verses, and lore.
A Mystery Tradition provides a cultural and mythical context that helps readers gain insight into these Mystery themes. Drawing upon the long-standing traditional European Witchcraft and occult concepts and tenets, Grimassi constructs a cohesive mythos that supports and unifies the Sabbats and their associated deities. Also provided are techniques for aligning with the "momentum of the past," a powerful current of knowledge and energy available to all Witches.
A Mystery Tradition provides a cultural and mythical context that helps readers gain insight into these Mystery themes. Drawing upon the long-standing traditional European Witchcraft and occult concepts and tenets, Grimassi constructs a cohesive mythos that supports and unifies the Sabbats and their associated deities. Also provided are techniques for aligning with the "momentum of the past," a powerful current of knowledge and energy available to all Witches.
288 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2004
4 people are currently reading
219 people want to read
About the author
Raven Grimassi
47 books112 followersRaven Grimassi was an American author of over 20 books, and a scholar of paganism with over 40 years of research and study in the genre of Wicca, Stregheria, witchcraft and neo-paganism.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 30, 2018
2.5 stars rounded up – Worth reading but you don’t need to own a copy.
This is a decent book that I recommend to anyone freshly interested in Wicca, especially if they are in that early “wow!” obsessive phase and do not have access to a teacher. It covers basic background material that is an important part of understanding the meanings of Wiccan practice.
This book introduces basic concepts that are part of the Mystery Tradition – yes, I also use capitals out of respect. I also respect the difficulties that come with writing about a Tradition. The book will usually fall short because the author is limited. As a result, this book is not all “advanced” in my opinion and even has points and approaches I disagree with . I will say it is a potentially great inspiration that will encourage beginners to look deeper.
Some points I appreciated in this book:
• Emphasis in mythology
• Studying the Wheel if the Year. This book covered basics that aren’t tradition-specific. The formal and profound study of the Wheel of the Year is an essential part of the mysticism of Wicca.
• Emphasis of the importance of the altar
• Discussing the “Return”- what do you do with what you’ve learned?
• The Baphomet reference in the appendix, explained just enough, especially when combined with the earlier part of the book.
This book contains some rituals, but I do not recommend them and would instead suggest a beginner obtain a book that has a full set of rituals for the 8 Sabbats and the Full Moons.
In the future I will write more about how one can go deeper and advance their practice. In the meanwhile, do read Campbell, Jung, and commit to your practice.
This is a decent book that I recommend to anyone freshly interested in Wicca, especially if they are in that early “wow!” obsessive phase and do not have access to a teacher. It covers basic background material that is an important part of understanding the meanings of Wiccan practice.
This book introduces basic concepts that are part of the Mystery Tradition – yes, I also use capitals out of respect. I also respect the difficulties that come with writing about a Tradition. The book will usually fall short because the author is limited. As a result, this book is not all “advanced” in my opinion and even has points and approaches I disagree with . I will say it is a potentially great inspiration that will encourage beginners to look deeper.
Some points I appreciated in this book:
• Emphasis in mythology
• Studying the Wheel if the Year. This book covered basics that aren’t tradition-specific. The formal and profound study of the Wheel of the Year is an essential part of the mysticism of Wicca.
• Emphasis of the importance of the altar
• Discussing the “Return”- what do you do with what you’ve learned?
• The Baphomet reference in the appendix, explained just enough, especially when combined with the earlier part of the book.
This book contains some rituals, but I do not recommend them and would instead suggest a beginner obtain a book that has a full set of rituals for the 8 Sabbats and the Full Moons.
In the future I will write more about how one can go deeper and advance their practice. In the meanwhile, do read Campbell, Jung, and commit to your practice.
January 16, 2014
I don't really know what Grimassi was going for here. I am a well read witch of many years, but not very keen on Wicca or its pop-culture offspring 'Solitary Wicca' aka 'Neo-Wicca'. This book sets itself up as some sort of wisdom-filled peek into a mystery tradition (which the author actually calls Mystery Tradition Witchcraft....everything is capitalized, so it must be important, right?) but ultimately fails to live up to that hype.
This is a strange amalgam of Neo-Wicca and British Traditional Witchcraft, though the latter has been watered down to a near-unrecognizable set of vague archetypal niceties. This book had little purpose, and the chapters were just kind of thrown together. There was no sense of introduction, theory, details, then conclusion. The tone stayed the same throughout the book, just relaying some random details without explaining the significance of them.
The author also tried to draw comparisons between Classical deities and Celtic/Gaelic deities, even including an appendix with a neat little chart -- but I have to ask: why? What's the point of forcing these comparisons? How is this relevant to me or my work? I found myself asking the same question throughout the book.
I don't often read intro books, especially those by Llewellyn authors, but I thought I'd give this one a shot because it seemed less Wicca-related. I don't know if it's just a mark of the genre or publisher, but I found myself very disappointed with the utter lack of detail or synthesis of the information. Works were referenced and cited (quite clumsily, I might add, in the middle of the text) without much reason or explanation. It really felt like a high-school essay that was desperately trying to convince the reader that it did, in fact, have a thesis, when in reality there are only a few very vague ideas that the author is working from.
All in all, I am highly unsatisfied with the content, and I do not know how a beginner would even be able to put this information to use in its current form. If you're looking for a good book on witchcraft, try Paul Huson. If you're looking for Wicca, try Thea Sabin, or, ya'know, the actual founders of Wicca -- they wrote books and things.
This is a strange amalgam of Neo-Wicca and British Traditional Witchcraft, though the latter has been watered down to a near-unrecognizable set of vague archetypal niceties. This book had little purpose, and the chapters were just kind of thrown together. There was no sense of introduction, theory, details, then conclusion. The tone stayed the same throughout the book, just relaying some random details without explaining the significance of them.
The author also tried to draw comparisons between Classical deities and Celtic/Gaelic deities, even including an appendix with a neat little chart -- but I have to ask: why? What's the point of forcing these comparisons? How is this relevant to me or my work? I found myself asking the same question throughout the book.
I don't often read intro books, especially those by Llewellyn authors, but I thought I'd give this one a shot because it seemed less Wicca-related. I don't know if it's just a mark of the genre or publisher, but I found myself very disappointed with the utter lack of detail or synthesis of the information. Works were referenced and cited (quite clumsily, I might add, in the middle of the text) without much reason or explanation. It really felt like a high-school essay that was desperately trying to convince the reader that it did, in fact, have a thesis, when in reality there are only a few very vague ideas that the author is working from.
All in all, I am highly unsatisfied with the content, and I do not know how a beginner would even be able to put this information to use in its current form. If you're looking for a good book on witchcraft, try Paul Huson. If you're looking for Wicca, try Thea Sabin, or, ya'know, the actual founders of Wicca -- they wrote books and things.
January 7, 2026
One of those books I wanted to like, but I didn't. Mostly because I had a persistent feeling of being conned while reading it.
This book wants to argue a very simple thing: there is a consistent religious tradition that, in various forms, has shown up in European and Middle-Eastern history from prehistory onwards in the form of witchcraft. It changed in various contexts, took new forms where it had to, but there's a thread running throughout it all, in that it's essentially a mystery religion surrounding life, death and fertility, often with a similar set of motifs revolving around a god and a goddess.
I have a complicated opinion on witchcraft and neopaganism. I'm frequently annoyed by many of the ways it behaves, especially in its relationship with history, but at the same time I'm always at least a little charmed by it. I picked this book up on a lark in a bookshop in Edinburgh, because it looked interesting enough, and a book that tried to give an actual theological grounding to the whole affair seemed like it might be worthwhile, especially when compared with the many generic "here's how to manifest all the money you want by burning incense" books that dominate the market.
Unfortunately, the focus Grimassi puts on history in this book falls flat. So much of it is just... well some of it is wrong, but on some level one can't be too upset by this, as it's a book from around the turn of the millennium. But a lot of it is... a bit weaselly. I hate to use that word here but that's how it comes accross. It often references something real, but twists it in such a way as to support the author's preconceived notions, rather than to accurately reflect it.
Take page 81 for instance, where there is a short discussion of Hecate as a triform goddess. Grimassi makes a passive aggressive remark about "historians", and Hutton specifically, denying the fact that witches worshipped a triform goddess. But of course, in the Pharsalia, Lucan has a witch say "Persephone, who is the third and lowest aspect of our goddess Hecate." Grimassi then links this to quotes about witches worshipping Hecate, Diana and Proserpina in Horace, and Medea referencing a threefold goddess in Ovid. He then goes on to link this further with the ancient idea of the threefold maiden-mother-crone goddess.
Great, right? He's clearly offered evidence that the historical view is wrong and the maiden-mother-crone goddess figure so beloved by modern pagans can be traced back to ancient Greece.
Well. Not quite.
First off, he misrepresents the passage. He specifically cites an 1889 translation of book 6 of the Pharsalia by Henry T. Riley (a bit old, but sometimes the older ones are the only public domain ones so I get it.) But there it reads "Persephone [...] who art the lowest form of our Hecate." The "third" part is in fact nowhere to be found in the Latin text of the Pharsalia. And the passage itself is somewhat ambiguous, it can be translated as if Persephone and Hecate are two separate entities (though a translation linking the two is of course still plausible.)
Riley does speculate in a footnote that this implies that Persephone might be part of a triad with Hecate and Diana (as respectively an underworld, earth and celestial aspect of the same deity). But this is pure speculation on his part. But this brings us to another issue. No modern historian would deny that there is a triple aspect to Hecate. In many cult statues, she is plainly depicted with either three bodies or with three heads. Similarly, she does sometimes form a part of a triad of deities, such as Hecate-Artemis-Selene, though this was by no means always the case.
What modern historians usually criticise isn't the idea of Hecate specifically as a triform goddess. What they criticise is the idea that a maiden-mother-crone goddess figure specifically was a common feature in older pre-christian religions in the Levant and Europe, or was applied to Hecate. And indeed, this criticism holds. When Hecate is depicted in a triform manner, it's usually with three pretty much identical looking bodies, or with three heads, either pretty much identical to each other, or with some animal heads. Never as a triad of different ages (the same goes for the Matronae/Matres of Northern Europe, who Grimassi also draws in as triform goddesses, even though they appear in different amounts in different places and also usually look identical or very similar) The various proposed triads don't fit at all either, since you always have to awkwardly fit the deities involved into a hole to make it fit the maiden-mother-crone mould.
And this shouldn't surprise us, because the entire idea derives from the 20th century writer Robert Graves, from which they were taken up and developed by later pagans.
So you see what Grimassi did there? He found a passage in what is not a religious work in the first place, which might gesture at some form of syncretism between Hecate and Persephone and some sort of association between these figures and witches. He alters how he presents it to more clearly fit his ideas. He frames it against a strawman of what historians are saying so as to discredit them. And then brings in this completely different idea of the Maiden-Mother-Crone.
It enables him to end that section with "the triformis goddess encompasses all aspects of goddesses that appear in the myths and legends of Europe" with an air of authority, without having actually argued for the idea at all!
And honestly? I think this is a shame! The man clearly had some interesting ideas about how witchcraft religions worked and what they had to teach. This could be a much more interesting and valuable book if he'd focused primarily on the religious content and laid out his theological, philosophical and ritual ideas.
But instead, as often happens in modern paganism, he seems somewhat shackled to history. He feels forced to give his ideas some pedigree, which leads to annoying rhetorical gymnastics.
Read it if you're interested in some neopagan writing from the turn of the century (because this is so very of its time). or if you kind of already know what you're doing and just want some fresh ideas. But otherwise I don't think it's of that much use if I'm honest.
This book wants to argue a very simple thing: there is a consistent religious tradition that, in various forms, has shown up in European and Middle-Eastern history from prehistory onwards in the form of witchcraft. It changed in various contexts, took new forms where it had to, but there's a thread running throughout it all, in that it's essentially a mystery religion surrounding life, death and fertility, often with a similar set of motifs revolving around a god and a goddess.
I have a complicated opinion on witchcraft and neopaganism. I'm frequently annoyed by many of the ways it behaves, especially in its relationship with history, but at the same time I'm always at least a little charmed by it. I picked this book up on a lark in a bookshop in Edinburgh, because it looked interesting enough, and a book that tried to give an actual theological grounding to the whole affair seemed like it might be worthwhile, especially when compared with the many generic "here's how to manifest all the money you want by burning incense" books that dominate the market.
Unfortunately, the focus Grimassi puts on history in this book falls flat. So much of it is just... well some of it is wrong, but on some level one can't be too upset by this, as it's a book from around the turn of the millennium. But a lot of it is... a bit weaselly. I hate to use that word here but that's how it comes accross. It often references something real, but twists it in such a way as to support the author's preconceived notions, rather than to accurately reflect it.
Take page 81 for instance, where there is a short discussion of Hecate as a triform goddess. Grimassi makes a passive aggressive remark about "historians", and Hutton specifically, denying the fact that witches worshipped a triform goddess. But of course, in the Pharsalia, Lucan has a witch say "Persephone, who is the third and lowest aspect of our goddess Hecate." Grimassi then links this to quotes about witches worshipping Hecate, Diana and Proserpina in Horace, and Medea referencing a threefold goddess in Ovid. He then goes on to link this further with the ancient idea of the threefold maiden-mother-crone goddess.
Great, right? He's clearly offered evidence that the historical view is wrong and the maiden-mother-crone goddess figure so beloved by modern pagans can be traced back to ancient Greece.
Well. Not quite.
First off, he misrepresents the passage. He specifically cites an 1889 translation of book 6 of the Pharsalia by Henry T. Riley (a bit old, but sometimes the older ones are the only public domain ones so I get it.) But there it reads "Persephone [...] who art the lowest form of our Hecate." The "third" part is in fact nowhere to be found in the Latin text of the Pharsalia. And the passage itself is somewhat ambiguous, it can be translated as if Persephone and Hecate are two separate entities (though a translation linking the two is of course still plausible.)
Riley does speculate in a footnote that this implies that Persephone might be part of a triad with Hecate and Diana (as respectively an underworld, earth and celestial aspect of the same deity). But this is pure speculation on his part. But this brings us to another issue. No modern historian would deny that there is a triple aspect to Hecate. In many cult statues, she is plainly depicted with either three bodies or with three heads. Similarly, she does sometimes form a part of a triad of deities, such as Hecate-Artemis-Selene, though this was by no means always the case.
What modern historians usually criticise isn't the idea of Hecate specifically as a triform goddess. What they criticise is the idea that a maiden-mother-crone goddess figure specifically was a common feature in older pre-christian religions in the Levant and Europe, or was applied to Hecate. And indeed, this criticism holds. When Hecate is depicted in a triform manner, it's usually with three pretty much identical looking bodies, or with three heads, either pretty much identical to each other, or with some animal heads. Never as a triad of different ages (the same goes for the Matronae/Matres of Northern Europe, who Grimassi also draws in as triform goddesses, even though they appear in different amounts in different places and also usually look identical or very similar) The various proposed triads don't fit at all either, since you always have to awkwardly fit the deities involved into a hole to make it fit the maiden-mother-crone mould.
And this shouldn't surprise us, because the entire idea derives from the 20th century writer Robert Graves, from which they were taken up and developed by later pagans.
So you see what Grimassi did there? He found a passage in what is not a religious work in the first place, which might gesture at some form of syncretism between Hecate and Persephone and some sort of association between these figures and witches. He alters how he presents it to more clearly fit his ideas. He frames it against a strawman of what historians are saying so as to discredit them. And then brings in this completely different idea of the Maiden-Mother-Crone.
It enables him to end that section with "the triformis goddess encompasses all aspects of goddesses that appear in the myths and legends of Europe" with an air of authority, without having actually argued for the idea at all!
And honestly? I think this is a shame! The man clearly had some interesting ideas about how witchcraft religions worked and what they had to teach. This could be a much more interesting and valuable book if he'd focused primarily on the religious content and laid out his theological, philosophical and ritual ideas.
But instead, as often happens in modern paganism, he seems somewhat shackled to history. He feels forced to give his ideas some pedigree, which leads to annoying rhetorical gymnastics.
Read it if you're interested in some neopagan writing from the turn of the century (because this is so very of its time). or if you kind of already know what you're doing and just want some fresh ideas. But otherwise I don't think it's of that much use if I'm honest.
March 30, 2019
I tried really hard to read and understand this book. I just really can’t follow it. It has some great information and the pictures and fantastic. But I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.
July 3, 2016
A hard read, as all books by Grimassi are, but lots of nuggets of information. He is the most technical Witchcraft writer I've read. My book has many underlines in it.
He explains the different roles of God and Goddess, then each Sabbat in detail with myths behind them. The last two chapters of the book were very interesting to me. There is both a European and Italian emphasis in his research.
He explains the different roles of God and Goddess, then each Sabbat in detail with myths behind them. The last two chapters of the book were very interesting to me. There is both a European and Italian emphasis in his research.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews