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Dreaming the Dark : Magic, Sex, and Politics
Featuring narrative, chants, songs, and rituals, Dreaming the Dark has helped many thousands of women use magic, spirituality, and community to bring about political and social change. This anniversary edition of the best-selling classic includes a new preface reflecting on the fifteen years since the book's original publication.
280 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1982
135 people are currently reading
3238 people want to read
About the author
Starhawk
58 books1,018 followersStarhawk is an author, activist, permaculture designer and teacher, and a prominent voice in modern Goddess religion and earth-based spirituality. She is the author or coauthor of thirteen books, including the classics The Spiral Dance and The Fifth Sacred Thing. Her latest is the newly published fiction novel City of Refuge, the long-awaited sequel to The Fifth Sacred Thing.
Starhawk directs Earth Activist Training, (www.earthactivisttraining.org), teaching permaculture design grounded in spirit and with a focus on organizing and activism. “Social permaculture”—the conscious design of regenerative human systems, is a particular focus of hers.
She lives on Golden Rabbit Ranch in Western Sonoma County, CA, where she is developing a model of carbon-sequestering land use incorporating food forests and savannahs, planned grazing, and regenerative forestry.
She travels internationally, lecturing and teaching on earth-based spirituality, permaculture, and the skills of activism. Her web site is www.starhawk.org.
Starhawk directs Earth Activist Training, (www.earthactivisttraining.org), teaching permaculture design grounded in spirit and with a focus on organizing and activism. “Social permaculture”—the conscious design of regenerative human systems, is a particular focus of hers.
She lives on Golden Rabbit Ranch in Western Sonoma County, CA, where she is developing a model of carbon-sequestering land use incorporating food forests and savannahs, planned grazing, and regenerative forestry.
She travels internationally, lecturing and teaching on earth-based spirituality, permaculture, and the skills of activism. Her web site is www.starhawk.org.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
October 1, 2008
My edition is the old blue one with the white letters and it was part of opening the interior and exterior world for me back in the day. Starhawk's insistence on the integration of sexuality, politics and the personal power some refer to as magic has aged well, as has her vision of what we risk by not understanding and taking responsibility for that integration.
She was my first great teacher in the language of consequence, and i have thought of her a lot this year as i look at my own path of cluelessness, comprehension and conscience.
She was my first great teacher in the language of consequence, and i have thought of her a lot this year as i look at my own path of cluelessness, comprehension and conscience.
February 6, 2011
i read this book all day today in 5 minute increments between 20-minute art modelling poses. as a result, i wrote two songs about banks, cars, girl gangs and some things (during the poses. this is what they pay me for). i also experienced, for a second, an intense urge to get "ecofeminist" tattooed somewhere, on my forehead?, and didn't know who to text or how to explain why i had that urge and to acknowledge that it's funny, not serious, in 160 characters, while also sort of being clear about how, y'know, it's serious. ohhh, 2008. i think that this book is a good book.
March 24, 2015
This book was amazing. It gave me a lot of great information on groups and organizing while also reminding me how little has changed since the book's publication over thirty years ago.
February 22, 2015
Starhawk does to magic what McDonald's has done to the hamburger.
April 3, 2020
Tour d’horizon des pratiques de Starhawk, sorcière neo-paienne. Ses actions non violentes (comme pour le blocus de Diablo) comme ses pratiques plus magiques. J’ai beaucoup aimé le chapitre sur la formation de groupe et la place dans le groupe !
June 22, 2022
I first read this book when I was 15 or 16. I remembered very little of it. I knew it was about the kind of politics that follow from a neopagan worldview (or, Starhawk's brand of neopaganism).
I am so glad that I rediscovered this book! This book is a fantastic statement of the kind of political movements and political bonds that are necessary for truly solving the kinds of problems we face today. Her distinction between power-over and power-from-within is a simple, yet effective conceptual distinction. And her description of hierarchical organizations and power-over as structures of estrangement really touched me.
As someone who reads political theory/philosophy all day and for a living, I can see where this would be a bit off-putting to academic types. It grounds itself in intuitive, metaphysical claims. And it's written for a general audience, so it doesn't conform to the kind of technical, academic language that political theorists/philosophers are used to and respect.
However, I think that political theorists/philosophers would do well to read this book. It's a concise statement of the kind of relationships that we need to be forming.
All that said, I did find some of it a little too touchy-feely for my own liking. But I blame that on my cold, linear, academic training and my general elitism.
I am so glad that I rediscovered this book! This book is a fantastic statement of the kind of political movements and political bonds that are necessary for truly solving the kinds of problems we face today. Her distinction between power-over and power-from-within is a simple, yet effective conceptual distinction. And her description of hierarchical organizations and power-over as structures of estrangement really touched me.
As someone who reads political theory/philosophy all day and for a living, I can see where this would be a bit off-putting to academic types. It grounds itself in intuitive, metaphysical claims. And it's written for a general audience, so it doesn't conform to the kind of technical, academic language that political theorists/philosophers are used to and respect.
However, I think that political theorists/philosophers would do well to read this book. It's a concise statement of the kind of relationships that we need to be forming.
All that said, I did find some of it a little too touchy-feely for my own liking. But I blame that on my cold, linear, academic training and my general elitism.
February 4, 2022
This book is very dated, in both wonderful and cringey ways. Overall though, whats not to love about a radical feminist anti nuclear witch telling you both how to do spells and how to facilitate a meeting?
May 28, 2018
Basically women's activism in the 70s. Something we might need more of these days.
May 3, 2020
“Transforming culture is a long-term project. We organize now to buy time, to postpone destruction just a little bit longer in the hope that before it comes, we will have grown somehow wiser—somehow stronger—so that in the end we will avert the holocaust. But though power-from-within can burst forth in an instant, it’s rising is mostly a process slow as the turning wheels of generations. If we cannot live to see the completion of that revolution, we can plant its seeds in our circles, we can dream its shape in our visions, and our rituals can feed its power.”
“If these words at moments seem to have power for you, take it as a measure of the power you have if you reach for it, if you draw it up from the dark, if you will risk it. And perhaps it is you, your reaching, your voice, your work, your joy, your your love, that will make the difference. Perhaps it is up to you to reclaim the world. Or perhaps it is up to us all, to join our hands, our voices, to reach into the dark and reshape it into a clear night sky where we can walk without fear, into a we’ll of healing from which we can all drink, into the velvet skin of life, the newly fertile ground.”
“If these words at moments seem to have power for you, take it as a measure of the power you have if you reach for it, if you draw it up from the dark, if you will risk it. And perhaps it is you, your reaching, your voice, your work, your joy, your your love, that will make the difference. Perhaps it is up to you to reclaim the world. Or perhaps it is up to us all, to join our hands, our voices, to reach into the dark and reshape it into a clear night sky where we can walk without fear, into a we’ll of healing from which we can all drink, into the velvet skin of life, the newly fertile ground.”
April 29, 2022
THANK GOD i’ve finished this book.
la manière dont je me suis ennuyée ptn.
terrible.
le pire c’est que je je sais que le livre est probablement bien, qu’on apprend énormément de choses. mais désolée de ne plus avoir le cerveau, the attention span to handle « intellectual » books???
c’est meme pas intellectuel c’est genre spirituel et magie etc et juste non je peux pas me concentrer, au final ça m’intéresse pas tant que ça.
Don’t get me wrong, j’ai appris des choses et tout mais en soit c’est pas comme si je CHERCHAIS à les apprendre !
je pense juste que ce n’est pas un livre qui m’est destiné dans ma vie actuelle
faudrait que je le relise dans quelques années mais genre avec attention limite note taking.
mais ouais
la manière dont je me suis ennuyée ptn.
terrible.
le pire c’est que je je sais que le livre est probablement bien, qu’on apprend énormément de choses. mais désolée de ne plus avoir le cerveau, the attention span to handle « intellectual » books???
c’est meme pas intellectuel c’est genre spirituel et magie etc et juste non je peux pas me concentrer, au final ça m’intéresse pas tant que ça.
Don’t get me wrong, j’ai appris des choses et tout mais en soit c’est pas comme si je CHERCHAIS à les apprendre !
je pense juste que ce n’est pas un livre qui m’est destiné dans ma vie actuelle
faudrait que je le relise dans quelques années mais genre avec attention limite note taking.
mais ouais
March 16, 2024
This book ❤ It gave me both power and hope.
August 10, 2021
„I know we can’t clean it all up, but I believe in picking up the garbage that you find in your path.”
"... perhaps it is up to us all, to join our hands, our voices, to reach into the dark and reshape it into a clear night sky where we can walk without fear, into a well of healing from which we can all drink, into the velvet skin of life, the newly fertile ground."
This is a book about power, the power you can reach for, the power you can draw up from the dark. Risk it and reclaim the world.
"... perhaps it is up to us all, to join our hands, our voices, to reach into the dark and reshape it into a clear night sky where we can walk without fear, into a well of healing from which we can all drink, into the velvet skin of life, the newly fertile ground."
This is a book about power, the power you can reach for, the power you can draw up from the dark. Risk it and reclaim the world.
September 7, 2022
I appreciate Starhawk's literary contributions to Witchcraft, as well as her ability to successfully show how magick is connected to other aspects of life, especially politics. I agree with that stance, how essentially everything is interconnected, and dissociating everything from each other will burden the healing process for our world. However, I am not a big fan of this book as it dragged on for me. A lot of the information was rather outdated, though there are still many problems from the 1980s Reagan administration that we still face today as a society.
May 5, 2012
After Starhawks legendary "Spiral Dance" I think I was just expecting a little too much out of this one.
I read this book many years ago and honestly I don't remember much of it. In fact one of the only things I remember about it was the constant nagging going on in my head "Is this book almost over?!?! It just didn't cut it for me I spent the majority of the time bored to tears hoping I could just make it to the end.
I read this book many years ago and honestly I don't remember much of it. In fact one of the only things I remember about it was the constant nagging going on in my head "Is this book almost over?!?! It just didn't cut it for me I spent the majority of the time bored to tears hoping I could just make it to the end.
June 28, 2020
I didn't expect this book to be the exact thing I wanted to read during quarantine but here we are. Some parts were slow, some parts were irrelevant or confusing to me, but other parts were wildly relevant and radical thinking in my heart, and now seems like a better time than most to read about anti-nuclear activism and spirituality and organizing in a holistic way.
December 17, 2024
This is an excellent book, and it was the first nonfiction book about Paganism that I ever read, back in the late 1980s. I have just reread it in 2024.
There are many noteworthy things about this book: its engagement of witchcraft and politics, the fact that it is not gender essentialist—Starhawk notes that the qualities ascribed to men and women are based in culture and not biology—and its emphasis on equality, the importance of immanence, and its acknowledgment that sometimes progressive people tie themselves in knots trying to be “correct”. I also love the real life examples of protests and rituals and trance work.
In the early 1980s when it was written, much of the protest movement was concerned with the possibility of nuclear annihilation, although climate change and the destruction of nature were already rearing their heads. Nonetheless the tactics of magical resistance described in the book are still valid.
Some of the vocabulary in the original edition (which is the one I read) of the book is outdated which some might find jarring—but it is easy to see that the intent behind the words is progressive.
The history section in the appendix contains a few ideas that have since been demonstrated to be wrong or exaggerated—but their loss does not undermine the overall argument, which is that historically there was a move away from immanence and interconnectivity and towards transcendence and hatred of the world and the flesh. It’s also true that midwives were persecuted as witches in German-speaking lands—the evidence is there in 17th century German popular broadsheets—even if there was not a comparable persecution in English-speaking lands.
Overall this is still a great book and I would recommend reading it. I see there’s an updated version of the book too.
There are many noteworthy things about this book: its engagement of witchcraft and politics, the fact that it is not gender essentialist—Starhawk notes that the qualities ascribed to men and women are based in culture and not biology—and its emphasis on equality, the importance of immanence, and its acknowledgment that sometimes progressive people tie themselves in knots trying to be “correct”. I also love the real life examples of protests and rituals and trance work.
In the early 1980s when it was written, much of the protest movement was concerned with the possibility of nuclear annihilation, although climate change and the destruction of nature were already rearing their heads. Nonetheless the tactics of magical resistance described in the book are still valid.
Some of the vocabulary in the original edition (which is the one I read) of the book is outdated which some might find jarring—but it is easy to see that the intent behind the words is progressive.
The history section in the appendix contains a few ideas that have since been demonstrated to be wrong or exaggerated—but their loss does not undermine the overall argument, which is that historically there was a move away from immanence and interconnectivity and towards transcendence and hatred of the world and the flesh. It’s also true that midwives were persecuted as witches in German-speaking lands—the evidence is there in 17th century German popular broadsheets—even if there was not a comparable persecution in English-speaking lands.
Overall this is still a great book and I would recommend reading it. I see there’s an updated version of the book too.
August 13, 2021
Words like "spirituality " and "magic" tend to be associated with different connotations, varying between the silly and the absurd. Yet there is no denying that such words were crucially used by thousands of people, women in this book, to make important social and personal changes in their lives. Starhawk's book Dreaming The Dark is a call to confront many social paradigms in our current society that imposed the subjugation of women. Magic, which is defined as the changing of consciousness by will, becomes a tool to face the common societal hierarchies, notably the patriarchal and masculinst ones.
The book has some very interesting points on how confronting the powers over oneself must begin with a personal change. It's about women reclaiming power that was taken away, power varying from the erotic, the social, and the spiritual. This reclaiming is key to any change in society, and I can feel the author's passion while reading it.
My main issue, though, is that Starhawk falls into some generalizations at time, which can be dangerous. I'm especially talking about her seemingly straightforward rejection of "the psychiatry" with claims that life in community can heal serious illnesses like schizophrenia and clinical depression. Healing is too strong of a word...nevertheless the core message of the book still makes it an important read and I do recommend it.
The book has some very interesting points on how confronting the powers over oneself must begin with a personal change. It's about women reclaiming power that was taken away, power varying from the erotic, the social, and the spiritual. This reclaiming is key to any change in society, and I can feel the author's passion while reading it.
My main issue, though, is that Starhawk falls into some generalizations at time, which can be dangerous. I'm especially talking about her seemingly straightforward rejection of "the psychiatry" with claims that life in community can heal serious illnesses like schizophrenia and clinical depression. Healing is too strong of a word...nevertheless the core message of the book still makes it an important read and I do recommend it.
January 28, 2025
This book was an inspiration to those of us who risked arrest in nonviolent acts of civil disobedience that parallel the books' original publication date. As such it proved very inspirational for me. Decades later I still remember an idea made clear by this book which informed my life and my scholarship all the way through the acquisition of my PhD. It was the idea that POWER existed in two forms: power over, and power from within. Power over represented the kind of power we were all struggling against, the power to oppress and marginalize others so as to advance selfish interests. In my youth I was given to believe that this was the only kind of power that existed, so to lay claim to any kind of power was a sin in itself. But power from within was what we tapped into when finding the courage to stand up to oppressive forms of power. How do we cultivate power from within? There are many ways, several of which are articulated in this book. This is why the book will forever be meaningful to me.
July 28, 2019
I've just started this book and it's speaking straight to my heart. I'm perturbed and inspired that it was published the same year I was born. It reminds me of the longevity of brilliance that Starhawk has offered our world. It also reminds me of the longevity of the existential threats we've been living under. The fact that we have not blown ourselves up in nuclear meltdown is in large part due to activists like Starhawk, the Abalone and Clamshell Alliances, and groups like Nuclear Freeze. Still, the work continues, and this book address the core patterns that plague our contemporary world. As a 36-year-old, this book is a confirmation of what I've always known and the understandings I've grown into over time. It's a must-read in my world.
January 28, 2023
Still miraculous to me how I almost passed by this book without a second thought, and now after I have read it, it became an etalon for a well done spiritual manual that reflects my personal beliefs.
I grew up Christian, but I grew to despise the norms, rules, and restrictions imposed. While I turned to a more esoteric approach to my faith, I began to notice a similar pattern: what is the meaning of connecting to your self and consciousness, if you do it so by others' rules?
Starhawk tackled this and many more. Her political ideas fall just right with her spiritual thesis and create an interesting, well-documented, compelling read.
I grew up Christian, but I grew to despise the norms, rules, and restrictions imposed. While I turned to a more esoteric approach to my faith, I began to notice a similar pattern: what is the meaning of connecting to your self and consciousness, if you do it so by others' rules?
Starhawk tackled this and many more. Her political ideas fall just right with her spiritual thesis and create an interesting, well-documented, compelling read.
July 31, 2025
First I have to admit to having an abhorrence of self-given author names, particularly in this topic area. I picked this book out of a Little Library, due to curiosity and am left more respectful of the author's social justice work. I feel her intentions were purer than I had anticipated, and it is somewhat sorrowful to see what an even worse state of global and local affairs has come to pass. The book lost me in the chapter with Joy fighting her Jungian or Freudian or whatever monsters. But if it helped her then I'm happy for her; it's just not my jam. I thought the historical appendix was an excellent recap.
August 20, 2024
I could easily imagine making light of this book because it reads like a caricature of a crunchy hippie who has way too many thoughts about Joan Baez. But Dreaming the Dark has many interesting insights that resonate with everything from Hegelian dialectics to Freudian psychoanalysis. While I fail to see how “magic” as the author defines it, differs from less-speculative ways of shifting one’s consciousness, I like the insistence on magic as a challenge to logos-centric ways of capturing and developing knowledge.
June 22, 2025
I read this twice between 1992 and 1995. I picked it up from my shelf recently and thought I would reread. I had forgotten how timeless the work is. After 30 years, I can reflect back and say how instrumental this was in shaping my view of the world and human services. The concepts of power-over and power-within and how they are a basis for our culture and culture change are relevant in this very moment as the US just bombed Iran today. Make no mistake, this is about witchcraft and it's ability to build our power-within.
March 1, 2020
La bible de l'éco-féminisme, Starhawk nous relie à notre magie intérieure et au "pouvoir du-dedans" pour nous faire prendre conscience que la société doit changer. Intéressant de mélanger spiritualité, écologie et politique. Effarant aussi de voir qu'un livre écrit il y a 20 ans porte les même enjeux que ceux d'aujourd'hui.
Parfois un peu compliqué à lire, je pense qu'une relecture peut s'avérer utile.
Parfois un peu compliqué à lire, je pense qu'une relecture peut s'avérer utile.
March 31, 2023
Would so love an updated take on this book that takes into account trans/non-binary/non-cis perspectives.
Starhawk is an incredible teacher and this book has been a gift, a guide, a great help on my path.
Starhawk is an incredible teacher and this book has been a gift, a guide, a great help on my path.
December 25, 2019
Absolutely transformative!
December 22, 2021
DNF
Started off really liking this. Highlighted many passages. By a third of the way through I was losing interest and lost the connection. Putting this back to WTR.
Started off really liking this. Highlighted many passages. By a third of the way through I was losing interest and lost the connection. Putting this back to WTR.
February 7, 2022
Un livre passionnant qui parle de féminisme, certes, mais aussi de plein d'autres sujets tellement d'actualité alors qu'il a été écrit au début des années 80.
September 15, 2023
A must read, Wish I could find another copy.
March 26, 2024
On lit deux pages, on médite dessus 5 jours. C'est un condensé d'histoire, de militantisme, d'anecdotes, de méthodes de travail en groupe, que ça soit en association ou en coven.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews