Queering Your Craft


Book Description

“As evident through the pages of this book, Snow holds a vision for the queer aspirant who hears the call to witchery, to find healing, empowerment, strength, and pride through their craft. Through creative and unique journal prompts, introspection, rituals, and spells, Snow achieves this beautifully, and herein lays the perfect guide for the queer witch to stand in their power and stand beside others; truly queering our craft with compassion and pride.” —Mat Auryn, author of Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick, and Manifestation Witchcraft has always belonged to the outsiders and outcasts in society, yet so much of the practice enforces and adheres to the same hierarchy we face in the world at large—a hierarchy that isolates and hurts those living beyond society’s binaries and boundaries. While there are books that address magick for resistance and queer myth, until now there has not been one that specifically addresses the practice of queer magick from an LGBTQ+ standpoint. Queering Your Craft combines queer aesthetic and culture (like DIY culture and an emphasis on chosen family over formal covens) with pagan and metaphysical spiritual practice in a way that is commonplace but has not been written about until now. This book covers the personal, the collective, and the political, and how deeply intertwined all three are in a magickal practice for those who are LGBTQ+. In this introduction to witchcraft, Snow presents why/how each concept is important to a queer craft, or how to approach it from a queer mindset. For example, conventional prayer, words, and symbols have always been problematic in a queer universe: How to make them work and still be true to yourself? The bulk of the book is about learning the craft. The latter portion is a grimoire of spells. While accessible to beginning witches, Queering Your Craft provides new and inspiring information for longtime practitioners interested in a pure and personal approach that avoids the baggage of history and stereotype.




Queering Your Craft


Book Description

"Witchcraft has always belonged to the outsiders and outcasts in society, yet so much of the practice enforces and adheres to the same hierarchy we are faced with in the world at large-a hierarchy that isolates and hurts those living beyond society's binaries and boundaries. Until now there has not been a book that specifically addresses the practice of queer magick from an LGBTQ+ standpoint. This book combines queer aesthetic and culture with Pagan and metaphysical spiritual practice in a way that is commonplace in practice but previously not written about-and covers the personal, the collective, the political, and how deeply intertwined all three are in a magickal practice for those who are LGBTQ+"--




Queering the Tarot


Book Description

"Tarot archetypes provide the reader with a window into present circumstances and future potential. But what if that window only opened up on a world that was white, European, and heterosexual? This book explores themes of sexuality, coming out, gender and gender-queering, sources of oppression and empowerment, and many other topics especially familiar to "not-straight" folks"--




Queering the Subversive Stitch


Book Description

The history of men's needlework has long been considered a taboo subject. This is the first book ever published to document and critically interrogate a range of needlework made by men. It reveals that since medieval times men have threaded their own needles, stitched and knitted, woven lace, handmade clothes, as well as other kinds of textiles, and generally delighted in the pleasures and possibilities offered by all sorts of needlework. Only since the dawn of the modern age, in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, did needlework become closely aligned with new ideologies of the feminine. Since then men's needlework has been read not just as feminising but as queer. In this groundbreaking study Joseph McBrinn argues that needlework by male artists as well as anonymous tailors, sailors, soldiers, convalescents, paupers, prisoners, hobbyists and a multitude of other men and boys deserves to be looked at again. Drawing on a wealth of examples of men's needlework, as well as visual representations of the male needleworker, in museum collections, from artist's papers and archives, in forgotten magazines and specialist publications, popular novels and children's literature, and even in the history of photography, film and television, he surveys and analyses many of the instances in which “needlemen” have contested, resisted and subverted the constrictive ideals of modern masculinity. This audacious, original, carefully researched and often amusing study, demonstrates the significance of needlework by men in understanding their feelings, agency, identity and history.




Queer Magic


Book Description

In a wide variety of pagan paths, many forms of modern magic and mystery hold an expectation that all parties are heterosexual, cisgender, and, in many cases, white. In Queer Magic: Power Beyond Boundaries, Lee Harrington and Tai Fenix Kulystin bring together a diverse and passionate collection of authors and artists who break out beyond that belief and explore how being LGBT+ is not just acceptable when exploring magic, but powerful. Using the diverse tools of queer activism, education, and storytelling, through academic essays and first-person narratives to comics and poster-style art, this intersectional group exposes a world beyond what so many magical practitioners have presumed is "normal." The reality is that magic, whether in Wicca or Vodou, Heathenry or Polytheism, has been fueled by people and systems beyond the binary for millennia. For many within, magic and queerness are not separate, but deeply entwined pieces of identity, worldview, and culture experienced together, always. Drag queen magic, Inclusive witchcraft, and magic for healing and survival. Gender transition in Rome, possession practices, and DIY divination. Social justice, queer black tantra, and polarity beyond gender. Honoring ancestors, fluidity of consciousness, and reimagining the Great Rite. Queer sex magic, power sigils, deities that reflect diversity... and more. Whether you identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, agender, genderqueer, or some other queer orientation, or you are curious about tools to access magic beyond what is often discussed, this book is for you. Each piece is a unique and passionate chance to look into your own relationship with magic, break out of the tales of what your practice "should" look like, and expand your awareness into the queer magic as well as your own power beyond boundaries.




Gay Witchcraft


Book Description

When Christopher Penczak was introduced to Witchcraft, he found a spiritual path that hononred and embraced his homosexuality. Now he has written a book of clearheaded theory and practice that is bound to become a classic. With Gay Witchcraft, Penczak joins the ranks of his forebearers in spirit, gay writers who have taken a tradition and made it home. This is a complete book of theory and spiritual practices of Witchcraft for the gay community. Penczak's writing will make it much easier for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people interested in practicing any form of Witchcraft. Exploring the history of Paganism and offering a compendium of spells, meditations, ceremonies, and affirmations that will enrich both the novice and the experienced practioner seeking out new views of myth, ritual, and healing.




European Others


Book Description

Considers the complications of race, religion, sexuality, and gender in Europeanizing from below




Becoming Dangerous


Book Description

"Edgy and often deeply personal, the twenty-one essays collected here come from a wide variety of writers. Some identify as witches, others identify as writers, musicians, game developers, or artists. What they have in common is that they've created personal rituals to summon their own power in a world that would prefer them powerless. Here, they share the rituals they use to resist self-doubt, grief, and depression in the face of sexism, slut shaming, racism, patriarchy, and other systems of oppression"--




Pagan Portals - Reclaiming Witchcraft


Book Description

Reclaiming Witchcraft is designed to help the reader better understand the basic structure of the Reclaiming tradition, as well as discover how it has changed since its initial formation in San Francisco and subsequent journey out to the reaches of Canada, Australia, and Europe. From the basic tenets of what makes a Reclaiming Witch, to how rituals are performed, how lessons are passed on, and how magick is made around the world, Reclaiming Witchcraft seeks to welcome those who might be interested in learning more, while also directing them to resources and paths that can help facilitate their journey.




Out in the Country


Book Description

Winner of the 2009 Ruth Benedict Prize for Outstanding Monograph from the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists Winner of the 2010 Distinguished Book Award from the American Sociological Association, Sociology of Sexualities Section Winner of the 2010 Congress Inaugural Qualitative Inquiry Book Award Honorable Mention An unprecedented contemporary account of the online and offline lives of rural LGBT youth From Wal-Mart drag parties to renegade Homemaker’s Clubs, Out in the Country offers an unprecedented contemporary account of the lives of today’s rural queer youth. Mary L. Gray maps out the experiences of young people living in small towns across rural Kentucky and along its desolate Appalachian borders, providing a fascinating and often surprising look at the contours of gay life beyond the big city. Gray illustrates that, against a backdrop of an increasingly impoverished and privatized rural America, LGBT youth and their allies visibly—and often vibrantly—work the boundaries of the public spaces available to them, whether in their high schools, public libraries, town hall meetings, churches, or through websites. This important book shows that, in addition to the spaces of Main Street, rural LGBT youth explore and carve out online spaces to fashion their emerging queer identities. Their triumphs and travails defy clear distinctions often drawn between online and offline experiences of identity, fundamentally redefining our understanding of the term ‘queer visibility’ and its political stakes. Gray combines ethnographic insight with incisive cultural critique, engaging with some of the biggest issues facing both queer studies and media scholarship. Out in the Country is a timely and groundbreaking study of sexuality and gender, new media, youth culture, and the meaning of identity and social movements in a digital age.