Raymond Buckland (1934–2017)

An excellent basic witchcraft book, fondly know Gardnerians and Alexandrians as Uncle Bucky's Big Blue Book. It gives a great perspective from the viewpoint of a man who grew up around the craft, and Romani culture. He met and got to know Gerald Gardner. And he is largely responsible for not only the visible emergence of British Traditional Wicca in the U.S. but later in life a more progressive emergence of ways to merge some of those ideas with modern Paganism. I have come to respect him show more and this book a lot more in my old age. Hindsight is always 20/20. show less

Raymond Buckland is one of the most well recognized Authors in modern Pagan culture. While I'm not a huge fan of some of his writings, I found this particular book to be of personal interest. Unlike many neopagan authors, Raymond quotes his sources, and documents where the information came from, which I respect. Not much is written that is accurate with regards to the Picts, however, I found more than a few nuggets of interesting information in this book. I consider it to be one of the show more reference books, which I go to again and again, when researching Picts, their history, folklore, tradition and magick. show less

A funny little relic of history. Has a lot of good stuff for the bare-bones of Wicca and Witchcraft while also being wildly outdated in some aspects. All to be expected.
I enjoyed reading it and now have a solid foundation to continue studying on.

I don't know a great deal about the intricacies of wiccan ritual. This book, and it is by Buckland, seems to be a kind of book of shadows, or quide to ritual in the Wiccan tradition. Whether that is true or not, i'd have to leave to a a Wiccan to say. But even if it is not true, it is an interesting and i'd say valuable book, based soley on the ritual it does contain. Perfectly adaptable to any backyard pagan, or solitary witch. And if you ain't into that a reading of it will, i think, help show more to understand the mindset of many pagan religions, and the flow of ritual. show less