Review: Mrs. B’s Guide to Household Witchery

This article originally appeared on my About.com site, but since book reviews tend to show an underwhelming long-term performance there, I’m going to be gradually migrating some of them over here instead. I thought I’d kick things off with one of my favorite reviews, of a book by one of my favorite people, Kris Bradley, also known as Mrs. B.

If you were familiar with Kris’ blog, Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom, that she ran up until 2013, you know that she spent a lot of time encouraging readers to find the magical in the mundane, and to look for the spiritual in everyday things around the house. By bringing magic and the divine into your home, you can find a brand new way to look at your practice – and that, in turn, translates into so much potential for witchery around the house!

Mrs. B launches right in, and the first chapter of Mrs B’s Guide to Household Witchery focuses on making the mundane magical, by taking a quick room-by-room tour of your home, starting with your very own front door. Ever think about hanging a protection bag over your stoop? How about sprinkling salt across the windowsills? The living room, laundry room, and especially the kitchen can all be magical places, and Kris offers tips on how to specialize the magic in each of these areas. Bonus area? Adult bedrooms can be a place of all kinds of sexy magical shenanigans!

The second chapter addresses the four classical elements of earth, air, fire and water, and how they can be applied in a domestic setting. Balance in the home is important, and it’s useful to figure out what sort of energy a room has in it already, in addition to what sort of energy you’d like to have there. By using household items such as houseplants and modeling clay, windchimes and ceiling fans, lava lamps and hot plates, or coffee pots and fish tanks, you can incorporate the elements and their energies into any room.

One of my favorite chapters, by far, is the one on Household Guardian Spirits. While I realize that not every practicing Pagan incorporates household guardians, for those of us who do, this section comes in very handy. There’s a review of some of the many domestic spirits found in a variety of cultures, including many you’ve probably never heard of.

The next section focuses on magical recipes – and anyone who’s hung out over on About Paganism for any length of time knows I’m a big fan of mixing up some kitchen magic! With a combination of herbal blends, incense and oil mixes, and even a house wash, there’ s a little bit of something for every domestic goddess (or god) in this part of the book. The witches’ herbal is useful as well, as a basic primer for those who are just beginning to delve into the use of herbal magic.

Finally, Kris wraps things up with some simple sabbat celebrations for those of us who are just plain busy. Got just a few minutes to spare? Celebrate five minutes alone, or a small group ritual for Samhain, Yule or the other Pagan holidays.

Mrs B’s Guide to Household Witchery is a very back-to-basics approach to modern domestic witchcraft. Kris shows that you can drop all the trappings, forget about the fancy commercially-bought tools and gizmos you have, and just do as our ancestors once did – use what’s handy and use it wisely. Take advantage of the natural magical energies of your home, and celebrate the space you’re living in.

Things I’d like to see in a follow up book? More household craft projects, and more in-depth ideas about incorporating magic into day-to-day practices like cooking, cleaning, and organizing the home. On the whole, Mrs B’s Guide to Household Witchery is a great book for those who are just beginning to explore their domestic witchery options, and a good refresher for those of us who have been doing it for a while and needed a bit of a reminder on how to turn the mundane into magic. I’ll give it 9.5 broomsticks out of ten!

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Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.