Building Practice: An Introduction to The Crow’s Collection of Regional Magic
By now, you have likely seen all of Crossed Crow Books’ posts, newsletter links, and excited murmuring about the launch of our first-ever anthology, The Crow’s Collection of Regional Magic. This project has been a dream of mine for a while and has already been a real joy to create in collaboration with you all (and we’re just getting started!).
In both occult spaces and the world at large, it is incredibly easy to get stuck in a bubble of your own making. Digging in deep and learning about the nuances of your path is something I widely encourage, but between social media, polarizing conversation, and specialization in your practice, it’s easy to forget just how big the human population really is. Magic, in one form or another, has been around as long as the human capacity for insight, community, wisdom, storytelling, and connection. Yet the concept of magic as we know it today is one that has often been silenced and, in some cases, nearly forgotten, such as New Zealand’s Tohunga Suppression Act of 1907 limiting Māori practice and shutting down a huge portion of the culture’s ancestral knowledge. The goal of this anthology series—with a new overarching theme every year (get excited)—is to burst those bubbles and help us preserve and illuminate living traditions that we might not otherwise know about.
I come from the world of literary publishing. Occult publishing, despite having many of the same goals and literal products, is quite different at its core; it provides nuance and depth to my understanding of the role books can serve in our community, how we move knowledge from the realm of dreams into the physical. But there are many little gaps with room for unique collaboration in this field. Considering this anthology series was invented to expand our awareness of the world’s spiritual and magical practices, I didn’t want to limit the authors to people I may have already known about, followed online, or stumbled upon in Barnes & Noble. By opening the doors for any and all practitioners to submit proposals for this anthology series, the opportunity for an incredibly diverse range of thought, form, genre, theme, and overall vibe made itself known. After all—especially when it comes to the human experience at large—there are always things that we don’t know that we don’t know, where others are experts.
The Crow’s Collection of Regional Magic is an anthology featuring twelve writers’ insights on their paths. While it is not a comprehensive text for all of the world’s practices (nor is it meant to be), it casts a wide net. Much of the book centers folk practices, broadly and in specific subjects within a given culture, across five continents. But, like any project, we couldn’t predict every little detail ahead of time, despite divination’s guidance. Through the public call for submissions, an interesting thread quickly came to light: research. In many places, there simply aren’t other practitioners in the same tradition that you can take out for coffee and talk craft, especially for those in diasporic communities. To understand your own ancestral practices, diving into research journals and archives will almost certainly be necessary. But not all research is created equally, and reading and understanding academic jargon is an exercise in patience and a skill that takes time to build. Several of the writers in this book provide advice, practical tips, and tricks normally taught in university courses to address this gatekept skill and help you continue learning beyond this book’s pages.
Without further ado, here are the brilliant writers, practitioners, and scholars you will find within the pages of The Crow’s Collection of Regional Magic:
Aili Marjatta Kerttula, on Finnish folk magic
Awo Ifagbemi, on Ifá
Brandon Weston, on daemonology in Ozark folk magic
Dakota Lane, on Hoodoo and using academic research responsibly to deepen your practice
Frankie Castanea, on dual faith practice in Italian-American folk magic
Katerina Sarpione, on Balkan (and specifically Bulgarian) folk magic
Kenneth Johnson, on indigenous Mayan practice
Laura Davila, on Brujería Mexicana
Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold, on Macumba
Oracle Hekataios, on Lukumí
P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, on pre-Christian Irish practice and parsing the real from wishful thinking in academic research
Rain Al-Alim, a translation of work on talismans and magic stones and gems in the context of Arabic spiritual magic
I am so excited to share this book and its authors’ wisdom with you. In developing not only the framework for this anthology but for many anthologies in the future, we are looking toward ways that we can build a better, more knowledgeable, and richer world together. I am looking forward to conjuring more engaging and thought-provoking anthologies with you all. We can’t do any of this without you, dear crows.
