A Dedicant's Guide to 1st Degree Priesthood: A First Step to Clergy in the Craft of the Wise

This slim volume, written by the founder of the Gainist Free Church and American Spiritual Alliance is the first in a three-part series designed to "teach the steps needed to advance to the first level of Priesthood in the Pagan/Wiccan community."

In an interview (link) the author said, "during the time I was creating the foundation for the Gaianist Free Church and American Spiritual Alliance, I was compiling a very large number of notes about the basis and ideology for the Church and my Wife read them. She thought it would be good to format them into a book or a series of books centering on the Interfaith aspects of the belief and possibly “de-mystify” some of the negative views on Earth-Based practice as a whole. Her prompting compelled me to put these notes into a book format; she also found a publisher and made contact with them. Because of her support, I presented the first Book to Hunt Publishing and was quite surprised when they offered me a contract."  I think this anecdote illustrates many aspects of the book -- it is primarily a collection of notes, short essays on a concept (the Rede is one example, Grounding and Centering another) collected together in one place. The largest section is devoted to correspondences for colors, herbs, and stones. A Dedicant's Guide is also one person's perspective, despite his assertion that he is drawing on many paths. The information presented is basically Wicca 101.
 
Although there is a little bit of practical information (how to ground and center) I found the lack of explanation about basic techniques like meditation and visualization disturbing. The author mentions karma and the rule of three, but doesn't explain them any further. Most confusingly, in the fourth section Rosenblad suddenly starts spelling it wytchcraft, with no explanation (after spelling it the more common witchcraft in the initial part of the book).

A Dedicant's Guide is, in the end, a very, very, basic primer, with little new to the field of witchcraft. I'd give it two pillars out of five, not enough to support a temple roof.

~review by Lisa Mc Sherry

Author: M.L. Rosenblad
Moon Books, 2014
pp. 120, $14.95

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