Queen of All Witcheries; A Biography of the Goddess

Jack Chanek
ISBN 978-0-7387-7342-1
Llewellyn Publications
$17.99

The Great Mother, the Queen of Witches, a matriarch of matriarchs, a single Goddess with countless faces, a Triple Goddess, a spiritual expression of feminism—where did the Goddess of Wicca and modern Paganism come from and how did her mythology arise? In Queen of All Witcheries; A Biography of the Goddess, Jack Chanek traces the development of ideas about the Goddess and explicitly describes how the work of late nineteenth and twentieth century occultists coalesced into the figure familiar in the Neopagan movement.

The primary feature that sets Queen of All Witcheries apart from earlier works on the Goddess is that it treats the Goddess as an entity distinct from her many historical pre-Christian counterparts rather than simply as a modernization of them. Chanek details the contributions of Frazer, Leland, Murray, Crowley, Fortune and others to the mythology and theology of the Goddess.

It is structured historically but also offers an intimate portrait of the author’s own journey with the Goddess and supports the reader’s spiritual growth. In each chapter, Chanek provides suggestions for the reader to interact ritually with various aspects and historical facets of the Goddess. For example, in his chapter on Leland, Chanek includes a lemon and pins spell from The Gospel of the Witches and provides instructions and ritual scripts for a La Tregunda ritual, with both coven and solitary variations. A well-researched and fascinating read for the experienced occultist, Queen of All Witcheries is also a clear and accessible guide for a newcomer hoping to better understand modern pagan theology and progress on their own path.