Book Review – Hex Your Ex: And 100+ Other Spells to Right Wrongs and Banish Bad Luck for Good
Book Review
Hex Your Ex
And 100+ Other Spells to Right Wrongs
and Banish Bad Luck for Good
I sat and read this cute little book the other day and I thought what a wonderful book it was. Published by Adams Media and filled with all kinds of useful facts and magickal acts, it’s one of those go-to books that any witch would want to have on her shelf, whether she is a beginning practitioner or an old conjuress. It has love spells, money spells, work spells, healing spells, and protection spells, as well as advice on timing your spell-work and what tools and ingredients you’ll need. For someone who has been doing this kind of work for thirty-plus years, most of this is old (pointy) hat, but on the other hand, it’s always wonderful to see that these concepts are being recycled and refreshed. And many of the books that I read when I was first learning witchcraft are no longer in print, so I realize that new books need to published.
The thing about this book is that it has no author. This bothers me. I always like to link to the author’s webpage and see if I have read any of their other published works – and there is literally no author listed on the front of the book or the bibliographic page.
However, buried in the bibliographic information is this little tidbit: “Contains material adapted from the following title published by Adams Media, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.: Good Spells for Bad Days by Skye Alexander, copyright © 2009” so I am logically assuming that Skye Alexander is more or less the “author” of this book. I don’t know why the byline was buried like this but there must be some legal reason. And of course, it really has no bearing on the contents of the book. It’s my own hang-up.
But I know Skye Alexander as a fabulous writer – her The Modern Witchcraft Book of Tarot is one of my favorite Tarot books – so even if her name isn’t on the front cover of this book, just the awareness that she “wrote” this little handbook of spells is enough to recommend it to me and to allow me to similarly recommend it to you, dear reader! And – by the way – here’s Skye’s website.
Hex Your Ex has eleven chapters sandwiched between an introduction and an index. The chapters are as follows: How To Make Magick Work For You, Spells for Every Occasion, Tools To Make the Magick Happen, Secret Ingredients, Timing Isn’t Everything, but It Helps, Love Spells, Money Spells, Work Spells, Protection Spells, Healing Sells, and last but not least, Spells for Special Issues.
Much more here than just “hexing your ex!”
Let’s open the book to “Secret Ingredients”, which starts on page 45. We all want to know about those, right? Even the most seasoned witch wants to know secrets she might have missed – or she wants to cackle that “you can’t teach an old crone new tricks!”
The book does state what I have always known – that you don’t need “crazy ingredients” to make your magick work – or expensive tools – or anything at all. What is important – according to Hex Your Ex is “resonance” (46).
“Resonance is the vibrational quality of something that distinguishes it. In spellworking,
you choose items whose resonance gives them a synchronous relationship with
your intention…Roses, for instance, are connected with love.” (46)
The rest of the chapter is about getting that “resonance” just right by choosing the right colors – “the easiest way to bring color into a spell is with candles” but it’s not the only way – there’s a color correspondence chart on page 48. There are other correspondence charts – an herbal chart on pages 50/52, a crystal chart on pages 53/54 – to make choosing the right combination of ingredients to create a spell that will work for you.
The next chapter is called “Timing Isn’t Everything but It Helps” which is certainly the truth! All witches know about working with the moon – it’s one of the first things you learn – but naturally, there is much more to that simple magick. This chapter, too, is filled with correspondence charts that make deciding when to cast a particular kind of spell simple and straightforward.
The next six chapters cover all kinds of spells: Love Spells, Money Spells, Work Spells, Protection Spells, Healing Spells, and Spells for Special Issues. No one chapter has more than eighteen spells in a chapter but altogether, there are 101 spells, rituals, recipes for serums, balms, lotions and potions, as well as amulets and talismans covering almost every situation a modern witch might encounter. All require no more than ingredients and tools that are easily found in any supermarket or dollar store and are easily performed. I can’t imagine not wanting this little book on my shelf!
In all, Hex Your Ex: And 100+ Other Spells to Right Wrongs and Banish Bad Luck for Good is a great little book – lots of information packed into this small pocket-sized book! Whoever is the author of this book – be it Skye Alexander or an anonymous committee of writers – I cannot recommend it more highly. Find it at your local library or favorite book seller and give it a read!
Brightest Blessings!
References:
Hex Your Ex: And 100+ Other Spells to Right Wrongs and Banish Bad Luck for Good. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 1919.
Hex Your Ex: And 100+ Other Spells to Right Wrongs and Banish Bad Luck for Good on Amazon
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About the Author:
Polly MacDavid lives in Buffalo, New York at the moment but that could easily change, since she is a gypsy at heart. Like a gypsy, she is attracted to the divinatory arts, as well as camp fires and dancing barefoot. She has three cats who all help her with her magic.
Her philosophy about religion and magic is that it must be thoroughly based in science and logic. She is Dianic Wiccan and she is solitary.
She blogs at silverapplequeen.wordpress.com. She writes about general life, politics and poetry. She is writing a novel about sex, drugs and recovery.