Book Review – Magickal Mediumship: Partnering with the Ancestors for Healing and Spiritual Development by Danielle Dionne
Book Review
Magickal Mediumship
Partnering with the Ancestors for
Healing and Spiritual Development
by Danielle Dionne
Llewellyn
288 Pages
Every now and then a book appears out of the ether at the perfect time. Magickal Mediumship by Danielle Dionne is one of those books. Dionne, a psychic medium and witch, has blended magic and communing with the dead to create not just a “bridge” to the deceased but a working tool to enhance our personal spirituality.
Written with a down to earth warmth, this is no esoteric tome, but rather a step-by-step plan to connect not only with ancestors, but with deities, angels and ascended masters—enabling the reader to receive their knowledge and advice to grow and heal. Believing that “you don’t have to be special,”[1] to engage the spirit world, Dionne dispels the mystery surrounding connection to the supernatural. She evens tells you to “knock it off” [2]like a cranky teacher if you say you can’t do it.
Uniquely qualified to write this book, Dionne has been a professional medium, studied at the Arthur Findlay College, and with notable mediums such as Tony Stockwell. She is also a Deputy Minister at the Temple of Witchcraft for the Scorpio Ministry, where she works consistently with death and dying. She has also run Death Cafés, has volunteered at hospice, and is the owner of Moth and Moon Studio. Using this extensive experience and knowledge, Dionne has sifted through spiritualism, magic and ancestor worship with a skeptical eye to find the processes that have been successful for her, which she then incorporates into this work. What is refreshing is that Dionne doesn’t look askance at any spirit willing to help—even if as she puts it “your ancestors are assholes.”[3]
Divided into four parts, Dionne leads her audience on a journey from beginning mediumship to facing their own mortality, with each layer building onto the next.
Part One: Mediumship and Magick starts with the essentials–the different types of mediumship, different types of souls and ancestors. She also describes the varying ways to receive messages whether they be clairvoyance, clairaudience or other forms of communiques.
Part Two: Connecting with the Dead explains how to contact the spirits, how to prepare the room for mediumship and what planetary influences and timing to use to aid this connection and most importantly—ethics, like knowing how to deliver messages received by the medium with thought and care.
In Part Three: Partnering with the Dead, Dionne moves forward to delve into the entities with whom can collaborate. They can be Gods, spirit guides, plant or animal spirits, and myriad ancestors. She also offers the many ways we can work with these entities, such as dreams, candle magick and divination.
Part Four: Death Comes For Us All: Here the author brings us to our own deaths. What are our last directives? How do we accomplish a good death? How do we take care of our loved ones? She encourages her readers to confront their feelings on the end of life and urges them talk about death—their own and their near and dear. This is done, to accept death as the part of the cycle that it is and to allow us “to live our lives more fully.”[4]
Throughout these four segments, Dionne shares her personal anecdotes and gives us plenty of instruments to work with. There are original exercises—like writing your own obituary–prayers, blessings, and recipes to help us reach a successful outcome.
Magickal Mediumship is an important work especially in these uncertain times. It encompasses so much, it is impossible absorb it all in one reading. Rather it should be kept on the shelf to return to again and again and used for any inquiry regarding mediumship and working with death.
Danielle Dionne can be reached at www.DanielleDionne.com
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1] Chapter 11, Page 112, 2nd Paragraph Line 2
[2] Chapter 11Page 112 2nd Paragraph Line 2
[3] Chapter 18 Page 217, Last Paragraph Title
[4] Conclusion, Page 250, 2nd Paragraph, Lines 7-8
Magickal Mediumship: Partnering with the Ancestors for Healing and Spiritual Development on Amazon
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About the Author:
Raye Snover is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Daily News and The Village Sun. She was also co-editor of The Temple Bell –the newsletter for The Temple of Witchcraft
Having been a witch for over twenty years, Ms. Snover is a High Priestess in the Cabot Tradition and a member of The Sisterhood of Avalon. She is also a Veriditas trained Labyrinth facilitator, and lives in New York City.
