Issue 1 of The Crooked Path Journal contains the following articles: Inside the Wicker Man - Peter Paddon The Origin of the Word "Witch" - R.J. Thompson Witch's Ritual For Getting Rid of Evil Magic - "Ku Potula" - Radomir Ristic Tapping the Bone - Peter Paddon Morning - Hedgewizard Usage of Animals and Animal Body Parts in Traditional Witchcraft - Radomir Ristic Candlemas and the Land Ceremonies Charm R.J. Thompson Cosmic Soup and the Mighty Dead - Peter Paddon The Rite of Candlemas and the Land Ceremonies Charm R.J. Thompson Blacksmith as Magus - Radomir Ristic Celtic Nine Poems - Peter Paddon As I Do Will It - Ann Finnin Walking the Crooked Path - Peter Paddon Turning The Hand of Fate - Raven Womack Making a Traditional Witches' Besom - Peter Paddon The Crooked Path Journal is a quarterly magazine for Traditional Witches, Cunningfolk and other practitioners of the Nameless Art.

Finalist for the 2022 Lincoln Prize An award-winning scholar uncovers the guiding principles of Lincoln’s antislavery strategies. The long and turning path to the abolition of American slavery has often been attributed to the equivocations and inconsistencies of antislavery leaders, including Lincoln himself. But James Oakes’s brilliant history of Lincoln’s antislavery strategies reveals a striking consistency and commitment extending over many years. The linchpin of antislavery for Lincoln was the Constitution of the United States. Lincoln adopted the antislavery view that the Constitution made freedom the rule in the United States, slavery the exception. Where federal power prevailed, so did freedom. Where state power prevailed, that state determined the status of slavery, and the federal government could not interfere. It would take state action to achieve the final abolition of American slavery. With this understanding, Lincoln and his antislavery allies used every tool available to undermine the institution. Wherever the Constitution empowered direct federal action—in the western territories, in the District of Columbia, over the slave trade—they intervened. As a congressman in 1849 Lincoln sponsored a bill to abolish slavery in Washington, DC. He reentered politics in 1854 to oppose what he considered the unconstitutional opening of the territories to slavery by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He attempted to persuade states to abolish slavery by supporting gradual abolition with compensation for slaveholders and the colonization of free Blacks abroad. President Lincoln took full advantage of the antislavery options opened by the Civil War. Enslaved people who escaped to Union lines were declared free. The Emancipation Proclamation, a military order of the president, undermined slavery across the South. It led to abolition by six slave states, which then joined the coalition to affect what Lincoln called the "King’s cure": state ratification of the constitutional amendment that in 1865 finally abolished slavery.

Issue 2 of The Crooked Path Journal contains the following articles: Artemisia - Eric De Vries Bag of Bones - Steven Posch Balkan Traditional Witchcraft - Radomir Ristic Sympathetic Magic - R.J. Thompson The Call - Veronica Cummer The Dragon and the Dragon Slayer - Robin Artisson Away With the Fairies - M.V. Wragg Childe Ballad 243 - Steven Posch Scourges and Traditional Craft - Radomir Ristic Occult Significance of the Crossing Rite - R.J. Thompson Cupmarks - Steven Posch Great Spirits of Fate - Radomir Ristic Virtues and Ethics - R.J. Thompson Young Hornie Steals Fire - Steven Posc

By a bent line, by a straight line, by a crooked line. The Crooked Path Podcast, hosted by Peter Paddon, was a weekly offering of lore and practical instruction offered up to the Traditional Craft community. Delivered with humor and wisdom, and a soft British accent, the podcast proved to be very popular with its target audience, and this book offers a selection of transcripts from the show. Included in this volume are: The Path of the Outcast Sacred Space and Ancestral Work Ancestral Work Spring Equinox Witch's Mark and Witch Blood Witch-Wear & Herb Lore Beltaine Pathworkings Pagan Books and Authors Karma/Fate Tapping the Bone Interview With Dave Finnin (Clan of Tubal Cain) Oaths and Pacts Lammas Traditions of Witchcraft The Mystery of Initiation Crises of Faith Angels, Demons and Other Entities Why Do a Podcast? (plus interview with Ann Finnin)

Combining humor, honesty, and plainspoken advice, Momma Zen distills the doubts and frustrations of motherhood into vignettes of Zen wisdom Drawing on her experience as a first-time mother and her years of Zen meditation and study, Karen Miller explores how the daily challenges of parenthood can become the most profound spiritual journey of our lives. Her compelling and wise memoir follows the timeline of early motherhood from pregnancy through toddlerhood. Momma Zen takes readers on a transformative journey, charting a mother’s growth beyond naive expectations and disorientation to finding fulfillment in ordinary tasks, developing greater self-awareness and acceptance—to the gradual discovery of "maternal bliss," a state of abiding happiness and ease that is available to us all. In her gentle and reassuring voice, Karen Miller convinces us that ancient and authentic spiritual lessons can be as familiar as a lullaby, as ordinary as pureed peas, and as frequent as a sleepless night. She offers encouragement for the hard days, consolation for the long haul, and the lightheartedness every new mom needs to face the crooked path of motherhood straight on.

“A masterful debut” that follows four generations of Cherokee women across four decades—from the Plimpton Prize–winning author (Sarah Jessica Parker). It’s 1974 in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and fifteen-year-old Justine grows up in a family of tough, complicated, and loyal women, presided over by her mother, Lula, and Granny. After Justine’s father abandoned the family, Lula became a devout member of the Holiness Church—a community that Justine at times finds stifling and terrifying. But Justine does her best as a devoted daughter, until an act of violence sends her on a different path forever. Crooked Hallelujah tells the stories of Justine—a mixed-blood Cherokee woman—and her daughter, Reney, as they move from Eastern Oklahoma’s Indian Country in the hopes of starting a new, more stable life in Texas amid the oil bust of the 1980s. However, life in Texas isn’t easy, and Reney feels unmoored from her family in Indian Country. Against the vivid backdrop of the Red River, we see their struggle to survive in a world—of unreliable men and near-Biblical natural forces, like wildfires and tornados—intent on stripping away their connections to one another and their very ideas of home. In lush and empathic prose, Kelli Jo Ford depicts what this family of proud, stubborn, Cherokee women sacrifices for those they love, amid larger forces of history, religion, class, and culture. This is a big-hearted and ambitious novel of the powerful bonds between mothers and daughters by an exquisite and rare new talent. “A compelling journey through the evolving terrain of multiple generations of women.” —The Washington Post

From the bestselling author of The Girl From the Train, comes another compelling coming of age story of delayed love, loss, and reconciliation in WWII-era South Africa. Lettie has always felt different from and overshadowed by the women around her– this friend is richer, that friend is more beautiful, those friends are closer. Still, she doesn’t let this hold her back. She works hard to apply her mind, trying to compensate for her perceived lack of beauty with diligent academic work and a successful career as a doctor. She learns to treasure her friendships, but she still wonders if any man will ever return her interest. Marco’s experience in the second world war have robbed him of love and health. When winters in his native Italy prove dangerous to his health even after the war has ended, he moves to South Africa to be with his brother, husband to one of Lettie’s best friends. Marco is Lettie’s first patient, and their relationship grows as she aids him on the road back to restored health. In the company of beloved characters from The Child of the River, Marco and Lettie find a happiness that neither of them thought possible. With that joy comes pain and loss, but Lettie learns that life—while perhaps a crooked path—is always a journey worth taking.