I was really looking forward to reading this book. It seemed to be well reviewed and the subject matter looked interesting. I really dislike giving negative reviews to books, but this one just isn't that good.

It started on the wrong foot with me because the author told me in the preface that the first two chapters were going to explain how science proves that magic really works. The first two chapters do indeed attempt to prove this, but there is nothing in those chapters that give anything close to proof that magic, psychic healing or perception actually truly works. Also, while this is a topic that I love to sit around and talk about, I detest reading about it. I also distrust non-scientist's assumptions about what this study or that study meant. Show me the study, let me read it. Ok, enough about that.

The rest of the book is on a variety of topics all pertaining to deeper and often genuinely interesting ways to access deeper forms of magic. The problem is that the majority of the book isn't Polson's work. It's lengthy excerpts of books, newsgroup/forum postings, interviews, and recalled conversations she has found interesting followed by her own comments. This isn't a book, it's really more like a series of book reviews. She does include a lot of personal experiences of her own and bits of advice the reader may find useful and some of these are helpful. For the most part, the chapters I found interesting were because the author convinced me to buy the book she was so highly recommending. There are chapters on veil work, shamanism, Otherkin (I was hopeful for this chapter, it disappointed, it's the one that's just a recounting of message board postings), Aspecting (possibly the worst chapter), Intuition, and Energy flow in a large group (this might be one of the better chapters)

I was also confused as to who the intended reader was for this book. Polson continually claimed she was presenting advanced material, yet made disclaimer after disclaimer. She also routinely added little "if you're offended by use of the term 'x'" type statements, making me think she was so concerned by being ripped apart on the minor details she may have just forgotten about actually writing something useful. There are also far too many Harry Potter references in this book. I'm sorry, but "muggle" is not a word. I would expect to get slapped if I went around calling people that, and rightly so.

If I can say anything good about the book, it's that there were a couple of chapters that presented some interesting material. The chapter on veil work had a few decent suggestions that seemed to actually be the author's own work. The last chapter on ritual work in large groups was better too. The personal experiences were useful rather than a bunch of "one time, at band camp" type of stories. Though there were a lot of outside sources, there was a good amount of the authors own work and the suggestions were pretty good.

I want to add, as a final note, that the interviews and recollections of personal conversations were interesting. I don't want to knock what the other people had to say. A lot of it came from M. Macha NightMare who I find almost always at least interesting. I just feel that at least half the pages should be filled with the author's words. Not the words of somebody else. I can't recommend this book. ( )