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Rating: 
Summary: Very informative!
Review: I really enjoyed this book for it's scholarly treatment of the material. It explains varying types of magic and shamanism in the Norse culture, utilizing first-hand accounts and primary and secondary sources. It explains how the ancient practice was accomplished and how modern heathens are bringing an ancient practice into the 21st century. People looking for specific shamanic exercises or activities will have to look elsewhere as this book is not a hands-on guide. It also is not tied to the "ancient ways" of doing things. Blain thoroughly goes over the historical texts dealing with magick and Seid but interprets them with modern usage in mind. Strict reconstructionalists will have a problem with this mind-set but I, for one, am not adverse to making ancient concepts accessible to a modern audience. This book is an excellent over-view of Seith! I enjoyed it very much!
Rating: 
Summary: Why do publishers continue to kill innocent trees like this?
Review: If I could have given this book 0 stars I would have. The information in this book does not represent seiðr in any way shape or form. It isn't even a decent book on spæ. This steaming pile is based partially upon the works of Hrafnar in San Francisco... and a horrible interpretation on a short episode in the Greenlander's Saga... but only partialy. If anything it is symptomatic as what passes for academia these days.... speculative bolonga based not on historical facts and precedence... but on personal insight and the "this is how I feel" empirical notions that pass for research. Give someone a degree and they think they can present fiction as fact. Rife with inaccuracies, unable to support its whackadoo notions in light of primary source materials, not consistent with any Germanic Worldview, I could go on and on about this book... but would it really help the sad state Seiðr has become? Flat out this book is "Garbage de' Pop-Shamanism" and belongs on the shelf of a Michael Hardner fan... not a Heathen, or an Academic. Save a tree, refuse to buy bad books!
Rating: 
Summary: BUYER BEWARE
Review: if you are a practitioner looking for mythological context, techniques or methods for magical and/or shamanic practices of northern europe, i recommend that you do not buy this book ... it does not explore the nine-world mythology of northern europe, magic practices or shamanic practices the author openly admits that she is an academic who is writing primarily for an academic audience ... however, she also admits to being a practitioner who is supporting rediscovery and/or reinvention ... the result, in my opinion, at best this book is primarily an exploration of academic definition ... at worst, it is a justification to academia for the author being an academic and a practitioner ... i believe that it would have served better if the author had written two books, one strictly for academia and one strictly for practitioners ... it seems to me that the author is certainly capable of both ... however, dealing with both roles in one writing seems to result in the author's testifying to a "split" in purpose, and with a decisive prejudice towards academia ... having received this impression early in and repeatedly throughout the reading, i believe she conveys as much in a concluding comment on page 157 when she writes: "to me, the shaman becomes a metaphor for the ethnographer of post-modernity, moving through the worlds, moving between levels of analysis, in an attempt to reconstruct something in her own understandings, her own life, that approaches wholeness, an understanding of living that is complete, not fragmented, returning in her journeys to a pole of being, a world tree" i do not judge dealing with such a split in this context as inappropriate, only that i had not expected nor desired subject matter motivated by an attempt to define and justify (perhaps heal?) one's academic/experiential split ... i had hoped to learn more about northern mythology, seid-magic and nordic shamanism in context to contemporary issues ... to me, this is what the title suggests is available ... however, this is not what i found to be the case the bottom line: outside of the author's relatively brief, anecdotal reporting of personal experience with oracular-seid, there is nothing here for the practitioner concerning northern cosmology/mythology, seid-magic or nordic shamanism ... thus, BUYER BEWARE from the perspective of a practitioner seeking practices, my review results in one star ... as a philosophical attempt to academically define the subject matter, my review results in three stars ... hence, two stars total
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