Encyclopedia of Spirits

This is a really nice reference book. The layout is easy to read and the book lays flat without pages flopping around when I have it open on my desk. There is also an included bibliography in the back, which I view as a good sign in any reference book. I found the author's writing style to be quite engaging for a reference book as well.

Very in depth resource book. Worth every cent! Great for research.

Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses by Judika Illes is one of my most used reference books, both for writing research and for my own magickal practice. Illes presents a very comprehensive range of different spirits as the subtitle of the book suggests. This isn’t just a reference book though, the first 110 pages are her discussing spirits and how to work with them. These topics include but are not limited to explaining the realms of spirits, communicating with spirits, creating altars and shrines to the spirits, why spirits want to help us, how to care and feed spirits, etc. This alone is worth buying the book as it has some of the best information on the topic that is printed and presented in such a way that is readily understood by any reader. A lot of the information within the entries are rare. I used this book as one of the references for a piece I wrote about Cybele in an anthology on goddesses and I was going insane trying to figure out where she was getting some of her information. Another Amazon reviewer rudely demands where Illes is getting her information from, and whether its from a commonly mistaken ”perversion” of history. Well, since I wanted to find the sources for some of the information that she provides that I couldn’t find in any of my books (and my library is pretty extensive) or online, I began digging through academic papers and archeological surveys with the help of a ancient pagan history expert and there I found my answers. The information she provided was indeed correct, although obscure. On one hand, yes it would have been amazing if she listed all of her sources. But coming in at 1,072 pages it would be almost impossible to cite all of sources without adding a few hundred more pages. Despite this, she still cites about 300 sources in the Bibliography at the end of the book. A typical entry consists of the spirit’s name, other names they’re known by, place of origin, iconography, manifestation, history, myths, offerings, sacred animals, sacred plants, sacred numbers, elemental, planetary and color correspondences, as well as a “see also” for related spirits. Each spirit may have more or less categories within the reference just depending on what is known about the spirit and which culture it comes from. The book comes in a nice sturdy hardcover, which is great because if you’re anything like me, you’ll be referring to the book often and the hardcover keeps it from wearing out from use.

An invaluable resource to anyone delving into magical practices which engage in beings of the spiritual realm. No stone is left unturned. Not only does this encyclopedia allow one to find a specific Spirit quickly, but it provides a deep amount of information both folklorically, but also deals directly with offerings, colors, likes and dislikes, etc. This is a must have for the modern day magical worker.

Without hesitation, I highly encourage you to buy this book. I am a book snob and I tend to be very picky. I have been known to return a book after only reading the first page. I’ve done a lot of research on spirits and deities, and while that has been helpful, I’ve been searching for a book that compiles all of that information for me to use time and time again. This book checks that box for me. It is very thoughtfully researched, written, and laid out. The first part of the book goes over a wonderfully detailed history of spirits and deity work. The rest of the book goes into detail of individual spirits, deities, gods, goddesses, etc. I didn’t buy this book to read it like a novel, I bought this for reference and research. If you have any desire to learn about or connect with higher powers, I highly recommend you start with this tool.

Awesome book! Set up like a true encyclopedia. It's thick. It cites its sources. Very organized writing. Insightful "prologue."

I was a bit torn on buying this, because I thought a lot of the same information on spirits could be found with a Google search, but it has turned out to be a very helpful resource for several reasons, and I frequently reference it. It cannot be easily replaced by Wikipedia, as many encyclopedias can. It strikes a good balance between detail and summary and avoids the pitfall of shoving each spirit into a convenient "God of War" or "Goddess of the Moon" even when they don't quite fit - one of my biggest issues with similar encyclopedias. The materials at the beginning of the book are incredibly helpful for anyone who views spirits as more than just mythological curiosities, anyone who is interested in honoring or engaging with them. This might be the most important distinguishing feature between this book and online encyclopedias. The author speaks at length about what spirits are, how to communicate with them and work with them, how to honor them and leave offerings, how to find spirit allies, potential dangers, etc. This book goes much further than Pagan 101 resources in explaining how exactly one might go about approaching and maintaining relationships with spirits, with clear and practical tips, but without being too strict about what methods one should use. The advice is sound and flexible for a variety of spiritual paths. Generally, the author merely advocates for caution rather than drawing hard lines. As for the actual entries on the spirits, there are several advantages to just reading up on the spirits on Wikipedia. Excess detail on specific myths is stripped down so you can read the key points of each without wading through excess information - the author describes the intention of these as "to give a sense of each spirit’s basic nature in order to enable readers to identify the spirits they seek and enough practical information to work with them," as essentially "matchmaking profiles", and these certainly work well for that purpose. At the same time, it's not just bullet points - there's really valuable information included in each entry. The entries are written with the assumption that each spirit is real, not just a concept, and will often discuss the personalities of various deities and when/why people might want to invoke them. The entries will give a warning when spirits have significant conflicts with each other and shouldn't be honored side-by-side, and will mention if spirits are approachable and generally benevolent, powerful but volatile, or whatever else - stuff you'll really want to know if you plan to honor or work with a spirit. Different information is included for each spirit, but most major deity entries conclude with typical manifestations, iconography/attributes, favored people, suggested offerings, and associated animals, colors, etc, which is useful. The kindle book can be easily searched for keywords or symbols without redundancy as there is on Google - each result will bring you to a new deity rather than just the most popular spirit associated with a particular symbol, and there is an appendix which lists all the included spirits associated with earthquakes, fertility, librarians, snakes, and many other specialties. As for accuracy - so far, this seems to be a reliable resource, though I'm not an expert by any means. There is occasional material that strikes me as UPG (unverified personal gnosis), which some may see as a red flag, but also makes it more unique than many encyclopedias. When it is included and I'm familiar with the deities in question, it seems in-line with the UPG that I've seen commonly appear in neopagan communities, so it's not the author's invention. This book is free of material that is "fluffy" or oversimplistic, which is good (both of those are big red flags for me). For example, unlike many contemporary sources that reduce Freya to "Goddess of Love" and ignore her darker aspects, this book says she has "dominion over love, sex, fertility, magic, witchcraft, warcraft, death, pleasure, and glory," and explains those associations and her traditional significance. There are a few minor inconsistencies (for example, for offerings to Odin it says he "eats only sacred meat; there's little that's material that you can give him" - but in other sources, mead and whiskey are frequently listed as suitable offerings) - so you'll want to consult other sources if you're serious about honoring a particular spirit - but I haven't yet come across something that's an atrocious misrepresentation. However, there are some inconsistencies in formatting, omissions, and lack of organization that earn this only four stars. Inconsistencies in formatting - "origin" is usually included at the start of entries, but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it will list "Greece" as the origin, and other times "Greek" - a nitpick, but if you're searching the kindle book for "Greece" to try to find all the Greek entries, you'll miss some, and that's an issue. If spirits were organized by origin, it wouldn't be, which is an organizational issue for me. There is an appendix for "Spirits and their Specialties," which is useful, but I would really have appreciated an Appendix that included the spirits listed by origin or pantheon. There have been several times I've really wanted that feature, and it wouldn't have been that hard to include. People with hard copies won't even have the luxury of a search tool to round up all the mentioned deities of any given pantheon - that would be a huge pain when exploring pantheons! As far as omissions go - another reviewer mentioned Ra, which is one of the most glaring omissions. Obviously you can't include everyone, but big omissions make me concerned. If the pantheons were filled out a bit more, extra care given to consistency, and the organization fixed, this would be a five star book for me.

Great Excellent Encyclopedia!