When I see a book about urban magic, I get so excited. Living in a rural or country setting, it is somewhat easier to get supplies, feel the spirits and communicate with the world around you. Spirits are everywhere and many are the same all over and some are different. How do you practice in a city with no privacy or soil or anything? It's easy if you know how. This book sets you on your way to learning about things around you. Need soil to bury something in? Flowerpots work well. Listen to the sounds around you. What do the buildings whisper to you? Magic is where you find it. This book should be read and on every shelf. Embrace the world around you and feel the magic flowing. I received this book from Net Galley and Llewellyn Publishing for a honest review.

If you live in the city and want to learn more about magick then I would totally recommend this book to you!! It teaches you how to walk with your eyes open in a world full of buildings and noise. I loved how it teaches you to practice your way with your surrounds and not trying to just escape your city. Learn to transform your city to your advantage and be spiritual in the city you love!

I first came across the concept of the 'spirit' of a city in a book called Chaos Monkey, which is surprisingly absent from the extensive bibliography of this book, especially as the author mentions chaos magic a few times.

The book starts out with an explanation very similar, including going into the role the inhabitants of the city play in creating the collective feel of any given city. It then goes on with a lot of references to general magical knowledge and cites various well-known books on magick, but I couldn't see a connection between this and specifically urban magick until later on when some examples are given of spells you might apply to urban situations.

I did like some of her ideas for tuning into a new city. Again, the idea of walking the city to get the feel of it was in the book I previously read, but there were some new ideas as well. There's a long chapter about the history of cities in ancient civilisations, though Rome only got a couple of brief mentions, and some mythology loosely connected to specific cities.

The book talks about invoking energies of ancient cities but the author doesn't seem to feel you actually have to have ever visited these cities to do so. It wanders pretty far from working with the city under your feet, then offers rituals for connecting to ancient patron deities of cities you've never been to and somehow connecting that to your own city. It started losing my attention with some new agey ideas.

I got the feeling a lot of the digression was coming straight from the cited references, although in some cases it didn't ring just right. For example, the author mentions Marduk but leaves out the bull sacrifice Marduk requires.

It then goes into urban planning and the history of garden cities, and off to the realm of making your own astral garden city and spirit hunting.

The author did make a very good point that different parts of the city would engender different energies, for example, doing financial spells in a financial district and more sedate spells in residential areas. She describes a sort of psychic vampirism, collecting energy from the collective buzz of city residents and describes a little about energy manipulation, but assumes prior knowledge of magical cleansing and grounding.

A lot of exercises are given, though many like researching buildings or lurking in places that might bring the terrorist squad out to see what you're up to aren't likely to get many takers. Still, a few original ideas.

Most people I know including myself have lived in a city most all of my life. I never looked at the place where I lived as one that is still considered nature. After reading this book I do now.
Urban Magick explained to me how , what , why and when Magick is possible while living in a city. I read this book in two days! It is engaging but more important it gives lots of examples of how to put the information given into real , practical practice. I have never looked at magick as that can be done daily or easily. Now I do.
Also the author has made this very positive and uplifting , as how healing and positive change are possible when engaging the energies available in most every city.
City dwelling folks that are on a spiritual or magickal path will find this book useful and putting into words what others have hinted at or tried to explain.

I was expecting more specific spells, etc - this is more of a book about the idea of city magic. It talks about conceptualizing city magic (in a different way than one would conceptualize traditional woodsy ideas), city deities, etc. I am not personally a believer, but I feel readers who understand this isn't exactly a spellbook would find a lot to like here and will be recommending it for purchase.

I've been reading a lot of witchcraft related books lately out of curiosity and delving into it. Urban City Witch is a book that narrates city spirits. I never knew cities had spirits before. If I think of the city spirit of where I live, it's a weary and heavy spirit. She's tired and angry. I don't know why but I feel like that's our city spirit. It's a difficult place to live in. Crime is very high, it's dirty, people are tired and just trying to get by. Nobody wants to be here but few have a choice or chance to leave.

I expected a little bit more of rituals and exercises but most chapters felt like something out of an architect's digest. If you're not particularly interested in architecture then this book might just not be the one for you.

Overall a thought-provoking book that I found very informative on a subject I know very little about.

Did you know that each city has its own spirit? Neither did I until this book. There's a lot in here and even some spells. I think city magick users will be pleased. As for me... I just... I fell asleep to this book for three nights on end. I did finish it but nothing to me really stuck. Sorry!

I was given this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Will go live on the bog: 2/5/2020

Okay so, I have never lived in a city.
My parents just are not city people.
Too chaotic, too cluttered, too anxiety inducing.
I’m 30 and can move to a city myself with my daughter but their hatred of cities seems to have been ingrained in my blood.
I mean I have lived and live close enough to major cities such as NYC and now Philly but oof anxiety...
I guess I’m saying I mainly picked this book up because the allure of city magick sounds absolutely intoxicating? You hear so much about the other kinds of magick especially rural magick but not so much about cities which seems so new fangled and modern but cities have been around FOREVER. I requested this book on Netgalley as soon as I could and I was not disappointed in the slightest.
Did you know there are city deities?
I sure as hell didn’t. And did you know that they’re more important and harsher? CHAOTIC.
Baby, I thrive off chaos.
This book explores the rituals that connects you ancient city deities which...I don’t know that you should do but uh, if you feel up to time traveling let’s do it.
Do you want to know what my favorite part of this book is?
Ghosts
I mean, of course it was.
What kind of city doesn’t have it’s ghosts?
And what kind of book doesn’t have a recipe for exorcising said boogiemen?

This book makes me feel all Fullmetal Alchemists. There’s talks of casting circles and creating shields...It’s a great guide and I do admit it’s somewhat out of my element but its a super interesting read. I don’t think I’d personally use any of the spell work myself but it’s a fun guide and definitely worth the read.

Thanks very much to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy of my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I don't live in the city, but not really in a rural area either. But it didn't matter, I enjoyed this book immensely. I was able to take quite a few tips and ideas and apply them to my own. I took what I wanted and left behind what I didn't, love books like that

Interesting take on witchery that I haven't seen before - witchcraft for the urban witch. But, also not the best guide I've seen. Found myself not feeling compelled to finish.

Urban Magick is a thought provoking book at times, but I really enjoyed it. It also contains some spells and rituals, which was neat.

I found this book to be most thorough in its explainings of the workings of magick. It tells us what magick is and is not. Where we may find the spirits. Most importantly the laws of magick. Thrir are also explainings as to the how to casting of spells. This book was most enjoyable and very informative.

Not really what I expected. There is some exercises/rituals that you can do but more talking about the urban environment more than anything - to me anyway.

Sorry for possible English mistakes!
With this book you can summon air inspiration from your room wall (yes!), you can banish unwanted influences by taking bus ride, you can talk and receive appropriate advices from city statues with evocation, you can go to your local library and develop relationship with Mercurial spirits...and most importantly you can make contact with main spirit or deity of the city where you live. That entity can reveal you many wonderful secrets. As you can see this is an very, very interesting book. We can skip some places in text where are minor rants and too much explanations or even two or three fatalistic statements! All that is sometimes normal in this kind of books. In short: many great ideas how to work magick WITH your city are covered here. Thanks.

Most witchcraft-related books focus on rural areas. These authors seem to operate under the assumption that the reader lives in the countryside or the suburbs.

In other words, there’s a dearth of instructional material for those of us who practice in cities. The techniques you see in more general occult texts can be adapted to urban living, of course.

But, very rarely does an author tackle the matter of city witches who wish to incorporate the city into their magic. There’s simply not a lot of published information about working with city spirits as opposed to simply tolerating them.

I currently live in Warsaw, Poland. Just prior to that, I lived in Krakow, and it was there that I performed what I now call the “Krakow Working” on the summer solstice of 2016.

In that rite, I sought a deep connection with the spirit of the city itself. With few resources at my disposal (not many books even acknowledge that cities have spirits), a lot of it was improvisation, but it remains one of my most potent workings to this day.

Afterwards, I still wished I could find more material on city spirits, and serendipity (well, Netgalley, anyways) led me to Diana Rajchel’s upcoming work on this very subject.

Diana Rajchel wrote Urban Magick for city witches like me. This book focuses on working with, rather than against, the complex metaphysical currents of the modern urban landscape.

It gives a great deal of attention to the spirits that dwell within our cities. I’d argue that it’s primarily a book for spiritworkers, albeit in an urban context.

If you’ve no experience working with spirits, you might want to hold off on picking up this book. Instead, start with some more general books to get the basics.

If you’re in an urban area, and are at least somewhat familiar with notions of genius loci, devas, and other such critters, though, this book will definitely be a welcome addition to your shelf.

Rajchel devotes quite a few pages to workings for justice, community-building, and plenty of other altruistic motives. She clearly recognizes that part of city life involves sharing our energetic space with our fellow humans.

Rajchel shows that spiritwork can and should be conducive to a harmonious existence amongst other city-dwellers.

Her book is one of several published recently which discusses workings for communal justice and equity. In our increasingly polarized world, this seems particularly timely and will likely inspire many magical activists.

I have to give this book five out of five stars, for its erudite and timely tackling of an oft-ignored topic in witchcraft and magical practice.

I think it’s just wonderful to read, and I await further books from this author. This is the book that I’d wished for when I was performing the Krakow Working, and will definitely inspire future generations of city witches.