The Cunning Man's Handbook: The Practice of English Folk Magic 1550-1900 Paperback – 21 Jun. 2014

Well researched and practical.

This is truly an amazing book!As someone who is very interested in 'folk magic' and Folklore I found Baker's compilation of the such information both fascinating and invaluable in increasing our understand of this important, yet rather neglected, area of British history.I agree with one other reviewer; this really need to be in a better quality binding, probably hardback.(I have actually spoken to the publisher; a hardback edition may indeed come about)

Excellent

There is a lot of interesting and useful information in this thick paperback book of 556 pages. However I must admit I was a bit disappointed with this edition because the font is rather small throughout, plus there is not much space between paragraphs at times e.g the chapter on Moles, which make it a tad difficult to read at times. In saying that, there is so much information in this book it is worth reading through if you are interested in the subject area.

There seems little doubt that Jim Baker has dived in fully clothed and swam about for a considerable time in his search for 'cunningmen and their philosophy on magical works' why else would he title his book as such! This is his Opus Major, his 'we all have that one book within us' book or maybe should have been, yet, despite the title, some of the references within, some spells which can be found in other books of similar nature there is in fact nothing new, well apart from the fact the print is very small which makes your eyes water trying to read it, I ask myself why did he bother if this was the only book he had in him? why couldn't he have made this into a 3 book series used bigger fonts and maybe interspersed each book with references to the next, the previous or the final part? I wish I has seen the introduction and the reference section before deciding to part with my money as they form a large part of the book and actually will and should form a potential buyers decision to purchase, that in itself would have stopped me dead and I wouldn't have bothered, the fact David Rankine is involved was the deciding factor for me as he is and has been for many years one of my favourite authors on Esoteric themes yet even he can make a mistake. From my own experience of 'cunning man' books even using the 'black books' as a reference his tome has gone so far over the top as to make it unintelligible to all but the most ardent of intellectual readers, why refer to The Goetia? and then reprint the entire hierarchy of hell! was this to pad out an already overstuffed book, the cunning mans books were not anything like this, they did not include benedictions as their history precludes christianity by many hundreds of years, they were the possessors of knowledge passed down through those generations, father to son, mother to daughter, why would they have involved any christian references in a subject that they knew by heart had nothing to do with it, to go further on this topic I thought it was common knowledge that most cunning men or women were only slightly literate, yes they had a book of spells as it was no doubt called but the majority was strictly within their own heads, a book during the period Baker mentions would have condemned them to death irrespective of the conclusion of a trial, heretical acts witchcraft it wouldn't have mattered which crime they were accused of each would have been proven without a doubt with the book as 'prima face' evidence. I'm reading through this review and I honestly wish I could be more positive about the book but having read roughly 2/3rds of it and still suffering headaches not just because of the small font size but also because of the references to other tomes which have nothing to do with the subject at all, I am hard pressed to do so. I'm please Mr Baker found the task to absorbing and I have no doubt from the way the book has been laid out that he is a highly educated man but cunning men and women were not so why try to create something more from what is traditionally a commonal garden variety of worker not some high browed ceremonial magician such as A Crowley. I am sorry that I am negative about this but the people out there who like me have a desire to pursue truth without the church stepping in to stick a cross in it wanted and thought we had something which was new and exciting, all we have in fact is more of the 'same o' 'same o', good attempt better luck next time is what should be written in the margins for this one.