Review: Spells for Mindfulness

Hi everyone. Hope you're doing well despite all the chaos out there.

Today's review is of “Spells for Mindfulness: Incantations and charms to bring peace and positivity into your life,” by Pamela Ball. I’m sad to say that after careful consideration, I’m going to have to start my first ever review by giving this book a 1 out of 5. Stick with me to find out why!

Pamela Ball has been an author since 1999, and this particular work was originally published in 2019. For someone with 20 years of writing experience and presumably over 25 years experience as a practitioner, I don’t think this is an acceptable piece of work. It seems designed to sell a shallow product to spiritual hippies who only want aesthetic, from the curly fonts and minimalist doodles, to pages entirely filled with miscellaneous quotes, to the misrepresentative title and cover itself. More adequately titled “A Spell Sampler for Established Practitioners,” this book is the opposite of what mindful means to me, and anyone who reads it when starting out is at huge risk of establishing a very bad practice. Hold on, I’ll explain.

The good news is, there are a couple of positives. Here is what you can expect to benefit from:

• You will be exposed to new ideas through this book, no matter how long you’ve been practicing for. The spells are so diverse that there's bound to be something you've never considered doing.

• There's an entire intro chapter dedicated to being a reference guide.

Here's what's not so great:

• Despite saying the spells are for you to adjust to your preferences, the tools and correspondences are presented as not up for debate. This book claims you need certain tools on your altar. Your wand must be shorter than your forearm and is useless unless consecrated. Bath salts you don’t make personally at home by hand have absolutely no power. The list goes on.

• Some of the love spells push gender conformity; draw a picture of yourself and make sure it shows your gender. Use a blue candle if you’re a boy and pink if you’re a girl. Just those little unnecessary things.

• On a similar note, the money spells section includes a spell to attract a wealthy man, with an invocation explicitly requesting it be someone "to look after me (presumably a woman)." A money spell. If you like getting rich men to solve all your problems, fine. But in that case I encourage you to reconsider your motivation for practicing witchcraft or spirituality.

• Other money spells include burning real paper money and charming gambling dice. Sounds... mindful?

• Some spells encourage taking pieces of someone’s property; a sample of their handwriting from their office desk, their hair, their clothes and underwear. None of these spells were the kind you’d cast on someone you were friendly with, either. The lack of consent which would obviously be present in these situations is written off with a simple “remember not to force people into anything.” Yet she gives us the tools to do just that.

• A massive percentage of the spells call on deities and entities from almost every religion and belief system, save for a few originating in Asia. Not once does it encourage practitioners to appreciate the cultures or establish a relationship with said deity first. It simply suggests we can take from whatever culture and hit up whatever god/goddess/archangel we want, whenever we want. She calls smoke cleansing ‘sage smudging’ and at the end of the book she suggests writing an old, sacred Cherokee prayer on a piece of paper to welcome someone to a new home. She even claims that although we can’t all say we have these roots, it’s a great reminder that we are interconnected. White-washed, appropriated culture, anyone?

• Whatever mindfulness she might think she has, it’s not for the environment. We are burying so many things in these spells, and only in half of them do we see it suggested that we choose objects which are biodegradable. One of the last spells involves taking an old right shoe, throwing it into a river or sea, and walking away.

Ball is someone who clearly uses mindfulness as an aesthetic; why encourage a beginner (or anyone) to do the any of these things? It’s almost painful how obvious it is that she has never accepted anyone into her life who is gender non-conforming or financially suffering, as she is not mindful of these serious issues. A ‘mindful’ person would not throw trash all over the earth in an attempt to get their way, nor would they summon men to use for their money. They would not say the necessary steps to and tools for spell work are black and white. So much about this turns my stomach.

I could say a lot more about how sketchy this book is, but I’ll end it here. What I will say is don't be fooled by the cutesy cover and promising title. If you ever see this in a bookstore or a library, check it out. Flick through it and see what strikes you... Just don’t ever pay money for this.

Again, sorry for starting on a downer here! I think this is going to be the last time for a long while that I spontaneously buy a book from an author I haven't seen in the pagan/witchy/spiritual community on Instagram, or haven't had recommended to me by the people in said community. There are so many wonderful people out there with real, honest practices who publish books that are genuinely useful. Go find them instead!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you're staying safe and well.