The Cunning Farmer: Agrarian Magical Practices, Mythology, and Folklore
Autor Todd Elliott Cuvânt înainte de John Michael Greeren Limba Engleză Hardback – 23 apr 2026
• Explores how to reconnect with nature and use practical, nature-based magic for gardening and farming, fertility, and abundance
• Examines Moon work, plant magic, forest deities, Earth energies, weather magic, the cosmology of ritual, and how to work with land spirits
• Discusses folk magic traditions of North America and Western Europe, including the grimoire tradition, Western esotericism, alchemy, Kabbalah, and shamanism as well as Taoist principles and Reiki
Magic and farming, in the minds of ancient people, were not separate realms of life, but both were woven inextricably into the way people lived. Through libations, prayers, hymns, dances, sacrifices, and rituals, ancient farmers connected to the sacred forces, the gods, nature spirits, and ancestors to make the crops grow, keep the herds healthy, the weather favorable, and release energies of fertility. These rural farmer priests and priestesses of the ancient past are the spiritual ancestors of today’s cunning farmers.
This book explores folk magic traditions of North America and Western Europe, including the grimoire tradition and the practices of witches and cunning folk for increased fertility. Todd draws on Western esotericism, Taoist principles, alchemy, Kabbalah, Reiki, and shamanism to show how to use practical, nature-based magic, just like our ancestors, for more abundant gardening and farming. He shows how to work with land spirits, including meeting the place spirit of your land—the genius loci. He also explores working with Earth and Moon energies, plant magic and forest deities, and ritual. Learn how to deepen your connection to elemental and celestial forces and explore the idea of rewilding the imagination to enhance your relationship with nature and the spirits that call it home.
This book is not just a guide to farming, but to forging a relationship with the living land. It shows that we are surrounded by spiritual powers and, with their help, we can re-enchant and reconnect with the land that gives us life.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9798888501313
Pagini: 512
Ilustrații: Full-color throughout
Dimensiuni: 216 x 279 mm
Greutate: 1.26 kg
Editura: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Colecția Inner Traditions
Pagini: 512
Ilustrații: Full-color throughout
Dimensiuni: 216 x 279 mm
Greutate: 1.26 kg
Editura: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Colecția Inner Traditions
Notă biografică
Todd Elliott is a farmer, earth worker, Reiki master, Druid, and was certified as an Astrological Magician by Renaissance Astrology. A lifelong student of mythology, religion, spirituality, folklore, and esoterica, he lives, works, writes, and studies on a small ridgetop farm in north central Kentucky, where he and his family ethically raise vegetables, fruits, and livestock.
Extras
INTRODUCTION
Entering the World of the Cunning Farmer
Writing this book began as a quest to reconcile the tension between two foundational passions of my life: my love of the land, the Earth, and plants, and my deep and abiding need to connect with a transcendent spiritual reality. In the past, I have felt that farming, which is hard, time-consuming, often boring work with long hours committed to rote and tedious tasks, was something that took me away from my intellectual and spiritual pursuits, which were relegated to my scarce free time as a hobby. As I have gotten older and am now entering my fifties, the spirit is calling me more insistently, and I am being urged to pursue this calling. I have also come to realize that my calling as a farmer is absolutely essential to who I am, a calling that is as spiritual as it is physical. This book is about how there is no separation between the two vocations—that it is only through the embodied life, which is symbolized by our relationship with the Earth, that we live into our role as mediator between the heavenly and the earthly.
It has been my life as a farmer that has given me the opportunity to experience intimately the change of the seasons, the flush of new growth in the spring, the scent of rain on freshly plowed soil, the countless rainbows and thunderstorms, the first appearance of ripe seed heads in the midsummer grass that marks the turning and ripening of the year, the burgeoning harvest of July, the dusty reddish haze of the August Sun, and the first clear, crisp day of autumn. All these moods of nature I have come to know as intimately as only a lover knows his beloved.
It has also been my privilege, because as a lover of the night I am a rarity among farmers, to wander among my crops in the bright moonlight of a July Full Moon, after a thunderstorm when the power of the vegetable world is at its peak, and hear the tree frogs, the screech owls, and the katydids, and see the brilliant flashes of the fireflies, the stars of Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius whirling overhead, Jupiter and Saturn tracking across the sky, and the immensity of the Milky Way glittering above. The power, life, and spiritual vitality of all living things are palpable and undeniable at moments like these. It has become my practice, there under the stars, under the rising Moon, standing on the Earth, surrounded by that power and beauty, to honor the spiritual forces that are its source with humble and heartfelt prayer in simple rituals of great personal meaning. This is my way, and I make no apologies for it. I commit to no particular sect, school, or religion beyond that of the perennial Hermetic tradition as I see it.
My religious philosophy is informed by the Corpus Hermeticum, Neoplatonism, Hellenic and northern European Paganism, Kabbalah, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, esoteric Christianity, and animist thought from Indigenous traditions around the world. I believe in one Source for all things, outside of space and time, which pours out its being as life and light, thereby creating matter and the physical cosmos. I believe (although spatial metaphors such as “higher” and “lower” are inadequate and not to be taken literally) that there exists a hierarchy of spiritual beings that “descend” from this one creative Source that we may term “gods” and “angels,” as well as lesser spiritual beings we may call “daimones.” All of these are limited and finite in comparison with “the One” and are actually aspects of it through which it interacts with the cosmos, administering reality, so to speak.
There are apparently many different kinds of these beings, some creative and healing, which we may call “good,” and some destructive and wrathful, which we may call “evil.” What their purpose is in the scheme of the cosmos is an interesting subject for speculation but probably above my pay grade. I believe, however, in providence, not as in a naive “everything turns out for the good” providence, but more like what the ancient Greeks called pronoia, in which everything has a role to play in the vast cosmic plan that is ultimately indifferent to the finite and ephemeral beings that we are in our physical forms. We are, however, much more than physical creatures; we are gods and sparks of god hidden within dark husks of matter, and the spiritual life consists of truly remembering this and liberating the trapped light.
Matter, the dark husk I spoke of, is made of mind stuff, and has no ultimate reality. It seems solid, but science tells us that each particle contains vast reaches of empty space, punctuated by particles that can be further divided into ever-smaller particles that have no physical existence but are just mathematical probabilities until observed, merely bits of information in the cosmic dreaming mind of the One, the lila of Ishvara, the dance of Shiva. This universe, made of mind stuff in the shape of matter, controlled by spiritual beings that administer creation, is somewhat malleable and plastic—under the right conditions—on a spiritual level. And this is where magic comes in.
A warning to the casual reader: Much of this book deals with magic. If this is going to be a problem for you, turn back now. If you think that we are hellbound for exploring such matters, or if you are a skeptic, I ask you to step outside of the comfortable paradigm in which you have been confined and realize the cosmos is bigger and stranger and the Divine more capacious than you think. Keep an open mind.
Magic has been defined as non-normative religious practice, meaning magic and religious practices are very similar, and there are no hard and fast rules to distinguish between the two. Magic uses similar tools to religion, such as ritual and prayer, for purposes or in ways that lie outside the normal religious structure of a culture. Being dissatisfied with the normative religious cultures in which one finds oneself, but still having a strong desire to interact with spiritual realities, many have decided to forge a relationship with the spiritual on their own terms. Much of this is labeled magic and witchcraft, perhaps because it is an attempt to use supernatural channels to cause changes in the material life of practitioners. This said, I think there is plenty of “normative” religious behavior that functions as an attempt to improve the material well-being of worshippers and thus is indistinguishable from magic.
I believe the context of my practice to be in the spirit of the venerable tradition of the rural magical practitioners known as the cunning folk of Great Britain, which was later brought to North America. I borrow magical and spiritual practices from a wide range of sources. I am a dual-faith practitioner; I don’t reject the Anglican Christianity of my ancestors, and I use the biblical psalms and verses in my magic. I practice the daily office from the Book of Common Prayer or from the Liturgy of the Hours to stay in touch with both the transcendent and the spirits of my birth tradition. I use prayers and techniques from the medieval and Renaissance Latin grimoire tradition to call upon angelic intelligences. I use Hebrew kabbalistic prayers from the Golden Dawn tradition of ceremonial magic, as well as the practical Kabbalah. I am inspired by the Orphic Hymns to the Greek deities, Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri, as well as the Book of Psalms. I also find myself at home in the tradition of astral and planetary image magic of the Andalusian grimoire, Picatrix, which was brought to the West during the Middle Ages. I don’t see any contradiction in borrowing from these diverse systems. Magic, to me, is a continuum; from ancient times the names have changed, but the aims and techniques haven’t. The Pagan gods were baptized as angels, saints, or planetary intelligences after the collapse of the ancient Pagan religions in the West. For me, they are all forms of the One and channels of divine energy.
In addition to these practices of what I call “temple work”—or “high magic,” as some call it—I also emphasize the importance of working devotionally and magically with the spirits of the land and of the place in which I live. I also honor the deities from various traditions who embody the forces of the natural world, the old gods and goddesses of the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the planets, the wind, the rain, and the harvest. One of my goals as a practitioner is to reclaim—in spirit anyway, not necessarily by reconstruction—the Indigenous animism of my deep ancestors in northern and western Europe, to honor both the Heathenism of my deep ancestors as well as the Christianity of my more recent ones, which, knowing something of the history of the lands of my ancestors, means about fifteen hundred years of ancestry—not something to be lightly cast aside. It has become important to me to honor the ancestral gods, so that means walking between two faith worlds, making a sometimes uneasy coalition between the ancestral gods. Some of my writing will address that tension, which is not my issue alone but is a core theme.
My eclectic approach has put me outside the fold of the orthodoxy of my birth tradition, for which I have the utmost love and respect, but I believe the divine is infinite love and generosity and is not limited to one culture’s version of truth. As such, it is not threatened by individuals following their own inner guidance, wherever it leads. I can’t imagine what motivates the fundamentalist sectarianism of all faiths that causes people to demonize those who don’t see things as they do. Much of what we discuss here may be threatening to those who think that their own culture’s particular scripture or revelation is the only or unique path for all mankind, those people who see what I am advocating here as idolatry. I categorically reject such notions as attempts to impose an imperialism of the spirit by colonizing souls and minds, often for the sake of consolidating political power. God does not belong to any church but rather is the common Source of all.
Entering the World of the Cunning Farmer
Writing this book began as a quest to reconcile the tension between two foundational passions of my life: my love of the land, the Earth, and plants, and my deep and abiding need to connect with a transcendent spiritual reality. In the past, I have felt that farming, which is hard, time-consuming, often boring work with long hours committed to rote and tedious tasks, was something that took me away from my intellectual and spiritual pursuits, which were relegated to my scarce free time as a hobby. As I have gotten older and am now entering my fifties, the spirit is calling me more insistently, and I am being urged to pursue this calling. I have also come to realize that my calling as a farmer is absolutely essential to who I am, a calling that is as spiritual as it is physical. This book is about how there is no separation between the two vocations—that it is only through the embodied life, which is symbolized by our relationship with the Earth, that we live into our role as mediator between the heavenly and the earthly.
It has been my life as a farmer that has given me the opportunity to experience intimately the change of the seasons, the flush of new growth in the spring, the scent of rain on freshly plowed soil, the countless rainbows and thunderstorms, the first appearance of ripe seed heads in the midsummer grass that marks the turning and ripening of the year, the burgeoning harvest of July, the dusty reddish haze of the August Sun, and the first clear, crisp day of autumn. All these moods of nature I have come to know as intimately as only a lover knows his beloved.
It has also been my privilege, because as a lover of the night I am a rarity among farmers, to wander among my crops in the bright moonlight of a July Full Moon, after a thunderstorm when the power of the vegetable world is at its peak, and hear the tree frogs, the screech owls, and the katydids, and see the brilliant flashes of the fireflies, the stars of Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius whirling overhead, Jupiter and Saturn tracking across the sky, and the immensity of the Milky Way glittering above. The power, life, and spiritual vitality of all living things are palpable and undeniable at moments like these. It has become my practice, there under the stars, under the rising Moon, standing on the Earth, surrounded by that power and beauty, to honor the spiritual forces that are its source with humble and heartfelt prayer in simple rituals of great personal meaning. This is my way, and I make no apologies for it. I commit to no particular sect, school, or religion beyond that of the perennial Hermetic tradition as I see it.
My religious philosophy is informed by the Corpus Hermeticum, Neoplatonism, Hellenic and northern European Paganism, Kabbalah, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, esoteric Christianity, and animist thought from Indigenous traditions around the world. I believe in one Source for all things, outside of space and time, which pours out its being as life and light, thereby creating matter and the physical cosmos. I believe (although spatial metaphors such as “higher” and “lower” are inadequate and not to be taken literally) that there exists a hierarchy of spiritual beings that “descend” from this one creative Source that we may term “gods” and “angels,” as well as lesser spiritual beings we may call “daimones.” All of these are limited and finite in comparison with “the One” and are actually aspects of it through which it interacts with the cosmos, administering reality, so to speak.
There are apparently many different kinds of these beings, some creative and healing, which we may call “good,” and some destructive and wrathful, which we may call “evil.” What their purpose is in the scheme of the cosmos is an interesting subject for speculation but probably above my pay grade. I believe, however, in providence, not as in a naive “everything turns out for the good” providence, but more like what the ancient Greeks called pronoia, in which everything has a role to play in the vast cosmic plan that is ultimately indifferent to the finite and ephemeral beings that we are in our physical forms. We are, however, much more than physical creatures; we are gods and sparks of god hidden within dark husks of matter, and the spiritual life consists of truly remembering this and liberating the trapped light.
Matter, the dark husk I spoke of, is made of mind stuff, and has no ultimate reality. It seems solid, but science tells us that each particle contains vast reaches of empty space, punctuated by particles that can be further divided into ever-smaller particles that have no physical existence but are just mathematical probabilities until observed, merely bits of information in the cosmic dreaming mind of the One, the lila of Ishvara, the dance of Shiva. This universe, made of mind stuff in the shape of matter, controlled by spiritual beings that administer creation, is somewhat malleable and plastic—under the right conditions—on a spiritual level. And this is where magic comes in.
A warning to the casual reader: Much of this book deals with magic. If this is going to be a problem for you, turn back now. If you think that we are hellbound for exploring such matters, or if you are a skeptic, I ask you to step outside of the comfortable paradigm in which you have been confined and realize the cosmos is bigger and stranger and the Divine more capacious than you think. Keep an open mind.
Magic has been defined as non-normative religious practice, meaning magic and religious practices are very similar, and there are no hard and fast rules to distinguish between the two. Magic uses similar tools to religion, such as ritual and prayer, for purposes or in ways that lie outside the normal religious structure of a culture. Being dissatisfied with the normative religious cultures in which one finds oneself, but still having a strong desire to interact with spiritual realities, many have decided to forge a relationship with the spiritual on their own terms. Much of this is labeled magic and witchcraft, perhaps because it is an attempt to use supernatural channels to cause changes in the material life of practitioners. This said, I think there is plenty of “normative” religious behavior that functions as an attempt to improve the material well-being of worshippers and thus is indistinguishable from magic.
I believe the context of my practice to be in the spirit of the venerable tradition of the rural magical practitioners known as the cunning folk of Great Britain, which was later brought to North America. I borrow magical and spiritual practices from a wide range of sources. I am a dual-faith practitioner; I don’t reject the Anglican Christianity of my ancestors, and I use the biblical psalms and verses in my magic. I practice the daily office from the Book of Common Prayer or from the Liturgy of the Hours to stay in touch with both the transcendent and the spirits of my birth tradition. I use prayers and techniques from the medieval and Renaissance Latin grimoire tradition to call upon angelic intelligences. I use Hebrew kabbalistic prayers from the Golden Dawn tradition of ceremonial magic, as well as the practical Kabbalah. I am inspired by the Orphic Hymns to the Greek deities, Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri, as well as the Book of Psalms. I also find myself at home in the tradition of astral and planetary image magic of the Andalusian grimoire, Picatrix, which was brought to the West during the Middle Ages. I don’t see any contradiction in borrowing from these diverse systems. Magic, to me, is a continuum; from ancient times the names have changed, but the aims and techniques haven’t. The Pagan gods were baptized as angels, saints, or planetary intelligences after the collapse of the ancient Pagan religions in the West. For me, they are all forms of the One and channels of divine energy.
In addition to these practices of what I call “temple work”—or “high magic,” as some call it—I also emphasize the importance of working devotionally and magically with the spirits of the land and of the place in which I live. I also honor the deities from various traditions who embody the forces of the natural world, the old gods and goddesses of the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the planets, the wind, the rain, and the harvest. One of my goals as a practitioner is to reclaim—in spirit anyway, not necessarily by reconstruction—the Indigenous animism of my deep ancestors in northern and western Europe, to honor both the Heathenism of my deep ancestors as well as the Christianity of my more recent ones, which, knowing something of the history of the lands of my ancestors, means about fifteen hundred years of ancestry—not something to be lightly cast aside. It has become important to me to honor the ancestral gods, so that means walking between two faith worlds, making a sometimes uneasy coalition between the ancestral gods. Some of my writing will address that tension, which is not my issue alone but is a core theme.
My eclectic approach has put me outside the fold of the orthodoxy of my birth tradition, for which I have the utmost love and respect, but I believe the divine is infinite love and generosity and is not limited to one culture’s version of truth. As such, it is not threatened by individuals following their own inner guidance, wherever it leads. I can’t imagine what motivates the fundamentalist sectarianism of all faiths that causes people to demonize those who don’t see things as they do. Much of what we discuss here may be threatening to those who think that their own culture’s particular scripture or revelation is the only or unique path for all mankind, those people who see what I am advocating here as idolatry. I categorically reject such notions as attempts to impose an imperialism of the spirit by colonizing souls and minds, often for the sake of consolidating political power. God does not belong to any church but rather is the common Source of all.
Cuprins
Foreword by John Michael Greer
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
Entering the World of the Cunning Farmer
PART ONE
INTRODUCING FARMING MAGIC
1 Consulting the Genius of the Place
2 Land Spirits and Sacred Space
A Pilgrimage to Some of the Earthworks of Southern Ohio
3 First Principles of a Magical Worldview
PART TWO
FARMING MAGIC PRACTICES
4 The Moon, Mistress of Magic
Understanding Lunar Energies
5 Moon Work
Using the Power of the Moon for Magic and Planting
6 Weather Magic
Using Magic to Influence Storms, Wind, and Rain
7 Reiki and Energy Transfer
Applying the Eye of the Master to Promote the
Well-Being of Animals and Plants
PART THREE
THE DIVINE AND EARTHLY REALMS
Understanding the Cosmological Structure
Underpinning Agrarian Magic
8 The Cosmology of Ritual
9 Theurgy
The Magic of the Supercelestial Realm
10 Astrological Magic
The Magic of the Celestial Realm
11 Earth Magic
12 Working with Earth Energies
13 The Magic of the Underworld
14 Practices Involving Spirits of the Underworld
PART FOUR
PLANT MAGIC AND SACRED AGRICULTURE
15 Entheogenic Plants and the Plant Path
16 Baneful Plants in Magical Practice
17 Plant Magic
18 Agricultural Magic
19 Sacred Forests and Spiritual Practices with Trees
CONCLUSION
The Cunning Farmer in Practice
Notes
Bibliography and Recommended Reading
Index
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
Entering the World of the Cunning Farmer
PART ONE
INTRODUCING FARMING MAGIC
1 Consulting the Genius of the Place
2 Land Spirits and Sacred Space
A Pilgrimage to Some of the Earthworks of Southern Ohio
3 First Principles of a Magical Worldview
PART TWO
FARMING MAGIC PRACTICES
4 The Moon, Mistress of Magic
Understanding Lunar Energies
5 Moon Work
Using the Power of the Moon for Magic and Planting
6 Weather Magic
Using Magic to Influence Storms, Wind, and Rain
7 Reiki and Energy Transfer
Applying the Eye of the Master to Promote the
Well-Being of Animals and Plants
PART THREE
THE DIVINE AND EARTHLY REALMS
Understanding the Cosmological Structure
Underpinning Agrarian Magic
8 The Cosmology of Ritual
9 Theurgy
The Magic of the Supercelestial Realm
10 Astrological Magic
The Magic of the Celestial Realm
11 Earth Magic
12 Working with Earth Energies
13 The Magic of the Underworld
14 Practices Involving Spirits of the Underworld
PART FOUR
PLANT MAGIC AND SACRED AGRICULTURE
15 Entheogenic Plants and the Plant Path
16 Baneful Plants in Magical Practice
17 Plant Magic
18 Agricultural Magic
19 Sacred Forests and Spiritual Practices with Trees
CONCLUSION
The Cunning Farmer in Practice
Notes
Bibliography and Recommended Reading
Index
Recenzii
“Prayers, rituals, and supplications have long accompanied agriculture, and I’ve never seen a more thorough treatise on the subject than The Cunning Farmer. In this well-researched volume, Todd Elliott takes us on an esoteric journey from ancient history through various ages and cultures, examining the ways farmers appease their gods, spirits, and deities. The illustrations alone deserve a detailed browse, but most fascinating to me is how Todd has integrated decades of folklore research into his own practices on an organic farm in Northern Kentucky.”
“The Cunning Farmer provides fertile ground to enrich the animistic, land-centered practices that are the legacy of ancestral traditions from around the world. Whether you are tending a small garden, overseeing acres of farmland, or incorporating plants into your spiritual practice in other ways, Todd Elliott brings together elements of ancient philosophy, traditional beliefs, folklore, and spiritual ecology, providing tools to reinforce one’s connection to the land and its unseen inhabitants on a microcosmic and macrocosmic level."
“A lovely exposition of nature spirituality and faery lore that teaches us to see the divine life within plants, trees, weather, and the very soil upon which we stand. A useful guide for all who seek to know and work in partnership with nature and the sacred land.”
“This is a seminal work for partnering with the world. The world is a temple; the cunning farmer is its priest. This book guides you through the story of how to partner with the earth in a magical way, how to attend to the beauty and power of the natural world daily. It’s a deep dive. Savor it. Remember, you are a servant to the holy.”
“One often hears practitioners speak of ‘working with the land’ and ‘following the Wheel of the Year,’ yet modern life often places countless layers of separation between the practitioner and the natural world. Todd Elliott is an exception. As a farmer, he works the land in the most literal sense, and his magical practice is deeply rooted in an intimate relationship with the fecund forces of nature. The Cunning Farmer is an outstanding work, distilling more than twenty years of blending esoteric practice with the rhythms of farming. Drawing on a rich tapestry of influences, Todd shares knowledge tried, tested, and refined in the fields themselves. It is a rare and remarkable book—earthy, wise, and utterly authentic.”
“Like minerals and animals, plants constitute links in various ontological chains that reach back up to the divine potencies of which they are tokens, recapitulating the gods themselves within the world of matter. To cultivate a plant is therefore akin to harnessing something of the essence of a given deity—and the farmer is a veritable magus, capable of conjuring and containing the vegetative energies of that god. Todd Elliott has ploughed this fertile soil and, true to form, laboriously passes the rich bounty of his discoveries on to us, his ravenous readers.”
“The Cunning Farmer provides fertile ground to enrich the animistic, land-centered practices that are the legacy of ancestral traditions from around the world. Whether you are tending a small garden, overseeing acres of farmland, or incorporating plants into your spiritual practice in other ways, Todd Elliott brings together elements of ancient philosophy, traditional beliefs, folklore, and spiritual ecology, providing tools to reinforce one’s connection to the land and its unseen inhabitants on a microcosmic and macrocosmic level."
“A lovely exposition of nature spirituality and faery lore that teaches us to see the divine life within plants, trees, weather, and the very soil upon which we stand. A useful guide for all who seek to know and work in partnership with nature and the sacred land.”
“This is a seminal work for partnering with the world. The world is a temple; the cunning farmer is its priest. This book guides you through the story of how to partner with the earth in a magical way, how to attend to the beauty and power of the natural world daily. It’s a deep dive. Savor it. Remember, you are a servant to the holy.”
“One often hears practitioners speak of ‘working with the land’ and ‘following the Wheel of the Year,’ yet modern life often places countless layers of separation between the practitioner and the natural world. Todd Elliott is an exception. As a farmer, he works the land in the most literal sense, and his magical practice is deeply rooted in an intimate relationship with the fecund forces of nature. The Cunning Farmer is an outstanding work, distilling more than twenty years of blending esoteric practice with the rhythms of farming. Drawing on a rich tapestry of influences, Todd shares knowledge tried, tested, and refined in the fields themselves. It is a rare and remarkable book—earthy, wise, and utterly authentic.”
“Like minerals and animals, plants constitute links in various ontological chains that reach back up to the divine potencies of which they are tokens, recapitulating the gods themselves within the world of matter. To cultivate a plant is therefore akin to harnessing something of the essence of a given deity—and the farmer is a veritable magus, capable of conjuring and containing the vegetative energies of that god. Todd Elliott has ploughed this fertile soil and, true to form, laboriously passes the rich bounty of his discoveries on to us, his ravenous readers.”
Descriere
A guide to restoring the ancient relationship between farming and magic