DB Earthly's Compendium of Magical Ingredients & Curios Book

400-page reference work documenting more than 200 herbs, minerals, zoological curios, ritual objects, traditional preparations, and other materials associated with witchcraft and magical practice. D.B. Earthly’s Compendium of Magical Ingredients & Curios, Volume I is an extensively researched guide to the materials that have appeared throughout historical and contemporary magical practice.

The book begins with a practical foundation for working with magical ingredients and tools. It examines subjects including the tools of the witch and herbalist, casting a circle, preparing infusions and tinctures, crafting sachets, baths, spell jars, simmer pots and incense, creating amulets, talismans and charms, and the use and preparation of candles through cleansing, anointing, dressing and inscription.

 Dedicated sections also cover the identification, gathering, drying, labeling and storage of herbs, ingredient substitutions, and the interpretation and use of magical properties and correspondences.

The majority of the book is devoted to more than 200 individual ingredient and curio entries, spanning an unusually broad range of material. Herbs and plants appear alongside fungi, minerals, zoological curios, ritual objects, traditional preparations, household materials, charms, and other items encountered throughout magical folklore and practice. Entries range from familiar materials such as garlic, mint, frankincense, sandalwood, quartz, and acorns to subjects including aconite, belladonna, black cat bone, bridge dirt, Four Thieves Vinegar, foxglove, mirrors, pillbugs, rabbit’s foot, witch bottles, witch’s salt, and wolfsbane. Each subject is approached as something to be researched, documented, and understood within its wider historical and magical context, rather than reduced to a short list of correspondences.

Considerable attention is given to the sources behind the material. The extensive bibliography draws from modern research as well as historical texts reaching back into the sixteenth century and earlier, including classical sources such as the writings of Pliny the Elder.