Witches of America

Witches of America is a memoir of Alex Mar’s immersive five-year trip into the occult, as both a journalist and someone searching for her own faith. She explores modern Paganism―from its roots in 1950s England to its present-day American mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area; from a gathering of more than a thousand witches in the Illinois woods to the New Orleans branch of one of the world’s most influential magical societies―and decides to train in a coven herself. With keen intelligence and wit, Mar illuminates the world of witchcraft while grappling in fresh and unexpected ways with the question underlying every faith: Why do we choose to believe in anything at all? Whether evangelical Christian, Pagan priestess, or atheist, each of us craves a system of meaning to give structure to our lives. Sometimes we just find it in unexpected places.

• Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places
• Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America
• Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (Contemporary Classics)
• Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive
• The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present
• The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir
• Witch: Unleashed. Untamed. Unapologetic.
• Future Perfect: A Skeptic’s Search for an Honest Mystic
• Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession
• The Penguin Book of Witches