- Author: Pam Grossman
- Publisher: Hay House
- Publication date: 14-Oct-2025
- RRP: £16.99
- ISBN: 978-1-83782-272-0
- Reviewed by: CJ
I jumped at the chance to read and review this book. As an artist and creative, I have experienced both the joy of being in a ‘flow state’ and the doldrums of ‘creative block’. Pam Grossman’s book, Magic Maker, appears to be offering a new perspective on both these experiences: a magical perspective where the maker becomes magician to re-enchant their own creativity. Let’s see…
Magic Maker is a hefty, 327-page book that has taken me longer than expected to read. Fortunately it is very easy on the eye with generous line spacing. It is divided into five parts of quite short chapters. Grossman’s style is immediately engaging and funny. She is a ‘writer, curator and teacher of magical practice and history’ and this experience is apparent in her relaxed and well-written style which covers a lot of historical and practical ground. Grossman, who lives in Brooklyn, USA, has written several books, and her articles have been published by The New York Times and Huffington Post, for example.
In Part One, she establishes what magic is. Part Two covers grounding and creating a sacred space. Part Three is a banquet of different approaches to try, and includes chapters on “Cartomancy”, “Bibliomancy”, and “Other Wordy Oracles”. Surprisingly, this is the part that I enjoyed the least but that is perhaps because I was already familiar with the subject matter. Part Four consists of two parts (that could perhaps have benefited from being more formally separated). “Demon Slaying” is an amusingly serious description of all the different and crippling ploys of the inner critic. Unsurprisingly, I found this section extremely helpful, and to be honest, I thought I knew all there was to know about creative block gremlins! In the second section “Keeping the Cauldron Lit”, Grossman describes “Mystic Gifts” such as creative collaboration and divine timing. Part Five is quite short and covers topics about preparing to release your work into the world.
Pam Grossman is a practising witch and hosts a popular podcast called The Witch Wave. Although as a reader I am quite familiar with witchcraft, I think any non-witchy creative who is spiritually curious would be able to follow and understand Grossman’s suggestions about how to use magical principles and practices to enhance creativity.
Magic Maker has already helped me look at, and approach, my creativity differently. Grossman’s simple suggestions such as casting a circle to create a sacred, creative space and inventing an alter ego, specifically for creating, are things I would have done before a Tarot reading but most definitely wouldn’t have done before painting. I now realise that experiencing a ‘flow state’ during painting and reading Tarot intuitively are very similar experiences. I will be able to dip in and out of Magic Maker (as Grossman encourages us to do) to move my art practice more in line with my spiritual practice.
All in all, I found Magic Maker to be very inspiring and timely – it showed up at just the right time for me. I enjoyed this book a lot and would especially recommend it to anyone like me whose creativity needs a dose of magic to get it moving again.
To purchase Magic Maker: The Enchanted Path to Creativity, please visit the Hay House website.
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