Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World

by Perdita Finn

Overview

Renowned spiritual teacher and co-founder of The Way of the Rose Perdita Finn teaches the art and healing power of connecting with the dead, as she guides readers through the magical process of conversing with the unseen world.

"Finn weaves a spellbinding meditation . . . an affecting ode to the power of the unseen." —Publisher's Weekly

What if you could live in a world where the guidance of those who were gone was available, right at your very fingertips? It's possible, if we are open to it. Anyone can reclaim the forgotten guidance of the dead, and anyone can return to the realm of magic and miracles. In Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World, author, spiritual teacher, and co-founder of The Way of the Rose Perdita Finn reveals that life is beginningless, love is endless, and those who have passed don’t truly go anywhere when they die. Weaving together memoir, history, and a non-denominational spirituality based in ecology, Finn invites readers to live the experience that the stories of our lives are much older, bigger, and more merciful than we have been led to believe.

Take Back the Magic takes the reader on a journey of healing, possibility, and love, as the story of how Finn healed her relationship with her bitter, patriarchal father long after his death unfolds over the course of thirteen moving chapters. Along the way, readers will learn how they, too, can reconnect with the generous guidance of the soul’s long story through deep time, recovering their lost relationships with their ancestors and the Earth itself. Throughout, Finn shares guidance, tips, and practical advice that will aid readers in forging their own relationships with those who have passed, as she invites every reader to reconnect with their own inner knowing and to call forth magic from the most ancient parts of humanity. 

An inspiring invitation to healing in this life, and to experience that we are never alone, Take Back the Magic shows that the whole world is simply souls reaching out to and finding each other—and no one is ever truly lost to us, if we allow ourselves to begin our own conversations with the unseen world.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762482528
Publisher:	Running Press Book Publishers
Publication date:	09/12/2023
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	170,423
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Perdita Finn is the co-founder, with her husband Clark Strand, of the non-denominational international fellowship The Way of the Rose, which inspired their book The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary. In addition to extensive study with Zen masters, priests, rabbis, shamans, and healers, she apprenticed with the psychic Susan Saxman, with whom she wrote The Reluctant Psychic. Finn now teaches popular workshops on Getting to Know the Dead, in which participants are empowered to activate the magic in their own lives with the help of their ancestors. She lives with her family in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains.
 

Editorial Reviews

07/17/2023

Finn (coauthor of The Way of the Rose), cofounder of the Way of the Rose ecofeminist community, explains in this fine-grained account how she repaired her fraught relationship with her brilliant and sullen father after his death. While the bond between the two had never been easy (“I learned early on not to ask my father for anything”), when the author received an enigmatic bequest after his death—a rock “girded by twisted iron rods”—she embarked on a quest to understand the man he’d been. But it soon became clear to Finn that defining “a single life without a glimpse of the long story of our souls would be like trying to decipher a sentence from a single word.” As she meditated on the fate of the soul after death, she began to view her father not as a “failed parent, a frustrated artist, a capable doctor, a cruel commander,” and told his spirit, “You hold within you so much more.” Mixing vivid memories of her own spiritual journey, open letters to her father, and advice to help readers commune with their ancestors’ spirits (such as creating an altar dedicated to the dead), Finn weaves a spellbinding meditation on how time never runs out for the deceased in prose that alternately enchants and haunts (“Were all of us, the living and the dead, hungry ghosts, prowling the Earth with mouths too small to ever fill our hearts with enough?”). It’s an affecting ode to the power of the unseen. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Mixing vivid memories of her own spiritual journey, open letters to her father, and advice to help readers commune with their ancestors’ spirits . . . . Finn weaves a spellbinding meditation on how time never runs out for the deceased in prose that alternately enchants and haunts (“Were all of us, the living and the dead, hungry ghosts, prowling the Earth with mouths too small to ever fill our hearts with enough?”). It’s an affecting ode to the power of the unseen.”—Publisher's Weekly

"I have never read a book that creates a rapport with the dead with such skill and ease. What becomes clear early on in this wonderful book is that Perdita is a rare woman who has found a way to reside comfortably in the world of the living and the dead. This truly is a must-read book."—Caroline Myss, Author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Intimate Conversations with the Divine

"What I love about this book is the warm, practical, spirited way Perdita explores the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Hers is a wisdom devoid of preachiness, quickened by curiosity, overflowing with love. Beautifully written, luminous, and earthy, Take Back the Magic makes conversations with the unseen world feel obvious, accessible, and our best hope for thriving amid the turmoil of the current age."—Mirabai Starr, Author of Caravan of No Despair and Wild Mercy

"In Take Back the Magic, Perdita creates a portable threshold through which you can access the Otherworld and the long history of your soul. Part memoir, part field guide to the other side, this page-turning book will dilate your awareness of the unseen world and help you recognize the helpful presence of your ancestors in your life. Through her own life stories of astonishing synchronicities, karmic connections, and communication with the dead, Perdita shows us how extraordinary all our lives truly are— and how healing is at the root of deep time."—Asia Suler, author of Mirrors in the Earth: Reflections on Self-Healing from the Living World

“Perdita Finn is a masterful storyteller who captivates her readers in tales of wonder, enlightenment, and magic. You’re guaranteed to enjoy the adventure.” —Julie Ryan, Author of Angelic Attendants: What Really Happens As We Transition From This Life Into The Next.

"Perdita Finn masterfully weaves a soulful tapestry of stories and reflections that help the reader to viscerally appreciate the grand love story we eternally participate in through many different lives, roles, and forms. Perdita holds up a timely and potent soul-mirror to remind us that the magic and mystery of Being is always accessible and available to us in every moment. This is a book I will cherish and read again and again."—Bethany Webster, Author of Discovering the Inner Mother: A Guide to Healing the Mother Wound and Claiming Your Personal Power

Our lives our woven with everyday magic that most people overlook as coincidence.  Spirits watch over us, guide us, and support us, and the divine speaks to us through symbols and signs, visions, and dreams! This is the magic you will find in the pages of Take Back the Magic. Perdita Finn proves herself to be both a fabulous storyteller and a word-witch, as she shares her own awakening to a magical life. Part memoir, part educational manual, this is a book meant to open hearts and minds—something very much needed in this time of global change.—Salicrow, psychic medium and author of Spirit Seeker

"In Take Back the Magic, Perdita Finn offers practical, essential advice for those who are seeking deeper connections with their ancestors and the unseen world. Rather than something to be feared or avoided, Perdita demonstrates that the realm of spirit holds gifts for us all, and can be easily accessed when we trust our intuition and listen to the wisdom of the heart. Woven throughout with engaging, sometimes wrenching stories from Perdita’s life experience, Take Back the Magic is a riveting read that will remain with you long after you finish it.” —Liz Childs Kelly, host of the Home to Her podcast and author of Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine

Perdita Finn’s startling, exquisitely written memoir invites us to rethink our relationships with the dead and the invisible world that they inhabit. I picked up Take Back the Magic as a diehard agnostic regarding ghosts, spirits, and posthumous communication with the dearly departed. Finn’s intelligence and integrity opened my eyes to the possibility that I’ve been mistaken. This book is a  memento mori for the thinking classes, revelatory, poignant and lucidly observed. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in the mysteries of life and death, and what happens after we leave this world. —Mark Matousek, author of Lessons From an American Stoic: How Emerson Can Change Your Life

Lean in close as Perdita deftly weaves us back into relationship with what she calls the long story: the entangled, deep time community of the dead in intimate partnership with the living. Take Back the Magic is overflowing with miraculous stories and much-needed inspiration of why it is not just necessary, but urgent, for us to reach towards the invisible world for guidance in how to remember our place in the dance across aeons. When so many of us are fearful and confused in a world out of balance, Take Back the Magic puts solid ground under our feet and a gently guides us home to trust the compass of our heart’s desire.—HeatherAsh Amara, author of Warrior Goddess Training

From the Publisher