Ritual Reads

Ritual Reads Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Ritual Reads, Gift Shop, Victoria House, 46a High Street, Whitchurch.

๐ŸŒŸ FOLKLORE FRIDAY: The Hermetic Order of the Golden DawnFounded in London in 1888, the Golden Dawn was a secret magical ...
11/09/2026

๐ŸŒŸ FOLKLORE FRIDAY: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Founded in London in 1888, the Golden Dawn was a secret magical society that shaped Western occultism for a century after it.

Its members included W.B. Yeats, the horror writer Arthur Machen, and the actress Florence Farr. It welded Kabbalah, tarot, astrology, Hermeticism and Rosicrucianism into one working system โ€” and a great deal of modern occult practice still runs on its wiring.

Aleister Crowley is usually described as expelled. The truth is better. In 1900 the London temple refused to advance him to the inner order, so the order's founder initiated him in Paris instead.

Crowley then turned up at the London temple on the nineteenth of April wearing a black Osiris mask and a kilt, and tried to seize the place.

It ended in court. The order never recovered.

A secret society of Victorian writers and mystics, undone by a locked door. Honestly, it sounds like a novel.

If you could join one historical secret society, which would it be? ๐Ÿ”ฎ

10/09/2026

So pleased my favourite childhood book is back in print!

๐Ÿงฌ GENRE EVOLUTION: Body HorrorBody horror is the subgenre that uses the physical self as the source and site of terror.N...
08/09/2026

๐Ÿงฌ GENRE EVOLUTION: Body Horror

Body horror is the subgenre that uses the physical self as the source and site of terror.

Not the monster in the dark. The transformation happening to you. The body becoming something you don't control, don't recognise, can't escape.

David Cronenberg pioneered it in film with The Fly and Videodrome. In literature, Kafka understood it in 1915 with The Metamorphosis. Contemporary authors like Carmen Maria Machado and Paul Tremblay have brought it into literary horror.

Body horror is at its most effective when it maps onto real anxieties: illness, pregnancy, addiction, ageing โ€” the ways flesh changes without permission.

Which piece of body horror stays with you most? ๐Ÿ“š



๐Ÿฎ MYTHOLOGY MONDAY: Japanese YลkaiThe yลkai tradition in Japanese mythology is extraordinary in its breadth and specific...
07/09/2026

๐Ÿฎ MYTHOLOGY MONDAY: Japanese Yลkai

The yลkai tradition in Japanese mythology is extraordinary in its breadth and specificity.

There are hundreds of named supernatural beings: the kitsune (fox spirit) with its nine tails. The tengu (mountain spirits) who taught martial arts. The tanuki (raccoon dog tricksters). The kappa (river creatures who challenge you to sumo). The tsukumogami โ€” household objects that come alive after 100 years.

Some are terrifying. Some are benevolent. Some are simply strange, as if the spirit world had an imagination no human taxonomy could contain.

The artist Toriyama Sekien catalogued hundreds of yลkai in illustrated books in the 1770s. They've never stopped inspiring fiction.

Which yลkai would you most want as a companion? ๐ŸŒ™



So pleased to announce I'm officially a stockist for Witches Magazine !!๐Ÿ‚Autumn๐Ÿ issue available in store now โœจ๏ธ
04/09/2026

So pleased to announce I'm officially a stockist for Witches Magazine !!
๐Ÿ‚Autumn๐Ÿ issue available in store now โœจ๏ธ

๐Ÿ“– FOLKLORE FRIDAY: The Book of ShadowsThe Book of Shadows sounds like it must be centuries old.It isn't. The term was co...
04/09/2026

๐Ÿ“– FOLKLORE FRIDAY: The Book of Shadows

The Book of Shadows sounds like it must be centuries old.

It isn't. The term was coined by Gerald Gardner, the founder of modern Wicca, in the 1940s and 1950s.

Gardner assembled his Book of Shadows from various sources โ€” ceremonial magic texts, folk traditions, his own innovations โ€” and presented it as an ancient tradition. This was, charitably, a fib. But the fib stuck.

Today, a Book of Shadows is a personal magical journal kept by many modern Wiccans and witches โ€” and it's entirely their own.

The interesting thing is: it's become what Gardner only pretended it was. A living tradition, accumulated over decades, now genuinely ancient in the hands that hold it.

Fiction loves this idea. Many brilliant novels have a Book of Shadows at their heart.

Have you come across one in fiction that felt most real? ๐Ÿ”ฎ



03/09/2026

Everyone's favourite day...delivery day!!

๐Ÿ” AUTHOR SECRETS: Conan Doyle & HolmesArthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes in 1887. By 1893, he despised him.He ki...
03/09/2026

๐Ÿ” AUTHOR SECRETS: Conan Doyle & Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes in 1887. By 1893, he despised him.

He killed Holmes off at the Reichenbach Falls โ€” plunging him to his death alongside Moriarty โ€” because he felt the character was consuming his creative life and preventing him from pursuing the historical novels he truly wanted to write.

The public's reaction was extraordinary. They wore black armbands. They wrote furious letters. They demanded he come back.

Doyle resisted for ten years before eventually bringing Holmes back in 1903 under financial pressure.

Some characters are bigger than their creators. Holmes always knew it.

If you could bring back one fictional character who died, who would it be? ๐Ÿ“š



๐Ÿ•ฏ๏ธ CRAFT CORNER: The Unreliable NarratorThe trick isn't making your narrator lie.It's making them believe they're tellin...
30/08/2026

๐Ÿ•ฏ๏ธ CRAFT CORNER: The Unreliable Narrator

The trick isn't making your narrator lie.

It's making them believe they're telling the truth.

The best unreliable narrators don't know they're unreliable. Their blind spots, fears, and desires warp the story โ€” and the reader only realises it in retrospect.

A few tools:
โ†’ Gaps in memory (what they skip over)
โ†’ Excessive justification (protesting too much)
โ†’ Small contradictions that accumulate
โ†’ Other characters who quietly tell a different story

The unreliable narrator isn't a trick. It's a mirror with a crack in it.

Who's your favourite unreliable narrator in fiction? ๐Ÿ“š

โš—๏ธ FOLKLORE FRIDAY: AlchemyAlchemy's reputation has suffered under centuries of ridicule.But alchemists were not simply ...
28/08/2026

โš—๏ธ FOLKLORE FRIDAY: Alchemy

Alchemy's reputation has suffered under centuries of ridicule.

But alchemists were not simply greedy fraudsters attempting to make gold from lead. They were philosophers, scientists, and mystics who asked the most fundamental question: what is matter, and can it be transformed?

The Philosopher's Stone was not just a goldmaking device. In alchemical philosophy, it was a metaphor for spiritual transformation โ€” the purification of the self through systematic trial.

Isaac Newton spent more time on alchemy than on physics. Paracelsus pioneered medicine through alchemical thinking.

Alchemy was proto-chemistry, proto-psychology, and a rich symbolic tradition all at once.

J.K. Rowling's Philosopher's Stone is the most famous modern reference. But the tradition it draws on is far stranger and richer than the book suggests.

What fictional use of alchemy is your favourite? ๐ŸŒ™

Address

Victoria House, 46a High Street
Whitchurch
SY131EQ

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 4pm
Wednesday 10am - 4pm
Thursday 10am - 4pm
Friday 10am - 4pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm

Telephone

+441948411170

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Ritual Reads posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Ritual Reads:

Shortcuts

Share

Category