Avoid “Bible Spells” by Noted Charlatans William Oribello and Tim Swartz
I’ve gotten several messages from someone eager to have me opine about a poorly written and researched screed called Bible Spells: Obtain Obtain Your Every Desire By Activating The Secret Meaning of Hundreds of Biblical Verses. No really, that’s an actual title.
My opinion on this lazy, ignorant loaf of pinched off New Agisms is that it serves as an excellent indictment of the modern New Age movement and the charlatans who populate it. It should be noted that the book can be had on kindle for $10 (which is overpriced by $9.99) yet whoever is peddling this drivel on Amazon has gone back to the oldest web scam in the book in offered a “hardcover” version for $1000. This is a rudimentary trick amateur con artists use to make things that are worthless seem valuable which is especially prevalent on Amazon.
It is of course available for viewing at Scribd:
William Alexander Oribello – Bible Spells
Even a cursory viewing will reveal to the reader how shallow and worthless this scam masquerading as a tome is. It combines New Age bunk with an egregious misstating of both Christian theology and occult dogma into a barely readable morass of half-truths and childishness. It would be interesting to note the amount of Christian bashing this person selling esoteric Christianity engages in if that bashing wasn’t the same sheepish bleating anyone with a political ax to grind against the so-called religious right makes every day. It is interesting to note that the secrets revealed within are simply ripped off from the works of Anna Riva, the doctrine of Christians Science and the practice of Hoodoo. For their part the authors do manage to water down their unnamed or barely credited sources to such a degree that only those familiar with the sources will be able to discern the stock from which this tasteless broth was made.
Avoid this nonsense. Frankly if you’re a Christian who is a practitioner you will not need some hack who thinks there’s a link between the “magicians of Atlantis” and the New Testament you hold in your hands to tell you that Psalms and other Christian rituals are in effect “spells” and non-practitioners will just be offended to find their religious devotions lumped into Witchcraft. Also asking me to review some book you like does not guarantee you’ll get a review you like.
October 22nd, 2011 at 7:42 am
Thanks for the post Rob. I saw this on Amazon when I was looking at Psalm magic books and saw this. It looked like bunk but now I’m glad to know the authors are really Christian bashers in disguise.
October 22nd, 2011 at 1:42 pm
No problem. Anna Riva has a good book on Psalm magic if you can find it, and the Long Lost Friend has a few. The company that put out Anna Riva books for a while had some others too. There’s one called Candle Burning Magic or something similar which is essentially Psalm magic with the edition of candles and oils. I think it’s by Riva as well – I have a copy but they’re diagrams so I’ve never put them on S&R.
October 22nd, 2011 at 6:32 pm
I have one Riva book and I work from the Master Book of Candle Burning. The Association of Independent Readers & Rootworkers has an excellent psalm online resource too, but I always like to see what else is out there.
February 28th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Just so everyone knows I had nothing to do with writing this book. I was commissioned to do the cover graphics…that was my sole contribution. Also, this book was originally published back in the 1960s. Thanks. Tim Swartz
February 28th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
I apologize I didn’t put that in. If I don’t update this post to include that in the next day or so contact me to remind me.
November 20th, 2012 at 10:42 pm
You haven’t commented on the foremost thing in pragmatic workers’ minds, i.e., does it actually work?
I could give a tinker’s ** about how shoddy the theory is; do the workings do what they claim to?
Also, you still haven’t edited your post as you said you would almost nine months ago, leaving us with the impressions that the cover artist (!) is a “charlatan” and that this book hasn’t in fact been around for half a century.
December 15th, 2012 at 11:10 pm
No, they don’t work.
February 10th, 2013 at 2:08 am
You tried them? Because it appeared from your dismissive review that you wouldn’t touch them.
February 10th, 2013 at 5:18 pm
I haven’t tried dunking people to see if they’re witches to see if that works either.
But if you read my review you’d notice that I point out that if one wants to practice similar magics they can easily turn to other sources which leave out the Freshmen social studies revisionist history of Christianity etc. There are several systems of both high and low magic that are compatible with Christians (even those “evil” evangelicals people hate so much) and if you don’t like basic Christian theology pray to someone else. I’m not a Christian because I have a problem with the idea that one god created the universe when it’s clear that the chaotic universe is the result of multiple wills influencing it. I don’t try to re-imagine Christianity as reflecting my views on both magic and theology.
I should note and have noted before I know several Christians who are practioners, root workers etc. I found that this book not only misrepresented those traditions but would be offensive to them
I’ll give you an example. Somewhere in the beginning the author claims that people who are Christians who believe that magic comes from Satanic powers are being “misguided” by their leaders. This is part of a longer part about prayers being a form of magic.
Yet the idea that prayers are magic is Wiccan theology. No other religion, including many of the ancient Pagan cults, believed prayer and magic were the same. As an academic I may be more sensitive to such claims but they do make the credibility suspect.
But aside from that it’s just not worth $10 (or $1,000 as he charges for hardback) to have a collection of “spells’ and prayers when any good library will have those available for free especially if the book in question is the obvious product of Internet research and pseudo-Pagan pretensions.
So in closing I haven’t tried praying to Allah, accepting Jesus Christ, sleeping with dead bodies (ala some 90s grimoires on becoming one with Death) or telepathically contacting the space lizards of the Illuminati. I don’t need to try them to know they don’t work, just as I don’t need to smoke crack to know it’s bad.