Book Review: Queer Rites: A Magickal Grimoire to Honor Your Milestones with Pride
Full disclosure, I’m a contributor for this book and provided one of the rituals.
We’re starting off 2025 with the release of what I truly believe is an incredibly important addition to queer spirituality. Rites of passage are present in communities across time and culture. They often serve as important checkpoints in life that help individuals and communities make sense of how to be in relationship with one another, and to have a sense of what our obligations are to the world. Outside of of specific sectarian traditions, contemporary Western society has very little in the way of rites of passage. Those we could claim - such as graduating from school, getting your driver’s license, getting married, having kids, or retiring - are not often celebrated with much fanfare, not something everyone wants to achieve or, and this is hyper relevant or the queer community, not something that is actually achievable amidst our current systems and cultural norms. The absence of these types of social rituals in our current lives are, in my opinion, a major contributor to feelings of isolation, lack of purpose, and harmful relationships in our community. In Queer Rites: A Magickal Grimoire to Honor Your Milestones with Pride, Enfys Book has compiled an array of personal and group magical workings for LGBTQ+ pagans and witches to begin the important social practice of honoring life changes in a queer-affirming spiritual way.
Queer Rites is an incredibly accessible book. After going through the basics of what makes up a ritual, the book is broken down in ritual types - “Personal Rites for Identity Exploration and Affirmation”, “Rites for New Experiences”, “Rites for Release and Healing”, and “Celebrations” - making this an easy-to-use reference book for finding what you need. The book also offers a critical reflection on what it means to be “queer”. For example, for many of us the first time we go to a gay bar or a political rally can be an overwhelming wave of emotions - fear, anxiety, excitement, joy. Enfys has provided rituals to help us mark these important moments in our coming out and exploration of our identities which also serve as a container for holding, affirming, and processing our emotions and experiences. The book also makes space for drag and sex work, two things that very often get “sanitized” out of mainstream discussion on queer lives and experiences.
The rituals presented in this book are more than just a script, though they are just as powerful if used as presented. They include recommendations on planetary days and hours, Qabala and tarot correspondences, and moon phases to achieve maximum effect. Throughout the book, Enfys encourages readers to critically consider what makes the most sense for them and what would be most useful, and urges adaptation when it feels appropriate.
There are also multiple rituals contributed by other queer practitioners. As mentioned above, I have contributed a ritual to Queer Rites, the “Chosen Family Hearth Ritual” for acknowledging and bonding with those people who make up your family of choice. Brandon Weston contributed the “Rite to Bury False Oaths”. Storm Faerywolf contributed the “Rite of Infinite Hearts: Handfasting Ritual for Two or More”. Misha Magdalene, author of Outside the Charmed Circle, provided the “Ritual for Gender Transition Milestones”. And those are just a few examples.
Queer Rites: A Magickal Grimoire to Honor Your Milestones with Pride is out now through Llewellyn Press. You can purchase a copy here. (Please note, this is my affiliate link to Bookshop.org so I do make a small commission.)
