Psychic & Spiritual Books I Could Do With(out)

A List of Book Warnings, Recommendations, and Advice

Jun 25, 2025

What spiritual books are worth reading? The answer isn’t simple, but I’ll give you a low down on some of the books I’ve been reading and the parts to skip. This is list is HONEST AF, so I will not sugarcoat things. If I haven’t read a complete text, I’ll say so. The following list does contain affiliate links on the bold titles. If you click on them and make a purchase, I get a little kickback at no extra cost to you.

This list is limited by the number of spiritual books I’ve read (and space). I have not read all of them (how could I?). I can only comment on those with which I have experience. Also, as I am European ethnically, I have tended to read more books about my heritage, so I cannot comment on books about other spiritual traditions. I have only included texts that have directly influenced, informed, or been sought for my spiritual practice and or for mentoring others.

All these books won’t be for everyone. Even the ones I expressly advise not to read might be interesting to you for one reason or another. I do not know the ripples they will cause in your life or how Spirit will use them to shape you, I can only offer my advice. Use your intuition to guide you to the texts that most speak to your journey and spiritual pursuits.

I have separated them by topic and they are in no particular order.

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Manifesting Books

Note: Manifestation is a natural development of consistent psychic work, so strictly speaking, these books are mostly useless for you if you’re working on your psychic development. But if you feel drawn to them, whatever. Sometimes we have to go through this stuff to get real with what we actually need and want – psychic development.

Ask and It is Given – This is the gateway drug for a lot of people interested in perfecting their manifesting. I’ll be honest – I have a lot of trouble with Abraham-Hicks and find the language used by Hicks to steer a lot of people on the wrong path and start thinking of things in ways that make them more confused. I am not into channeling and find channeling to be problematic when that is the sole way a person interacts with Spirit. I also have trouble with the concept of collectives. [For more about my thoughts on this, check out my archived post on claircognizance here.] That said, this book is probably the gateway for a lot of people to finding more spiritual information around manifestation and many people find it very helpful. Take the language with a grain of salt and read some other things about manifesting before you go whole-hog on A-H.

The Last Law of Attraction Book You’ll Ever Need – The title is clearly a gimmick, but at the time, I was desperate as some of you may be reading this list. It does have a lot of easy to do, step-by-step exercises. I don’t think it’s anything special in the realm of manifesting. Did it help me manifest a few things? Sure. Did it help me as much as psychic development did? Not a chance.

The Complete Works of Florence Scovel Shinn – This woman is the best OG New Thought writer, in my opinion. Her words are more explicit and helpful. You can find her books freely online if you don’t have the bones to buy a book, but I like physical copies of things, so I included a link for you with a pretty cover. Keep in mind, it is from the early 20^th Century, so the language is a little antiquated and it is limited by the self-development/manifesting lens it uses.

Manifesting Through Meditation – If you want the background for manifesting, this isn’t for you. BUT if you want specific meditation practices for specific moments, this is EXACTLY the book for you. I found these practices to be incredibly effective and helpful, especially if you record yourself leading some of the meditations. I will say, however, you may find yourself outgrowing or getting bored of these rather quickly as you develop on your psychic journey. I still think it’s worth grabbing, especially if you like clearly outlined steps and or are riddled with self-doubt about your abilities.

Shadow work and Self-Development Books

Note: One of the key pieces to psychic development is doing shadow work. If you want kick-ass psychic skills, you need to do the shadow work.

Existential Kink – This is a must for skeleton work, as I like to say. If you have blocks, patterns you’re struggling to break out of, this book will give you a chrysalis so you can butterfly into your next life chapter. The author is… a little wonky. If you don’t like even the faintest hint of BDSM (why are you reading my newsletter?) this isn’t for you. It also may cause you to go into a six-month-long existential crisis. But on the other side, your psychic work will be FIRE. If you’re willing to risk it, dive in!

Pussy: A Reclamation – This is a skeleton work must for women – especially of the white suburban staid cisgender type. I can’t recommend it for anyone who doesn’t have a vulva and identifies as a woman. It’s not gender inclusive. It’s not sex inclusive. It does have a lot of liberation work that will pave the way to break out of heteronormative nuclear family structures and gender roles. It’s very much for the woman who Mama Gena used to be (and possibly for their partners if they’re supportive and willing to grow in unusual ways). Also, there’s a lot of sex and weird relationship stuff. If this vibes, great! If not, no worries!

The Silva Mind Control Method – This is like approaching psychic work with a scientific mind. Think: radios and electrical engineering in a Mexican grandpa’s garage. It’s effective. It works. It also has a very specific method. If you like the method and it works for you, awesome. If you can’t stomach someone telling you how to do each and every step or you get bored doing the same thing over and over again, this might not be your bag. The key here is you actually have to do the thing. There’s a lot of anecdotes in this book, and while there are exercises, they aren’t always outlined in as a direct visual manner as I prefer. I put it in this section because it reads more like self-development, which might help those who are squeamish about the word “psychic.”

Change Your Mind – I included this because I think there are good ways to rewrite how you think about things, although I don’t think this book is as earth shattering or helpful as his self-healing book. I think there are other books on this list I would use first and if you use them (like Existential Kink) you may not need this one. I just felt it rehashed a lot of ideas from other people in self-development and it wasn’t as in depth. However, if you want a quick and dirty guide to rewriting your subconscious a bit, this might fit the bill.

Access Super Consciousness – I haven’t read this at all yet. It’s on my list to read, although I’m dragging my feet because of the excessive coffee references in RJ Spina’s Change Your Mind book. Looking through the contents and book, it does include a lot of meditations and exercises, so it might be worth it to check it out regardless.

Psychic Tool Books

Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom – This is if you’re into tarot. This is the most comprehensive tarot resource - it’s basically the bible of tarot. Honestly, this and a tarot journal will do you wonders if you want to dive deep into that journey. I would recommend this having not read it completely based on the chapters I did read because it was so incredibly thorough.

The Weiser Tarot Journal – This is the tarot journal I’ve used, however it’s not the only one out there and I don’t know if it’s the best, per se. I like it because the pages are organized in blocks that make it easy for you to fill in when you do a reading. It has several different types of spread journal pages and explains why you would use each type of spread. It also includes stickers for the cards you pull so you can put those in the little card blocks on each page. It is based on the traditional tarot deck used, so if you have a wacky deck like the Alleyman Tarot, you’ll have to draw or write in which of the 13 death cards you pulled.

The Encyclopedia of Crystals – This is the most comprehensive book I’ve found on crystals. Do I love the organizational structure of the book? Not completely. There’s some crystals I’ve struggled to find because they were placed in a different category than I would have put them. Also, under the spiritual meanings/healing capacity, there are some limits. That said, if you are a crystal person, this is about as good as you can find out there. Just double check what you find in the book with other resources.

The Dream Dictionary – This is okay. I wanted to get a reference for dream interpretation so if I didn’t have access to the internet or wanted to browse through symbols, I could. I found the meanings included in the text to be limited by culture, as opposed to being inclusive. I always recommend looking at various indigenous understandings of symbols and comparing that to various Eastern and Western societal understandings for a richer interpretation. I checked specific symbols in the text and it was clear that had not been done for this text. So, buy it if you want the reference, and know it is not as comprehensive or as culturally inclusive as it could be.

Memoirs and Academic Study

The Shamanic Way of the Bee – If you’re into bees or shamanism, this is the book for you. It’s weird AF (shamanism is always weird AF, sorry not sorry) but if you were wondering if the shamanic path was for you, this will give you a strong sense of whether to continue or not. For me, it was a clear no. And I’m grateful I didn’t waste my time. It also made me appreciate bees a lot more than I already did. I also think it’s worth a read for anyone looking into more traditional European-based spiritual traditions.

Mind Over Magick – If you visited my Instagram and watched the most recent Witchy Chat Live, you saw my interview with Tracy Nicholas about this book. This is on preorder – so I can’t definitively recommend it, however, I trust Tracy as an expert and investigative thinker, so I think it’s worth preordering it. This book goes over what is real magick and where it can be found in the world. Admittedly, I am really looking forward to reading this book!

Grimoires – This is seriously – wow. If you like books, history, and magic, this is the book for you! It’s academic AF, and goes through the history of magic books with careful detail. It’s really like taking a history class on this stuff, so if that’s your jam, you need this book!

Celtic Myth and Religion – About half of my ethnic background is Scottish, Irish, and English. This book is the best reference I’ve found on pre-Christian Celtic spiritual practices. It’s grounded and thorough, although it is more academic than a strictly spiritual book. If you’re a Celt, interested in your spiritual heritage and like doing deep dives, I can’t recommend this book enough.

Psychic Practice and Skill Books

A Map of Secret Rivers – I think this is probably the most useful book of Pippa Oona’s on timeline navigation as it has information that help you re-evaluate how you think about time with practical exercises, however it has quite a few chapters that are worthless/weird. She gives the best description of timelines I’ve seen anywhere. Just stick to about the first half of the book and you should be good.

The Akashic Records Masterclass – Honestly, I think this book is a waste. It includes all of the author’s books on the subject, and I found it to be extremely repetitive and included a lot of “you must do this”, “you must say this”, and specific rituals. I wanted less belief, more practical work with this topic, so I was extremely disappointed, especially since the author is supposed to be the go-to expert on this. I have to think the people who typically read this author either don’t separate belief and psychic work, or they don’t know anything about this topic. If you can find this in a library, or something related, use that. Read up on things online, or get a mentor who knows something about the Akashic Records (it honestly isn’t that complicated). Then do the work yourself.

Mari Silva – This is an author, and I put her name rather than specific texts because she’s prolific AF. She’s also… a little wonky. There are some things in her books that make me cringe, and other things that are really helpful. Generally I like her exercises, although they are clearly reflective of her beliefs, approach, and preferences. Why does the light have to be purple? Why does it have to be a ball? Why do we have to put it in this place? She doesn’t explain things as thoroughly as I would like. If you were curious, I have her telekinesis and telepathy books.

Advanced Psychic Development – This book is probably the most honest about psychic work that I’ve seen in print thus far, without any weird beliefs or trying to make you live a specific way. It is, however, woefully inadequate when it comes to exercises or specific steps and doesn’t actually do what it claims to do (give steps to advanced psychic work). I think this is more useful to the beginner-intermediate psychic because of the information and approach if you want to understand psychic work and counter doubt a bit more effectively.

The Practical Psychic – This book is actually pretty good as far as specific steps to enhance specific skills, although it largely reads like a manual and is hard to work through. You’re not going to get drawn in by this. I didn’t find it fun. I did get put off by some beliefs in it. This was one of the earliest books I read in my psychic journey, before my reawakening.

Empowered by Empathy – This book has a fundamental flaw, while also having a lot of practical helpful bits. The language is wrong. As I’ve said a lot, I do not like the word empath to describe psychics because it is used in so many ways across disciplines and creates misunderstanding with clairsentience [Read more about clairsentience in this post here!]. Despite this fundamental flaw, and some weird belief stuff, there are useful exercises in this book. This was one of the earliest books I read on psychic things and helped me to articulate things well before my reawakening.

Bonus Books

Six Degrees of Separation: 42 Days Through Faith – This is the companion interfaith devotional I wrote to go with my world religion curriculum. While writing this, I had my psychic reawakening. This was a result of reading the scriptures of 6 religions concurrently with a consistent meditation practice.

This devotional is not for everyone. However, if you are interested in comparative religion, looking at the things that connect all humans regardless of belief, this is a worthy walk. It can be done on its own or with the curriculum (although you will need someone to lead the class for the curriculum to be effective – it’s not meant to be done alone, unlike the devotional).

The Unnamed Psychic Book - I’m in the process of writing my own psychic book which will give you everything you need to go from “WTAF” to magical main character. Obviously, being subscribed will keep you in the loop on this.

Let me know how this list sat with you (or if you have some other books you’re curious about or recommend that I should read)!

Love,

[The Destructrix]

News

I am on day 7 of my potato reset (thanks to my dr’s rec). It’s kind of terrible, but it has been doing a lot of what we hoped for, except I still got a migraine today - and it’s a doozy. Despite this, I powered through and got this out to you (yay me!), so if there are typos or weird things, I’m going to blame the fact that I can’t see straight.

People have been asking about the different options for working together on psychic development. Here they are (at this time):

The newsletter archive costs less than a book for a month access, is searchable, and has a lot of info. That tier also includes access to exercises, meditations, and prompts.
Witchy Bestie Chat Days starts at 1 day weekly on FB messenger or Telegram (your choice) where you can ask me anything. Drop your questions and experiences at any time during the week and I respond on your designated day (usually in voice notes). Starts at $111
Long-term Mentorship - typically two to four 1 hr long sessions per month, lasting 6-12 months depending on your needs and commitment. Includes all kinds of goodies, tailored to you. Must apply. Limited availability. Bespoke.