Amanda Yates Garcia: Initiated

Amanda Yates Garcia discusses her new memoir, Initiated: Memoir of a Witch.

Praise for Initiated

“Mythic journeys to the underworld, goddesses, ecstasies, fairy tales, ghosts, love, sex, female empowerment, challenging the patriarchy: Initiated is full of my favorite things, told with savage grace by my favorite oracle, the powerful and devastatingly enchanting Amanda Yates Garcia. This book will change your life.”—Francesca Lisa Block

“I see Amanda Yates Garcia realizing a kind of magic choreography here: reaching back through millennia, dragging forth darkness by the handful, recalling ancient women misremembered, denied, hounded and destroyed, holding the pain of misogyny and changing it with intention, into light.”—Grace Krilanovich, author of The Orange Eats Creeps

“Yates Garcia takes us on a sweeping, expansive, generous, and beautifully intuitive journey into feminine power in Initiated. She leads us fearlessly into the dark underworld of patriarchal oppression, intergenerational trauma, loss and grief, where, she says, every witch must go to find her magic. This book is a powerful political protest and a call to return to first principles as a nation, a society, and a people. Come to it seeking your own artistic and intellectual path, and leave trusting yourself, trusting others, and trusting in the unconditional love you will find in the collective soul of the world.”—Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star

About Initiated

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes meets Women Who Run With The Wolves in this haunting, mystical memoir about finding meaning, beauty, and power through a life in witchcraft.

An initiation signals a beginning: a door opens and you step through. Traditional Wiccan initiates are usually brought into the craft through a ceremony with a High Priestess. But even though Amanda Yates Garcia’s mother, a practicing witch herself, initiated her into the earth-centered practice of witchcraft when she was 13 years old, Amanda’s real life as a witch only began when she underwent a series of spontaneous initiations of her own.

Descending into the underworlds of poverty, sex work, and misogyny, Initiated describes Amanda’s journey to return to her body, harness her power, and create the magical world she longed for through witchcraft. Hailed by crows, seduced by magicians, and haunted by ancestors broken beneath the wheels of patriarchy, Amanda’s quest for self-discovery and empowerment is a deep exploration of a modern witch’s trials – healing ancient wounds, chafing against cultural expectations, creating intimacy – all while on a mission to re-enchant the world. Peppered with mythology, tales of the goddesses and magical women throughout history, Initiated stands squarely at the intersection of witchcraft and feminism. With generosity and heart, this book speaks to the question: is it possible to live a life of beauty and integrity in a world that feels like it’s dying?

Declaring oneself a witch and practicing magic has everything to do with claiming authority and power for oneself, of taking back our planet in the name of Love. Initiated is both memoir and manifesto calling the magical people of the world to take up their wands: stand up, be brave, describe the world they want, then create it like a witch.