This book is dedicated to something that may be a cat. He is enormous, black as death, and usually gone. He has a shredded ear and a kink in his tail. If he is around, he might enjoy being stroked, and then again he might hurt you if you so much as touch a hair. He never purrs. He likes to stare.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.



CATMAGIC



Copyright © 1986 by Wilson & Neff, Inc.



All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.



First printing: October 1986

First mass market printing: July 1987



A TOR Book



Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

49 West 24 Street

New York, N.Y. 10010



Cover art by Paul Stinson



ISBN: 0-812-51550-1

CAN. ED.: 0-812-51551-X



Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 86-50318



Printed in the United States of America



0987654321

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN

COMMUNION AND CATMAGIC

I wrote Catmagic in 1984, well before I was consciously aware of the visitors who figure in Communion.

Communion is a story of how it felt to have personal contact with the visitors. The mysterious small beings that figure prominently in Catmagic seem to be an unconscious rendering of them, created before I was aware that they may be real. It could be that the message of the book—which involves respect for earth and all her creatures, and the seeking of higher consciousness—is somehow derived from my inner understanding of the meaning of the visitors.

The hardcover edition appeared under a pseudonym, Jonathan Barry, primarily because it was published too close to the publication date of another of my books and would have created a conflict. I am the sole author of Catmagic.

Catmagic concerns Witches and Witchcraft, also known as the religion of Wicca. It is about the spiritual path of real Witches. It has nothing to do with tomfoolery like alleged "black magic." The Witches I met in doing research for Catmagic were no more evil than Christians or Buddhists or Hindus, or the practitioners of any other perfectly legitimate religion, among which Wicca can certainly be numbered. They were good people, passionate in their concern for the welfare of the natural world and the growth of their own souls.

Certainly there are a few people who distort Witchcraft and mock its ancient rituals in ceremonies that glorify evil. I met two such people. They turned out to be secretly associated with another religion. They were calling themselves Witches and engaging in painfully silly black magic rituals involving dead goats in an effort to discredit Wicca. Others who do evil in the name of Witchcraft are mentally disordered or, simply, charlatans. Such people should no more be counted Witches than practitioners of the black mass should be considered Catholics.

—Whitley Strieber