Shot through with life-altering rituals, rites and spells, The Source guides readers to the place in their lives where true magic can finally begin

Ever since she was a little girl, Ursula James has heard a voice. For years she tried to ignore it, but a personal crisis at the age of forty forced her to finally listen. That, as well as the actual appearance of the speaker-also named Ursula-at her bedside one dark and cold night. The woman who revealed herself to James was Ursula Sontheil, known as Mother Shipton, a sixteenth-century prophetess, healer, and-some say- witch. Legend has it that Mother Shipton was burned by the king's men for her heresies, and her spirit became trapped in a cave in Yorkshire. This cave had an unusual characteristic: Anything taken there was turned to stone by the action of the lime-suffused waters from a nearby well. Mother Shipton used this water to create an image of herself on the wall, and then split the cave open to call the needy. Sick at heart or in body, people came to her in the cave to offer her objects in return for her healing powers.

In The Source, Ursula James describes how Mother Shipton appeared before her with urgent new prophecies for our troubled times- prophecies that include spells for, as Kabbalah says, Tikkun Olam-the healing of the world. Mother Shipton asked James to put these messages into writing to share with others-and record them she did, verbatim, in this book.