Books
June 1, 2008I still remember the first time I set foot in a store selling pagan books.
I was scared of it at first. Scared of the type of people who could be in there. Scared of what they would think of me.
Clearly, I got over that. And went back again, and again and again.
If I remember correctly, the first pagan book I ever bought was Cunningham’s “Wicca: a Guide for the Solitary Practitioner”. I still have my copy (as I do all of the pagan books I have bought), with lavender pressed in between the pages. I remember the first time I sat down and performed a ritual from its pages. Feeling that magic, that feeling of being something larger than myself.
That’s the heart of what I aim to get from my spirituality. To be part of something greater than myself. To know that there is a greater thing that goes on, even when things seem awful. To know that there is more.
A goal of mine over the next few weeks is to go through my pagan books. Perhaps I’ll write some mini-reviews here. Not that there is anything that almost everyone has read. I feel the need for some new books, actually. There seems to be many introductory books and few at an intermediate level. Anyone have any recommendations for non-introductory books?
I was the same way the first time I went into a pagan shop. It was actually in the front of someone’s house around Halloween time. I bought Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, which I still have.
The first book I ever bought was Real Magick by Amber K.
I’d never known there was such a thing as Wicca or Paganism until I was in college in the late 80s and early 90s; I came from a fairly well insulated family in the American South/MidWest. Anything other than Christianity – even Judaism – was exotic, and even Buddhists were strange and outre.
I’d bought a book by Mercedes Lackey; Children of the Night, the first of the Diana Tregarde novels. I was fascinated by the portrayal of a modern-day witch, and I started looking around. Hey, it’s not all fantasy fiction!
I eventually subscribed to Circle magazine (for several years; I believe it’s now defunct) and started reading more. I bought the Cunningham book, as well as Ancient Ways and Wheel of the Year by the Campanelli’s. I also still have or acquired Drawing Down the Moon, The Spiral Dance, and several items by DJ Conway and Patricia Telesco.
I also read through and gave away Buckland’s, some more specific books on various branches of paganism, several books by Silver RavenWolf, and Grandmother Moon by Z. Budapest, which I really wish I’d kept.
I read Pagan every day by Ardinger at my library; it’s not intermediate level but a nice meditational / devotional I wouldn’t mind having myself. I’ve also read Kerr Cuhulain and a book by Phyllis Curott (whom I believe you are familiar with already).