The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

So please any help would be very appreciated

I've just only took the first few steps on my own path, so I wont be of much help to you I'm afraid. But welcome to the forums, I wish you find what you seek.

I have a website that has a lot of introductory religious witchcraft material on it (Seeking) that you might find helpful, but reading your question, I'm also thinking you might find Pauline and Dan Campanelli's books of interest: Ancient Ways: Reclaiming Pagan Traditions and Wheel of the Year: Living the Magical Life. Both have a variety of activities and ideas rooted in folk practices.

Jenett's site is excellent indeed, and I'd wholeheartedly recommend going through it as a starting point.

I still struggle with getting my hands on progressively more information.  I come from an academic research background, so what's been most helpful for me is keeping a journal.

I write down every question, thought, feeling I have about my practice or something I've ready lately.  I read back through it every once in a while for a little perspective.  What was I thinking about last month?  Do I still feel that way?  Do I have any new information?

There's so much information that I find the pile occasionally a little daunting. Writing stuff down and going back to it ensures that you won't forget all those little questions or ideas, which makes it easier to chase things down rabbit holes for a bit and then regroup.

When I feel like I'm done with one rabbit hole, I start googling my way down the next.  I also have found simply scrolling through this forum with an open mind and reading any threads that simply look neat might point you down a path you'd never known you were interested in.

I hope that helps a bit.  In addition to Jenett's recommendations, here's some great recommendations in the Books and Other Resources part of the forum, and a reading list here that you might want to peruse as well.

After studying the work of Gavin/Yvonne Frost as well as Raymond Buckland's seminal "Complete Book of Witchcraft", I found the work of Silver Raven Wolf especially helpful. Her book "The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation Solitary Witch" is like an encyclopedia. So long as you continue studying and practicing the craft, the right path will open to you.

 
it is probably worth mentioning that, while some folks have found their works useful, Silver RavenWolf is not well-regarded here on TC (and in quite a few other parts of online Pagandom; follow links posted in that thread), and the Frosts are, if anything, more, and even more widely, controversial and held in low esteem.

Sunflower

I was raised Southern Baptist but questioned everything. My great grandmother was a Pagan Priestess who practiced both Herbal and Magic healing. I too am interested in the same. I'm drawn towards the old ways from the early Pagans. I wish to eventually follow a solitary path of my own, but first I feel I need to be grounded in Knowledge before venturing down that road. There are only Reiki shops here so finding if and knowing what to even look for is becoming harder than I thought. So I figured may this site could get me pointed in the right direction. I've read Witchcraft for beginners by Edith Yates, and Scott Cunningham Wicca, and Living Wicca A Solitary path, Paganism an intro to earth living traditions, and Celtic Twilight. I don't know where to go from here, I do find comfort In Prayer to the Goddess (triple moon). So please any help would be very appreciated

I recommend reading The Spiral Dance and, more importantly, trying the exercises in it. One thing I've realized in my own search for a path is that at a certain point I have to get my nose out of the book and just try things out. Obviously, I continue to read, but I've let go of this idea I had that I had to know exactly what I was doing before trying to do it. I'm sure I'll make mistakes, but that's okay. So far I've been practicing grounding and centering, and doing a lot of the visualization exercises Starhawk recommends. It's made this stuff I've been reading about for so long seem so much more accessible.

So, Lady Passion and I wrote The Goodly Spellbook: Olde Spells for Modern Problems because we were fed up with the shallowness of most Craft intro books, such as Cunningham's and Silver Ravenwolf's. Spiral Dance is one of the better ones mentioned here, IMHO, and is very inspiring, but like the others comes up short on the traditional knowledge we knew, as teachers, that people really want and need: the hidden history of magic, how and why it works, the skills you need to practice it well, a ton of reliable spells in useful categories. We didn't just make it all up, either, but drew from the deep well of Plato, Agrippa, the Greek Magical Papyri, etc., as well as modern Elders like Gardner and Buckland. Anyway, it's still selling like mad a dozen years after its first edition, so I don't feel too bad about shamelessly recommending it to you

(BTW, we live in Asheville, NC, so know lots and lots of Southern Baptists-turned-Pagans!!)

I'm in Asheville too! Ive heard of Coven Oldenwilde but I'm sort of a fledgling solitary with social anxiety. lol! I'd love to be part of a community though.


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