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Author Topic: Non-Wicca 101 Books  (Read 2965 times)

demoiselle

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Non-Wicca 101 Books
« on: May 12, 2018, 01:58:35 pm »
It is not hard to find Wicca 101 books. However, I am also interested in other traditions and I'm not sure what sources to use for, say, general paganism or druidry or shamanism.

What are the best first texts in these areas?

Or do most non-wiccan pagans start with Wicca 101 and then depart from there/develop their own path?

Jenett

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Re: Non-Wicca 101 Books
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2018, 02:48:38 pm »
It is not hard to find Wicca 101 books. However, I am also interested in other traditions and I'm not sure what sources to use for, say, general paganism or druidry or shamanism.

What are the best first texts in these areas?

Or do most non-wiccan pagans start with Wicca 101 and then depart from there/develop their own path?

The various Druidic group have reading lists (ditto most of the reconstructionist organisations or group) that can be worth mining for reading mater.

(Shamanism is more complicated, not least because a bunch of ways that word gets used are culturally complicated at best, and appropriative or worse in some cases. There's a summary of the major issues in our Inclusivity FAQ.)

Once you get beyond 101 books in general (even in Wiccan based stuff, where the options are a little more obvious sometimes) then yes, you do sort of  have to figure out what you're interested in, and look for more of that. There are a few books out there that talk about how to do this - Venecia Rauls' The Second Circle, Kirk White's Adept Circle Magic are two on my shelf, but they're both a bit older. (And I think both only available used now.)

I'd definitely frame both of those as 'intermediate' practice, rather than advanced: they cover things beyond 101, but less than is part of post-initiation work in many groups or traditions (not just because they don't generally cover a lot of details of the stuff you can learn only in regular group work, which is a whole subset of skills of its own, but also because groups or traditions often do have a specific set of things for further training, even if you also spend time developing your own personal interests.)

Or there are books that talk about how to deepen practice over time, by revisiting an idea but looking at it in a different way or going a bit deeper with a concept - one of my favourite versions of this is Twelve Wild Swans by Starhawk and Hilary Valentine, which looks at the same story (the folk tale "Twelve Wild Swan") while exploring three different strands of practice. The specific ritual structure in there i from Reclaiming, but the way the three cycles are structured is interesting even if you do different specific practices.

And of course, there are a bunches of books about specific skills/tasks/aspects - but to recommend those, it'd help to know what you're interested in (or not interested in.)
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demoiselle

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Re: Non-Wicca 101 Books
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2018, 06:46:53 pm »
The various Druidic group have reading lists (ditto most of the reconstructionist organisations or group) that can be worth mining for reading mater.

(Shamanism is more complicated, not least because a bunch of ways that word gets used are culturally complicated at best, and appropriative or worse in some cases. There's a summary of the major issues in our Inclusivity FAQ.)

Once you get beyond 101 books in general (even in Wiccan based stuff, where the options are a little more obvious sometimes) then yes, you do sort of  have to figure out what you're interested in, and look for more of that. There are a few books out there that talk about how to do this - Venecia Rauls' The Second Circle, Kirk White's Adept Circle Magic are two on my shelf, but they're both a bit older. (And I think both only available used now.)

I'd definitely frame both of those as 'intermediate' practice, rather than advanced: they cover things beyond 101, but less than is part of post-initiation work in many groups or traditions (not just because they don't generally cover a lot of details of the stuff you can learn only in regular group work, which is a whole subset of skills of its own, but also because groups or traditions often do have a specific set of things for further training, even if you also spend time developing your own personal interests.)

Or there are books that talk about how to deepen practice over time, by revisiting an idea but looking at it in a different way or going a bit deeper with a concept - one of my favourite versions of this is Twelve Wild Swans by Starhawk and Hilary Valentine, which looks at the same story (the folk tale "Twelve Wild Swan") while exploring three different strands of practice. The specific ritual structure in there i from Reclaiming, but the way the three cycles are structured is interesting even if you do different specific practices.

And of course, there are a bunches of books about specific skills/tasks/aspects - but to recommend those, it'd help to know what you're interested in (or not interested in.)

A quick note: thank you for the link to the inclusivity page. I was looking for "shamanaic" material. Once I get on something larger than a cellphone, I'll look up the other resources too.

Oíche

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Re: Non-Wicca 101 Books
« Reply #3 on: May 13, 2018, 03:06:37 pm »
It is not hard to find Wicca 101 books. However, I am also interested in other traditions and I'm not sure what sources to use for, say, general paganism or druidry or shamanism.

What are the best first texts in these areas?

Or do most non-wiccan pagans start with Wicca 101 and then depart from there/develop their own path?


Many people start with the Wicca 101 books simply due to ease of access. But you may find the following books interesting:

If you are interested in Irish material, Morgan Daimler's ' Pagan Portals - Irish Paganism: Reconstructing Irish Polytheism' is a nice little 101 book. She also has written many other useful books, I'd highly recommend her.

John Beckett's 'The Path of Paganism' is a very good book- he also has a nice blog on Patheos.

Also this resource list: http://www.paganachd.com/faq/readinglist.html
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Re: Non-Wicca 101 Books
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2018, 01:21:14 pm »
It is not hard to find Wicca 101 books. However, I am also interested in other traditions and I'm not sure what sources to use for, say, general paganism or druidry or shamanism.

As far as I'm able to judge, "general paganism" is basically the Wiccish thing that happens when a bunch of people read a bunch of Wicca 101s, a little New Age psychic stuff, maybe The Spiral Dance or a couple-few other non-Wiccan pagan books, and run from there in all kinds of directions.  It doesn't have a referenceable source, so much as is a very Wiccish-flavored soup of all that stuff, flavored with whatever other stuff people have thrown in.

Quote
Or do most non-wiccan pagans start with Wicca 101 and then depart from there/develop their own path?

It's reasonably common, yeah, because Wicca 101 books are everywhere.  And some of the stuff that evolves from those sources is rich and robust.

Part of the issue with paganism (as a religious-flavored sociocultural movement) is of course that the various religions that are pagan don't have as much as common as people think they ought to when they mistakenly think that Pagan Is A Religion.  So you get someone who's heavily steeped in the Wicca-flavored "general paganism" who encounters people from other parts of the pool and Hijinks Ensue.

(I once got my ass most mightily flamed for pointing out that Samhain is not "the pagan new year", and that there exist pagans that do not mark it because it is Someone Else's Religion.  People get Very Very Angry about the existence of... the rest of us, sometimes.)
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

HarpingHawke

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Re: Non-Wicca 101 Books
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2018, 12:53:48 am »
It is not hard to find Wicca 101 books. However, I am also interested in other traditions and I'm not sure what sources to use for, say, general paganism or druidry or shamanism.

What are the best first texts in these areas?

Or do most non-wiccan pagans start with Wicca 101 and then depart from there/develop their own path?

I didn't start with this book, but it's an invaluable resource (and the author is lovely too, which helps!!)

https://www.amazon.com/Grovedaughter-Witchery-Spellcraft-Bree-NicGarran/dp/154114578X
"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self." - Hemingway

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