Practical Sigil Magic: Creating Personal Symbols for Success by Frater U.D
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It's a pretty informative book. Good for reference.
Practical Sigil Magic: Creating Personal Symbols for Success by Frater U.D
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It's a pretty informative book. Good for reference.
Lessons in Palmistry: Studies of The Eye and Planetary Influences by Cornelia Ten Eyck Gaffney
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This is an excellent stand-alone read. It's hard to come by due to it's year (1897), but there are PDFs available of it online.
"By yarrow and rue, and my redcap too."
I have just discovered THE VERY BEST INTRODUCTORY PAGAN BOOK EVER.
It is comprehenisve, it is accurate (in a general sort of way), it is HISTORICALLY ACCURATE, it is intellectually honest, and its well organized.
Introduction to Pagan Studies by Barbara Jane Davy
This is totally my new go-to newbie or "what is paganism again" book. I'm going to buy a copy of this for every military chaplain's office in the Navy.
(btw, you can preview a good chunk of it on google)
ETA: Can you tell I'm really excited about this? I feel like jumping up and down and shouting "AT LAST, AT LAST!!!" But my coworkers would look at me funny.
Last edited by thalassa; 01 Jul 2015 at 06:11.
“You have never answered but you did not need to. If I stand at the ocean I can hear you with your thousand voices. Sometimes you shout, hilarious laughter that taunts all questions. Other nights you are silent as death, a mirror in which the stars show themselves. Then I think you want to tell me something, but you never do. Of course I know I have written letters to no-one. But what if I find a trident tomorrow?" ~~Letters to Poseidon, Cees Nooteboom
“We still carry this primal relationship to the Earth within our consciousness, even if we have long forgotten it. It is a primal recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the Earth. It is a felt reverence for all that exists. Once we bring this foundational quality into our consciousness, we will be able to respond to our present man-made crisis from a place of balance, in which our actions will be grounded in an attitude of respect for all of life. This is the nature of real sustainability.”
~~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
"We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes--one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way."
~~Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
"Humans are not rational creatures. Now, logic and rationality are very helpful tools, but there’s also a place for embracing our subjectivity and thinking symbolically. Sometimes what our so-called higher thinking can’t or won’t see, our older, more primitive intuition will." John Beckett
Pagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
Books on the philosophy of paganism
Steven Dillon. The Case for Polytheism.Contents: What is a god, Is there a god, How many gods are there, Are the gods good, Unanswered questions.
John Michael Greer. A World full of Gods.
Contents: The one and the many, How do we know about the Gods, Arguments for theism, Arguments against theism, Religious experience, The logic of polytheism, What do we know about the gods, Polytheist worship, Polytheist spirituality, Polytheist ethics, Myth and its meanings, Time and eschatology, Changing of the gods.
Something on ethics
Rosalind Hursthouse. On Virtue Ethics.
This is by a professional philosopher, but accessible to the general reader. Virtue ethics was the commonest theory in Greece and China, and is increasingly accepted in modern philosophy. If you feel that the rede is not enough and don't believe in gods who say "thou shalt not", this is worth looking into.
Walking with the Gods: Modern people talk about deities, faith, and recreating ancient traditions / W. D. Wilkerson.
Wendi Wilkerson is a professional ethnographer and a practitioner of Vudu. She interviewed 120 people, collected via the web, on their religion and here we get the interviews with 24 of them, chosen as particularly interesting. Their practices vary, her only requirement being that they should be real polytheists: not monists, dualists, or worshipers of their own mental archetypes.
Some are well known, like Tess Dawson and P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, others anonymous. The results range from the profound to the entertaining. Laura, a Santeria devotee, got adopted by Loki: I loved the account of his detailed instructions to her on crocheting a woolly hat to wear during worship! I was also touched by Lupus's desire to remember British gods who've been forgotten after being famous in Antiquity: "Everybody knows Apollo ... nobody ever goes, 'Oh yeah! Good old Cocidius!'"
*bump*
I need a good book recommendation. The problem with being pagan for over 20 years, is that...all the books are 101. All of them.
A friend lent me Witch, by Lisa Lister, and I'm returning it two chapters in, because it's a bunch of transphobic written-for-instagram garbage.
Does anyone have any good book recommendations for a pagan-flavoured book, that doesn't teach me about all the paths, or explain how to draw a circle?
“The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.” – John Muir
Mostly art.
Comes a time when the scholar has to burn the books, and go on alone.Originally Posted by volcaniclastic
Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.
I can't do everything, but I can do something.
Sadly I haven't come across any of those... like you said they are basically all beginner books with the same information.
"If you want to know what a man is like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." -- Sirius Black
"Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so."-- Ford Prefect
I really enjoy Penczaks Temple series. The first couple books are very 101, but I felt like I was encountering new info once I hit the Shamanic Temple book.
That said, I've been going toward source material the last few years. I started with listening to Damh the Bard's Mabinogi series (he just released thre third branch). Then I listened to another version of ther Mabinogion. Now I'm listening to the Edda Prose (just got the audiobook today).
And, all of that said, I think you reach a point where you've covered the fundamental knowledge you can get from books and the rest becomes much more philosophical. And some experiences are really hard to have alone and impossible to get from a book (like PSGs Sacred Hunt that has Hunters, Drummers, and Villagers). At that point you just have to dig into the experience.
We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now. -Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood
I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love.
It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss.
Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.
-Jacqueline Carey, Naamah's Curse
Service to your fellows is the root of peace.
Hello! Perhaps writing your own "advanced" book?
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