The first Pagan books I read were Scott Cunningham’s “Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner” and Margot Adler’s “Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America”.<\/p>\n
They were recommended by people I met at a local metaphyiscal shop as a good place to start – one as a good introduction to Wicca and one as something of an encyclopedia of many different Pagan paths.\u00a0 I bought the books, along with a couple of others, and went on my way.<\/p>\n
I started with Scott Cunningham’s book.\u00a0 It was exciting.\u00a0 I could feel my own journey beginning, learning about something new (to me, anyway); something that I felt a connection to.\u00a0 I had my first lessons on the Goddess and the God, the Sabbats, and how to prepare for and create rituals – a way to practice the Pagan path.<\/p>\n
There were, however, sections that didn’t speak to me.\u00a0 At least not right away.\u00a0 For example, I had difficulty going through some of the exercises presented later in the book.\u00a0 At first, they felt, well, silly.\u00a0 I couldn’t get my head around them.\u00a0 I wasn’t quite ready to accept everything he wrote.\u00a0 Over time, however, as I learned more and moved further along my path, I read the sections again.\u00a0 The exercises started to make more sense to me.\u00a0 I started to understand them and what they were trying to teach me.<\/p>\n
Although “Drawing Down the Moon” was recommended, I was warned about it’s textbook-like qualities.\u00a0 It’s a thorough book.\u00a0 Undeterred, I plunged into a fascinating yet different look at the community I was embracing written from a Pagan journalist’s perspective.\u00a0 The inclusion of interviews and first-hand accounts with Margot Adler’s research provided a rich reading experience.<\/p>\n
It opened my eyes to the wider Pagan community, showing so many different ways people practice their faith while still under a Pagan umbrella.\u00a0 It also helped me understand and realize that I didn’t have to believe, practice or follow the same things as one group or another to have a connection to the larger community.<\/p>\n
Along with a few other books that were initially recommended to me, these books shaped how I saw the Pagan community and my understanding of what I was getting into.\u00a0 This was a major signpost for me – just how potent first impressions can be when initially investigating Paganism and recognizing how important it is to keep an open mind as you go along.<\/p>\n
I re-read parts of Scott Cunningham’s book from time to time, re-living that original awakening I felt as I first stepped onto this path.\u00a0 His ‘Song of the Goddess’ struck a cord with me then and still does today.\u00a0 I treat Margot Adler’s book like the textbook it is – I use it to read more about the various groups I encounter on this path.<\/p>\n
What were your first Pagan books?\u00a0 How did they affect you?\u00a0 Did they shape how you viewed subsequent books or new belief systems?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first Pagan books I read were Scott Cunningham’s “Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner” and Margot Adler’s “Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America”. They were recommended by people I met at a local metaphyiscal shop as a good place to start – one as a good introduction to Wicca and one as something of an encyclopedia of many different Pagan paths.\u00a0 I bought the books, along with a couple of others, and went on my way. I started with Scott Cunningham’s book.\u00a0 It was exciting.\u00a0 I could feel my own journey beginning, learning about something new (to me, anyway); something that I felt a connection to.\u00a0 I had my first lessons on the Goddess and the God, the Sabbats, and how to prepare for and create rituals – a way to practice the Pagan path. There were, however, sections that didn’t speak to me.\u00a0 At least not right away.\u00a0 For example, I had difficulty going through some of the exercises presented later in the book.\u00a0 At first, they felt, well, silly.\u00a0 I couldn’t get my head around them.\u00a0 I wasn’t quite ready to accept everything he wrote.\u00a0 Over time, however, as I learned more and moved further along my path, I read the sections again.\u00a0 The exercises started to make more sense to me.\u00a0 I started to understand them and what they were trying to teach me. Although “Drawing Down the Moon” was recommended, I was warned about it’s textbook-like qualities.\u00a0 It’s a thorough book.\u00a0 Undeterred, I plunged into a fascinating yet different look at the community I was embracing written from a Pagan journalist’s perspective.\u00a0 The inclusion of interviews and first-hand accounts with Margot Adler’s research provided a rich reading experience. It opened my eyes to the wider Pagan community, showing so many different ways people practice their faith while still under a Pagan umbrella.\u00a0 It also helped me understand and realize that I didn’t have to believe, practice or follow the same things as one group or another to have a connection to the larger community. Along with a few other books that were initially recommended to me, these books shaped how I saw the Pagan community and my understanding of what I was getting into.\u00a0 This was a major signpost for me – just how potent first impressions can be when initially investigating Paganism and recognizing how important it is to keep an open mind as you go along. I re-read parts of Scott Cunningham’s book from time to time, re-living that original awakening I felt as I first stepped onto this path.\u00a0 His ‘Song of the Goddess’ struck a cord with me then and still does today.\u00a0 I treat Margot Adler’s book like the textbook it is – I use it to read more about the various groups I encounter on this path. What were your first Pagan books?\u00a0 How did they affect you?\u00a0 Did they shape how you viewed subsequent books or new belief systems?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}