(Part 2) Best books about paganism according to redditors
We found 177 Reddit comments discussing the best books about paganism. We ranked the 83 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Sorry to tell you that you won’t find that here. Things are cherry picked in witchcraft too without regard. PM me, intersectionality hasn’t been a thing I’ve seen but wish was acknowledged.
ETA:
The Importance of Intersectional Witchcraft
Bringing Race to the Table: Exploring Racism in the Pagan Community
I've been reading up on this for Yule & I've been so confused because first, before anything else, I was under the impression that the "12 days of Christmas" were 12 days leading up to Christmas. Apparently that's not a thing to anyone though, lol (might have been mixing up Advent Calendars & 12 Days of Christmas)
The 12 days of Christmas start on Christmas and last for 12 days, ending with [Epiphany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday) on January 6th.
And the 12 days of Yule begin on Winter Solstice Eve, dusk on December 20th, ending on New Year's Day.
I'm probably going to buy this kindle book: A Guide to Celebrating the 12 Days of Yule (Heathen-style!): Folklore, Activities and Recipes For The Whole Family to Enjoy For 12 Days! by Jenn Campus. I read the first night rituals & thought it was lovely!
Anyway, the more I try to learn about ancient Celtic & Druid practices, the more I realize there's almost nothing to be found, as the entire belief systems were assessed for compatibility with Christianity for hundreds of years & either incorporated into Christianity (bringing them into parables, demoting goddesses to saints or witches, etc) or thrown out altogether.
When it comes to trying to understand the ancient Celts now, the best info we've got is mainly by studying the folklore+historical roots of like... every Christian holiday
:(
I love love love this book, the City is a Labyrinth: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1974219690/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_1Vw6AbXXYBE9T
It's all about connecting to the spirit of the city and the spirits of the city by walking with magical/trance like intention. It's a very short read.
If you want inspiration, Professor Pam's Urban Divination Deck (available directly from artist on Etsy) might be a cute way to look at some common big city 'characters', archetypes, and imagery.
Do you want it to be a wand? Does that feel right? Trust your intuition. There's also no one right way to use a wand: in my magical tradition they correspond with air but in most traditions they correspond with fire. It can be used to direct energy or draw boundary lines. IMO you're moving energy primarily with your body, a tool just helps. Just like a hammer or screwdriver works. If you lack a wand you can do the same thing by just pointing with a finger and moving energy.
There's lots of ways to consecrate a magical tool, but you can make up your own ritual if you want; eg cleanse the wand (salt, smoke, whatever you do), open a circle, call in whatever entities/elements/etc you want, do the consecrating thing (it can even as basic as just be stating your will or intent, and/or asking the entities you work with to help), then close the circle. Here's the instructions I followed by my tradition but if you're new to magical stuff I'd recommend getting something like this e-book, it's $5 and goes over all the basics in a way that's very accessible and can be generalized to a lot of different traditions, it uses the four elements to consecrate stuff.
I also think it's good practice to leave an offering if you take something from a living plant. I got my wand off Etsy, some witch named Blink from County Cork in Ireland drags old preserved black bog wood out the peat bog and hand carves it into a simple, plain, clean spindle of wood (it only cost like $20 so I gave a huge tip). Since I primarily work with Gaelic deities and my ancestry on my mom's side is Irish I feel like it really gives me a connection to my spiritual roots. The bog wood has this energetically heavy & strong feel, like a big pickup truck lol. You'll know what's right for you, and you can always experiment and make another wand later if you want something different.
Feel free to let us know how it works out!
The Love of Destiny
I feel that this book may be of great benefit to you and to many others around here in regards to similar topics of belief. It's a good read, and very short (34 pages, iirc). It discusses modern worldviews in the context of the physical and spiritual worlds, and how monotheism and polytheism have approached these and (primarily the former) have shaped our modern worldview. Mind you, mono/poly-theism are taken in the context of worldview, and are not specifically discussing (a) deity/deities. It takes into account religion, science, reason, and myth in order to help address how we have approached these two different "worlds".
As a total aside form this shameless plug for a book I just finished reading and to actually answer your question:
I believe in myself, and the universe. More-so the latter than the former. The interconnectedness of everything is awe-inspiring, and the cyclical, pulsing, rhythmic, oscillating nature of things around us is divine. I also believe that there is no singular truth, no singular path.
I believe that our perceptions have been painted by our expectations, surroundings, and past experience, which in turn create a feedback loop that changes our future perceptions. The difference between physical science and "metaphysical science" (or perhaps magick, the occult, or whatever you wish to call it) is that the physical world is rooted in objectivity, whereas the metaphysical world is rooted subjectivity. How we perceive things spiritual is through the minds' eye, and there is some "coloring" dependent on our perceptions. This coloring by our perception is, to me, the reason why so many different traditions have similar ideas, methods and/or ends - we all "see" or "measure" or simply experience the spiritual differently, and our perception and minds colors it differently than others'. This, I believe, is one of the major reasons that physical science disagrees so strongly with spiritual tradition, because that kind of thinking is so intrinsically different from the assumptions one makes when conducting "Science." In the end, we are all experiencing a part of the universe "more" than our physical selves, but perceiving it differently. I believe that belief is the background color of our experience and can drastically our perceptions and therefore our worlds. Belief is powerful, beautiful, and in a way, kind of scary.
There is no one truth. There is no singular path.
> All roads lead to Rome
I have a book titled Gay Witchcraft! Check it out if you can!
Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Gay-Witchcraft-Empowering-Christopher-Penczak-ebook/dp/B0096QZ8A6
This might help. It systematics the work for you.
The ADF Dedicant Path Through the Wheel of the Year https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CMTNCRY/ref=cm_sw_r_an_am_at_ws_us?ie=UTF8
I'd say in terms of nature-oriented Pagan "faiths" you've got Druidry/Druidism, Wicca, Traditional Witchcraft, and Heathenry (i.e., Asatru, Vanatru, Rokkatru, Northern Tradition, what have you) immediately jumping to mind, but those are also the ones I'm most familiar with. There's a ton of other ones, and they may or may not be as nature oriented as those are; I'm sure someone else'll bring them up in time.
Druidry's probably the most nature oriented of the lot but depending on the practitioner and what they're doing members of the other ones can be just as nature centered in their practice. A good book for that is The Druidry Handbook by John Michael Greer, which is where I'd start (and where I started with Paganism, to be honest, though I'm Heathen now).
John Beckett, another druid, wrote The Path of Paganism recently; I haven't finished going through it but it looks like an excellent introductory text for anyone who doesn't know much to anyone who wants to explore new areas of Paganism. Actually now that I'm thinking of it, that's where I'd start, and I'd pivot to the Druidry Handbook if Druidry seemed appropriate afterwards.
Look into those, maybe find intro texts to the other subsets that interest you, talk to people, and if you want you can message me and I'll help as I'm able to.
Some of the books I've read that you may be interested in:
I like the following You Tube channels:
Historical
General Heathen Cultural Interest
The following are a bit controversial, but I feel they are worth reading:
No release date for a while yet. We are quite early in preproduction.
Sure, here are some of the resources we used for research. I didn't yet get to go through all of these, especially the books, but I'm going through them one by one :)
Free books
Some nice sites
Books that you'll have to buy
Hi, I'm an AODA member. Sorry I didn't see this post until just now.
I'm a polytheist now, but I know advanced-grade AODA members who are not theistic. You'll find some AODA members calling upon land spirits in place of gods, for instance.
In your rituals, you can input gods, spirits, ancestors, or whatever is right for you. JM Greer has created a number of suggestions for observing the wheel of the year, based on Celtic gods and figures from Arthurian lore. He even created a Wheel of the Year for Christo-Druids that assigns each station to a Christian holy day and suggests different archangels and saints to call upon in the rituals. Just to give you an idea of how out-of-the-box you can get.
Now that I am polytheistic, I am more and more reconstructive in my approach. Without having followed AODA practices and reading JM Greer's teachings, I never would have understood magic or believed in gods, both of which are fundamental to traditional Celtic paganism in my opinion. A lot of people view Druidry and CR as being at odds with each other, but I reject that. I think AODA laid the foundation on which I'm going to ultimately build a more reconstructive practice.
You're right that ADF is the "winner" on this point, but ADF also requires a belief in and commitment to the gods. So you will need to come to terms with polytheism before joining.
EDIT: At the end of the day, I see Druidry as an open and diverse religion that is rooted in Celtic culture and which offers organizations and practices that are effective at initiating newcomers into paganism by giving them accessible and digestible practices they can use right off the bat. What Druidry lacks, though, is that it is not very rigorous about replicating and preserving historical practices. ADF is supposed to be the antidote to that problem, and in many ways it is, but it too is not fully reconstructionist.
There are some advantages to this, but someone who really wants historically-based practices will essentially need to practice reconstructionism on the side (quite a few ADFers do this, actually). For more information about Celtic reconstructionism, you can check out /r/paganacht as well as books like Pagan Portals: Irish Paganism and organizations like Gaol Naofa.
AODA does not have any language learning material that I'm aware of.
https://www.amazon.com/Queer-Paganism-Full-Colour-spirituality-ebook/dp/B01GBQW6OE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492161641&sr=8-1&keywords=queer+paganism
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
amazon.com.au
amazon.in
amazon.com.mx
amazon.de
amazon.it
amazon.es
amazon.com.br
amazon.nl
amazon.co.jp
amazon.fr
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I read it many years ago and I don't remember much, but from what I recall, he had some good points in the sense of an extensive use of what we could say the "neti neti" approach, with an apophatic tone and interest to the "I am". All things considered, though, his philosophy was so a-systematic and so far away from the idea of the Unity-Supreme Reality to be reached as a spiritual aim, that a linkage is very difficult.
Philosophers/writers who carry the ideas of AV, all-the-while not knowing they are doing so:
First of all there are Plato, Plotinus and the neoplatonists. Indeed there could be a reason. It seems one of them (Ammonius Saccas) who began the neoplatonc tradition, was an Indian follower of the Advaita Vedanta doctrines who moved to Greece .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonius_Saccas
All the other greek philosophers, however, didn't know anything about Advaita Vedanta and their ideas were strikingly similar.
This book introducing Plato has been written by an exceptional Advaita Vedanta teacher and explains deeply the similarities between Plato and Sankara:
https://www.amazon.com/Initiation-Philosophy-Plato-Raphael-Asram/dp/1931406073
Then, many medieval authors inspired by neoplatonists, have also doctrines altogether similar to Advaita vedanta.
Above all Meister Eckhart and the anonymous writer of the Cloud of Unknowing.
Among modern philosophers: Here there's the problem that many of them knew about Advaita Vedanta. Fichte and Schelling are interesting. One can argue even Hegel can be interpreted in a way to make his thought perfectly compatible with the Vedic tradition, but Hegel is quite an obscure and difficult reading.
Then there's Schopenhauer, an explicit admirer of the oriental tradition.
This is all I can think of, by now
EDIT: various typos and mistakes. English is not my first language. Idealists added.
What a load of gibberish. where do you even hear that? that's complete bs.
the lbrp is a banishing ritual, helps build up your energy field so lower astral beings and dirty lower vibed beings can't latch them selfs onto your aura because you're cleansing yourself in white light, invoking angelic forces, and getting in line with the divine.... so no, this is complete horse shit do NOT Listen to this guy.
You can do the LBRP and it will give the being the message of fuck off, I know what im doing and don't want you around me.
Not only can you do the LBRP, but if dabbling in the occult isnt your thing..perform a simple house cleansing. Posted one in the paranormal thread check it out if you want or just pick up some sage and cleanse yourself and the home while reciting positive mantras, this should help kick it out and detatch it from you.
LBRP- That whole ritual cleanses you. if it was useless and not of any use magicians all over the world would never use it and it wouldn't be such a fundamental occult ritual. IT IS single handedly one of the most important rituals in the occult I believe. THIS is what builds your aura field, your shield against darkness.
you're basically just talking crap. the LBRP will help but it wont just get rid of it on its own.. the lbrp is more so to guard YOU, to protect YOU, to release the attatchment. but the HOME cleansing is to banish it from your home. the lbrp in itself probably won't banish it from your home, but it will make you protected and shielded the more you do it so these things don't happen and so the spirit gets the general message.
I'd say do both the LBRP & House cleansing, and cleanse yourself with sage too before you do your home.
This should work.
LBRP - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV2qASTjykM (watch these in order to understand it)
I also have the following book - http://www.amazon.com/Lesser-Banishing-Ritual-Pentagram-Grimoire-ebook/dp/B00KLSYLPG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457987787&sr=8-1&keywords=lbrp+michael
You can research just about anywhere... if you think the LBRP just spews energy and doesnt do anything you're so sadly mistaken it's ridiculous.
Oisin Doyle has a book called A New Monastic Way which is monasticism for Celtic polytheists.
Very influenced by Celtic Christianity, yet focused on the gods.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Monastic-Way-Polytheistic-Monasticism/dp/1973218291
This is a really difficult question to answer, but it's still a totally fair question.
As others have said, paganism is an umbrella term for several specific traditions, and there are many different lenses through which to view and practice paganism. Some pagans are drawn to their religion out of concern for the environment, others want to connect with specific Gods, while others are seeking to honor their ancestors, and still others want to develop a variety of magical skills. Without knowing your specific interests it's hard to make any really specific recommendations. However, regardless of your interests I can pretty confidently recommend Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler and Seeking the Mystery. Both books give broad overviews of the history and world view of paganism writ large.
Thing is though, Paganism is about more than just reading books. I'd also recommend that you start trying out some simple rituals and meditations (Google is your friend here). You can make yourself a very simple alter with stuff you've probably got lying around the house. Finally, if you find that this is something that you want to continue to pursue, I'd strongly recommend trying to find some like-minded people in your area. Search meetup.com, or if there is a metaphysical shop in your area just go there and start asking around. There are pagan communities absolutely everywhere, and it's worth getting to know the pagans around you.
Hávamál
Edit:
My favourite saga is Egils Saga. Brennu-Njáls saga is also great. Gísla saga Súrssonar and Laxdæla saga also have some coolness to them.
There's a simple exorcism in this book.