Books

Changing Paths (11 April 2023)

Are you leaving a religion, entering Paganism, leaving Paganism, changing traditions within it, or leaving religion altogether? Changing Paths is a companion for the journey.

How do you explain your new path to friends, family, former co-religionists, and yourself? How do you extricate yourself from your previous tradition and its associated ideas? How do you unpack your complex feelings about your path and why you are changing direction?

Individuals have many reasons for leaving a faith, including being in conflict with bad theology, bristling against a high-control religion, and disagreeing with conservative positions on gender, sexuality, and the body. Changing Paths offers resources for examining religious attitudes to gender, sexuality, other religions, and whether your religion supports you effectively through life’s ups and downs.

There are various routes into Paganism and Changing Paths offers resources on how to decide which tradition is right for you, how you know you’re a member of a group, and reasons for joining a group—or not. Exercises, journal prompts, and reflections explore how to deal with unexamined baggage from your previous tradition, the role of leaders, and how to find a beloved community.

You aren’t alone in your journey. A range of contributors who have trod this same path—from a former Christian who is now a Wiccan to a former Pagan who now avoids labels—also share their experience and wisdom.

The book is published by 1000Volt Press. 

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Find out more on the Changing Paths website.

Dark Mirror: the inner work of witchcraft (2nd edition)

by Yvonne Aburrow

Inner work is a name commonly given to the inner processes that happen in ritual. It can also mean the transformation of the psyche that comes about through engaging in religious ritual. However, the best kind of inner work also has an effect outside the individual and outside the circle. When rituals are focused only on self-development, they tend to be a bit too introspective. Ritual is about creating and maintaining relationships and connections – between body, mind, and spirit; with the Earth, Nature, the land, the spirit world, the community, and friends. It is about making meaning, weaving a web of symbolism, story, mythology, meaning, community, and love. Creating a community that welcomes and celebrates diversity. Creating strong and authentic identity to resist the pressures of consumerism and commercialism and capitalism. Weaving relationship with other beings: humans, animals, birds, spirits, deities.

Second edition published by the Doreen Valiente Foundation in association with the Centre for Pagan Studies.

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• Buy the hardback

Price: £13.99 | Paperback, 366 pages

The night journey: witchcraft as transformation (2nd edition)

by Yvonne Aburrow

This book is aimed at witches who want to deepen their engagement with their Craft. It explores modes and types of ritual; how rituals work; the uses of sound and silence in ritual; the witch’s journey through life; the stages and pitfalls of the inner work. It shows how Queer Witchcraft is an inherent aspect of the archetype of the witch; how witchcraft relates to the land; witchcraft as resistance to oppression; working with ancestors; the witch’s pact with spiritual powers; the relationship between madness, shamanism, and witchcraft; and the concept of the night journey, another very old image from the history of witchcraft; how to use insights gained from the practice of witchcraft in everyday life; group dynamics; being a coven leader; teaching and learning in a coven; egregore, lineage, upline, and downline; power and authority; the process of challenging oppression; how to evaluate your Craft; the meaning and purpose of ‘spirituality’, religion, and magic; the archetype of the witch and what it means.

Second edition published by the Doreen Valiente Foundation in association with the Centre for Pagan Studies.

• Buy the paperback

• Buy the hardback

Paperback, 348 pages

Pagan Consent Culture: Building Communities of Empathy and Autonomy 

(edited with Christine Hoff Kraemer), Asphodel Press, 2016.

How might a Druid, a Wiccan, a Heathen, or a Polytheist understand consent? In Pagan Consent Culture, Pagans show how to ground good consent practices in Pagan stories, liturgies, and values.

Find out more on the Pagan Consent Culture website

Buy:  Paperback  / eBook / PDF

All acts of love and pleasure: inclusive Wicca

Avalonia Books, 2014.

All Acts of Love and Pleasure is a companion guide to inclusive Wicca, which includes all participants regardless of sexual orientation, disability, age, or other differences, not by erasing or ignoring the distinctions, but by working with them creatively within initiatory Craft.

Find out more on the inclusive Wicca website

Buy: Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Kindle edition (UK) / Kindle edition (USA) / Avalonia 

A little book of serpents 

Birdberry Books, 2012.

A little book of serpents - The mythology, symbolism, folklore and poetry of reptiles, including adders, asps, pythons and other snakes; crocodiles and dinosaurs; turtles and tortoises; dragons and basilisks.

Buy: Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk / Lulu / ebook 

The Magical Lore of Animals

2000.  Out of print. Secondhand copies are available.

Folklore and mythology from all over the world is full of animal stories, and many deities have animal totems associated with them. The animals, birds, trees, and places connected with each deity link all Nature in a web of symbols, showing that everything depends on everything else. Animals represent the power of the deity at work in the world, a visible manifestation of the numinous.

Auguries and Omens: the magical lore of birds

1994. Out of print. Secondhand copies are available.

Examines in detail the interpretation of birds as auguries & omens, the mythology of birds (Roman, Greek, Celtic & Teutonic), the folklore & weather lore associated with them, their use in heraldry & falconry & their appearances in folk songs & poetry. The book explores these areas in a general way, then goes into specific details of individual birds.

The Sacred Grove: mysteries of the forest 

1994. Out of print. Secondhand copies are available.

The veneration of trees was a prominent theme in the Paganism of ancient and classical times. Many rituals took place in sacred groves and much of their symbolism involved the cosmic tree. The mysteries of the forest can be incorporated into modern Pagan traditions.

The Enchanted Forest: the magical lore of trees

1993. Out of print. Secondhand copies are available.

First published in 1994 and reprinted several times since then. Fascinating & truly unique - a comprehensive guide to the magical, medicinal & craft uses, mythology, folklore, symbolism & weatherlore of trees. There are chapters on trees in myth & legend, tree spirits, trees in ritual magic, trees & alphabets (runes & Ogham) & weather lore.