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Terreson
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from my library
I got a bunch of books I would love to recommend, would love to put in everyone's lap. Some of my books are so old they are falling apart. And so I will only give their titles, not give the books out. In some ways we are so lucky these days. We follow a hundred plus years of research into Pagan studies and Goddess studies and Mother-Right studies. Witches, say, of the 18th Century, only had folk lore and village gossip to draw upon. The record of pre-Christian religious orientations in the West had been damn near wiped clean from the record. If nothing else the Inquisition was thorough. Let me share some book titles please. Some of which are way too scholarly and thick headed. Some of which might be fun.
"The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets." Author is Barbara G. Walker. The book is over a thousand pages. Walker has described herself as an agnostic. The book takes on everything from python to prostitution to Christianity to St Brigid to Inanna to the Inquisition to why it is popes like to wear dresses to the Celtic heroes to Avalon to Kali to the Templars to the story of Cernunnos to Orpheus to Aphrodite. And she views it all, the whole story, from a herstorian's point of view. Plus her references make for the further leads.
I love this next book. "The Cult of the Black Virgin." Author is Ean Begg. It turns out that around the 11th C all of a sudden Virgin Marys in Europe's cathedrals were showing up black. And the statues are still black. It all produced a cult among Christians who found themselves praying to this Goddess of fertility, from gypsies in Spain to the last pope, Pope John Paul, who was a devotee of the Black Virgin he once saw in a small Polish church.
Here is one for all you pagan guys maybe looking for a model. "The Green Man: the Archetype of Oneness with the Earth." The Green Man, Celtic in origin, went by the name of Cernunnos. He has somehow kept alive all these centuries and kept secreted away in the sculptures hidden away in Europe's cathedrals. It is a fun picture book.
I got two favorite books. The first is "The Myth of the Goddess: evolution of an image." It is written by two Jungian students: Anne Baring and Jules Cashford. What a delightful read this is, taking you from the paleolithic through to how the archetype has kept alive through father-right times. The second favorite book is "The Once and Future Goddess." Author is Elinor W. Gadon. Just another chronicle of Goddess images from the paleolithic to now.
Two more books and I'll stop. (For now.) "Women Who Run With The Wolves: myths and stories of the wild woman archetype." Author is Clarissa Pinkola Estes. No comment except to say: extraordinary.
One last book for you Wiccans maybe devoted to the Dianic cult. There was this folklorist from America named Charles G. Leland. This is back in the 19th C. His main interest was Etruscan Civ., which took him to north Italy. There he befriended, or was befriended by, a semi-literate peasant and wanderer. Her name was Madellana. They formed a partnership that lasted for ten years. And she gave over to Leland material that might otherwise have been lost to the record. She gave over to him the chants, spells, stories and lore, orally kept alive, and belonging to La Vechia Religione (the Old Religion) involving the Dianic cult of moon worhsip in Italy going back to pre-Christian times and handed down from generation to generation. Leland copied out the lore and in large measure it involves a mythical character, Aradia, daughter of Diana, who is supposed to have appeared on earth in around the 13th C, and whose purpose was to teach the folk magical means for escaping persecution from church authorities. Book is called "Aradia: Gospel of the Witches."
There is more. Much more. Let me know if you all are interested and I am not being too boring.
(later) Here is a link to a site devoted to an extraordinary thinker and archeologist, Marija Gimbutus. Her idea was simple. Before Indo-Europeans arrived on the scene there was, in Europe, a civilization she called Old Europe. She dated it to be active between about 6500 and 3500 BC, pretty much covering the Neolithic period. It was Goddess-centric in orientation. And Gimbutus both uncovered and reinterpreted already uncovered artifacts and archeological sites to prove her thesis. At the bottom of the page you will find mention of the books she produced. In spite of much initial resistence to her idea, her findings have been generally accepted in academic circles. Her books are great picture books, by the way.
http://www.carnaval.com/goddess/
Tere
Last edited by Terreson, 2/8/2009, 10:43 pm
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2/8/2009, 4:59 am
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DebbrahF
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Re: from my library
Terreson wrote:
In some ways we are so lucky these days. We follow a hundred plus years of research into Pagan studies and Goddess studies and Mother-Right studies. Witches, say, of the 18th Century, only had folk lore and village gossip to draw upon.
Don't forget actual practioners and experience!
I've read most of these. Depending on what you are looking for, they are good. There are some points where I question if the conclusion is driving the evidence a bit more than the other way around, but I find that in most books.
---
For good or ill, luck and opportunity are 90%+ preparation...
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2/9/2009, 6:51 am
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TexasMadness
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Re: from my library
Great list! I have to admit that my pagan book collection consists mostly of Llewellyn books. Not that they are all bad, but certainly not terribly in depth. I actually didn't ever buy a pagan book until I long considered myself to be following the path. I just had books about general subjects - mythology, herbalism, etc. But now I enjoy reading "real" pagan books, though I find most of them to be pretty influenced by Wicca (the Llewellyn ones that is).
I'll have to check out some of these!
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2/9/2009, 4:32 pm
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Saijen SilverWolf
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Re: from my library
A very interesting listing, Terreson! There are a few that look like I may want to take a stab at reading them.
Thank you for posting this first list!!
--- Blessed Be,
~*~ Saijen ~*~
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2/10/2009, 3:52 am
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Terreson
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Re: from my library
You know? In the literature there are a few books that are classics of scholarship. They were not ideologically driven. They came decades, even generations, before the so-called Neo-Pagan movement, and a couple of them go back to the 19th C. I'll mention them in passing.
J.J. Bachofen was a Swiss jurist and a contemporary of Karl Marx. His interest in ancient Roman law led him to investigate a certain substratum. In brief it seemed to him he had discovered an earlier, all but forgotten layer in ancient myth and religion. He called it the Mother Right layer. His notion was that Classical Greek and Roman worlds originally were matriarchal and that their laws, myth, and religion still reflected as much well into the Classical period. Bachofen was the first to make this particular inquiry. He had no predecessors, no models, no leads. The book I have is a selection of his writings first published in 1926.
Another book is yet another all but forgotten classic. "The Mothers," by Robert Briffault, first published in 1927. The book is pure anthropology. And it amasses the anthropological evidence to support his thesis that early social organization was matristic, that the patriarchal rules of procedure we all know so well, have not always been around, are, in fact, of relatively recent design. (I like to think of the change as a palace revolution.)
Here is a particular favorite. "Prolegomena to the study of Greek Reliqion," by Jane Ellen Harrison, 1903. Forget everything you might think you know about the official, Olympian, religion of the Greeks. Harrison investigates the substratum, goes back to religious practices in place before the arrival of Zeus and company. It is primitive, orgiastic, always involving the sacrifice of some son/lover, and when Maneads were wild woman, and priestesses, before they got harnessed, tamed, domesticated and turned into Muses.
I imagine everyone has read, or heard of, "The Golden Bough," by Sir James Frazer, 1890. Another book of anthropology, Frazer was the first to investigate the role of human sacrfice, frequently involving the same Oak King we know through ancient Celtic religion, in early religious practices performed for seasonal, agricultural renewal.
One more classic. "From Ritual to Romance, by Jesse Weston, 1919. The same book that incited T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" poem. Weston is the one who first argued that the Arthurian material was drawn on religious practice (ritual) before it was diminished and made into romance.
Again, books mentioned in passing. I guess I figure it important for all Neo-Pagans to register just how much undercover work, so to speak, it has needed for the Old Ways to resurface. It didn't just happen on its own.
Tere
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2/15/2009, 3:33 am
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Terreson
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Re: from my library
So much for the big guns. Here is a book, more funner, mentioned not in the spirit of introduction, but in the spirit of exchange and discussion. I assume everyone has or, at some point, has had the book in her or his library. I wish I had my copy back. But everytime I replace my copy with a new one I end up giving it away to someone new to the material.
I guess for my generation, and going back to the heady, first days of the neo-pagan movement in America (the 70s and the early 80s), there was one book indispensible to anyone checking into the various Wiccan traditions. It was The Complete Art of Witchcraft by Sibyl Leek. A week or so ago I read somebody's post in which the New Forest tradition got mentioned. Leek was a member of the New Forest coven(s). Here are a few of the salients I remember, and what continue to guide me. First, the seven tenets of Witchcraft. Then the two moral laws governing witchy behavior. Then the one, very practical corrective governing anyone looking to perform magical acts: be careful of the magic you do, as it will come back on you threefold. But there are a lot of other goodies in the book, starting with how to know your own familiar. The book has less to do with the particulars of ritual practice and sabat descriptions, and more to do with, how to say it?, a certain orientation and with certain attitudes.
Probably more than any other writer Leek would popularize Witchcraft with American readers. She was just that engaging. Before finally immigrating to America she conducted a tour. The popular press loved her and followed her from city to city, from speaking engagement to speaking engagement. (Boy. The times were sure different huh? Can you imagine such press covering a witch now?) There is this one great anecdote, true or not true but reported on by a journalist, about how she drew up a thunder shower in San Fransisco. The reporter challenges her to prove her magical abilities. So, standing on a roof top under clear skies, she works her will and a thunder storm comes over. Anyway, there is another reason why I love her ways so much. She was one of the first, if not the first witch to involve herself in the environmental struggle against earth degredations. The connection between her religious devotions and Gaia was, for her, a no brainer.
Anybody else got a take on this grande dame. Wikipedia, by the way, has a great article on her. I just learned, for example, that, when she was a young girl, Aliester Crowley, the scarey Ceremonial Magician, befriended her and encouraged her in her writing.
Tere
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2/15/2009, 9:02 pm
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PerpetuallyCurious
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Re: from my library
Thank you for sharing that list. Several of them I have not had the pleasure of perusing yet. I need to live to be at least 300 if I'm going to ever get caught up! 
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2/16/2009, 4:15 am
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TexasMadness
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Re: from my library
Terreson wrote:
I imagine everyone has read, or heard of, "The Golden Bough," by Sir James Frazer, 1890.
Ah, there's one that I have! I do tend to collect older books that contain some kind of mystical reference. I feel they are more authentic just because there wasn't a huge drive to sell "teen witch" books back then.
Thanks again!
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2/16/2009, 6:29 pm
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Saijen SilverWolf
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Re: from my library
A very impressive listing, yet again. I do need to get busy and see if I can find some of these books to boost my library!!
--- Blessed Be,
~*~ Saijen ~*~
~~*~~ .~~*~~ |
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2/16/2009, 6:45 pm
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Terreson
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Re: from my library
I am glad everyone seems to be enjoying the listing. I confess I was a little hesitant to put it out, not wanting to seem too thick-headed (which I probably am anyway). Next time I want to share the one book that turned me to the witches way. It is an impossible book to read. But it is the one book that changed my life.
Tere
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2/16/2009, 8:23 pm
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