From the outset, I admit to being an elitist. As a working HPS, I read widely, and I expect my students to do the same. A well-educated Witch has a greater chance of being able to craft her spells and meditations to accomplish the precisely-desired end. A side-benefit of having one's initiates burrow into the library is that they become more interesting conversationalists during the 'Sacred Bulltwaddle' portion of our rites.
My scientific mentor, Richard Lee Armstrong, urged me to read a book a week outside my field. I have kept to that discipline for the past twenty years. Admittedly, there were times when that book a week might be a Victorian romance novel, or a picture-book of record-holding trees. But all the same, reading widely has given me a vast storehouse of images from which to draw. That helps me as a Witch, for I often find my magic starting out as mental pictures.
Take these recommendations with a grain of salt. They're my choices; yours might well differ. You'll note that I go rather lightly on the popular 'Pagan sludge' -- I don't follow the advice of one prominent Witch who has recommended that her students should read "any book with a moon on the side.". Even some of the Craft books currently in print are of principal benefit as proof that trees can die in vain.
Most pre-initiate training should be experiential; to that end, the seeker should be encouraged to participate fully and creatively in the rituals of the Outer Court. In the Outer Grove, students start out by copying the Laws of the Grove into their own notebook: this is their first exercise towards compiling a personal Book of Shadows in time-honoured fashion. For those students who need a bit more literary inspiration, I recommend Fitch's book, Magical Rites from the Crystal Well. His more recent book, The Grimoire of Shadows, is overly melodramatic for use by pre-initiates.
At the very beginning, it's worth the student's while to read a few classic works concerning European witchcraft. Although Murray's The Witch Cult in Western Europe and Graves' The White Goddess have been discredited by modern historians, I still see value in them as poetic expositions of the underpinning sof our Craft. Certainly they were two of the most influential books which were available to Gerald Gardner when he commenced his Craft studies. I also recommend Gardner's early novel, A Goddess Arrives, which is exceedingly hard to find but, once found, a lovely read. I have a photocopy of the book, graciously given me by a Craft sister in California, that I can lend to students.
As an antidote to the earlier works, I also recommend Ronald Hutton's masterful book, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: their Nature and LegacyIt does rather directly assault the old foundational myth of unbroken centuries of Craft practice. You can decide for yourself whether that's a good thing or a bad thing -- as a perpetual grad-student, I like Hutton's work.
For light reading, I suggest M.A. Foster's pocket-novel, The Gameplayers of Zan. As my beloved partner says, it's an excellent portrayal of small-group politics; it also introduces a completely different system of elemental attributions that I find rather useful in my private devotional practice. (Once you have read this book, I will entertain your guesses as to my elemental aspect and phase, and role within our Craft family -- the book will give you the tools to hazard such a guess.)
Fitch, Ed.
1984: Magical rites from the Crystal Well; Llewellyn
Publications, 1984; ISBN 0-87542-230-6, 145 pages.
Foster, M.A.
1977: The gameplayers of Zan; Daw Books, New York; ISBN
0-87997-497-4, 445 pages.
Gardner, Gerald B.
1950: A Goddess arrives; Arthur H. Stockwell,
London, 382 pages.
Graves, Robert
1948: The White Goddess: a historical grammar of poetic myth;
amended and enlarged edition; Farrar, Strouss and Giroux, New
York; ISBN 1-374-50493-8 -- in twentieth printing, 1987.
Hutton, Ronald
1991: The Pagan religions of the ancient British Isles: their
nature and legacy; Blackwell, Oxford; ISBN 0-631-18946-7,
397 pages.
Murray, Margaret A.
1921: The Witch cult in western Europe; Oxford
University Press, London.
For initiates who are continuing their apprenticeship towards degree elevation, the most important reference is, without a doubt, the Book of Shadows of their own Tradition. For comic relief mixed with a trenchant warning of the dangers of taking oneself too seriously, I offer Jessica Berens' Queen of the Witches -- definitely not for the humourless. For those initiates who are interested in delving more deeply into the history of the Craft, I recommend the following books:
Berens, Jessica
1995: Queen of the Witches; Arrow Books, London; ISBN0-09-925411-5,
185 pages.
Gardner, Gerald B.
1949: High magic's aid; Michael Houghton, London;
352 pages. -- also in 1875 edition from Samuel Weiser, New York;
ISBN 0-87728-278-1.
1954: Witchcraft today; with introduction by Margaret Murray; Rider and Company, London, 159 pages. -- also in 1955 edition from Citadel, and 1982 edition from Magickal Childe, New York; ISBN 0-939708-03-5.
1959: The meaning of witchcraft; Aquarian Press.
Leach, Maria
1954: The soup stone: the magic of familiar things;
Funk & Wagnalls, New York; 160 pages.
Leland, Charles G.
1899: Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches --
in 1996 Canadian reprint; Phoenix Publications; ISBN 0-919345-10-7,
133 pages.
Murray, Margaret A.
1931: The God of the Witches; Sampson Low, Marston
and Co., London, 212 pages. -- also in 1970 edition from Oxford
University Press, London; ISBN 0-19-501270-4
As advanced students deepen their understanding of the Craft, particularly their own chosen major field of study within the Craft, I recommend the following books as references. Note that my choice of books is governed in part by what I already have on my bookshelves; as I am strongly interested in small-group leadership and ethnobotany, my choice of books runs along those lines:
Bons, Paul M., McNally, Jeffery A., McDannell, Robert
M., Rokosz, Ronald F., Stout, Carl F., Knowlton, William A., Lesiter,
Albert F., Bazzel, Peter J. and Hatch, Charles L. (editors)
1981: Leadership in organizations; Department
of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, United States Military
Academy, West Point (New York).
Brehm, Sharon S.
1985: Intimate relationships; Random House,
New York; ISBN 0-394-33588-0, 459 pages.
Brill, Steve and Dean, Evelyn
1994: Identifying and harvesting edible and medicinal
plants in wild (and not so wild) places; Hearst Books, New
York; ISBN 0-688-11425-3, 317 pages.
Inglis, Brian
1990: Trance: a natural history of altered states
of mind; Paladin, London; ISBN 0-586-08933-0, 303 pages.
Jouhar, A.J. (editor)
1991: Poucher's perfumes, cosmetic and soaps, volume
1: the raw materials of perfumeryninth edition; Chapman and
Hall, London; ISBN 0-412-27340-3; 349 pages.
Kennedy, Eugene and Charles, Sara C.
1995: On becoming a counselor: a basic guide for
nonprofessional counselors, new expanded edition; Crossroad,
New York; ISBN 0-8245-1333-9; 415 pages.
Malandro, Loretta A., Barker, Larry and Barker, Deborah
Ann
1989: Nonverbal communication, second edition;
Random House, New York; ISBN 0-394-36526-7; 330 pages.
McArthur, Tom (editor)
1992: The Oxford companion to the English language;
Oxford University Press, Oxford; ISBN 0-19-214183-X; 1184 pages.
Shulman, Lawrence
1984: The skills of helping individuals and groups,
second edition; F.E.Peacock, Itasca (Illinois); ISBN 0-87581-302-X;
432 pages.
Turner, Nancy J. and Szczawinski, Adam F.
1991: Common poisonous plants and mushrooms of North
America, Timber Press, Portland, Oregon; ISBN 0-88912-312-5;
330 pages.
Van Toller, Steve and Dodd, George H. (editors)
1991: Perfumery: the psychology and biology of fragrance;
Chapman and Hall, London; ISBN 0-412-40720-5; 268 pages.
written by Brigantia Stone
updated: September 24, 1998
document COSMREAD © 1997, 1998
An introduction to Gardnerianism in Alberta,
as seen by a weather- beaten priestess.
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