Exploring the Pagan Path
Discover the best books on the pagan path with our curated list. Explore pagan spirituality, traditions, and practices through these insightful reads. Start your journey today!
Book
The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
by Barbara G. Walker
Do You Know... where the legend of a cat's nine lives comes from? why "mama" is a word understood in nearly all languages? how the custom of kissing began? whether there really was a female pope? why Cinderella's glass slipper was so important to the Prince? The answers to these and countless other intriguing questions are given in this compulsively readable, feminist encyclopedia. Twenty-five years in preparation, this unique, comprehensive sourcebook focuses on mythology anthropology, religion, and sexuality to uncover precisely what other encyclopedias leave out or misrepresent. The Woman's Encyclopedia presents the fascinating stories behind word origins, legends, superstitions, and customs. A browser's delight and an indispensable resource, it offers 1,350 entries on magic, witchcraft, fairies, elves, giants, goddesses, gods, and psychological anomalies such as demonic possession; the mystical meanings of sun, moon, earth, sea, time, and space; ideas of the soul, reincarnation, creation and doomsday; ancient and modern attitudes toward sex, prostitution, romance, rape, warfare, death and sin, and more. Tracing these concepts to their prepatriarchal origins, Barbara G. Walker explores a "thousand hidden pockets of history and custom in addition to the valuable material recovered by archaeologists, orientalists, and other scholars." Not only a compendium of fascinating lore and scholarship, The Woman's Encyclopedia is a revolutionary book that offers a rare opportunity for both women and men to see our cultural heritage in a fresh light, and draw upon the past for a more humane future.
Book
The Magic of Shapeshifting
by Rosalyn Greene
Shapeshifters are people with animal medicine, people who can connect with and use their animal powers. Those with access to this magical power can shift mentally, astrally, or even physically into their power animal or totem. Rosalyn Greene's ability to shift, both mentally and astrally, combined with her extensive study of the secret shapeshifting folklore, has resulted in this fascinating examination of all aspects and forms of shifting. In The Magic of Shapeshifting, Rosalyn Greene guides us through the levels of reality that lie outside our physical world and into the infinite universe that exists both within and beyond the limited boundaries of our senses. We read about opening to our inner animal self--normally dwelling within the subconscious--and letting it pervade more of our conscious waking mind. Detailed explanations and exercises teach shifters about their animal side, the animal spirit guide, and how we can become shifters. She shows us how to distinguish powerful visions, anxiety attacks, and imagination from real shifting, as well as how to recognize the warning signs of an imminent shift. Since there can be dangers and risks on both the mundane and psychic levels when we pursue the path of a shifter, many of the potential dangers associated with specific practices are carefully outlined. Shapeshifting links us with both the fundamental power of animals and with the higher self, our true being, the soul. We learn to release self-limiting ideas of our true nature and expand into a clear, conscious connection with the divine, eternal soul, whose reality is beyond whatever mind (or even body) we happen to possess at the moment. Shapeshifting is a spiritual journey, a very tough one, but very rewarding. It has a purpose and reality far beyond simply using shifter abilities for earthly benefits. It can lead us through the unseen veil that seems to separate us from our Selves.