PAGANISM PERSISTING

Robin Douglas and Francis Young. Paganism Persisting. A History of European Paganism Since Antiquity. University of Exeter Press, 2024.

The first question of course, is 'what is Paganism?' The word 'pagan' arose amongst Christians in the fourth century to describe their unconverted neighbours. It was derived from the Latin paganus, which has a number of possible translations, including 'civilian' and 'villager'. It is not clear why this term was used, but it is clear that it was meant to have negative overtones. 

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EARTH MOTHERS AND A GREEN MAN

Ronald Hutton. Queens of the Wild. Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe. An Investigation. Yale University Press, 2022.

In his introduction to this book, Ronald Hutton explains that for most of the last century and a half the concept of 'pagan survivals' dominated thinking about folklore and folk traditions, particularly in England. The idea grew that in the period from the Christianization of Saxon England until the religious upheavals of the Reformation, and in some cases even beyond that, Christian belief and practice had been a veneer over deeper pagan beliefs.

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TRACING THE PAGAN PAST AND PRESENT

Liz Williams. Miracles of Our Own Making, A History of Paganism. Reaktion Books, 2020.

Dealing mainly with the British Isles, this book traces a historical path from the earliest evidence of religious practice in these islands to the roots of the modern pagan revival and the position of paganism as a belief system in the twenty-first century. The first thing the author demonstrates is that we know very little indeed about historical paganism, other than it existed in some form or other for a very long time.
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BELIEF AND SUPERSTITION

Robin Melrose. Magic in Britain: A History of Medieval and Earlier Practices, McFarland, 2018.

This book begins with a description of the archaeological evidence for religious and ritual practices that can be found in Iron Age sites across Britain, largely evidence of funerary rites. 

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FILM VERT

David Huckvale. A Green and Pagan Land, Myth, Magic and Landscape in British Film and Television. McFarland 2018.

This is an ambitious, highly readable and comprehensive book on how a British pagan consciousness, through time and place, secured a dwelling in cultural artefacts. I use the word artefacts as shorthand for constructs of the imagination.

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THE IRISH PANTHEON

Morgan Daimler. Gods and Goddesses of Ireland—A Guide to Irish Deities. Moon Books, 2016.

Here's a question to test your general knowledge: How many Gods and Goddesses of Ireland could you name? I asked myself this question on being presented with this book and had to admit I knew none of them for certain. 

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HEART OF THE MATTER

Paul Davies and Caitlin Matthews (Editors). This Ancient Heart: Landscape, Ancestor, Self. Moon Books, 2015.

This is an anthology of essays by thirteen authors exploring the threefold relationship between the landscape, ancestors and ourselves. Each writer gives a unique and idiosyncratic viewpoint on pagan themes of honouring the ancestors, connecting with nature and following a spiritual path or practice.

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PAGAN PORTALS

Rebecca Beattie. Pagan Portals: Nature Mystics, The Literary Gateway to Modern Paganism. Moon Books, 2015.

According to Rebecca Beattie modern paganism in Britain can be dated from the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in 1951 and the publication of Gerald Gardner’s Witchcraft Today in 1954.t.
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PAGAN TIMES

Ronald Hutton. Pagan Britain. Yale, 2014.

When this book was first published it received criticism in some quarters for not conforming to one or other version of the development of pre-Christian religions in Britain. The growth of the modern Pagan and Wiccan traditions has meant that many features of Britain’s man-made landscape have been incorporated into strongly-held belief systems.
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BAPHOMET: ACTING THE GOAT

Nikki Wyrd and Julian Vayne. The Book of Baphomet. Mandrake, 2015.

In reading and reviewing this book, the phrase 'curate's egg' kept coming to mind. That means to say I found the book to be good in parts. It is a stimulating but rather odd concoction of writings by a male and female couple who have evidently been practitioners of Chaos Magick for many years and are initiated Wiccans.
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WITCHCRAFT AND PAGANISM

Trevor Greenfield (ed.) Witchcraft Today – 60 Years On. Moon Books, 2014.

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Trevor Greenfield (ed.) Paganism 101: An Introduction to Paganism by 101 Pagans. Moon Books, 2014.

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Richard Metzger (ed.) The Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. Disinformation Books, San Francisco, 2014.

These books are similar, in that all are collections of essays by different authors on contemporary occultism. Witchcraft Today – 60 Years On, which refers to Gerald Gardner’s 1954 book, is 180 pages long, whereas The Book of Lies, which is primarily about Aleister Crowley (from whom the title is borrowed, and who resurrected the old spelling of ‘magick’), is much larger, 352 pages with small print in double columns.
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THE DEVIL'S TABERNACLE

Anthony Ossa-Richardson, The Devil’s Tabernacle: The Pagan Oracles in Early Modern Thought, Princeton University Press, 2013

To call The Devil’s Tabernacle a work of specialist scholarship is something of an understatement. It’s a highly specialised study of a highly specialised subject, a revision of the doctoral dissertation that earned Anthony Ossa-Richardson a Leverhulme Fellowship at the University of London, in which he displays an exhaustive familiarity with obscure historical treatises and engages in often rarefied debate with his peers.
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HORNS AND HANDS

Frederick Thomas Elworthy. Horns of Honor: Regaining the Spirit of the Pagan Horned God. Edited and Introduced by Raven Grimassi. Weiser Books, 2013 (first published in 1900)

This is a welcome reprint of a work which deals with various little known facts about the history of artworks of mystical and magical significance. In ancient times, deities were sometimes represented with horns, in the case of the Egyptian Goddess Hathor, in the form of a cow, but very often in human form, except that they had horns.
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RELIGIOUS SECRETS AND SECRET RELIGIONS

      

David V. Barrett. Secret Religions; A Complete Guide to Hermetic, Pagan and Esoteric Beliefs. Robinson, 2011.

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Owen Davies, Paganism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, 2011.

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Hans-Peter Hasenfratz. Barbarian Rites: The Spiritual World of the Vikings and Germanic Tribes. Inner Traditions, 2011.

David Barrett is the author of a number of books on the byways of religion including the massive New Believers, which covered a huge range of religious and philosophical traditions, with a large section of Christianity and the 'Religions of the Book'.
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WICCA MEN

Michael Howard, Modern Wicca: A History from Gerald Gardner to the Present. Llewellyn Publications, 2009..

‘Wicca’ is usually understood to mean ‘witchcraft’, but as Howard observes, this has caused some controversy in places such as South Africa, where witchcraft is understood in a wholly negative way. I would suggest that witchcraft could be defined as ‘the exercise of occult arts’, which may be done by people of any faith, whereas Wicca is a religion, distinguished by the fact that unlike most other religions it encourages the exercise of occult arts.

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