COVENANT of UU PAGANS (CUUPs) – Pagans 101

Submitted by John Burridge, Sept 2006

Bibliography

HISTORY

Adler, Margot; Drawing Down the Moon; Beacon Press, 1986. Revised and expanded edition. An overview of the neo-pagan movement in the United States by an NPR reporter and practicing Witch.

Davis, Philip G.; Goddess Unmasked; Spence Publishing Co. 1999. This is a hostile critique of goddess worship; and I wouldn't be surprised if Davis either A) had his wife leave him for a woman, or B) he was accused of sexual harassment by a pagan. Some of his arguments are shaky, but he does double-check the source documents of various goddess authors to devastating effect. Still the bibliography is probably more useful than his actual thesis.

Dever, William G.; Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel; (2005 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.); Dever argues that there is text and objects in the archaeological record supporting the theory that families worshiped a goddess, Asherah, at family shrines in 11th century BC Israel. Further states that Asherah was a fertility goddess, most likely worshiped by women, and that Asherah was Jahweh's consort.

Ginzburg, Carlo; Ecstasies, Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath, Penguin Books, 1992. Translation of 1989 work tracing the history of pogromsagainst lepers, Jews, and non-Christians in Europe by an examination of court records. Questions the Murray thesis of the Burning Times. Examines records of self-identifying witches and other occult villagers who have ecstatic, mystical experiences.

Harvey, Graham; Contemporary Paganism; publisher? date?; Covers mostly European pagans in addition to Wiccans (in the 1990's)

Hutton, Ronald; Triumph of the Moon; Oxford Press, 1999. Very dense history of the development of paganism, starting with the general movements of the English Enlightenment and Romantic eras, narrowing down during the Industrial Revolution and Modern eras to focus on specific occult scholars and students. Ends with an examination of the influences of Aleister Crowley on Gerald Gardner, and Gardner's subsequent development of Wicca.

Watshington, Peter; Madame Blavatsky's Baboon; Schocken Books, 1995. A review of the doings of H. P. Blavatsky, Master Koot Hoomi, Annie Besant, William Judge, Charles Leadbeater, G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and Krishnamurti. Spanning the time of the rise of the English Empire, the fall of the Russian monarchy, the decline of English colonialism, and the rise of California-style demagoguery, this book veers between comic and melodramatic turns.


RITUAL AND MAGICAL THEORY

Bonewits, Isaac; Real Magic; Samuel Weiser, 1990. Second printing. A master's thesis written in the early seventies. Sometimes a little too cute, it attempts to codify magic into a scientific paradigm.

Fortune, Dion (Violet Firth); Mystical Qabalah, Samuel Weiser, 1986. Written in the archaic style mastered only by the English in1935, this is an attempt to integrate Eastern philosophies with the practices and wisdom of the Hebrew Qabalah. Has some interesting explorations of the ethics of magic and the psychological boundaries between magical reality and delusion.

Fortune, Dion (Violet Firth); Psychic Self-Defense; Samuel Weiser, 1999. Reprint of Fortune's 1930 publication. Lots of anecdotes of the psychic doings of the English Occult Jet Set. In between some of the quaint racism and homophobia is good advice for determining what kind of experiences one is having, and what to do if the experience is a bad one.

Starhawk; Spiral Dance; Harper & Row, 1989. A discussion of spells, rituals, and ethics behind the women's spirituality movement. Tenth anniversary edition, with updated notes about the movement.


WICCAN THEOLOGY

Farrar, Janet and Stewart; Witches' God, The; Phoenix Publishing, 1989. Attempts to reexamine the role of male deity within Wicca. Very dualistic and concerned with polarity. A good overview of various cultures and gods.

Starhawk; Truth or Dare; Harper & Row, 1987. An excellent discussion of the workings of our hierarchically based society, in which the forces of power-over and power-with are examined closely.

Starhawk; Dreaming the Dark; Beacon Press, 1988. A discussion of the workings of power upon the fields of sexuality and politics. Includes a discussion on the ethics of magic.


EARTH SCIENCES

Heath, Robin; Sun, Moon and Earth; Wooden Books, 1999. A wonderfully illustrated book and a great introduction to the motions of the sun and the moon across the sky. A must read for anyone wishing to make their own observations of the seasons. Very accessible.
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Who's Who in the development of (mostly European) occult movements

(with acknowledgement to Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon)

Alphonse Louis Constant (Eliphas Zahed Levi) (1810 - 1875?) Humans have semi-divine powers that have atrophied over the centuries. Coined phrase 'occultism' for the old phrase 'magic.' 1854 Invented the use of the pentagram as an invoking symbol (instead of a banishing one). First to write about secret masters; links Egyptian magic to Templars. Links Tarot and Cabala.

Charles Leland (1824 - 1903) Folklorist whose Aradia (1899) propagates the theme of a peasant goddess religion persecuted by the Catholic Church. Coins term "Old Religion"

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831 - 1892) Admirer of Constant. Founder of the Theosophical Society. Writes Isis Unveiled (1877). Popularizes Godfrey Higgin's earlier thesis of Atlantis as a super-nation of occult technicians. Proposes a fusion of Eastern and Western mysticism, and occult and scientific techniques.

Sir James Frazer (1854 - 1941) Writes The Golden Bough (1890) with intent to discredit religion in general and Christianity specifically with the thesis that the current pinnacle of religious evolution has its roots in folk fertility customs. Forwards the concept of Divine Kings with mystical connections to the land's fertility.

Samuel Liddell Mathers Claimed contact with Mdm Blavatsky's secret chiefs after her death in 1892. Compiled various Masonic (magical tools), medieval ("magic squares") and Graeco-Egyptian (Isis) sources to be used in the Order of the Golden Dawn. Linked Platonic elements to cardinal directions.

Margaret Murray (1862-1963) Writes The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) and The God of the Witches (1933). These establish the concept of a uniform Paleolithic Pagan Religion in Europe with solar festivals and Cernunnos as the Pagan Horned God.

Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947) Contributed to the triple goddess idea in Moonchild (1929). Reworked Masonic ritual tools (wand, cup, pentacle, dagger, and sword) from Mathers and added scourge, anointing oil, bell, censer, and book of charms and spells.

Violet Firth (Dion Fortune) (1890 - 1946) Focuses on (reincarnated souls from) Atlantis. Mystical Qabalah (1935) a source of magical theory for later pagans. Author of the phrase "all the gods are one god, and all the goddeses are one goddess, and there is one initiator," and "magic is the art of changing consciousness at will." Establishes the concept polarity --especially sexual polarity -- is a magical force and that (heterosexual) sex is sacramental.

Robert Graves (1895 - 1985) In The White Goddess (1946) he splits Frazer's Divine King into two: the Summer King and Winter King, jells the concept of the Crone (the devouring sow) and writes the first description of the blonde, blue-eyed, white skinned Maiden.

Gerald Gardner (1884 - 1964) Assumptive successor to Crowley as European head of Ordo Templi Orientis. Brings together the rituals and concepts above into Ye Bok of ye Art Magical sometime around 1948, later as the Book of Shadows.

Miriam Samos (Starhawk) Spiral Dance (1979) becomes the introductory book to Wicca in the United States. Dreaming the Dark (1982) ? introduced Power-from-within? Truth or Dare (1987) links Wicca with political green movements such as feminism and ecology. "For an vision of the Goddess, look at the women around you."