Paganism in Depth is available now from selected book stores and magic shops. If your favorite store doesn’t have it, ask them to get it for you. It’s also available from the usual on-line outlets:
The clichéd advice for writers is “write what you know, not what you think you know.” What I know about Paganism is how I got here and how I do it now that I’m here. The Path of Paganism was about how I escaped fundamentalism and how I built an experienced-based foundation for my religious, spiritual, and magical practice.
Paganism In Depth is the story of the next steps on my Pagan path. Because it’s a deeper book, it is necessarily a narrower book. This is not the only way to go deeper into Paganism, but it is how I have gone deeper. As the subtitle states, it’s a polytheist approach.
Part 1 of Paganism in Depth covers foundations: the ideas, concepts, and principles on which my Paganism is built, foundations that are different from those of our sometime-Christian, sometimes-atheist mainstream society.
The interlude is titled “I like it here – why do I have to leave?” Oftentimes we get comfortable with something and we’re reluctant to change. But if we want to learn and grow, we have to be willing to move into unfamiliar territory.
Part 2 is Practice – all the things we do on a regular basis that build our skills and strengthen our relationships with our Gods and spirits. We covered some of this in The Path of Paganism – we’ll go deeper in Paganism in Depth.
Part 3 is Challenges. Let’s not kid ourselves – deeper practice is hard, and it can bring challenges we haven’t seen before. We’ll cover things like roadblocks, demanding Gods, and perhaps the biggest challenge in modern Paganism – building healthy communities.
What’s inside?
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
Part 1: Foundations
Chapter 2: Seeing the World in a Different Way
Chapter 3: Pagan Foundations
Chapter 4: Polytheist Foundations
Interlude: The Deeper Call
Chapter 5: I Like It Here – Why Do I Have To Leave?
Part 2: Practice
Chapter 6: Devotional Practice
Chapter 7: Magical Practice
Chapter 8: Divination and Oracles
Chapter 9: Ecstatic Practice
Part 3: Challenges
Chapter 10: Overcoming Roadblocks
Chapter 11: Living With Gods and Spirits
Chapter 12: Building Deep Religious Communities
Chapter 13: The Cost of Deep Practice
Chapter 14: Pagans Chop Wood and Carry Water Too
Epilogue: An Invitation To A Journey
Bibliography and References
This is the mission of Paganism in Depth. It’s a guidebook to going deeper into the forest, higher up the mountain, and further out to sea. It’s an invitation to join this sacred work, to go where there are no maps, to find your way through careful practice and intuition and pure luck – and through the help of the Gods – and then to draw a map for those who come after you. This journey is not easy; not everyone wants to do it, and not everyone can do it. The decision to take it is yours and yours alone. As for me, I can’t imagine doing anything else.