The Paganism Reader

The Paganism Reader provides a definitive collection of key sources in Paganism, ranging from its ancient origins to its twentieth century reconstruction and revival.

The Paganism Reader provides a definitive collection of key sources in Paganism, ranging from its ancient origins to its twentieth century reconstruction and revival.

An introduction to modern Paganism and its roots and history The Pagan tradition celebrates the physical nature of life on earth, blending science with spiritual folklore. Considering the everyday world of food, health, sex, work, and leisure to be sacred, Pagans oppose that which threatens life such as deforestation, overdevelopment, and nuclear power and invoke ancient deities in this struggle for the well-being of the earth and its inhabitants. Contemporary Paganism presents a broad-based introduction to the main trends of contemporary Paganism, revealing the origins and practical aspects of Druidry, Witchcraft, Goddess Spirituality and Magic, Shamanism, and Geomancy, among others. Making use of both traditional history and the movement’s more imaginative sources, Harvey reveals how Paganism and its central focus on individual and social lives is evolving and how this “new religion” perceives and relates to more traditional ones. This updated and expanded new edition addresses recent developments among Pagans and includes a new chapter assessing continuing scholarly research about the religion.

A comprehensive guide to a growing religious movement If you want to study Paganism in more detail, this book is the place to start. Based on a course in Paganism that the authors have taught for more than a decade, it is full of exercises, meditations, and discussion questions for group or individual study. This book presents the basic fundamentals of Paganism. It explores what Pagans are like; how the Pagan sacred year is arranged; what Pagans do in ritual; what magick is; and what Pagans believe about God, worship, human nature, and ethics. For those who are exploring their own spirituality, or who want a good book to give to non-Pagan family and friends A hands-on learning tool with magickal workings, meditations, discussion questions, and journal exercises Offers in-depth discussion of ethics and magick

This collection of rituals, practices, and exercises has been drawn from ancient sources, some have been preserved and some rituals have been updated by scholars from various pagan groups. This deluxe one-volume edition is specially designed to be read by candlelight.

In twelth-century Jerusalem, orphaned sixteen-year-old Pagan is assigned to work for Lord Roland, a Templar knight, as Saladin's armies close in on the Holy City.

If the whole of the Christian life is to be governed by the "law of love"—the twofold love of God and one's neighbor—what might it mean to read lovingly? That is the question that drives this unique book. Through theological reflection interspersed with readings of literary texts (Shakespeare and Cervantes, Nabokov and Nicholson Baker, George Eliot and W. H. Auden and Dickens), Jacobs pursues an elusive quarry: the charitable reader.

Paganism is among the fastest-growing religions in the world. It is most commonly expressed in the celebration of seasonal festivals, such as the solstices, through the use of 'magic' and in attempts to make changes in the world or in individual consciousness. Among the number of different paths to paganism are Druidry, Wicca, Heathenry and Goddess Spirituality, all of which celebrate nature. Paganism engages with some of the chief concerns of this age: ecology and feminism, for example. It draws on ancient sources but allows individuals to explore their current relevance. At its heart, Paganism encourages people to live respectfully alongside all life and not to raise humanity above any other species. Graham Harvey explores Paganism's appeal and gives a clear insight into its key beliefs.

A compelling history of radical transformation in the fourth-century--when Christianity decimated the practices of traditional pagan religion in the Roman Empire. The Final Pagan Generation recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century’s dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors’ interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity for violent conflict. Watts examines why the "final pagan generation"—born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the past two thousand years—proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.

The first comprehensive study of its kind, this fully illustrated book establishes Paganism as a persistent force in European history with a profound influence on modern thinking. From the serpent goddesses of ancient Crete to modern nature-worship and the restoration of the indigenous religions of eastern Europe, this wide-ranging book offers a rewarding new perspective of European history. In this definitive study, Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick draw together the fragmented sources of Europe's native religions and establish the coherence and continuity of the Pagan world vision. Exploring Paganism as it developed from the ancient world through the Celtic and Germanic periods, the authors finally appraise modern Paganism and its apparent causes as well as addressing feminist spirituality, the heritage movement, nature-worship and `deep' ecology This innovative and comprehensive history of European Paganism will provide a stimulating, reliable guide to this popular dimension of religious culture for the academic and the general reader alike.