Aelfcynn rambles about her few books...
Grey Cat's Deepening Witchcraft
I've owned this book for four years, and constantly find myself rereading it. I'd recommend it as one of the first (and few) books I have found that covered the concerns of being publically pagan, with chapters offering introduction to topics I think would interest the blossoming pagan leader and the blossoming pagan student alike. The introduction (by Lady Sintana) pushes the book forward as a resource for the frustrated teachers and elders, but in understanding what problems beset the teacher, the student learns and so I'd also recommend this book for anyone either seeking a teacher or looking to be involved with IRL pagan community.
Published in 2002, with author Grey Cat deceased since 2012, the Wild Hunt's obituary calls this book "a corrective to a Wiccan/Witchcraft community that had become overly focused on younger adherents, “101″ instructional tomes, and unbridled eclecticism in the 1990s" (along with Ellen Cannon Reed's The Heart of Wicca) - and when I bought it second hand it still seemed to be a rarity of the print material available for pagan seekers and students of witchcraft, a book concerned with what lies beyond correspondences and candles.
In its own context, of Witchcraft as a spiritual (Goddess-worshipping) path, the book succeeds at providing the next stage of material missing or badly presented in the more commonly found introductory books. But it provides material useful for many people who navigate the social scene of paganism and witchcraft - chapter topics include Analytical Thinking, Morals and Ethics, and Building Community. In topics such as the aforementioned, Grey Cat merely shows the reader the door, but with annotated and well-sourced chapters with personal opinions made obvious rather than disguised as fact, the reader can consider themselves reasonably equipped to make their own progress into the topics.
Two chapters on history are included in the first half of the book - not as a factual presentation of the history of Goddess-worshipping witchcraft, but a general look at the history of the history, if you will. Being twelve years old, the first 'Point to Ponder' of the history chapters is distinctly relevant to today's reader: "History is rewritten every ten or twenty years, making everything you thought you knew suddenly wrong."
Chapters I've found most useful for the longest time are Teaching Our Religion and Building Community. In the case of the former, aspiring teachers, aspiring students, those called to answer questions and solo learners can find some guidance. Such advice knits neatly with that in Building Community, not merely because teachers in the community are often the 'leaders'. Those who look with despair at their local pagan community without getting really involved (and I've been one of these people) would benefit from looking at the details of these chapters - leaders and teachers burn out and disappear because they have been unsupported by the very community they've tried to work for, and the amount of work can be daunting. Without necessarily setting up oneself as a leader, one can take the pointers given and be a good community member.
The chapters Neopagan Religious Philosophy, Advanced Magic and Personal Growth may be of interest to students without teachers, introducing spiritual topics in a sympathetic way - the leaders on pedestals prove to be just as human as the student in many cases. Grey Cat doesn't hoist up enlightenment and endless good fortune like a prize available to be won, as some 101 standard authors have done in the past.
In recent years, all the information in this book has been expanded on by bloggers on various platforms and so weblinks to a hosting site like FortuneCity look disappointing today. But Grey Cat's end of chapter source points include many books a student won't find 'on the Llewellyn shelf', a good sign that a book does reach beyond repetition of 101 material.
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