Wiccans & Pagans – Where are the Advanced Books?

[icymist]

We hear this question as a complaint. People say there are mostly 101 books available and too few 202 and 303 books.

And as a publisher I agree with the question and the complaint. I want to see more advanced books. I want to read and study more advanced books. I want to sell more advanced books. I want our community to have more advanced books.

But it is a deep matter. We’ve published books that purported to be advanced that really were extensions of 101. And they didn’t sell well. And we’ve published many ‘specialty’ books on subjects of interest to anyone involved in the Occult (and let me use that word here to encompass all the subject matter variously called New Age, Metaphysical, Body-Mind-Spirit, and Spirituality, even Alternative Religion).

<snip>
But what I do know is that, even though I am a book publisher and I want to sell lots and lots of books and believe in publishing good books, what counts is the actual experience of using the information you’ve been given. There is no limit to what a sincere practitioner of 101 can attain – if you do nothing more than meditate on the living experience of the ritual drama of Wiccan & Pagan Sabats and Esbats and the Initiations, even if you are a solitary and work in your imagination. And, I have to say, if you don’t work in your imagination you will experience nothing no matter how many rituals you participate in with groups large or small, no matter how many degrees you may have, and no matter how many books – beginner or advanced – you read.

Read the full essay

[Idylle Moon Dancer]

1. I have three books that give me quite a bit to chew on

and each one ranges within itself from beginning to advanced, IMO.
The Inner Temple of Witchcraft,
The Artist's Way,
Buddhism Without Beliefs.

I've barely scratched the surface of practicing the material in these books,
but simply reading them has refreshed my perspective and changed my life.

[Chovexani]

2. Late to this but a thought

I think that essay really illustrates the problem with Llewellyn and why I have to think long and hard and research before I buy a book with that moon on the spine. The problem with Llewellyn is that 9 times out of 10 the "advanced" material on Paganism they peddle is really intermediate spell cookbooks. Look at the language he uses, "esoteric technology" and crap like that. That's spellcasting. Which is all well and good, but when most people say they want "advanced" materials, they generally mean something more than just a fancier way of casting spells. Books on theology, ethics, and you know the whole religion thing.

Where are the Pagan memoirs? Where are the "coming out" books? Where are the books on ethics? Books on community outreach and organizing, and community dynamics? Where are the books on any sort of Paganism besides Fluffybunny Eclectic Neo-Wicca and its derivatives? Exhaustive studies of particular pantheons and how they might fit into a Wiccan context?

I'll tell you where they are, they're being put out by smaller presses and self-published on places like Lulu.com because they don't have enough spells in them to be taken seriously by Mr. Llewellyn and his editors.

[Dervill Crow]

3. Deborah Lipp's books are good, too.

The Way of Four and Elemental Rituals.

Ditto on the Chris Penczak books.