Books about Wicca

I’m looking for recommdations on books explaining Wicca. See, I’m particpating in NaNoWriMo this year, and I’d planned to make one of my main characters a Wiccan.

I’ve read some online material, and I have a book by the Wiccan author Kate West, titled The Real Witch’s Handbook, but I was wondering if there was more like that that I could look over before the beginning of November.

Since there will be little to no chance to do editing in this suck, I want to try and avoid any really egregious errors when writing about Wiccan belief or practice, as stated, acted on, or performed by this character.

If it helps, the story will be set in today’s society. There will be another main character, a member of the Christian clergy. There will be elements of the supernatural, in the form of malevolent spirits/vampires/demons, or whatever. That part is still in the planning stage. Neither of the two main characters will be one of the “creatures” they will be in a rocky alliance(for differing reasons) *against * them.

Can anyone give me some help here? Online links would be cool too. Thanks in advance!

:smack: In the third paragraph, that should have read: “Since there will be little to no chance to do editing in this sucker

I hate typos.

Three books which are almost academic studies of Neo-Paganism:
Margot Adler’s DRAWING DOWN THE MOON
Loretta Orion’s NEVER AGAIN THE BURNING TIMES
Roland Hutton’s TRIUMPH OF THE MOON

They MAY be kinda deep for what you want but they are quality sources of info.

If you want to wade through them for some insights, there are the founding documents by Gerald Gardner WITCHCRAFT TODAY and THE MEANING OF WITCHCRAFT. While I think they are necessary for a deep study of Wicca, there are plenty of better books which are also nigh foundational- those are
WITCHCRAFT FOR TOMORROW and THE REBIRTH OF WITCHCRAFT by Doreen Valiente, one of his Priestesses, and A WITCHES BIBLE by Janet & Stewart Farrar, who also wrote a decent popular intro WHAT WITCHES DO.

If I understand you correctly, the Farrars’ WHAT WITCHES DO and also Scott Cunningham’s popular intro’s THE TRUTH ABOUT WITCHCRAFT TODAY, WICCA: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, and LIVING WICCA, may be just what you want.

Since you are going to have some Pagan-Christian interaction, there is a decent Llewellyn book Gus diZeriga’s PAGANS & CHRISTIANS, as well as two good sane Evangelical C’tian examinations of Wicca/Neo-Paganism- Craig S. Hawkins WITCHCRAFT: Exploring the World of Wicca and Catherine Saunders’ WICCA’S CHARM.

Fringe writers on both sides that I can’t recommend except to see how flaky they can get: Gavin & Yvonne Frost, esp their THE WITCHES BIBLE, and Jack-Chick-buddy William Schnoebelin’s WICCA: Satan’s Little White Lie.

This is really going to depend on what sort of character the Wiccan is. That is, are they new at this, an old hand, wide-eyed idealist, young, old, male, female, feminist, earth-centered, Celtophile, etc.?

While there is a legal Church of Wicca, what you’ll find in reality is that most “Wiccans” have their own filters and ideas about the universe.

Scott Cunninghan or Ray Buckland will give you the basics. The rest is details.

A hard-line feminist would probably be drawn to Dianic Wicca and would definitely have read Z. Budapest, particularly The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows.

A newbie Wiccan in the '80’s or '90’s probably started with Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham or To Ride A Silver Broomstick by Silver Ravenwolf (The later considered something of a joke by serious practitioners, but undoubtedly influential, especially among young practitioners.)

Male Wiccans seem drawn to Ray Buckland’s Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft (known to us as “Bucky’s Big Blue Book”)

For Celtic Wicca, beware your source. There is a lot of total shite out there. Like the reviewer at Amazon, my reaction to Celtic Wicca: Ancient Wisdom for the 21st Century by Jane Raeborn was “Look! It’s not crap!” Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but I was highly impressed with this unknown author.

Kerr Cuhulan is a newer author, and is bringing some exciting new ideas to the table around Wicca not being a fuzzy lovey new agey religion. Lots of military folks are excited about his works, including Wiccan Warrior. If your character is going to be using Wicca offensively, you need to read his book.

Christopher Penczak is a guy I generally respect, though I haven’t read this book, it seems like it might be useful to you as well: Outer Temple Of Witchcraft. I did read and liked his book City Magick

While most Wiccans are rural in mindset, regardless of where they live, there are a few authors writing exciting new ideas about urban Wicca and paganism, and how those of us trapped in the city can practice our religion with what we interact with everyday, instead of envisioning some bucolic mountainside. My favorite of these is Urban Primitive. But - full warning - it is unorthodox, and if you were to call it “Wicca”, you’d have some explaining to do.

If you don’t know Raven Grimassi, you’ll never be taken seriously. His strong points are hereditary witchcraft and Italian withcraft. And yes, he’s a guy.

Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today by Margot Adler is an anthropologic study of wicca and neopaganism in America. It’s a little dated, but still very good.

Scott Cunningham’s “Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner” is a pretty good guide to the spiritual basics.

Thanks for the replies.

I see the character as female, at the very least in her upper twenties. Definitely not a kid. Unmarried, probably no kids. Not raised in the craft, a “convert” so to speak, a little defensive about it. Not starry eyed.

The other character may be male or female, haven’t decided yet. Slightly older, or at least not younger. Conserative by upbringing, but open to new experiences and ideas(that may come hard though).

Of course by the time I get to writing some of the above may change! Thanks for the responses.

There’s one thing you should know about (most of) those books versus (many) actual Wiccan folk: the books tend to be very didactic, whereas (with the exception of the more airheaded trendyfolk who first decide “I wanna be a witch” and only then seek out information on what it’s about) most people who are attracted to Wicca have a strong streak of anti-dogmatic, anti-rulefollowing-for-its-own-sake in their spiritual and philosophical outlook.

The books: Ooh, you must own a wand, a chalice, a cauldron; you must face west and burn candles for Samhain and chant the following prayer to the Horned God and the Goddess… your wand should be made of ash, your cauldron would be of iron, oh and you hold the pentagram like so and draw a magic circle, while chanting…

The Wiccans I know: I like the resonance of rhythms, the underlying sense of cycles and order amidst change and inconstancy; I like the notion that the natural is the sacred, not the western-civ greco-christian contempt for nature; I do the solstice and equinox and the four in-between celebs as an affirmation of what it means to me, but there’s no strict “right way” and “wrong way” to do Wicca, and if you don’t get that you don’t get Wicca.

Absolutely. That’s why I twice mentioned “new, exciting ideas” in my recomendations. Urban Primitive is exciting to me BECAUSE it doesn’t dither over athame styles and phases of the moon. It looks at the world - TODAY - and explores how all the rhythms and god-forms we recognize in those dusty old books are still here and still vibrant. Need to leave an offering for Saturn? Leave it outside the IRS office. Want to experience the energy of Aphrodite? Hie thee to Babes in Toyland! Vulcan/Hephaestus? The local welding shop and muffler repair, of course!

All completely and utterly unorthodox. But it all makes such perfect sense!

But it’s not a Wicca primer - it’s for those details and nuances that make characters interesting, IMHO.

Here’ssome online articles about Wicca as well as a ton of other articles on other aspects of Paganism. Good message board, too; they’re welcoming to anybody and everybody, and always willing to answer questions.

Cunningham, Adler, Grimassi, Buckland, and Gardner are all good sources. But please, for the love of all that’s holy (and with all due respect to FriarTed), stay away from the Farrars. Yea gods, I hate those folks.

Really? I understand hating the Frosts, but the Farrars? Is that because they were too close to Alex Sanders’ path?

Btw, TRIUMPH OF THE MOON was written by RONALD Hutton, I mistakenly said Roland.

That is the most important thing to remember. No two solitary practitioners are going to do things alike.

Like WhyNot, I’d go with the Big Blue Book for a basic, here-it-is-don’t-hurt-yourself primer. Everything else (and heck, even most of the basics) is up to the individual practitioner.

(And Why, thanks for that Urban Primitive recommendation. I’m fascinated and heading off to Amazon even as we speak. :D)

My first recommendation would be to read Drawing Down the Moon; it’s a fantastic guide to Wicca. My second would be to check around for a public pagan group in your area, email them, and ask if you could attend one of their public ceremonies. Chances are very good that they would love to have a writer there.

Daniel

You may be able to find some local groups on Witchvox, depending on your location.

There’s a problem with that. I do know of a pagan/Wiccan group in my area. But attending a public gathering would still be awkward, as I know one of the members personally, and we don’t get on at all. Long story. That’s why I’m asking for help on the net like this, from Dopers, and not direct from them. I only know two people in the group, I suppose I could call the other and talk to them.

Just a quick comment on Drawing Down the Moon - it’s something like 600 pages and, although I don’t know how fast Baker reads, getting this done by the beginning of November could prove problematical.

Like many others, I’d say Buckland’s big blue book for a quicky, or Cunningham for a little more detail.

I recommend avoiding anyone by someone with a dorky made-up sounding name (like the previously mentioned Silver Ravenwolf, for example) unless your character is a pop-pagan.

(chiming in to agree with everyone else’s recommendations, Buckland’s Blue Book and Cunningham especially.)

I also liked “When Someone You Love Is Wiccan: A Guide to Witchcraft and Paganism for Concerned Friends, Nervous Parents, and Curious Co-Workers” by Carl McColman.

If you have any questions about the practice of Wiccan or general pagan ritual and practice, I’d be happy to provide info. Nothing I’ve seen (personally) is secret. I’m a public “out” pagan, and I’ve visited and worked with pagans of all “flavors”.

Let me know what you think of it. I would never have picked it up, except that I went to a workship by one of the authors (Tannin Schwartzstein) at Starwood a few years ago, and really dug her.

The book got some panties in a bunch for “inventing” new god-forms, but I think a strong case can be made that they simply recognized a few new faces that have popped into the collective unconscious in the last few decades. (How many times have you shouted “Score!” when you found a neat thingy at a thrift store or in an alley? One of their “new” goddesses is Skor - goddess of Yard Sales, Flea Markets and Trash Picking.)

WhyNot,

Have you read or heard of this one? And what did you think?