What Was Your First Pagan Book?

Witchcraft: The Story of Man’s Quest for Supernatural Power by Eric Maple

Gwion Raven (The Witch’s Next Door) What a fabulous question – Technically speaking, the first book of witchcraft I ever saw was Witchcraft: The Story of Man’s Quest for Supernatural Power by Eric Maple. My mum got this book in the late 70’s for some unknown reason. I used to look through it from time to time, because, ya know naked people with boobs and dingalings and hairy bits (remember, I was like 8). My mother gifted the book to Phoenix several years ago and it sits on our bookshelf now.

After that, and this falls into the “you have gotta to be kidding me” category, it was Ralph Blum’s little grey book and rune set. I was in my mid 20’s and I received it as a gift after completing a very new age workshop. The book is crap, but there was some poetry in it about Odin and the runes, and that lead me to better books. I still have that book (for sentimental reasons). Odin is the first of the gods I met.

Celtic Magic by DJ Conway

Jason Mankey (Raise the Horns) Though I’m often ashamed to admit it, my first book Pagan book as an adult was DJ Conway’s “Celtic Magic.” It’s a book that absolutely does not hold up as a now informed Pagan, but I found it absolutely spell-binding at 21 years of age. Part of that is because Conway’s a good writer (one can be a good writer without having a good command of history) and I was drawn to her rituals and the picture she painted of the Wiccan “Goddess.”