Monday, March 5, 2012

Looking Into Paganism

When one looks into paganism it helps to look into what one is most interested in, but also to look into other topics to see if a new interest arises. Personally, I view looking into books are being extremely important when learning about paganism or a specific path, as they tend to be a good place to start. Using the internet to research is another great source seeing as a variety of people are willing to help or have posted useful information.

For many people from what I have seen, when looking into books this means either looking into Western authors and books such as Scott Cunningham, Silver Ravenwolf, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Not very varied but it can be a very good starting point, possibly even the right place to begin depending on personal interest.

Looking into the Tao Te Ching and I Ching is not uncommon, it however seems to be the two Eastern texts to go over all else. Other Chinese texts are also good to go to, Zhuangzi being a book of the Taoist Canon to go to right after Tao Te Ching, with many other books within the Taoist Canon to look into. For Chinese mythology two books stand out, Journey to the West and Creation of the Gods. Hindu and Buddhist texts are in their own right great to look into.

Books specific on a certain mythology or two, or one or two aspects within paganism, is a great tool as these books tend to specialize on its topic(s), but it may be an idea to look into a more general book if starting to look into paganism. A more general book can give an idea of what mythology or mythologies to look into, a better look at paganism as a whole and even help to look into a specific path to possibly follow.

Plenty of books are accessible to people if they just have the internet, with money typically being the only problem. Book stores help yet can lack much in certain areas, with a multitude of books typically inaccessible leaving the internet a great place to go. I would personally recommend using sites such as Amazon and E-Bay to get books seeing as going to book stores for books from experience tend to be unreliable.

How one goes about learning about paganism is a person choice and truly depends on resources to do so, which is where researching on the internet is great as one doesn’t have to purchase something to gain information but can be just as time consuming if not more. Where to begin in one’s path within paganism just relies on interest and willingness to learn.

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