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Book Recommendations

While I already provide a considerable list of book recommendations, some people are looking for a little more direction. For them, I have created this partial list of readings in the rough order I suggest they be approached. I certainly do not suggest you limit your experience to these books. This is merely a starting place for them who don't know which books to pick up first.

Level 1 - Foundation. Read these four books in the order recommended here. They create a solid working foundations from which to base further studies, explaining the basic preciples of Wicca.

1. Wicca for Beginners, Thea Sabin. This is not a how-to book. Instead, it explains Wicca at its most basic level. This is where you start to get an understanding of what Wicca is and whether its for you.
2. Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, Scott Cunningham. Cunningham tends to do a bit of whitelighting, but his information is generally sound and provides a firm foundation from which to work. One of the benefits of this book is that it was written specifically for Solitaries instead of trying to shoehorn coven practices into a solitary framework.
3. Living Wicca, Scott Cunningham. This was specifically written as a sequel to Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner.
4. Elements of Ritual: Air, Fire, Water & Earth in the Wiccan Circle, Deborah Lipp. Instead of teaching particular rituals step by step, Lipp explains the underlying structure of Wiccan ritual. The result is more meaningful rituals and confidence in creation of new rituals rather than rote repetition of published ones.

Level 2 - Unfluffing. These books provide further information on Wicca while addressing a number of problematic, troublesome and outright fluffy issues within the community. I find it's far easier to warn people away from these problems then to try and undo the damage after they've come across it somewhere and embraced it.

• The Essential Guide to Witchcraft and Wicca, Isaac Bonewits. This is a wonderful no-nonsense, unfluffy source of information regarding what Wicca is and is not, how it relates to the Neopagan movement and in turn how it relates to paganism in general. It counters a lot of the fluff that was widely circulating at the time of its original publication and which can still certainly be encountered today.
• Out of the Shadows, Lilith McLelland.
• The Heart of Wicca, Ellen Cannon Reed.

Level 3 - Spiritual and Magical Ritual. The first three books here are written from a specifically Wiccan point of view. The second three books are about magical practices (not religion) that are by no means religion specific.

• A Witches' Bible, Stewart and Janet Farrar. This is a must-read for people who are interested in more traditional forms of Wicca. It covers a lot of details that more recent books just gloss over or don't agress at all. It also includes a version of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, although many Traditionalists say its been heavily edited. This is not something to be followed by rote, but it is an excellent primer on where we come from.
• The Way of Four, Deborah Lipp
• Witch Crafting, Phyllis Curott
• Spellcaster: Seven Ways to Effective Magic, Elen Hawke and Martin White, eds.
• High Magic, Frater U.D.
• Postmodern Magic, Patrick Dunn

Level 4 - Background Information. Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente were the first two people to write about Wicca. The information in their books illustrates some of the beliefs and practices of Wicca at its onset. All should be read with some caution. Witchcraft Today is a description of Wicca from a supposed outsider (Gardner claimed to be an anthropologists academically studying the subject), both Gardner and Valiente believed in what is now considered discredited and outdated historical ideas, and neither refer to their religion as Wicca, but rather as witchcraft or the witch-cult.

• Witchcraft Today, Gerald Gardner
• Witchcraft for Tomorrow, Doreen Valiente
• High Magic's Aid, Scire aka Gerald Gardner. This is a a fictional story supposedly based on the information taught to Gerald by the New Forest Coven. I include it here because British Traditionalists often urge people to read it if they are looking for a sense of what Traditional Wicca is.

Level 5 - History. All of these books focus on the history of Wicca. Of the Three, Triumph of the Moon is a must read and what I would recommend as the first read in this group. Fifty Years of Wicca is written by a man who was part of Gardner's coven and gives an insider look at beliefs and practices at the time. Wiccan Roots impressed me a lot less. There's some good information there, but there's also a lot of hearsay and supposition.

• Triumph of the Moon, Ronald Hutton
• Fifty Years of Wicca, Frederic Lamond
• Wiccan Roots, Philip Hestleton