New Opportunities?

[YamiB]

I’ve been trying to research into Paganism for a good while, but I must admit that I have made very little progress. I’ll be entering college this month so I was hoping that I might be able to jumpstart myself with some of the resources that will now be open to me. I’m basically hoping for tips on what I should do. In particular I would appreciate books to look for that may be available in my college library.  

[Kuroiban]

Hi! smile

Well, the first thing you may want to his is the recomended reading list and links list amongst the announcements and stickies in the main forumn. Looking in the pathways sub-forum might be a good idea as well, so you can get a taste on some of the paths that some people embrace.

As for what you can do in college, I have little to no idea...as I sorta dropped out first year. sweatdrop In any event, you can look around for Pagan discussion groups, though do be careful (as with any group) for people who are little iffy on the sanity side.  

[Pelta]

YamiB

In particular I would appreciate books to look for that may be available in my college library.

Recommended Reading List
Link List  

[Starlock]

What you should read depends a bit on your current background and where you want to head. Personally, I read just about everything that was relevant. In academic libraries, for instance, you can find some interesting academic (and often downright wrong from the Neopagan perspective) diatribes on the nature of magical belief (usually anthropological studies). "The Golden Bough" is one that is often recommended, but there are others out there that are very interesting. One of my favorites was a book that analyzed magic from a sociological standpoint: "Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic" by O'Keefe. Despite its limited definition of magic, which narrowed his conclusions to some that I didn't agree with, it's a great read.

You can also look into recent academia on the Neopagan movement itself; there's more of it out there than there was even two years ago. More than likely you'll have to interlibrary loan stuff. Don't be afraid to... I got most of my better reads that way. What I did was started with one book and then followed the bibiliography trails or other sources mentioned in that book. Lead me to sources I never would have found otherwise as doing searches on "Neopaganism" often leave many works falling through the cracks. Some good books on the Neopagan movement itself to start with would be the surveys, including the dated "Drawing down the Moon" by Adler and the more recent "Voices from the Pagan Census : A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States" by Berger (she also has some other god books on the movement; I've yet to get ahold of them, sadly).  

[YamiB]

Thanks for the help so far.

I have tried looking for quite a few of the books on the reading list in my local bookstore and the public library. So far I've had no luck with that. Hopefully I'll have a better time with at the college.  

[Doctrix]

Check to see if your college has a Pagan student group. Also, there may be many Pagan events with locations near your campus.  

[YamiB]

[Kudzu]

Check to see if your college has a Pagan student group. Also, there may be many Pagan events with locations near your campus.

Well I know that they had Christian, Muslim, and Jewish oriented groups. But I didn't see anything about other religions on the list. I'll have to do some investigating to see if there were any others that were not included.