Book: Complete Idiot's Guide to Paganism

Back, a few months ago when I read this book, I kind of avoided doing a review of it. Lord knows how many religious zealots out there will leave something burning in my front yard. :)

Initially, I bought this book to educate myself about a system of traditions which I really knew nothing about. I figured that, if I was going to knock something, then I'd might as well be able to do it intelligently. :) Actually, having read the first few pages of this book, I found that I was very impressed and I was immediately motivated to read as much of the book as I could.

I have to say that I have a new-found respect for these traditions. The ones that the book focuses on are Shamanism, Wikka, and Druidism. Granted, I still consider myself to be agnostic, I could actually argue that these traditions are (or at least, can be) independent of religious context. They're not based on scripture, doctrine, or Faith (notice I used the capital "F")...they're based on actual observation. They observe and make correlations between things like the phase of the moon, the length of the days and nights, seasons, crops, etc. I find that pretty cool. Also, in describing the whole "mother earth" concept, they make some surprisingly interesting parallels between the planet and the human body (and the relationship between the two).

One thing that I found really interesting (and I will be the FIRST to admit that I pulled this straight out of my butt) was the way that the different milestones of the year (marked by certain festivals) described the year in a way that could be easily construed in mathematical terms. For instance, if you were to take the pagan wheel of the year, treat it as a unit circle and then break it down into an actual sine wave, they would have festivals to mark the global minima and maxima (Samhain, Beltain) and the two relevent points of inflection (Mabon, Ostara - which also mark the Spring and Fall Equinox). These folks have a REALLY interesting way of looking at things.

Anyhoo...if you're ever interested (or bored), check the book out. The open-minded among you won't be disappointed. :)