A blog reader sent me an e-mail today asking where to start reading. I realize that I've posted a lot of books and articles and authors and it's hard to figure out where to begin. For someone interested in Witchcraft dall'Italia, I'd have to say start with the Mario Pazzaglini expaded edition of Aradia: Gospel of Witches. This is what Italians were practicing right as they started emigrating to America. So for those of us who are only a few generations away from The Motherland, it can really resonate with what you were surrounded with as a kid. Leland didn't get any deep secrets, but what he was shown of the every day practices are much of what our families carried over on the boat.
I need to reread the Peter Kingsley books I posted last night to honestly rank them as beginner or advanced. I know that I looooved them, but I've always had a philosopher's heart. I'm a Libra, what can I say, we like to debate the nature of things. I was already loving Pythagoreas and Empedocles and Parmenides from back in the day. So if you have the disposition of a philosopher and like lots of educated chat that isn't today's spoon-fed lowest common denominator drivel, go find Peter Kingsley's books.
If you like archaeology and practical evidence to illustrate past practices, Marguerite Rigoglioso is the way to go. She has opinions and backs them up with evidence.
For stories of how deity was viewed in pop culture, read the Aeneid or Metamorphoses. Virgil and Ovid were poets and tweaked stories to please patrons and others they were trying to impress, so keep that in mind, but they are nice, soap opera-ish narrative stories and you read deities acting in context.
All of it really is cumulative. They all add to the landscape, just in different ways.
What I've read of Leo Martello's work is a bit dated (late 60s/early 70s?) but he really put it out there in a no bullshit kind of way that I admire. (Must be the Sicilian!) Talk about a trail blazer! I will happily sit in the New York Public Library to read Curses in Verses until the estate finds a way to publish them again!
OK, Field trip to the NYPL to read Curses in Verses!
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