Really, really basic stuff anyone starting out should know

After watching a few videos by Pagans and Wiccans–well-meaning people many of whom are devout—I realized that this generation of practitioners has no idea what they’re doing. I had thought this for a long time but seeing video after video I realize that even the most devout …they just don’t have the basics at all. I don’t quite understand this since we have well over a hundred years, if not more, of material on both generic Paganism, every branch of Wicca, and several decades if not more on contemporary polytheisms (and academically, I could actually take both back into at least the 18^thcentury if I wanted to do it). Still, this generation seems to have come up in ignorance, part of a generation that has been trained to ignore the work of those who came before. Instead, they learn from their social media peers who may be well meaning but who are in the same boat. It’s stupid and dangerous and absolutely horrifies me. 

I really don’t mean to be nasty. I’m genuinely worried. There are basic techniques that everyone should have to do this work well and to develop basic discernment and they’re just not being taught. Thus, this post. I’m going to give a few basics that can and should be taught across traditions and I’m going to give a basic reading list for psychic hygiene. I don’t care what tradition one practices, these are necessary basics. 

First, some devotional basics:

1. Set up a personal shrine and begin making prayers and offerings. The first thing to do is to learn how to cultivate reverence. Apparently, this is not as easy as one might think (and really, what in our modern world and media teaches humility and reverence before the holy?). Be consistent. Be respectful – you’ll make mistakes. That’s not a problem. The Gods, I firmly believe, understand and expect that. You’ll learn and grow in faith. That’s the first thing, and the most important. I’ve written a ton on it here on my blog – check the tags, Dver has written about it on her blog, and there are plenty of polytheists who can help online. I don’t keep a blog-roll but there’s good work being done across traditions. (I’m not saying that Wiccans and generic Pagans have no devotion. I’m saying I don’t have a list of useful Wiccan blogs because I’m not Wiccan! So, if you know of good ones, post in the comments). 

I would also note that your shrine can be small. It can be portable. It can be as elaborate or simple as you want it to be. Don’t stress if it’s small. Just try to make it as beautiful as you can and don’t let dust collect. This is space you are giving to your holy Ones. It’s a place of connection and blessing. 

2. Set up an ancestor shrine too. I didn’t know this when I started out and I was twenty years in before I really even started to get myself sorted out with respect to honoring the dead. I realize this can be difficult if one has issues with living family or comes from an abusive or neglectful family. Still, it’s important, oh so important. It provides a protective foundation like nothing else. One of the things that most horrifies me about today’s Pagan and Wiccan generation is that they have zero spiritual protections. They’re wide open in ways that can be very dangerous. Having the conscious protection of your ancestors is a good thing and can go a long way toward helping keep one safe and to helping one gain proper discernment. Our veneration restores and reifies our connection to them and allows them to work more fully for our good. 

I’ve written a lot about ancestor work (including my book, “Honoring the Ancestors,” not to be confused with a more recent text by someone who took my ancestor course and without permission adapted it liberally for their own book of very nearly the same title and) on my blog so just check out the ancestor and ancestor work tags. The important thing about veneration is this: Be consistent. As to offerings, you don’t have to break the bank on offerings. WATER is ALWAYS a good offering. Share your morning cup of coffee with your dead. Burn incense. Bring whatever offerings you like. The most important thing is to spend consistent quality time in veneration.

3. PRAY. This is THE single most important thing you can do as a devout person. It’s the way we develop our relationships with our Gods and ancestors. It’s the way we solidify our reverence and build a good foundation upon which that may grow. It’s the thing that keeps our minds, hearts, and spirits clean and well-ordered in the sight of the Gods. It helps us with everything else. Like any relationship, the relationship with our Gods and ancestors is one that requires time and consistency. You can do this. It’s setting a habit and while you’ll not always be as engaged as you may wish, going back to the practice when you falter, working consciously to be consistent will help tremendously. Set prayers and extempore prayer both have their place. 

Those are the three key things that I think everyone needs to know who does any type of devotion. Think of it as an art that you practice. We’ll all feel strange or awkward starting out, but with practice, one gets better. 

I would add a caveat: please don’t get your info solely from Tik-Tok, Youtube, tumblr, etc. There are well-meaning people who post there but an awful lot of what’s posted there is just wrong, impious, sometimes even dangerous. Do your research – go to the library (don’t steal from authors via illegal downloads!), slowly build your own library as you can. Used bookstores are great for this. Always pray and do your devotions and make your own decisions about what you see and read. Also, don’t get your information just from your own peer group. These traditions have existed for generations. The work of those who came before us – even if their language is dated—is an essential part of a tradition’s foundation. Read and study, pray and learn. 

The second thing that I’m finding lacking – and this is the one that really scares me – is psychic hygiene. Part of many of these traditions often involves developing psychic sensitivity, engaging with ancestors and good spirits (learning to tell the difference), learning to be aware of the energies and presences around us and how to safely tap into those things. That’s not bad but doing that without having any protection at all is dangerous. It’s the psychic hygiene that helps us develop discernment. There are a few simple basic exercises and practices that can be easily worked into one’s regular practice that will provide a good deal of protection. 

1. Learn how to center and ground. Learn how to do this standing, sitting, moving, driving. Learn to do it alone, and under stress. Learn to do it slowly and in seconds. The gold standard is to be able to do all this naked, alone, in an empty room at 3am and with no notice. Practice it until it’s second nature and then practice it some more. These two exercises are the foundation upon which all our other energetic and/or psychic work is built.
2. Learn to shield yourself mentally, emotionally, and energetically. This is especially important if one is psychically gifted. As with grounding and centering, do this until it’s second nature and then practice it more. The protections we set on our energetic bodies, around ourselves, at any and all levels are carefully constructed processes and once they’re really rooted, they’ll run like a well-oiled clock. But, like a clock, they need to be checked regularly, cleaned, reset, etc. This is something we should all be doing regularly if not daily. There’s an awful lot of pollution and grossness in our world today and that can create miasma, and can really affect us emotionally/mentally, and spiritually. Get those shields up. 
3. Cleansing and purification techniques. I’ve written on this (“With Clean Minds and Clean Hands: Miasma – What it is and How to Treat it”), there are tradition specific techniques, and a good deal of useful information found in folklore. Everything we do to remain physically clean can be ratcheted up into the magical or religious register. Learn how to clean yourself, but also learn how to cleanse and ward a space. Ideally, learn how to create sacred and/or ordered space for yourself and others. Most traditions have various ways of doing this. Learn them. Likewise, learn to ward and protect a space. 

Those are the basic things that I think one should learn in the first year, maybe two, of practice. As an occultist, I’d also add understanding of the elemental powers, and the LBP. I don’t care if one doesn’t plan on pursuing ceremonial magic, the LBP is a very, very effective protection rite and easy to learn. I know more than one practitioner who did only this (along with their regular devotion to their Holy Powers) for a solid year, before being permitted to go farther into their tradition’s esoterica. It’s really effective and builds on itself. The first form of magic I’d focus on is candle magic – because it will teach you to feel and move energy (and it’s just as effective as anything more elaborate). 

Ideally, one is learning all of this within a tradition’s group and under guidance of a good elder or elders; but if that’s not the case and I know that for many, it may seem as though one is the only Pagan, Wiccan, Polytheist of any stripe in one’s immediate vicinity, at least try to make good contacts with those who’ve been in the tradition longer, and with a good, responsible, *well-trained* diviner. The internet is great for forging connections but that doesn’t take the place of regular, in -person engagement and learning. It is better to travel quarterly to learn from a teacher in person than to rely solely on internet contacts. Still, we do what we can. Divination is one of the greatest gifts of our traditions and can really help one course correct. After getting the basics under one’s belt, I would suggest that one establish a working relationship with a diviner and then at least twice a year, better quarterly, do a check in.

Now, I’ve written on most of these things on my blog so readers should feel free to search the tags. Here are some other recommendations that I also recommend. Many of these in the second category are classics (and though they may be more focused on ceremonial magic, the basics are the basics). 

Recommended Reading: 

On devotion and prayer

I’ve written a *ton* on this, which a simple amazon search will show so I’m not going to list my own work save for two texts. “Devotional Polytheism” and “Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner,” which I co-wrote with Raven Kaldera. While this text is specifically for Northern Tradition practitioners, the techniques involved can be (and have been) used across pretty much any religious tradition. Readers may also search the Tags here at my blog. 

I’m also recommending “The Courage to Pray” by Anthony Bloom. This is an Orthodox Christian text, but just edit out the Christian emphasis and consider how what he says can be applied to our own work. 

Now, there are tons of devotionals for various Deities, but that wasn’t the case in the 80s and 90s or even early 2000s. None of the books, with two exceptions that I list below existed for us. Instead, devotion was learned in one’s coven, iseum, kindred, etc. It wasn’t until after 2000 that I remember seeing books specifically about devotion appearing. To my knowledge, I wrote the first devotional in Heathenry, “The Whisperings of Woden” (which has since been incorporated into “He is Frenzy.” That was written in 2004 which gives you some sense of the lay of the devotional literary land. So, I haven’t included many books on devotion from the early days because as a genre that just didn’t exist, but these below – later texts — that I’ve chosen to list, are a few that will work across traditions. Again, for spirit-workers and other specialists, more is required and thus beyond the scope of this post. 

“Dwelling on the Threshold” by Sarah Kate Istra Winter

(I also highly recommend her “The City is a Labyrinth” because we are largely animistic traditions and honoring and engaging with the spirits of place, land, city, etc. isn’t generally emphasized enough).

“Dealing with Deities: Practical Polytheistic Theology” – Raven Kaldera & Kenaz Filan

“Walking the Heartroad” by Silence Maestas

A special shoutout to “Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from Pagan Cloisters” by Janet Munin, the first book on Pagan monasticism that I’ve seen. 

The two devotional books that I remember snapping up in the early 90s were “Pagan Meditations” by Ginette Paris and “The Goddess Sekhmet” by Robert Masters. There were books by Cunningham, the Farrars, and of course since I was trained in FOI, the ritual booklets put out by that tradition. Then there were books of “Mythology” that we’d pour over.  That was pretty much it.

On psychic hygiene and self-protection 

(Please note, that what is required of a spirit worker, spiritual technician, etc. will be this and then some, but will also be largely tradition specific. I have only included texts that I feel are the basic things a beginner should know and master). 

“Psychic Self-Defense” by Dion Fortune

“The Training and Work of an Initiate” by Dion Fortune

“The Cosmic Doctrine” by Dion Fortune

“The One Year Manual” by Israel Regardie

“The Middle Pillar” by Israel Regardie

(I also recommend his “The Tree of Life” and “A Garden of Pomegranates” but they’re very Kabbala heavy and not beginner texts. Likewise, William Gray’s “Tree of Evil”). 

“Psychic Self-Defense” by Melita Denning and Osborne Phillips

“Spiritual Protection” by Sophie Reicher

“The Ethical Psychic Vampire” by Raven Kaldera

“Spiritual Cleansing” by Draja Mickaharic

“The Practice of Magic” by Draja Mickaharic

What you don’t understand, just put on a mental shelf and return to later when you’ve had more experience under your belt. 

Basic Pagan and/or Wiccan History

I often find some of these books to contain historical inaccuracies, but they are an important part of Pagan and Wiccan history. These are just a few to get one started. None of these deal with the history and evolution of Heathenry. They are all Pagan/Wiccan specific. 

“When God Was a Woman” by Merlin Stone

“Drawing Down the Moon” by Margot Adler (deeply inaccurate in the first editions re. Heathenry but she corrects in later editions iirc)

“In the Wake of the Goddesses” by Tikva Frymer-Kensky

“The Spiral Dance” by Starhawk 

This is a good selection of the work that influenced the Wiccan and Pagan movements in the 70s-90s in the US. There were other books of course, but these are the stand-outs. 

More recent historical works: 

(just a couple – mine the bibliographies for more ^_^).

“Triumph of the Moon” by Ronald Hutton

“Stealing Fire From Heaven” by Neville Drury

“Women of the Golden Dawn” by Mary K. Greer

I also think one should also learn basic herb and stone lore but that’s a bit beyond beginner’s fundamentals! My favorite go-to herb/stone books remain “Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic” by Yronwode, “The Master Book of Herbalism” by Beyerl, “Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem, and Metal Magic” by Cunningham, Slater’s two-volume “Magical formulary/spellbook” (I can’t recall the full title atm), and the classic Culpepper’s Herbal. I already came into this though with some knowledge of herbs (both medicinal and conjure) and I think these things are best learned from teacher to student.  I’ll stop here. These lists are good basic books and if one learns the techniques therein and moreover practices them daily it goes a long way toward building a sustainable practice of spiritual protection and cleanliness. 

Questions, recommendations, horror stories welcome in the comments. Be well, folks.