The Spiral Dance remains one of the most important and influential books on modern American NeoPaganism and one that I highly recommend. Starhawk essentially married some core Wiccan beliefs and practices to the social and political ideas of the 70s -- feminism, environmentalism, gay rights, civil rights, and the peace movement. In doing so, she created a new path that is less concerned with secrecy and tradition and more...
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The Spiral Dance is magnificient - I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Starhawk has done a truly outstanding job of providing the reader with an excellent groundwork for an introduction to wicca, providing invocations, rituals and meditations. But what I found most useful were her numerous mental exercises designed to develop awareness, improve visualization and meditaiton techniques. They have been extremely valuable...
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The Spiral Dance is a complex myriad of thoughts, dreams, creation and spiritual exercises that can challenge even the most experienced magical practicioners. This is not a light'n'fluffy read, definitely not a basic introduction to witchcraft, wicca or paganism in any of its forms. For many years, this book was the only widely available text on the Great Goddess religion and, with two updates to the original work, remains...
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I was stunned when I read some of these reviews that were critical of Starhawk's celebration of the female (feminism, the earth (ecology), and political action.) The backlash against women's liberation is upon us surely....and as someone who ran a battered women's shelter for 15 years, I know what the backlash looks like.. No, you cannot separate Starhawk's feminism or devotion to preservation of the earth, the rivers, the...
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This is one of the first books I read on Wicca, and it blew my socks off! Every third or fourth page, I thought, "This is me! This is how I feel about things. I'm not alone anymore!" For me, this book was transcendent. It changed my life for the better. That it centers on the Goddess is not an issue for me, and should not be for others either, IMHO. Her idea of Goddess encompasses the God. Anyway, I don't like attaching...
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