MODERN PAGANISM & THE PAGAN REVIVAL

Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

by Margot Adler

Drawing down the Moon honestly was one of my biggest hurdles to the Dedicant Program for me personally. The book is very intimidating, and personally I feel it is incredibly drawn out and slightly out of date if you are looking for any relevant knowledge of present day Paganism. The book though does provide a great look at the history of Neo-Paganism in the world during the late 70’s early 80’s and it is always important to know the roots where we come from. I am told there has been an update in a newer printing but we only had access to an original copy at the time. I will have to spend some time finding a comparison and discovering what these updates entail. There is also a huge focus on endo-european paths even though she mentions she wishes to explore a wide variety of pagan religions. This was a little disappointing to see little to no mention of any non white paths in general, an area I feel that she intended to cover but never got around to it in a sense. Perhaps though she felt that wasn’t her story to tell and was best to leave it to someone more qualified? The book is incredibly academic which is fantastic in its own sense and I assume the main reason the book is on the list of required reading.