If you're looking for an instructor I'd recommend Penczak's first two instruction books.

The Inner Temple of Witchcraft

The Outer Temple of Witchcraft

They are each a year-and-a-day course complete with step-by-step lessons, and exercises.

Some people may perfer to take them one after the other back-to-back to make it a two-year course. However, I think they also work quite well being taken concurrently.

I'm actually studying three of his books concurrently right now and I actually find them to complement each other very well.

I strongly recommend the keeping of journals as he describes in his lessons. I keep journals for all of my studies and I'm currently studying six areas. Three of them correspond to the Penczak books and the other three correspond to lessons from other teachers I'm using (all are done from books).

If you can find a live teacher more power to you, but beware of con artists, cults, and lunatics.

Good advice. Of course be wary of anyone asking for tons of money. I have NEVER been solicited for funds by Pagans. The most they might request is a few dollars for an event they want to hold and then they divide it amongst everyone and donations are optional. Any thing beyond that I would be suspicious of.

Also you should never feel forced or pressured into anything. Pagans generally have a rule against proselytizing. There are several reasons for this but primarily it is because they want people to come to them. This is a very important aspect of this spirituality itself. It is a very "seek and ye shall find" phenomena.

completely agree with everything above, I would ad one more thing... (goes right along with a "cult") be EXTREMELY weary of anyone who states "this is the 'right' way". The more you study wytchcraft, shamanism, or any of the spiritualities that are umbrella'd under "pagan", the more you'll find there is no "right way" except that which is right for you

Hello Myrrdin... Welcome. I sent you an email as well.

So I just had to get on and tell someone about tonight because I know you won't think I'm crazy. I'm not sure if tonight is the technical full moon, but it looks so lovely out there. And there's a storm coming into our area so the air outside just feels eclectic. So I grabbed a couple of my friends and we ran around outside for a while. Then we burned some sage and I cast a circle and we all made a wish. Not terribly orthodox, I know, but it was last minute and I figured a wish on a night like tonight couldn't go wrong. Then we just ran around some more and howled at the moon. It was silly I know, but so much fun. I'm sure if anyone saw us they thought we were all high. And actually some of our howls were answered, which is odd since our campus is in the middle of town. But I just wanted to tell someone since we had so much fun, and like I said I know you guys won't think I'm crazy. :P

Anytime you can raise positive emotional energy it's always good.

I'm a big fan of Christopher Penczak now after starting in on his first three books. He seems to be following in the footsteps of Scott Cunningham only with a more in-depth treatment and course-style approach.

But the main point is that both Cunningham and Penczak favor an uninhibited child-like approach to religious ceremonies. They both have experienced covens that take things far too seriously and stuffy, and they say that the best magick they've experienced has indeed come out of informal spontaneous hooting and hollering that truly come from our primordial child-like essence.

So anytime you feel the urge to run around and howl that's good.

The full moon does that to people on purpose. The Goddess gets tired of seeing these long-faced serious prudes taking themselves far too seriously. So I'm sure the Goddess was enjoying your 'crazy circle ceremony' very much.

In that case, the Goddess must really get tired of all of those "Evolution vs. Creationism" threads. Have you noticed they are becoming like Hydras? You cut the head off one and someone starts a new one.

I will never understand why people are so anxious to preserve an ancient mythology of a God who is so anxious to send so many people to hell.

It's just ridiculous. You'd think that they would reject such a god-aweful picture at the first sign that it's false. But instead they fight tooth and nail to support it in the face of impossible odds.

As far as I'm concerned that picture of the creator of this universe has been prove to be false beyond any reasonable doubt. And why anyone would want to revive it is beyond me. It's not even a pretty picture. In fact, it's a horrible picture.

According to that picture the vast majority of humanity has already gone to hell, and the vast majority of people today are going to hell, expecially the people who think they've been 'saved'.

Jesus himself stated that most humans are bound for hell.

Playing outside under a full moon, dancing and making wishes looks no more ridiuclous than kneel, sit, pray, stand, kneel in a 'real church'.

That's a very good point, thanks love. :)

Just remember... it only looks ridiuclous to those we're not trying to impress anyway.

Well, that's only true for Christains.

Jesus didn't exactly say that anyone is bound for hell. All he actually said is that few will make it into the kingdom of God.

If you're a Christian there isn't anywhere else to go but Hell. Also, if you're a Christian you believe that he was speaking to what happens to you after death.

However, for those of us who recognize that Jesus was actually a pagan who was attempting to teach pantheism his words take on a whole different meaning.

The "Kingdom of God" to a pantheism simply means "Enlightenment", to know the true nature of youself.

What he meant was that at any given time very few humans are ever actually entlightened to their true nature (thus very few make it into the kingdom of God during their lives).

Keep in mind that Jesus preached that the kingdom of God is at hand.

The Christians are the ones who came up with this foolish motion that the kingdom of God is some place you go to after you die.

So when speaking of Jesus there are always two different interpretations: One is the misguided notions that Christians have, and the other is what Jesus actaully meant.

That's so true.

Pompous people with somber faces who are kneeling to graven idol images look pretty silly too. I guess it all depends on who's doing the looking.

I told my cousin that I was going to start a knew belief system that my mother will return from the dead.

She looked at me like I was crazy.

Then I said, "Well if Jesus can do it I don't see why my mother can't. My mother never upset money tables so she's certainly less sinful."

Abra,
So what do you think happens to Christians after they die?
Muslims, Christians, Hindus, everyone has their own beliefs. What do you think happens to them?

Especially Catholics. They do a lot of kneel, stand, sit back down, all through their rituals and Mass on Sundays.

Exactly Krimsa. Why is it that those rituals are perfectly acceptable but ours aren't?

Well honestly I feel that the Catholics are the "least removed" from the Pagans. In fact that’s not just my opinion. If you look online, there is plenty of historical evidence to support this. I also believe that is why the Protestants hate and fear the Catholics so much and are always attempting to "distance themselves" from them. Well of course the Catholics murdered the Protestants historically but it goes beyond that. The Protestants feel that the Catholics put FAR too much emphasis on the Virgin Mary and their rituals are all deeply entrenched in many pagan rites.

Now get them to admit that...

<-----Virgin Mary worshipper.