A Throwback Thursday post
I can’t be the only person who starts reading a Pagan book, gets to an exercise in the middle of the chapter, thinks that I don’t have time to do the exercise right now, and either puts the book down, planning to come back later (and never do), or skips the exercise and reads on.
There’s a certain very famous and well-regarded Pagan book that I own a copy of but have never finished because of this exercises problem (it’s mostly exercises so it’s just never going to get finished).
Exercises at the end of the chapter
This is why the exercises and discussion points in my books are at the end of each chapter, so that people like me can come back and do them later, if they feel so inclined. By putting them at the end of the chapter, they’re easier to find again later.
You could also use Dark Mirror: the Inner Work of Witchcraft as a coven training book by reading a chapter in advance, discussing the questions, and then doing the exercises together as a group.
I also dislike recorded visualizations, so I try to make mine short and simple enough that people can memorize the gist of them without recording it verbatim.
Footnotes versus endnotes
Similarly with endnotes in academic books. I used to read books with endnotes by having a bookmark in the endnotes so I could refer to them when they came up. This is all the more frustrating when some of the endnotes are fascinating tidbits that I wouldn’t want to miss, and some of them are just “Ibid.” Now I’m afraid that life’s too short, and if you do your notes as endnotes, I’m very unlikely to read them.
And that’s why I use footnotes instead. You can just glance at the bottom of the page and then carry on reading, instead of having to look them up at the back. I stopped using the annoying inline citation style favoured by social scientists too (e.g. Maguire 2006:415); it renders the text almost unreadable. Footnotes are more accessible.
The absolute master of the footnote as an art form was of course Terry Pratchett. Some of his footnotes were wonderful. You also get a good dollop of Pagan theology with his books.
I did organize the further reading section of Dark Mirror by chapters, though. That way, it’s arranged by topic.
I’m curious to know whether others have actually done all the exercises, or a majority of them, in Pagan or spiritual books? And whether you actually read footnotes? Or endnotes?
This post was originally published at Dowsing for Divinity in 2020.
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