The Shaken Path

A Christian Priest's Exploration of Modern Pagan Belief and Practice

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Pub Date 30 Jun 2017 | Archive Date 28 Jul 2017
John Hunt Publishing Ltd | Christian Alternative

Description

Despite modern Paganism being one of the fastest growing new religious movements in Britain and the USA, there is no up-to-date straightforward and informed introduction to modern Paganism from a Christian perspective. The Shaken Path addresses that gap.

This book is uniquely well-researched, aiming to dispel misconceptions about the practises of the Pagan religion.    

Despite modern Paganism being one of the fastest growing new religious movements in Britain and the USA, there is no up-to-date straightforward and informed...


Advance Praise

“The Shaken Path is a detailed account of the Revd Paul Cudby’s research into modern Pagan pathways. Paul’s research includes personal story and powerful reflection through an unwavering Christian lens. He offers the reader an account of how he has been challenged and changed by spending time alongside people whom many Christians regard with suspicion and sometimes fear. He records the kindness, hospitality and profound love of Pagans for the natural world, but also does not shy away from things he cannot explain or finds deeply problematic in Pagan practice. In my role as National Adviser for New Religious Movements and Alternative Spiritualities I am approached by many people who are concerned about Pagans or who simply believe that Pagans are in league with the devil in some way. Some of these find the idea of Pagan rituals, spells and magick both frightening and threatening. Paul’s research will provide people with an accessible account of Pagan life which should go a long way to dispersing hostility and creating a better understanding on which Christians can get to know their Pagan neighbours. Paul is to be applauded for the thoroughness of his investigation and the care with which he has taken to represent himself as nothing other than a Christian priest willing to learn from and through others. I recommend this research.”
Anne Richards, Church of England's National Adviser for New Religious Movements
    

“The Shaken Path is a detailed account of the Revd Paul Cudby’s research into modern Pagan pathways. Paul’s research includes personal story and powerful reflection...


Available Editions

EDITION Paperback
ISBN 9781785355202
PRICE £16.99 (GBP)

Average rating from 7 members


Featured Reviews

I new, from the moment I started reading ‘The Shaken Path,’ by Paul Cudby, that I would be in a danger zone, not because I consider myself Christian, but the whole opposite: My mind is more than fine considering Pagan oriented ideals and ideas.
There was something that told me I should read this book, and I kind of knew this could be a comparison between the two faiths, but there was still the fear, the doubt. Would I be facing an egocentric priest that wanted to tell me that Paganism was only a misunderstood Christianism? Not at all.
What I discovered was that there something in common between the Gospels and the Pagan believes, more than what I would have ever thought. Uncomfortable experience, yes, but who said that learning would be an easy process?
We live in a world where everyone thinks it is their path the right and only one that is meant to exist, even I tend to think this would be a better planet if we all started learning about Paganism, but that exactly when Cudby comes: Nothing could be more wrong than thinking that.
Is not like Christians and Pagan are two halves of a whole, or that where one fails, the other prevails, but about the fact that we can all learn from each other, that Christ can teach the pagans and that Nature can help the Christians. Seems we often forget this.
Mr. Cudby goes to the most known branches and concepts related to nature-based religions, explaining them to a Christian reader, but even if that same reader is a Pagan or an interfaith, they can still discover a few interesting things just as I did.
There’s no point in denying that sometimes we all wish to ‘transform’ the other person and make them part of our religion, I think humans need to feel safe in an environment they can identify with, but ‘The Shaken Path’ proves more than once that differences and challenges work way much better than comparing two things.
However, I won’t lie telling that this an easy and light book, as it took me a long while to read it; the Animism and Shamanism sections were hard to swallow, each page a challenge, and I’m most likely to think that this is because of the amount of information and (shame on me) my lack of interest in those areas.
I would only prevent a reader from taking this books if they want to see a religion being ‘better’ than the other, to be more ‘correct’ and more ‘true,’ as if there could be only one faith in the whole world. Such a closed minded creature would not enjoy to discover that those ideals should be dead by now.
Thsi is a book for those who are interested in learning, exploring and discovering about different faiths, about that that coudl sound alien and supernatural, that that seems to be different and, therefore, dangerous.
If this seems to be more an extensive praise than a review, it is only because Paul Cudby was brave enough to open his mind, and so should we. May Nature never turn their back on him now that he realized that the Divine is in all things and that we can live and let die in peace.

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