Great Pagan Reads of 2025

Lyonel Perabo reviews four recent titles of interest to Pagan readers: Fröja’s Apples by Sara Bonadea George, The Dead of Winter by Sarah Clegg, Backwards into the Future by Eirik Storesund, and the new volume of the journal Heathenry by Asatru UK.

The Witch Who Was Always Near

“A story set in Near becomes a mirror,” writes Beatrix Kondo, exploring folklore, fear, and the familiar stranger in V.E. Schwab’s novel “The Near Witch.” “What the mirror reflects is a community organized around the strategic management of its own fear.”

Pete Hegseth Breaks Teeth for Jesus

Over the course of the 2010s, it felt as though Heathens in the U.S. military made steady, if slow, progress on their religious rights. Pete Hegseth claims to have reversed all those gains in a matter of weeks. Karl E.H. Seigfried considers where Heathens go from here.

Tarot at My Table and in Popular Culture

“As I dig deeper into cartomancy,” writes Meg Elison, “I remember all the times that the dread revelations of the cards have shown up in stories I’ve loved. Tarot is often misused, represented not only inaccurately, but incorrectly.”