Welcome to Gaia! ::

Well, if it's Wicca you're following (I'm assuming*), my personal suggestion is to let her look through Dorothy Morrison's The Craft: A Witch's Book of Shadows. While not appropriately named (for a Wiccan does not have to be a witch, and its not really a BoS), it does provide a thorough layout of the basics in an appropriate manner. It gives a basis of the beliefs, and instead of giving spells, it gives lessons in the commonly used tools (including spirit/akasha^).

And please do not let a work of Fiona Horne's or Silver Ravenwolf's get into her hands. xp

* I know, bad me.
^ I do beleive the term she used was akasha, but I could be completely wrong.

No problem. wink

Be sure to go through it first, as well as look at reviews on Amazon.com; sometimes things that seem helpful can be a hinderance. 'Happened to me. sweatdrop

Good luck with your family! A couple tips that might help from my experience is to try to make sure that your mother is well rested when she reads the book, and while she's reading your book you should spend your time reading Wicca FAQs and getting tips from Wiccans whom you respect and who have experience in interfaith work. Try to keep the tone of the conversation friendly, calm, and philosophical- you're not trying to prove or defend Wicca, just to explain it.^_~

When I was first learning Wicca, my mother found one of my books in my room and I encouraged her to read it in order to set her mind at ease. Fortunately it was one of the books I liked at the time, but she stayed up all night reading it and was so tired that she was misreading words and working herself into a frenzy. I came to check on how she was doing and she laid into me with questions about being a Pagan "princess" (what she had read in place of "priestess") and as I was still new to the religion myself, I was not very good at explaining things.

Granted, my mother has a tendency to freak out in all matters concerning her daughters ^_^', but I found out very quickly that it's one thing to learn and get a sense for a religion through practice, and another thing entirely to suddenly and verbally explain the theology to someone who isn't interested in becoming a dedicant.

One thing about religion is that, while you might be able to explain the reasons behind certain beliefs and practices, there is a certain point at which the person must accept that these are valid reasons for accepting those beliefs and practices. If that person doesn't feel that the reasons fit with their particular worldview, then they would normally pass over the religion and look for another one. In interfaith work, however, people are confronted with alien worldviews and feel additional pressure to make sense of them. Sometimes your conversational partner may insist that you "prove" why your reasons are valid- or more valid than the set of reasons that they have accepted. You can't do that, so don't even try- that's not what religion is for, and you're not meant to do that. The best answer in those sorts of situations is probably, "it's what feels right to me, and I find these principles to be positive, instructive, and life enriching- I don't ask you to accept these principles for your own practice, because I'm sure that you have your own beliefs which support you in the same manner. I will only ask that you accept my right to research my own."