Ronald Hutton, Stations of the Sun Hutton
surveys a large number of British holidays recognized both by religion
and by folk tradition. The reading is, unfortunately, dry even for
someone interested in British history on an academic level. For each
holiday addressed, Hutton works from the earliest references to it
all the way to the present day, where applicable. For the casual reader,
this means slogging through great quantities of citations and references
to early modern manuscripts.
I recommend
it here because it very graphically illustrates how little evidence
we have concerning ancient holidays. The majority of Hutton's work
begins around the sixteenth century. That should be food for thought
for people who claim to know the intimate details of Celtic and
other pre-Christian holiday celebrations. In some cases, Hutton
even addresses this trend. For instance, many Christmas traditions
are actually only a couple centuries old, in large part because
Christmas has historically not been nearly so major a holiday as
it is today.
Anyone who portrays
the Sabbats as precursors to Christian holidays or in any way bases
the celebration of the former upon traditions of the latter should
read this book first. It will not disprove all the claims, and I
make no attempt to, but it will seriously reshape the reader's understanding
of their development and existence.
Graham
Harvey, Contemporary Paganism: Listening People, Speaking Earth
This is an academic work on Paganism in general, including Wicca.
Graham
Harvey and Charlotte Hardman, eds., Pagan Pathways: A Guide to
the Ancient Earth Traditions
Formerly published under the title Paganism Today, this is
a collection of essays by academics and pagans, including Vivianne
Crowley and Ronald Hutton.
Patrick
Dunn, Postmodern Magic: The Art of Magic in the Information Age
This
book runs very hot and cold. On the plus side, it provides an approach
to magic I have not yet seen published elsewhere. Dun writes from
the position of an information paradigm, in which all things, even
real and tangible things, can be reduced to symbols.
There is copious amounts of information on the creation of personal
symbols as well as how to select effective symbols in magical workings.
While Dunn does
stress that symbols cannot be selected utterly at random, he does
tend toward the "do whatever you want" school of magic.
While there is certainly wisdom in the "if it works, use it"
mentality, it is not helpful in a book. By constantly falling back
on this insistence, Dunn in some ways makes his own book redundant:
if any method is effective, why should I bother learning his? I
understand that people do need an actual system, even if it is a
system of their own creation (as opposed to random pieces smashed
together on a whim), but that distinction sometimes gets lost here.
Nevertheless,
there are some real gems of information here. Dunn challenges readers
to look at both physical reality and magic in radically new ways.
He also devotes some serious time to magical ethics - not so much
what you should or should not do as why you should be wary or not
wary of various practices. Indeed, he provides some of the best
coverage of the topic that I've seen in print.
Raymond
Buckland, Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft Also known as Uncle Bucky's Big Blue Book, thanks to it's traditional
blue cover.
I generally
avoid anything claiming to be the "complete" book of a
religion. However, Buckland has the excuse that this book was first
printed in 1986, when there were few books on Wicca available. Buckland
is also notable for the fact that he studied under Gerald Gardner,
and that he's generally credited with bringing Wicca to the United
States.
That said, I find the book outdated and don't recommend it as a
working book.
Starhawk,
Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess It must be noted first off that Starhawk does not consider herself
Wiccan. She is a Witch and a follower of Goddess spirituality. Nevertheless,
many Wiccans still swear by this book. So did I when I I first read
it ten years ago. Since starting to reread it recently, my opinions
have changed dramatically. For one, her history is atrocious, and
she's big into blaming the evils of the world on patriarchy. It still
may be a fascinating read, however, and she covers quite a bit of
material.
Gus
diZerega, Pagans & Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience This book seriously suffers from the fact that it really doesn't
say anything. Supposedly a contribution to interfaith dialogue,
his section on Christian Criticisms of Wicca turns into a correction
of Christian criticisms. His section on Wicca and Paganism (and
I'm occasionally left confused as to which he's speaking of) tells
us of the great love and peace diZerega gains from his religion
as if needing to justify and defend Wicca. Love and peace is all
good, but we're about a little more than that, and just telling
the Christians what we think they want to hear does not, in the
end, solve anything.
W.
Lyon Martin, An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child Targeting
both Pagan and non-Pagan children, this book attempts to clearly explain
Paganism through the eyes of a child. The resulting mess accomplishes
none of these objectives, and I personally would never give this book
to any child.
The most prominent
issue is the attempt to portray Paganism as a religion. What is
really being depicted is Wicca, although that word is never used.
It describes the Wheel of the Year as the Pagan holidays, described
in such general terms as to teach almost nothing useful. Circle
casting, invoking of Watchtowers, and worship of Goddess and God
are depicted as basic practices of Pagans. A large segment of the
Pagan community is therefore hideously misrepresented.
The tendency
to teach that we are all just one big, happy, homogenous family
extends farther, when the child character, Rabbit, is teased at
school by Christian children because she does not believe in God.
Mommy reminds her that she does believe in God, as well as Goddess,
and therefore the Christian child is mistaken. This will leave any
child reader with the impression that Pagans and Christians believe
in the same being. Such an approach might avoid a little teasing
on the playground, but it sacrifices the truth in the process. How
is anyone, child or adult, supposed to learn about their faith if
they are told to constantly equate it with more convenient religions?
And how are non-Pagans to truly respect our religion if we inform
them that we are really just like them, that there is essentially
nothing that needs respect?
In addition,
the book is simply poorly written. The author has confused the simple
sentences and vocabulary needed for a child reader with, for lack
of a better phrase, "talking stupid." Grammar is incorrect, verse
tenses do not match and capitalization is arbitrary. In addition,
it uses phrases familiar to Pagans but incoherent to someone learning
about them, particularly a child. For example, while I understand
what is going on when "High Priestess calls Diana," without explanation
the sentence is confusing at best.
Amber
Wolfe, Druid Power With
a name such as Druid Power, I almost did not pick up this book at
all. However, written by an educator and psychotherapist, I had
hopes that this book would escape its cliché title and present a
superior piece that stepped beyond the glut of Paganism101 books.
I was mistaken.
What this book
portrays is a fantasy wrapped up in a fictional shroud of history,
opening with a history of the Celts stretching from several thousand
years B.C.E. into the present day. Not only are we to accept all
of modern Britain as Celtic (despite the fact that the English have
not identified themselves as such for more than a millennium), but
we are to credit the independent spirit of former British colonies
such as the United States to the Celts as well. Throw in a little
Christianity-as-Evil-Oppressor for good measure, and what we have
is nothing more than the usual fare that frightens me away from
the New Age/Paganism section of the bookstore.
What Wolfe is
describing is nothing more than Wicca with Celtic trappings, all
the way from a Sun God/Mother Earth polarity to a system of five
elements to that ever-annoying trait of ascribing the Maid/Mother/Crone
concept to ancient Celtic triple-goddesses. To practice Wicca within
a particular cultural context (such as Celtic) is widely accepted,
but to project our modern beliefs backward upon the cultural is
neither helpful to the modern reader nor respectful toward the culture
we want to emulate.
Wolfe may have
some helpful psychoanalytical approaches to the Craft, but it is
unfortunately completely bound up in Celtic pseudo-history, and
it repeatedly depends upon that history as validation. She could
have written on an introspective, deeply personal spiritual journey
sprinkled with helpful meditations so that the reader might follow,
but instead she presents a muddle of sources coarsely and haphazardly
pressed into paperback form.
(0
stars) Migene
Gonzalez-Wippler, Book of Shadows Just
how bad does a book have to be fore me to award zero stars? Bad
enough that the introduction alone caused me to throw it down in
disgust and write Llewellyn Publishing a terse email concerning
quality control and why a significant number of people ignore their
books altogether. Bad enough for me to offer to work as a historical
consultant for said publisher to help verify facts, so that they
will never produce another book that blames the Inquisition for
England's anti-witch legislation (the Inquisition never operated
in England), as is evident in the existence of the Witchcraft Law
that was not repealed until 1951. (The law in question actually
makes it illegal to claim to have supernatural powers or to accuse
someone of having supernatural powers, with the understanding that
such powers do not exist and those that claim otherwise are therefore
frauds. It was enacted to stop witch persecutions, not support them.)
And that was
just the introduction.
The rest of
the book is a mish-mash of useless generalities, politically correct
but erroneous facts, and the occasional point that I can only conclude
that the author simply invented. According to Gonzalez-Wippler,
the symbol of Wicca is a pentagram inside a crescent moon. Excuse
me? In almost twenty years of study I have never even seen this
symbol. My first impression of the image provided is that it is
an Islamic symbol, not a Wiccan one. Of course, the author is free
to use symbols as she pleases, but to then state that her personal
symbol is the symbol of all of Wicca is absurd.
This book is
less about how to be Wiccan than it is about how to look Wiccan.
One chapter is entitled "The Major Ceremony of Wicca and the Great
Rite." It is comprised almost entirely of a dry, step-by-step description
of a generic Wiccan gathering. Explanation of meaning and purpose
is practically non-existent. All that is provided is words and gestures.
The author is apparently completely oblivious to the fact that she
is actually describing several distinct rituals, not one large one,
and that each of those rituals has their own purposes and names:
casting the circle, calling the quarters, etc. She then dedicates
a whopping half page to the Great Rite, which she states is rarely
performed in actuality today and even then only by married people.
Maybe her group does not perform the Great Rite, but that does not
mean that no one else does, and it certainly isn't limited to married
people. Saying that it is may make Wicca look more safe and less
threatening, until people find out that we have lied, in which case
we just look more threatening. If you're going to bother representing
Wicca, go to the effort of representing it correctly.
This book is
absolute garbage. There is no information in here that cannot easily
be found elsewhere, and there's precious little actual information
to begin with. Generalities are so sweeping as to be useless. The
book is marketed as a guide to Wiccan practice, but it is written
(badly) like an explanation of Wicca to those with only a casual
interest in what it is, not how to actually practice.
