by Helen A. Berger, Evan A. Leach, Leigh S. Shaffer
© 2003 University of South Carolina Press
ISBN 1570034885
Note: While some of the quotations are moderately extensive, I feel it is necessary for them to be so in order to properly address them, lest I be accused of not representing the author's opinions fully and fairly. I believe that these quotations are still within the purview of the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. I further assert that my rebuttals, discussion and analysis are protected under the First Amendment in that they are legitimate differences of opinion and are not defamatory in any way. Should the author or his publisher wish to discuss this with me, they are welcome to do so.
Let me point out that while some of the remarks below may sound harsh, they do so only because I expect the highest standards from academics, especially when writing about such a controversial and misunderstood subject. When obvious and easily-corrected errors appear, they bring into question the credibility of the entire work.
Should you find yourself tiring of this analysis [and isn't it interesting that the word "analysis" includes the word "anal?"], do take a moment to skip to the bottom and read my final comment on this book. You may notice in my comments the use of words such as "zir" and "zie." These are gender-neutral pronouns, allowing me to avoid the awkwardnesses of "his/her" and "s/he". If you find this jarring, I apologize.
Henceforth, comments that I receive about this or any other book I discuss will be considered as intended for publication on this site. Saying in your email that you do not wish it to be published will not be sufficient: the only way to guarantee that comment on my remarks here will not be published is to not send them to me.Fair Warning
| xvii Books and articles written by scholars and Neo-Pagans are relied on only to provide a background in which to understand the data and to put the survey findings into context. |
And not terribly well, I'm afraid. |
| p.1 Neo-Pagan is an umbrella term covering sects of a new religious movement. |
No, "Neo-Pagan" is an umbrella term covering a loose collection of diverse and distinct religions. Wicca, Asatru, and Hellenic Reconstructionism are not by any stretch of the imagination "sects" of the same religion, even though they share commonalities. You wouldn't call Judaism, Christianity, and Islam sects of the same religion, and they share a great deal more than the three I just listed. I don't know if this is a case of cultural blindness, such as we would not expect from academics, carelessness, or something else. |
| p.1 ...the largest and most important form of which is Witchcraft, or as it is also called, Wicca. |
No again. Wicca may be the largest Neo-Pagan religion, but to call it the "most important" is to apply a judgement that cannot be supported. Furthermore, Wicca<>Witchcraft. There are Witches who are not Wiccan (see the last note). |
| p.1 The term Neo-Pagan was first used in the United States by Tim O'tter Zell |
Who? I assume you mean "Otter G'Zell," now known as Oberon Zell-Ravenheart. Even if the statement about his invention of the term is true, he has never gone by "Tim O'tter Zell." Born Tim Zell, he began to use the name "Otter G'Zell" in 1979, and continued to do so until 1995, when he changed to "Oberon Zell-Ravenheart." The hyperlink documents the chronology. |
| This is not promising. Two clear errors, one unsupported opinion, and one highly debatable claim on the first page. No, not good at all... | |
| p.3 Neo-Pagans define themselves as practicing an earth-based spirituality. |
Have you asked members of The Church of the Eternal Source, the Ring of Troth, or any number of Hellenic Reconstructionists? I think you might get a different answer if you did. This seems to be elementary research, and could have been done by simply reading Adler. |
| p.4 For Neo-Pagans, Mother Earth, the seasonal cycle of the year, and the phases of the moon are all ritually and symbolically important. The year is spiritually divided by eight sabbats--ritual celebrations of the season--six weeks apart that are related to the myth of the changing relationship between the goddess and the god. |
First, this really only applies to Wicca and those religions that have been heavily influenced by it. Second, it is appropriate here to capitalize "Goddess" and "God." Failure to do so is disrespectful and inappropriate, just as it would be when referring to the Christian God. |
| p.4 ...are celebrated as the esabats... |
This misspelling of "esbat" occurs in three places . Again, elementary research would have prevented this error. Alternatively, having someone who knew the subject read the proofs would have been equally effective at weeding out such obvious blunders. |
| p.5 Even in groups in which both the female and male deities are venerated, the goddess is seen as more important than the god. |
Another highly debatable point, to say the least. I know that in my |
| p.5 Although the deities are regularly called upon in rituals, it is not inconsistent to be both an atheist and a Neo-Pagan. |
Well, as a character in one of Theodore Sturgeon's short stories said, "You're not as wrong as usual." Personally, I believe that to say that one is an atheist yet following a religion would require some pretty fancy mental and spiritual footwork, but since Buddhism is pretty much atheistic yet qualifies as a religion, I guess a case could be made for this one as well. However, I'd say the incidence of atheist Neo-Pagans is vanishingly small. |
| p.6 ...a ritual knife called an athama. |
Another spelling error? Or just another case of carelessness? The number of simple, easily-researched, easily-corrected errors I've found in just six pages makes me a little concerned here. If the authors pay this little attention to such things, what other errors might they have made? |
| p.6 Esabats rituals focus on... |
What are we trying to say here? Are they referring to the rituals of "esabats," in which case it should say "Esabats' rituals," do they mean "Esabat rituals," and the "s" suffix just jumped in there by itself? Did anyone proofread this thing? |
| p.10 The growth of "how-to" books by initiated Witches has resulted in there being few, if any, secret rituals. |
I can absolutely guarantee you that this is not true. While the general outlines of many rituals have been written, this by no means indicates that the actual Initiation rituals for many Wiccan Traditions are public. Furthermore, in mystery traditions other than Wicca, far less has been written. Andras Corban Arthen was involved with distributing this census, but I'd be most surprised if you (or he) told me that the inner rituals of the organization he heads, the Glainn Sidhr Order, were available to the public. |
| p.12 In 1968 WITCH--Women's International Conspiracy from Hell--was formed in New York City... |
Actually, the name was an acronym for "Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (emphasis added). I realize that references to terrorism, even tongue-in-cheek ones, are likely to make people jumpy these days, but let's not go distorting history to keep people calm, shall we? Or is this just another case of carelessness? |
| p.13 Wicca, as it came from England, requires the balancing of male and female polarities in rituals and involves the veneration of the gods and goddesses. |
Interesting you should say that, particularly given your remark on page 5 Is there balancing or is there not? If there was ever a time when the balancing did not exist in Wicca, it would be in the earliest incarnations of Gardnerian Wicca, where a Priestess could stand in for a Priest by belting on a sword, but a Priest could not stand in for a Priestess no matter what he belted on. It's far less likely to be true today that femininity is seen as more important than masculinity. I'd say your continuity department needs to look this over. |
| p.16 Odinists (section header) |
Actually, "Asatruar" is a better term than Odinist, since it describes holding faith with all Æsir (and perhaps the Vanir, too), not just the All-Father. |
| p.20 Odonists give even weaker support... |
"Odinists," I assume? Don't you people spell-check? |
| p.23 The New Age (section header) |
If "Neo-Pagan" is an "umbrella term," "New Age" is more like the cloud: amorphous, unpredictable, without clear boundaries, foggy, and with very little real substance. A case could be made that Neo-Paganism is a subset of the New Age, but many Neo-Pagans prefer to think of themselves as distinct from it, given the "fluffy" feel many get from people and groups who willingly identify themselves as "New Age." |
| p.24 New Agers differentiate themselves from New-Pagans... |
Neo-Pagans, perhaps? I guess your spell-checker is broken? |
| p.29 African Americans and Latinas/Latinos who are drawn to magical polytheistic religions usually join Yorba (or, as it is also called, Santeria), an Afro-Caribbean religion. |
First, I believe the word you're reaching for is Yoruba, which would be the name of the African culture from which it derives. Second, Santeria is a syncretistic religion of Caribbean origin. It incorporates the worship of the Orisha (literally "head guardian") and beliefs of the Yoruba and Bantu people in Southern Nigeria, Senegal and Guinea Coast. These are combined with elements of worship from Roman Catholicism. . To my admittedly-limited knowledge, Yoruba is not the name of the religion, but of one of the cultures from whose traditional beliefs it draws. |
| p.37 Among Neo-Pagans, there is a strong ethic against using magic to harm others. The Wiccan Rede, which is known as the only rule all Witches must follow, states "Do as thou will as long as thou harms none. |
Ummm... well... no. Just no. First, there is a fairly strong universal ethic against harming others unnecessarily, yes, but harming someone through magic is no more ethically reprehensible than doing it with a piece of pipe. However, there are times when it's perfectly appropriate to harm someone (look up "reasonable force" in law, or "just war" in philosophy, for example), and that applies to magical forms of harm as well as any other.
Additionally, since there is no central Wiccan authority, there is similarly no way to say that all Wiccans (let alone all Witches) must follow the Rede. Furthermore, the Rede is much larger than the squib (mis)quoted here, and the expectation mentioned simply does not exist. This is a misunderstanding of the Rede by casual observers who may, admittedly, have been the only ones interviewed. |
| p.38 Within the magical worldview of Neo-Pagans, things do not happen by accident but are part of a larger web of interconnected realities. |
That's an incredible overstatement. Neo-Pagans recognize that sometimes "coincidences" aren't, but to claim that "things do not happen by accident" is to imply that everything is being run by some puppet master, which is absurd. In fact, it verges on negating free will entirely, which I suspect would be anathema to most Neo-Pagans.
Yes, there are "interconnected realities," some of which are not obvious to the average person (and most of those are probably not obvious to the average Neo-Pagan, either, to be honest), but that's a far cry from "things do not happen by accident." Much of magickal practice involves becoming aware of those realities and learning how they work. By analogy, consider thermodynamics: until Newton it was thought that "an object at rest tends to remain at rest, and an object in motion tends to come to rest." That was what people had observed, and it wasn't until Newton that it became clear that an object in motion tended to remain in motion until acted on by another force. Newton was able to perceive the larger "web of interconnected realities" and see that an object comes to rest because of gravity and friction. |
| p.89 As noted in chapter 1, Neo-Pagans pride themselves on the amorphous boundaries of their religion. The terms spiritual path, or tradition, instead of sect is normally used by Neo-Pagans to denote differences of spiritual and magical practice, as the term spiritual path permits the possibility of some individuals having unique paths that differ from all others. |
The term "spiritual path" may be used to indicate that one's beliefs and practices are different from mainstream religion, and are so personal that they fall below a threshold for the term "religion." It's axiomatic among Neo-Pagans that some individuals have unique paths that differ from all others.
The term "Tradition" (it is generally capitalized), however, generally denotes a sect within a Neo-Pagan religion, usually Wicca or a Wicca-derived religion (I have not heard that the term is used among Druids, Shamans, Asatruar or others, but that may be my own narrow experience). People do not generally use the term "Tradition" to describe their private, purely personal spiritual practices, but rather to denote the practices they share with others, particularly if these practices are ones that they have either been taught or have taught to others. There is a certain continuity, either extant or intended, implied in the word "Tradition." |
| p.89 Throughout this chapter we will refer to different forms of Neo-Paganism as sects, although the term as noted by Michael York (1995) is imperfect for describing Neo-Paganism. By using this term, we do not mean to imply that these different forms of Neo-Paganism completely fit the definition of sect as presented by Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch (1960), and others scholars who have since attempted to refine this term. However, no other term is as useful for our purposes. |
Apparently the word "religion" didn't come up as an option. Could this be because the authors are under the misimpression that Neo-Paganism is a religion, rather than an umbrella term for a group of loosely-connected religions? How hard would this be to figure out? |
| p.91 Goddess Worshiper ... distinguishes itself from other forms of Neo-Paganism by focusing on the goddess to the exclusion of the gods or god force. |
In this case, the term "the Goddess" should be capitalized, since it's as much a name as the corresponding Christian use of "God." This is goes far beyond anthropological objectivity and out into the realms of disrespect. |
| p.98 Druidism as practiced in the United States shares with other forms of Neo-Paganism the commemoration of the eight yearly sabbats. |
While I can't speak for every Druid group, I believe ADF doesn't celebrate any "sabbats." Certain holidays celebrate fall on similar dates, but that doesn't make them Sabbats any more than it makes Christmas one because it falls near the Winter Solstice. |
| p.98 The two solstices, in the spring and fall..." |
OK, now this is just ignorance, and ignorance that borders on inexcusable in a scholarly work. Anyone with the most feeble understanding of astronomy, astrology, or the Wheel of the Year knows that the solstices are the summer and winter solstices. Spring and fall have equinoxes. Dr. Berger "has been a member of the EarthSpirit Community for many years." I'm amazed that Dr. Berger doesn't know the difference between a solstice and an equinox, even if her co-authors don't. |
| p.98 ...in the early 1960s at Carlton College in Minnesota. |
That is, of course, Carleton College, as the most cursory research would show. |
| p.99 ...Isaac Bonewits, best known for his first book Real Magic (1966) ... formed a new Neo-Pagan organization, Ár nDrađocht Féin, of which he is the Arch-Druid. |
Voices from the Pagan Census was published in 2003. Isaac Bonewits has not been the Arch-Druid of |
| p.102 As all Neo-Pagans emphasize mystical and magical experiences, it is unclear why Druids have these experiences at a higher rate than other Neo-Pagans. |
Probably because Druids (particularly those in ADF), on average, put more work into it than your average Neo-Pagan. Druidry doesn't attract those whom the Neo-Pagan community at large disparagingly calls "fluffy-bunnies" to the same degree that some other sects do. There are undeniably other Neo-Pagans who work as hard or harder at their training as the Druids do, but the average level of training and work is much lower in the Neo-Pagan community as a whole. |
| p.107 ...one minister who later became president of the UUA states, "to put it in symbolic terms, Ashtar, the Goddess..." |
Ishtar, perchance? Or a conflation of Ishtar and Astarte? A simple typo? Who knows? This is referenced in the text as being "quoted in York, 1995:129," so the spelling may have originated elsewhere. Of course, if it did, then a "sic" would have been appropriate. |
| p.114 The publication of books such as ... Women's Book of Mysteries by Zsuzsanna Budapest |
The name, of course, is The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries. Once again, something that can be easily checked (and should have been) is misreported. |
| p.123 Less than 7 percent of individuals, regardless of their form of practice, have never though they were somewhere before but knew it was impossible. Similarly, less than 10 percent of our respondents... |
OK, this is just a grammar gripe, but that should be "fewer than," not "less than." Both times. |
| p.139 As Neo-Pagans in general tend to be more politically active and liberal than the general American population, Neo-Pagans--regardless of sect, form or practice, or region of residence--distinguish themselves from the general American public by being more politically active and more liberal |
Is that sentence not completely circular? |
| p.147 (Discussing issues of sexual exploitation as it relates to teacher-student relationships) Nonetheless, in a religion, which prices itself on being feminist or celebrating gender equality, women are more concerned about feminist issues than men are. Men express less apparent concern about sexual exploitiation... |
First, the comma after "religion" is superfluous and distorts the meaning of the sentence virtually beyond recognition. Second, to imply that sexual exploitation is a "feminist issue" is to miss the point that people of either gender can be exploited sexually by people of either gender. |
| p.156 ...to celebrate the sabbats and the esabat, and... |
The "esabat?" Is there only one "esabat?" |
| p.161 In her book Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation Silver RavenWolf writes two prefaces, one for parents and the other for the adolescents for whom her book is written. In the first preface, she aims to calm the potential fears of parents whose children are interested in her book. She states: "If you feel that the Craft is against your belief system after you've read the book don't panic. I've written this book so that your teen (or you) can take any of the techniques herein and use them in your own religious background" (1999:xiv). |
I've no doubt she does. I haven't read this particular piece of RavenWolf's work, so I can't say for sure, but I'm inclined to find her claim highly unlikely, to say the least. I'm also given to understand that she advises teens in the chapter "Angels, Angels Everywhere" to essentially lie to their parents. Some of her other writingss come across as fairly powerfully anti-Christian; this sudden ecumenicalism seems a little hypocritical to me.
Do we really want to be giving this individual any more undeserved publicity than she already has? |
| p.161 Our survey asks respondents the degree to which they agree or disagree with the statement "People who are under the age of 18 whose parents are not Pagan/Witches should not be trained in the Craft." |
What an appallingly-badly phrased question! I simply couldn't answer the question as it's phrased. There are many circumstances under which I would completely agree, and others under which I would completely disagree. Are we asking for moral, magickal or practical reasons? And the question specifies "the Craft," too; this explicitly ignores all the other Neo-Pagan religions, or (equally inexcusably) subsumes them into "the Craft." |
| p.172 As members of a minority religion, particularly one whose very name raises the heckles of some religious or cultural conservatives... |
That would be ... "hackles?" |
| p.179 Although both female and male Witches can and do teach the Craft within covens, the high priestess is a more important figure than the high priest (H. Berger 2000) |
No, I don't think you can make that kind of generalization. In fact, even though it appears elsewhere in this book, I assert that this is a false statement at worst, and a sweeping and insupportable over-generalization at best. |
| p.200 ...Neo-Pagans who live communality... |
Do you mean "communally?" |
| p.207 However, the majority (58.4 percent) of respondents states that they did attend a festival in the previous year. Only 38.1 percent state that they did attend at least one festival in the previous year. The rest of our respondents do not answer this question. |
OK, I'm confused. Which percentage said they did attend a festival last year, and which one didn't? Or is there a third group; one that attended one festival, one that attended at least one festival, and one that didn't attend any? Or what...? |
| p.220 Some of these issues...surface within the more disperse Neo-Pagan community |
Diverse? Dispersed? |
| p.249 Do you primarily consider yourself to be: ... __ 19. Witch (non-Wiccan) __ 20. Witch (Wiccan) |
So now, despite blithely conflating "Witch" and "Wiccan" through the book, we now discover that the authors of this study do know that there's a difference. You'd never think it from reading the rest of the book... |
| Overall, this book is interesting and informative, particularly from a statistical point of view but, as I pointed out at the top of this article, the numerous errors-of-fact leave me wondering how many other errors crept in. Since I don't have the raw data to examine and compile (nor, I freely admit, the time, skills or resources to do so), I can't speak to that. I can, however, recognize errors in matters outside the scope of the survey, and have pointed them out. That some of these are easily researchable and are well-known among members of the Neo-Pagan community does not speak well for the authors' thoroughness in researching and writing their book.
I can recommend the book tentatively, but would not use the information herein as the basis for an academic paper, book, or lawsuit without more verification. | |
All comments in the left-hand table above are © 2003 University of South Carolina Press, with the exception of text in blue, which were inserted to clarify the nature of the original text. Any errors of transcription are the sole responsibility of Robert Berra Jr., who will gladly correct them upon being notified.
All comments in the right-hand side are © 2006 Robert Berra Jr. except where specifically stated otherwise.