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From: nagasiva@luckymojo.com (nagasiva yronwode)
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Subject: EBallard: Unreliability of Newage/Wiccan Publishers (was Crowley ...)
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[from alt.religion.orisha: eballard@sas.upenn.edu (Eoghan)]

Salamaleko and greetings,

With all due respect to Tata Mitchell of whom I think well and who is a
thoughtful and generally well informed individual, I will disagree with
his remarks for certain specific reasons.

First, it was not my intention to suggest that all newagers, wiccans, or
ceremonial magicians etc, were insincere. There are many sincere followers
of those paths and movements. There are also many who do good work and who
are truly gifted.

Dispensing with "New Age" as a term that is nearly as vague as the
movement it labels tends to be ( i spent a few years in fairly close
contact with a wide segment of people who would call themselves "newage",
I'd like to address issues of the "newage" industry, for such it is, and
the "wiccan myth". The newage industry, especially its publishing arm is
geared to producing what will sell. It is very good at it and makes a lot
of money. The problem with the newage publishing industry, and it affects
the Wiccan and Neopagan communities as well because the publishing side of
these movements have tended to merge, is that it is very indiscriminate
concerning the accuracy or value of what it publishes. There are plenty of
newage and wiccan/neopagan authors out there who make it up as they type.

I became involved with Neopaganism and wicca in the midsixties, becoming
active in The Pagan Way (see Adler's "Drawing down the Moon") and
subsequantly several craft circles after about five years of being what
eventually would be called a "Solitary". I was involved with the
publication of a jornal by and for Teenage Pagans called "Mandrigore"
which was in print for a number of years. Later I went on to run several
Wiccan and Neopagan circles and groves before the 90s. I eventually
migrated toward African religions after the realization that for a number
of years I had been worshipping Celtic but working African. that is to say
when I wanted to get anything done, I turned to the Afrodiasporic
traditions, specifically Hoodoo and AfroCuban traditions. While I of
course respect the "High Ceremonial Magic" traditions I have never felt
drawn to it. I give this personal background only to make it clear that I
am not a hostile party to these traditions.

What I hasten to dispute with Tata Mitchell surrounds what I believe
Margot Adler discussed and which I will paraphrase (not having her book in
front of me) as the "Myth of the Universal Western Witch Cult". It goes
something like this. Pagan religions survived Church persecution
underground and somehow made it to the 20th century in what was
miraculously a very homogenized form looking like nothing that was ever
practiced anywhere in Europe before the advent of Christianity. Margaret
Murray advanced this theory in the early part of the last century and
Gerald B Gardner resurrected it some 40 years later. 

What I hasten to point out is that while you may meet a few octogenerian
wiccans, they will not have been practicing Wicca for all that time. The
first generation of Wiccans whose religion was inherited from their
parents were children of 80s. The number of wiccans in the US in the
sixties were small indeed. It was essentially nonexistant here in the 50s.
I doubt that in the 50s there were more than a couple of hundred people
following Wicca in Britain and it was unheard of anywhere else. 

It is based upon a variety of remembered traditions but remains largely a
modern creation. To the more intellectual and informed practitioners of
the tradition this is no surprise. That the myth upon which the tradition
was founded is unsubstantive may be painful to some, but it is in fact
liberating. It was the admission of this that allowed the various feminist
and other branches to develop. Without the recognition that this was a
sort of "creation myth" that need not be taken literally, works such as
Starhawks "Spiral Dance" could never have been written.

That the majority of recent publications on the Craft have bought into the
old fantasy and are accepted by individuals who were not part of the
development of these traditions in an earlier generation is one of the
more damning products of the newage and neopagan press.

Ceremonial magic has an older history. Some of it interesects with modern
Neopaganism and much of it does not. What it is possible to say about
Ceremonials cannot also be said of Wicca. It just isn't as old a movement
however old its heritage is. None of this should be read as a claim that
Wicca or Neopaganism is fraudulant. It simply isn't old. Also, as I think
Cat was trying to point out, the Neopagan and New Age press and its output
is with a few delightful exceptions, not a reliable source for
information.

In goodwill,

Nzambiempongo l'ocutare por mucho masimene,

Eoghan

Tata Nganga Ensasi Calunga Ensulo Endoqui Quimbisa

eballard@sas.upenn.edu

Eoghan Ballard
Center for Folklore & Ethnology
University of Pennsylvania
-- 
mailto:nagasiva@luckymojo.com ; http://www.luckymojo.com/nagasiva.html
mailto:boboroshi@satanservice.org ; http://www.satanservice.org/ 
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Path: typhoon.sonic.net!not-for-mail
From: nagasiva@luckymojo.com (nagasiva yronwode)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.religion.wicca,alt.pagan,alt.witchcraft
Subject: Unreliability of Newage/Wiccan Publishers (was Crowley and ...)
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[from alt.religion.orisha: eballard@sas.upenn.edu (Eoghan)]

Salamaleko Tata Mitchell,

Thanks for your response. It covers a lot of ground and is quite
interesting. I always enjoy your contributions. One point I raised to
which you did not respond is to me perhaps the most cogent one for being
wary of "New Age" and related sources. That is the state of the commercial
publishing market which represents the guiding force of certainly a large
percentage of those communities. 

There is a flourishing business of new publications in New Age, Wiccan,
and generally Neopagan titles. The large majority of these writers accept
such traditions as they have heard unrelexively and without bothering for
the most part to research the documented history of their traditions. Add
to this the tendancy to consider all cultural materials from anywhere
completely available to adapt to their purposes without regard to either
the followers of these traditions or the systems within which they exist
and you have the potential for not only a great deal of misinformation but
serious errors and not a little danger.

This is at the heart of why I would not recommend anyone look to such
sources for reliable information. It is also why I always tell anyone
interested in New World Afro-Diasporic religions whether AfroCuban or
AfroBrazilian to go learn Spanish or Portuguese up front and do their
studying later. The payback for those capable of this (and far too many
Americans seem capable of only being illiterate in one language) will be
immense.

OK, so I have my opinions, but I've always attempted to do as I advise others.

Eoghan
Tata Nganga Ensasi Calunga Ensulo Quimbisa

eballard@sas.upenn.edu

Eoghan Ballard
Center for Folklore & Ethnology
University of Pennsylvania
-- 
mailto:nagasiva@luckymojo.com ; http://www.luckymojo.com/nagasiva.html
mailto:boboroshi@satanservice.org ; http://www.satanservice.org/ 
emailed replies may be posted; cc replies if response desired