Authors I Personally Don't Recommend
Over the years I have read and critiqued the books of a variety of authors. The following is a list of authors that I personally do not recommend as good sources on Wicca or Paganism in general.
Kisma Stepanich - her books were found to be plagarized from another author and the publisher was forced to pull them from bookstores. But you'll still find copies out there. http://www.geocities.com/ferigold/truthfaery/index.html
Silver Ravenwolf: Encourages kids to lie to their parents about what they are doing, teaches curses and hexes, has a pretty strong anti-Christian bias. But for a good summary of the problems with her, take a look at this essay. http://wicca.timerift.net/ravenwolf.html
Fiona Horne - Got into this for the publicity. She admits that she isn't even a Pagan. Again, here's an essay on this author. http://wicca.timerift.net/horne.html And a review of her books is at http://community.livejournal.com/w_t_r/604.html
Raven Grimassi – In my opinion Raven’s work has serious flaws in terms of historical accuracy. He tends to take certain facts that support his personal opinions regarding Wicca and use those facts to make huge leaps of logic which are not supported by the historical evidence. Any facts which would tend to disprove his theories are conveniently ignored.
Ann Moura - Tried to rewrite history to prove that Wicca is an ancient religion again! And she has a clearly anti-Christian bias in her books that bothers me.
D.J. Conway - Basically all her books are the same with the names changed to protect the guilty. Her books are full of inaccuracies, such as her book on Celtic Magic which discusses Karma and the Celts. Karma is an eastern concept and was not one that the Celts ever used. Her book on "Cat Magic" is nothing more than a rehash of every "how to care for your cat" book on the market with only one slim chapter on anything related to magic.
Edain McCoy - Also a purveyor of the Great Potato Fallacy. She is the inventor of 'Witta' which she tried to claim was the ancient Irish form of Wicca. It isn't. The name she called this tradition by is one that would not have been found in any Celtic language. It is simply Wicca given a made up name. The one book of hers that I thought was worth much at all is "Inside a Wiccan Coven" where she is writing about her own experiences and not about anything that took a bit of scholarship. http://www.cyberwitch.com/wychwood/Library/whenIsACeltNotACelt.htm
Douglas Monroe - Very poor scholarship. His works on Druidry bear little resemblance to the known practices of the historical Druids, and even less to what is known about the Celts in general. http://www.cyberwitch.com/wychwood/Library/whenIsACeltNotACelt.htm
Konstantinos - His books are a flagrant attempt to market to the Goth crowd. There is nothing in them that isn't covered better by other authors.
Gerina Dunwich - Lots and lots of fluff without a whole lot of substance. Many better authors out there to chose from, at least in my opinion.
Gavin and Yvonne Frost - Bad history and bad information. In addition, they recommend what amounts to nothing more than the sexual abuse of children in their books. They have stated that they are simply misunderstood, and they have also said that they won't discuss it because society isn't ready to understand it yet. But anyway you put it, the ritual defloration of young girls in ritual by their fathers is sexual abuse in my book.
I suppose one can learn something from almost any book, but the works of these particular authors require so much unlearning later because of the errors they contain that it is probably better just to spend your money on better books and save the time later to learn it right.
Hope this helps,
-Lark-
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alorer Stef (The Gecko) on -
YAY! The very anticipated return of the great list! Thank you for posting this Lark, it is quite needed. :)
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Permalink Reply by Strata on -
THANK YOU!!! And thank you for including authors like Monroe and McCoy!! Here is an AWESOME review of one of DJ Conway's more popular works, "Celtic Magic" ::
http://faeriekat.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/review-of-celtic-magic-by...
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Permalink Reply by Shawn on -
Lark, thank you so much!!
Although I personally have not read his book yet, I would like to add an "Author," to the list...
Ari Devi -- Completely disregards any source after Murray, and champions her authorship in the face of all other evidence.. which he completely ignores. He has signed up to various web sites just to try to sell his book (which I don't fault him for, if he would state that,) but it seems just a new slant on a current-day popularity, Faerie Mysticism. The book was published originally under a different name, Faerie Spirituality, and then a year later the name changed and he republished it. Goes to great lengths online to try to differentiate and distance himself from "Neo-paganism," which he says is the new movement, with his own being 20,000 years old.
Perhaps someone will get something out of this, but I find it very difficult to believe when an author claims all kinds of things and cannot actually back them up.
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Renee on -
I have Ann Moura's book and was going to read it...thanks for the heads up!
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Permalink Reply by Seren Haf on -
Have you thought of a sister post to this one>>Authous Id personally recommend...I for one would find that interesting Lark
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Permalink Reply by Strata on
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Lark has a reccommended reading list. Hopefully she will post it soon. :) *nudge*
Seren Haf said:Have you thought of a sister post to this one>>Authous Id personally recommend...I for one would find that interesting Lark
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Permalink Reply by Lady Elyria on -
Lark might I suggest one for your list, Lady Sheba, the original BORN witch, in her book of shadows she suggests that before doing magick one should pick their victim.
http://www.controverscial.com/Lady%20Sheba.htm
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Permalink Reply by Sangraal on -
I thought Kisma's name sounded awfully familiar, then upon looking up her works, I realized why. I had both of the Faery Wicca books back in the day! =) I had no idea.
Hooray for un-recommended authors!
I would also like to add Sarah Lyndon Morrison to the tripe. Her 'Modern Witch's Spellbook' series is, like most spellbooks tend to be, literary garbage. This was another early bad purchase of mine. She begins one of them trashing Wicca, equating it with ill-morality and something short of Satanism. She then goes into giving binding love spells, spells to 'bring your period back when pregnant' (in other words, to induce abortion)... but, then, in later books, starts cashing in on Wicca.
There is another author, too, but I cannot think of her name. She spends a massive portion of one of her books trashing ceremonial magic as a deceptive and fraudulent practice- all because of a bad boyfriend! One of the only authors to successfully piss me off!
And, speaking of CM. Donald Tyson. He is the ceremonial equivalent to Ravenfluff. His book, "The New Magus" was ti first Ceremonial Magic book I picked up, borrowed from a friend. He has a chapter on invocation warning about invoking pagan gods. You cannot be certain of their actions, he says, because they do not follow Christian morals. Well, no shit, sir! Bloody brilliant observation! Other books are somewhat prosethyzing, but newer ones are more obvious, complete with invoking Jesus into his own version of Enochian Magic. But, if you are fearful of your soul burning in hell and still want to be an uber-magician based upon bad scholarship, he is totally your guy.
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Permalink Reply by Aydan Quinn on -
grrr.... i'm reading silver ravenwolf. so would you say this is a waste of time and money if i continued to read it? she was one of the people i was recommended to read.
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Permalink Reply by Strata on
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Well....ummm.... if you have read Lark's information on her.. and go in with your brain engaged I don't *think* it will *hurt* you... :-P but honestly, I think you are better off just moving on. The *very* little good information that you can painfully dig out of her work can be found in much better sources much easier... so *I* personally would scrap it...
Aydan Quinn said:grrr.... i'm reading silver ravenwolf. so would you say this is a waste of time and money if i continued to read it? she was one of the people i was recommended to read.
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Permalink Reply by Seren Haf on
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Oh I hope she does soon
Strata said:Lark has a reccommended reading list. Hopefully she will post it soon. :) *nudge*
Seren Haf said:Have you thought of a sister post to this one>>Authous Id personally recommend...I for one would find that interesting Lark
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Permalink Reply by Serpent on -
Lark -
For the Kisma stuff: Geocities closed down a while ago and all the sites that were built there are gone :( Do you know if any of the info is available elsewhere? I had a site on Geocities before this happened and all the site builders were given ample opportunity and forewarning to move their stuff or save it. I hope that information is still around in other places but haven't had any luck.
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