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Yes! Hooray for me! I have finally finished the accursed To Stir a Magick Cauldron! *does happy nekkid Pagan dance* But, before you all start to celebrate with me, I still have a few things to rant about (and a few ideas that looked good or kinda fun ... I try to be fair ~_^)
The 'They are only archetypes' attitude is one that really bugs me. I finally got to the divine possession (or 'aspecting')section of the book, and she actually suggests that people draw down the Morrigan and not ground the energy until 'the task you have called them to help you with is completed'. Is it just me, or does it sound like a spectacularly bad idea to go around possessed (assuming that anyone studying under SRW could achieve such a state) by the Morrigan for weeks or months on end?
Her Christian bashing has only become more subtle (and here I thought that she might have grown a smidge) ... nope, isn't it good to know that Witches are above the 'whiny, grovelling "Why me, oh Lord" of some other religions'? I am certainly glad that I now have official license to look down my nose at Christians. :oP
Another thing that bothers me about this book is how many subjects she does a 180 on from her earlier books. Now, either, she really is a twit and has since learned that some of the crap she was spouting was just that, or, as her justifications suggest (that beginners should be taught one thing and more advanced students taught the proper thing), she is extraordinarily two-faced, and not someone I would trust to be teaching newbies at all. This isn't even deeper mystery stuff, this is stuff like 'you don't always need permission to help someone in need', and 'the Rede doesn't really say that you can't employ negative magick if the situation warrents it'.
She even tells a story in which she performs a banishing against a student's daughter's boyfriend without the boy or the daughter knowing about it ... she justifies it by saying that she knew the kid was bad news. Then she turns around and says to 'never mess with negative magick'. This whole 'Do as I say and not as I do' really isn't an ethical position from where I am sitting.
I do find it sickly amusing that she is so anti-chaos. She even refers to the Craft as the 'candle-light of order in the darkness of chaos'. LOL Another bit that I got stuck on is how she seems to see it fit to put Laurie Cabot in the same category as Gardner, Sanders, and Valiente. Now, I admit that I haven't read her work, but she has never seemed to me to be Trad Wiccan.
Also, I wasn't aware that it was normal Craft conduct to go whining to someone's 'Council of Elders' if a trad Witch dared to piss you off. *rolls eyes*
Though, to be fair, it wasn't all bad ... there were some interesting ideas for cauldron magic, and a couple of craft ideas that looked like fun (like creating your own Craft coat of arms, and making a set of astrological throwing bones). All in all, I wish I hadn't spent money on it, but what's done is done (and it was done a long time ago).
Read
1. Industrial Magic (Kelley Armstrong)
2. Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch (Lora O'Brien)
3. Book of Shadows (Phyllis Curott)
4. Changeling (Cate Tiernan)
5. Strife (Cate Tiernan)
6. Witches Almanac (Elizabeth Pepper & John Wilcock)
7. Drawing Down the Moon (Margot Adler)
8. The Goddess Re-Awakening (Shirley Nicholson et al)
9. Origins (Cate Tiernan)
10. The Principa Discordia
11. Triumph of the Moon (Ronald Hutton)
12. Tapping the Dream Tree (Charles de Lint)
13. Witch: The Wild Ride from Wicked to Wicca (Candace Savage)
14. The Onion Girl (Charles de Lint)
15. Witchcrafting (Phyllis Curott)
16. Chocolat (Joanne Harris)
17. To Stir a Magick Cauldron (SRW)
In Progress
18. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer-Bradley)
19. The Good Luck Book (Bill Harris)
20. The White Goddess (Robert Graves)
21. Living Druidry (Emma Restall Orr)
22. Guardian of the Balance (Irene Radford)
23. Haunted (Kelley Armstrong)
To Be Read
24. The Golden Bough (James Frazer)
25. Mastering the Tarot (Eden Gray)
26. Teach Yourself Fortune Telling (Rachel Pollack)
27. Sisters of the Dark Moon (Gail Wood)
28. To Light a Sacred Flame ($RW)
29. The Chalice and The Blade (Riane Eisler)
30. The Pomegranate: International Joural of Pagan Studies
31. Memory and Dream (Charles De Lint)
32. Hades' Daughter (Sara Douglass)
33. Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts (Richard Weisman)
34. Carpe Jugulum (Terry Pratchett)
35. The Witches Hammer (Jane Stanton Hitchcock)
36. Long Time Gone (Denis Hamill)
37. Guardian of the Trust (Irene Radford)
38. Tailchaser's Song (Tad Williams)
--Phae
The 'They are only archetypes' attitude is one that really bugs me. I finally got to the divine possession (or 'aspecting')section of the book, and she actually suggests that people draw down the Morrigan and not ground the energy until 'the task you have called them to help you with is completed'. Is it just me, or does it sound like a spectacularly bad idea to go around possessed (assuming that anyone studying under SRW could achieve such a state) by the Morrigan for weeks or months on end?
Her Christian bashing has only become more subtle (and here I thought that she might have grown a smidge) ... nope, isn't it good to know that Witches are above the 'whiny, grovelling "Why me, oh Lord" of some other religions'? I am certainly glad that I now have official license to look down my nose at Christians. :oP
Another thing that bothers me about this book is how many subjects she does a 180 on from her earlier books. Now, either, she really is a twit and has since learned that some of the crap she was spouting was just that, or, as her justifications suggest (that beginners should be taught one thing and more advanced students taught the proper thing), she is extraordinarily two-faced, and not someone I would trust to be teaching newbies at all. This isn't even deeper mystery stuff, this is stuff like 'you don't always need permission to help someone in need', and 'the Rede doesn't really say that you can't employ negative magick if the situation warrents it'.
She even tells a story in which she performs a banishing against a student's daughter's boyfriend without the boy or the daughter knowing about it ... she justifies it by saying that she knew the kid was bad news. Then she turns around and says to 'never mess with negative magick'. This whole 'Do as I say and not as I do' really isn't an ethical position from where I am sitting.
I do find it sickly amusing that she is so anti-chaos. She even refers to the Craft as the 'candle-light of order in the darkness of chaos'. LOL Another bit that I got stuck on is how she seems to see it fit to put Laurie Cabot in the same category as Gardner, Sanders, and Valiente. Now, I admit that I haven't read her work, but she has never seemed to me to be Trad Wiccan.
Also, I wasn't aware that it was normal Craft conduct to go whining to someone's 'Council of Elders' if a trad Witch dared to piss you off. *rolls eyes*
Though, to be fair, it wasn't all bad ... there were some interesting ideas for cauldron magic, and a couple of craft ideas that looked like fun (like creating your own Craft coat of arms, and making a set of astrological throwing bones). All in all, I wish I hadn't spent money on it, but what's done is done (and it was done a long time ago).
Read
1. Industrial Magic (Kelley Armstrong)
2. Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch (Lora O'Brien)
3. Book of Shadows (Phyllis Curott)
4. Changeling (Cate Tiernan)
5. Strife (Cate Tiernan)
6. Witches Almanac (Elizabeth Pepper & John Wilcock)
7. Drawing Down the Moon (Margot Adler)
8. The Goddess Re-Awakening (Shirley Nicholson et al)
9. Origins (Cate Tiernan)
10. The Principa Discordia
11. Triumph of the Moon (Ronald Hutton)
12. Tapping the Dream Tree (Charles de Lint)
13. Witch: The Wild Ride from Wicked to Wicca (Candace Savage)
14. The Onion Girl (Charles de Lint)
15. Witchcrafting (Phyllis Curott)
16. Chocolat (Joanne Harris)
17. To Stir a Magick Cauldron (SRW)
In Progress
18. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer-Bradley)
19. The Good Luck Book (Bill Harris)
20. The White Goddess (Robert Graves)
21. Living Druidry (Emma Restall Orr)
22. Guardian of the Balance (Irene Radford)
23. Haunted (Kelley Armstrong)
To Be Read
24. The Golden Bough (James Frazer)
25. Mastering the Tarot (Eden Gray)
26. Teach Yourself Fortune Telling (Rachel Pollack)
27. Sisters of the Dark Moon (Gail Wood)
28. To Light a Sacred Flame ($RW)
29. The Chalice and The Blade (Riane Eisler)
30. The Pomegranate: International Joural of Pagan Studies
31. Memory and Dream (Charles De Lint)
32. Hades' Daughter (Sara Douglass)
33. Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts (Richard Weisman)
34. Carpe Jugulum (Terry Pratchett)
35. The Witches Hammer (Jane Stanton Hitchcock)
36. Long Time Gone (Denis Hamill)
37. Guardian of the Trust (Irene Radford)
38. Tailchaser's Song (Tad Williams)
--Phae
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-28 03:13 am (UTC)Oh, and it isn't students that go whining to the Elders, it is random solitaries who are upset with said Trad Witch ... mature, eh?
--Phae