Heathens, Pagans and Witches discussion

This is the thread to discuss the group non-fiction read for April and May, Stalking the Goddess, by Mark Carter.

Looking forward to this one...

I'll be buying and reading this one next week. Really looking forward to it too. :)

I'll try to read both books this time - sadly failed last time but may catch up later.

Can I get this for free online? I've been feeling bad that I haven't been able to participate in the group reads so far.

No, the Kindle price is £7.20 or $10.83. The fiction read for April/May, An Ogham Wood, was free a while ago, but no longer - it's not expensive though.

I'm up to 41% and completely blown away by this one.

It begins with some speculation on how and why The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth came to be written and published and goes on to trace Graves' sources for the book.

The author has done a brilliant job so far, bringing in an examination of those sources, much background material on the Druids and fair assessments of Graves' motives for not revealing his sources - based on logic, speculation and textual evidence - providing the fascinated reader with a whole new reading list along the way.

And as if all this were not enough, he somehow manages to untangle the threads of meaning woven (probably deliberately) by Graves, which - for me at least - enhances rather than mars The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth.

Hard to put down...!

Hmmm, being a Graves fanboy yet thinking TWG is a pile of rambling arse I may have to get this...

Damn you Amazon! Damn you!
Now I've gone and ordered it and a new edition of TWG...and other eldritch tomes. Not as much fun as browsing in old book shops but still...

Oh Barbarossa, sacrilege.

While you're about it, OB, he mentions The Book of Lambspring too - an extraordinary work of spiritual alchemy - I have one with coloured engravings (published by Adam McLean of the Alchemy website), but it's free to download online here and there too.

Fascinating.

Nell, that link is linking me back to this page. I'm not sure why.

Ach, I have that one click ordering enabled...so...hard...to...resist...temptation. The one minute you're browsing then a couple of days later your postie has a hernia.
I'm fairly rural so only really get to real book shops when away from home...the evil that is Amazon is an avatar of the archon SMBSLT...and now they own this site too. Resistance is futile...

I'm actually relieved that I was blonde enough to block my own credit card, otherwise I might have succumbed similarly.

Not sure why the link isn't working - let's try a straight one and see what happens: http://www.levity.com/alchemy/lambjrn...

Fixed the original link now - a small matter of " out of place...

Oh yes, it's working now, thank you Nell.

I've been my usual greedy self and have ordered in a hoard of books from the library. (I'm rural too, I rely on the state library system and my kindle.) I'll put the other books aside and start on this one now.

Right, I'm ready. I just added the kindle edition to GR too for anyone else reading that edition.

Finished reading yesterday evening, unable to leave off to read TWG alongside, even though sorely tempted. So much research and thought has gone into this wonderful book that I've forgiven the few what seem to be technical glitches along the way - mostly missing letters that have been replaced by commas, and probably only present in the Kindle edition.

I may have to read this again (with TWG this time) very soon - I've learned so much and enjoyed even more. Definitely deserving of five stars.

Still awaiting delivery. Will get ranty as soon as it arrives.

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "Will get ranty as soon as it arrives."

Yay!

I'm about 20% in now. Well written and engaging. Will be back to participate once I've finished. :D

Arghhhh!
It has no index!

Just got it and will be reading it and re-reading TWG as I go. Fairly good looking bibliography...but no index! One strike against so far...

BTW, it is an actual paper book and not an e-text I'm using so any comments may have page number rather than %.

After an initial fear of this being a bit conspiratorial (he ignores the paper shortage in the post war years as a reason for the rejection of the initial manuscript...if it didn't look like it would sell who would waste the paper?) I find so far I'm on the same page as the author.
The troll in me likes the Graves quote that Wicca "attracts hysterical or perverted characters".
Oh, I'm cackling into my glass of Hobgoblin beer as I read it...
http://www.wychwood.co.uk/#/movies//h...

'...brewed with chocolate'...! Must try some. Love the site.

Re. STG, the author is fairly critial of Graves throughout, but in a nice way - clever - not sure how he does that - maybe 'fairly' is a clue.

Unfortunately it sounds like Graves deserves all the criticisms he gets. And that's a pretty big statement coming from me. I'll keep reading and return when everyone is finished and ready to discuss it.

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "Arghhhh!
It has no index!

Just got it and will be reading it and re-reading TWG as I go. Fairly good looking bibliography...but no index! One strike against so far...

BTW, it is an actual paper b..."

I feel the same way about indexes, but that publisher doesn't like them. They charge the writers for extensive indexing even if they do it themselves. I like Moon Books, but not that feature. I am hoping to convince them to change.

Dorothy wrote: "I feel the same way about indexes, but that publisher doesn't like them. They charge the writers for extensive indexing even if they do it themselves. I like Moon Books, but not that feature. I am hoping to convince them to change..."

Considering the type of book I find this omission frustrating, as is the lack of notes and refs...but if the publisher is just being a dick about it I must excuse the author. Having said that, as the book is a discussion of TWG and one of the bugbears regarding that is it's lack of notes and refs I find this gloriously ironic.

Anyway, I have had to pause my reading of this text to go back and re-read TWG. It has been over 30 years since my initial reading and, as much as I think it's a pile of rambling arse, I think it is only reasonable that I read it again prior to getting fired into STG.
I will go and rant here for a bit then be right back: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...

I don't want to jump it too deeply and rant for pages about my own book but after reading this discussion there's a couple things I can say.

#1: I did mention the paper shortage as a reason for TWG's many rejections in an earlier draft but I removed it, mainly for space. My 1st draft was about 130,00 words and it was just too cumbersome. I worried that I had taken my study of TWG to a level that nobody else would care about, so a lot of stuff was cut. There were several things which were removed to make the book read smoother and many of them were from chapter two. My earliest draft attempted to create a time frame of when the various parts of TWG were written, and it mainly depended on Graves's letters where he talks about his work. I gave up on it when I realized that I would need to see the actual manuscript to be certain. I just figured it wasn't worth the effort and I wasn't about to travel to England or Spain to look at the original documents. (One of the things I wanted to do was to show what could be written without special access to private collections or higher education. Everything I've written was drawn from published works available to anyone and I have only a high school education.)

#2: I apologize for the lack of pictures, index, and citations. Many of these were removed to reduce the cost of the book. The book is already more expensive than other books of that size and I was worried that cost might hurt sales. There's many images I would have liked to have included but there's about six which were the most interesting and, frankly, all of them come from public domain sources which have been published many times and can be found online for free. So, I saw no harm in removing them. You can see some of them on the book's Facebook page.

I removed many of the citations to make the book more readable. The 1st draft was full of citations because I was a new writer and very paranoid about being sued or accused of plagiarism. Sadly, the citations really hindered the reading of the book and made it sound like a doctoral thesis. In the end I concluded that citations exist for 2 reasons: #1-so you don't get sued #2-to help people follow your research. I removed nearly all the citations for public domain books because those people can't sue me anymore. I know this makes it harder to follow my work, but I hope the bibliography helps resolve that. I'd be happy to look up anything that anyone is curious about. I did criticize Graves for his lack of citations, but as I came to write my own book I realized that--just like The White Goddess--my book was also not an academic book and would make little impact on the academic crowd. I would face many of the same problems Graves faced when trying to write and I would be writing mainly for the same audience; well read, but non-academic, readers.

There never was an index for my book. I assumed the publisher did that, and when I learned that it was my job I said forget it. A good index can't be done by software so it's very time consuming. Many writers outsource that sort of work and the indexer can actually make more money than the author once they've put in all the hours. I did really want an index and I was determined to have one until almost the very end, but there came a point when I realized that my book would have to be marketed as a popular trade paperback rather than an academic book and so I felt it could be left out.

#3: There are more punctuation errors than I would like. It's mainly a few commas in the wrong place. To the best of my knowledge that's the only error in the print edition. (I'm not sure about the Kindle version. I don't trust ebooks to be error free or consistent anyway. I always wonder if one person may have a corrupt copy which contains errors nobody else has.) I would say that I trusted the publisher's editors to catch these stray commas, but then they would say that they trusted me to double check their work. So, in order to avoid the blame game, let's just say a couple of them slipped past everyone.

Thanks again everyone for reading Stalking The Goddess and I'd be happy to answer any questions about it.

Not a problem Mark. Very much enjoying it, although I'm saddened to find that Graves wasn't the scholar I thought him to be. Looking forward to the discussion. :)

Thank you for taking the time to address our questions Mark. You've inspired me to read your book. I may be a bit slow on the uptake though, as I'm currently residing in India, and have trouble getting a hold of books, but I'll soon be in the west for a spell.

Love that you only have a high-school education. Education is becoming more and more free form. I myself left school at grade five, and as soon as the pressure was off, began reading avidly.

After reading all of these comments, I'm anxious to start reading this book. Luckily I see I still have time, as it's the book for April and May. I'm just finishing up "Shamans of the World", LOL. I made a good start, and then all real-life hell broke loose.

It's been quite some time since I read the Graves, so it should be interesting for me to try this. I'll work at finding a copy right away.

And what a treat to have the author of this book participating in this discussion!

Great Aaron and Sara. :) I'm very much enjoying it.

Also glad Rossell Hope Robbins, was briefly mentioned, who I am also a fan of.

I'm trying to track down a copy of his book: Witchcraft: An Introduction to the Literature of Witchcraft, from which I think Mark must have found the quote about his opinion on Murray? Margaret Alice Murray. So far my cheapest option is a second hand hardcover for close to $60 plus postage from the US! :0

Of course the state library doesn't have it. *mutter mutter* And these old books never seem to be available as kindle editions either. Frustrating.

State library doesn't have it? Sacrilege. File a complaint.

Grrrr. I feel like it. :D

It actually surprises me, because the Toronto public library had everything. Or at least the network had everything, and you could put stuff on back order. All the libraries were interconnected, by something like Internet, although it was a simpler time when I lived in Canada. Sometimes you could wait months but you would usually eventually get your book.

The Australian mainland state libraries might have it, but I doubt it. For much of my research into the inquisition and the witchcraft trials I had access to the Australian National University libraries. I worked at the Art School, which is part of the ANU. They have one of the original copies of the The Malleus Maleficarum, (it can be sighted and read on appointment I believe, staff and students--I loathe the book, wouldn't trust myself near it) and I managed to borrow and read many other original texts. I loved those libraries!

Tasmania is tiny. The state library system is much smaller. But our local branch is down the valley, about ten mins away, so whose complaining? Well...Except me of course.

Georgina, I don't think I found that quote about Murray in Witchcraft: An Introduction to the Literature of Witchcraft. I think it was from Robbins' Encyclopedia of Witchcraft. That's the only Robbins book in my bibliography too. If I remember right, I read that quote in another book too and went back and double checked with the original before I cited it.

For those who are curious, here's some images mentioned in my book which are related to The White Goddess. Most of these are from my Facebook page for my book.

The Formello-Cervetri alphabet: https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...

The Cogul cave painting which Murray used in her book and Graves discussed in TWG: https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...

The pamphlet "Robin Goodfellow, his mad pranks and merry gests" which both Murray and Graves also discussed: https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...

The signaling method developed by Hamilton, which Graves learned as a child and which may have influenced his ogham signaling idea: https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...

The Etruscan mirror which depicts Ixion, taken from A.B. Cook's "Zeus.": https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...

Page 179 of M. Esther Harding's 1935 book "Woman's Mysteries" depicts the Babylonian tree of 5 branches (fig 16) which Graves cites in chapter 11.: https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...

Page 180 of M. Esther Harding's 1935 book "Woman's Mysteries" which gives the same 2 images used by Lajard and cited by Graves: https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...

The Rhodesian cave painting at Rusape: http://www.corbisimages.com/images/Co...

They are very interesting images Mark, but I can't see many Goddess images. Is she eternally invisible, because we are stalking her?

Mark wrote: "Georgina, I don't think I found that quote about Murray in Witchcraft: An Introduction to the Literature of Witchcraft. I think it was from Robbins' Encyclopedia of Witchcraft. That's the only Ro..."

I have a copy of that one. Very sad and scary reading indeed.

Mark, writing of the Book of Lambspring, you say:

'No mention of woman is made throughout the book and even images of birth are ridiculously attributed to man.'

Yet one of the first five emblems in the book, the section that Adam McLean calls the polarities, is of a lion and a lioness - representative of the masculine and the feminine that have to be unified in order for the spiritual alchemy to take place.

Of the meeting of the Stag and Unicorn, Adam writes:

Next in Emblem 3 we have the beautiful picture of the meeting in a clearing in the forest of a magnificent Stag and a graceful Unicorn. The Stag as a symbol is often associated with the Sun and the Unicorn is usually linked with the Moon. These polarities are to be coupled together through the alchemist's work.

Masculine and feminine are almost certainly represented here, not only in the archetypes of the Stag and the Unicorn, but in those of the Sun and Moon (actually depicted in emblem X11, in which the figures representing the Soul and the Spirit stand on top of the mountain).

And in the verse accompanying emblem V11, the feminine is not only present, but vital:

A nest is found in the forest,
In which Hermes has his brood;
One fledgling always strives to fly upward,
The other rejoices to sit quietly in the nest;
Yet neither can get away from the other.
The one that is below holds the one that is above,
And will not let it get away from the nest,
As a husband in a house with his wife,
Bound together in closest bonds of wedlock.
So do we rejoice at all times,
That we hold the female eagle fast in this way,
And we render thanks to God the Father.

(The bold is mine.)

Although this could be interpreted as the male holding the female captive, it's clearly stated above the verse: We hear two birds in the forest, yet we must understand them to be only one.

What you call 'images of birth... ridiculously attributed to man' would have less impact if the 'old father of Israel' had been an old mother.

It's a strange little book, and I've read it many times, but never considered it as lacking in the feminine until reading STG.

Wow, that is an in depth comment. I'm not sure I can answer it off the top of my head. I haven't looked at Lambspring for years. (STG was actually written about 5 years ago and sat on my computer unsold for a while, but that's another story.) All I can say off the top of my head is that I would have looked right over the animal symbolism such as the lion and a lioness. I wouldn't have necessarily assumed that male and female animal pairs should automatically be equated to human couples. I do remember that I suspected the unicorn and deer symbolized 2 parts of the tripartite soul rather than anything sexual, so I was probably inclined to think the same way about the other animals. I may have to find my copy of Lambspring and look at it again.

Lambspring is very clear that the animals represent Spirit and Soul, and that these two must be united in the Body.

Our problem today is that the difference between spirit and soul is not clear. I tend to think of spirit as being disembodied soul, but surprisingly, my (oldish) New Oxford Dictionary gives one definition of Spirit as:

a. ...another name for the Holy Ghost. b.God,especially when transcending material limitations.

If Lambspring intended Spirit to indicate God rather than that free part of the psyche (for want of a better word) that needed to be unified with Soul, that puts a quite different meaning on the whole book.

But maybe we should return to TWG and your own book before I hijack the thread completely :)

I've started a new thread: The Book of Lambspring.

Nell wrote: "Lambspring is very clear that the animals represent Spirit and Soul, and that these two must be united in the Body.

Our problem today is that the difference between spirit and soul is not clear. ..."

Hi Nell--I suppose it doesn't belong here either, perhaps we need a thread for Spirit. I have had many long conversations with a close friend about this over the past number of months. His definition of spirit is "that which animates", which I rather like, as for me, Spirit has nothing to do with religion.

Our recent conversations have focused on breath or wind as an animator, or perhaps "the" animator.

Folks from Online Etymology (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?a...

"Original usage in English mainly from passages in Vulgate, where the Latin word translates Greek pneuma and Hebrew ruah. Distinction between "soul" and "spirit" (as "seat of emotions") became current in Christian terminology (e.g. Greek psykhe vs. pneuma, Latin anima vs. spiritus) but "is without significance for earlier periods" [Buck]. Latin spiritus, usually in classical Latin "breath," replaces animus in the sense "spirit" in the imperial period and appears in Christian writings as the usual equivalent of Greek pneuma."

Sara wrote: "...perhaps we need a thread for Spirit."

Hi Sara and OB, it might be better to continue the soul vs. spirit discussion on the the Book of Lambspring thread - see what you think - maybe copy and paste the last two posts into that thread?

Nell wrote: "Sara wrote: "...perhaps we need a thread for Spirit."

Hi Sara and OB, it might be better to continue the soul vs. spirit discussion on the the Book of Lambspring thread - see what you think - mayb..."

I'm happy to copy my comment over, however I must say that I've never read the Book of Lambspring, and so can't comment on it specifically. SMBSLT (So Many Books, So Little Time), so I don't know when I might.

Copying will happen directly after this comment. :-)

It's quite short, with emblems and verses, which can all be seen and read here.