Reading for the Intermediate Witch: A note on questionable sources.

Dear Reader,

As you plow your way through the lists of books people like myself provide, you will find authors of some question listed. Authors such as Zusanna Budapest, who on one hand has contributed a great deal to the literature that comprises the body of knowledge about witchcraft but at the same time have taken questionable if not down right atrocious positions on human rights issues. You will find this manner of problem in all bodies of information.

Some may choose to throw out the author's work all together because they do not want even a passive suggestion of support for their positions to be suggested about themselves. Others may choose to act as though the authors do not exist. The tricky thing with both of these positions is the fact that in many cases we are benefiting from the work done by these authors regardless of if we support their positions or not.

Questionable sources are present in any manner of research that you will do. Some, like Robert Graves, will invent material to make themselves look more like an expert with out any supporting evidence but their own opinion. The White Goddess is an interesting book and contains a good amount of information in it, but about 85% of it is Robert Graves inventing mythology because subsequent research into the matter turned up no evidence to support his arguments. Now, I am an author of fiction. I have no problems with invented mythology as long as it is acknowledged as such.

Things get fuzzy when you start looking at the foundational literature of modern witchcraft and paganism. You start finding things in there that you can't help but question. Like did Leland invent the goddess Aradia or did he find an actual hereditary cultus of worship? When you read The Witch's Bible from Janet and Stewart Farr, you start to question if sexual initiations were really part of covens when you consider familial traditions that many of the early Wiccan authors say they come from, because this raises the question of sexual abuse of minors.

Just as the medical community is leery about using Asperger's name for a medical condition when it came to public knowledge that he was a Nazi scientist and they seek for a way to use the information he acquired with out carrying on the Nazi overtones, many in the pagan community are attempting to do so with the questionable sources of their respective traditions.

In cases where those sources have done harm, it is important to first address the harm that has been caused and attempt to heal it. Reparation should be part of pathwork of any religious tradition because all religions at some point has done harm to some group of people (if not many groups of people) in their history. And one should acknowledge the questionable sources as questionable and decide what elements of the source are deemed acceptable for study and use.