Witches & Witchcraft

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What is Witchcraft? Is it related to Satanism? What is the origin of the Wiccan religion we see today? Is Wicca all about spell casting? Such questions are common from people unfamiliar with witches, witchcraft, Wicca, and paganism; fortunately, a recent book may help answer many of those inquiries.

In "The Witch Book," Raymond Buckland discusses these issues and many more. Through 560 entries, this encyclopedic reference includes biographies of major figures, reviews the portrayal of witches and witchcraft in popular movies and books, discusses the persecution of witches over the ages, and explains key concepts important to Wiccan beliefs and practices. Just about everything a person might want to learn about witches and witchcraft can be found in this one volume.

It would be unwise, however, to rely on this one book in isolation. It must be remembered that Buckland is not an objective scholar of religion. As a Wiccan high priest who founded Seax-Wicca and who has been writing about Wicca for several decades, Buckland offers unique insights which will benefit readers - but his perspective is also biased.

Now, bias isn't a bad thing. Everyone is biased in some fashion and it would be wrong to expect Buckland to provide detailed skeptical critiques of Wicca and Witches. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect him to acknowledge the existence of such critiques and to fairly represent them, even if only briefly.

Unfortunately, this often isn't the case. When he does reference skepticism, he doesn't always do a fair job of it - for example, in the entry on Astrology he writes:

It has been argued that astrology is invalid, since it seems to stem from a time when it was believed that the earth was the center of the universe, with the planets revolving around it.

It's only natural to expect a sympathetic explanation of astrology here, but it is a problem that readers are given an inaccurate impression that this is the extent of skeptical critiques of astrology, so easily rebutted. Other times, however, skepticism isn't even acknowledged. In the entry on Gerald Gardner, he writes:

Gardner had found the Book of Shadows, or ritual book, of his original coven sadly lacking. ...Gardner felt that it was woefully incomplete and decided to "correct" it. He did this by drawing on his own knowledge of religio-magic and by borrowing heavily from a wide variety of sources. [Doreen] Valiente recognized much of what he had used - in particular passages from Aleister Crowley's works - and worked with Gardner to give the whole a better balance that was more in keeping with the feelings and philosophies of the Old Religion. As an accomplished poet, Valiente added a number of inspired, original passages that have since become classics of Wiccan ritual. The resulting Gardnerian Book of Shadows has now been in use for several decades in many countries around the world.

One of the most common critiques of Wicca is that so much of it (if not all of it) is a modern creation of Gardner, who drew from a number of older and modern sources, rather than an ancient tradition passed down in secret from one master to another. Here Buckland admits that Gardner did indeed do some of that, but he doesn't acknowledge that this is problematic or that people have even criticized Wicca on that basis.

Such failures to address skeptical critiques don't just meant that the information is one-sided: this is a disservice to readers because they will be unprepared when someone else raises these issues in conversation. Being well informed on a belief system or tradition requires understanding its weaknesses, problems, and common critiques of it.

Despite such problems, Buckland's book is still a good source for information about Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-Paganism from a sympathetic perspective. The writing is easy to read and the book is geared towards beginners - this means that it lacks some depth found in other volumes, but it won't overwhelm those who are just starting to learn about the subjects.