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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
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To: alt.pagan
From: besnode@netcom.com (Paul and Michele)
Subject: Re: Christian witch
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 16:26:16 GMT
eran@magusbooks.com wrote:
: And, if it *is* true that Gardner "based" his work on Murray and
: Leland, then this also means the religions GArdner tapped into are at
: least 100 years old - for Maddelena gave her material to Leland in the
: 1880's. SO the common idea that Gardner "invented" the religion of
: Witchcraft is obvious nonsense!
Pardon? Eran, this is silly. To take a modern example, Christianity is
quite clearly "based" on Judaism -- much more directly than Gardner drew
from Leland. Does that mean that Christianity is 3000 years old, as
Judaism is (assuming we date Judaism to the Mosaic Covenant)? No,
obviously not. Christianity is roughly 2000 years old, dated to it's
creation by the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, many of whom happened
to be Jews. We know who they were, and the fact that they were drawing
on an older tradition does not mean that they were continuing that tradition.
Now, the links between Gardnerian Wicca and Leland's Italian stregeria
are far more tenuous than the links betwen Christianity and Judaism.
There is no evidence, for example, that Gardner was ever initiated into
Maddalena's line. There IS evidence (for example, the Charge of the
Goddess) that parts of Leland's text were adapted into Wicca. But
borrowing from Leland's book doesn't make Gardner an Italian witch any
more than borrowing the word "karma" makes him a Hindu.
To top it all off, there's good reason to believe that "Aradia" was never
the work of anyone other than Leland himself. For one thing, no one
before or since has ever found any evidence of a witch-cult in Tuscany.
"Maddalena" has never been found outside of Leland's descriptions of her,
and no similarity has ever been discovered between Aradia and any other
Italian source of the period from which it supposedly came (Leland
claimed it was from the 14th century). OTOH, there are strong
similarities between Leland's witch-cult and that described by Jules
Michelet in the 1860's -- a peculiar coincidence.
: Also interesting is the frequent assertion by many that Murray has
: been "discredited". Very few people who say such things - especially n
: print! - seem to have actually read Murray's work. Most will refer to
: Elliot Rose's "A Razor for a Goat" and assume taht Rose gave a
: sufficient critique. Norman Cohn ("Europe's Inner Demons") is another
: of the very few scholars who has actually read Murray. But neither Cohn
: nor Rose give resonable or convincing arguments against Murray's main
: points, and both seem to have profoundly misunderstood what she was
: getting at.
There is a thorough disposal of Murray's work in "The Pagan Religions of
the Ancient British Isles" by Ronald Hutton (Blackwell Press, Oxford,
1991). Hutton has not only read Murray, he has read the materials she
cites AND the material she had access to but refused to cite because it
contradicted her theories. He concludes that she began with with
preformed conclusions about the continuity of Witchcraft in England, and
systematically mangled and misquoted her sources to fit, while ignoring
the ones that could not be made to support her.
Anyone who rests his history of Wicca on Murray or Leland has chosen very
unstable ground to build upon.
--Paul
--
Paul Suliin and Michele Cox | Experience has shown that men
POB 1993 | and nations will often act
San Gabriel, CA 91778 | wisely, once they have exhausted
310/719-9097 | all available alternatives.
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