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matriarchymaiden 's review for:
Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner
by Scott Cunningham
Overly prescriptive and patriarchal. Also quite dry. Cunningham writes with none of Starhawk's passion, none of Z. Budapest's flair, nor even Silver Ravenwolf's "sweetness."
What do I mean by overly prescriptive? Cunningham seems to have a penchant for making definitive statements on subjects to which he has no authority. Did I mention he's very vague as to his background? I'm not saying every witch or wizard must have some kind of magical PhD, but it would have been nice to have some idea of this guy's traditional background. Something as simple as "I belonged to an Alexandrian coven for 4 years" or "I took a class by Gerald Gardener's son-in-law".... give us something to give us an idea of who you are, man. As it is, he tells us "I had a girlfriend who was a witch and taught me about Wicca." That's it. That's his entire origin.
And with all that lack of expertise, he then goes on to boldly, boldly make controversial and definitive statements such as:
"Wicca that focuses on the Goddess without the God is 'unbalanced.'"
Way to dump on Dianic Wicca, an entire tradition of the religion you're supposedly representing. Not to mention the tons of witches who center only Odin, only Osiris, only Hecate, etc.
It just feels extremely limiting and dualistic to insist that the only right way is to obsessively cling to the male/female binary system, meticulously categorizing every tiny thing as "masculine/"God energy" or "feminine/Goddess energy."
"Seeds come from the God"
He repeats this ditty completely unchallenged, as an ancient Egyptian belief. Everyone with an ounce of botany knowledge knows the seed comes from the female. Goddess is not a dormant patch of passive soil waiting to be "plowed and tilled" by a seed-bearing God.
Females carry seed. Males fertilize the seed. Learn a little biology, please.
"Wicca is not old"
This one I can almost forgive because this book is pretty old, but still. Cunningham had access to basically the same records and artifacts we can observe today.
We know there are women in Italy and the Baltic countries claiming to be hereditary witches, to this day.
We know Isobel Gowdie freely confessed to being a witch in Scotland during the burning times.
We know Dorcas Good testified, as a child, that her own mother was practicing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts during the burning times.
We also know for a fact that around this era people were utilizing practices such as "witch cakes" and "witch bottles" in order to detect witches and ward off hexes. They were, de facto, utilizing witchcraft to ward off harmful magic. It's also well documented that people were using divination practices such as cracking an egg into a glass of water and analyzing the shapes in the strands of egg white, bobbing for apples to predict your future husband, scattering hemp seeds on Midsummer's Eve to cause someone to fall in love with you... if Cunningham had done a little homework, he could have learned about these things before writing a whole-ass book.
And he himself references ancient occult manuals such as the Key of Soloman and Three Books of Occult Philosophy.
I can understand skepticism when it comes to the notion of an unbroken witchcraft tradition surviving into modern times, but to dismiss it completely with no further explanation beyond "because I said so"? Pretty silly.
That being said, as I understand it, "Wicca isn't old" was the common belief at that time (and to this day it's a controversial subject.) But it just kind of emphasizes the fact that Cunningham is probably just repeating stuff he's read in other books moreso than doing the work for himself.
"'Witch' is a bad word"
Cunningham states that he "doesn't know why" many Wiccans refer to themselves as "witches," and insists on referring to witches as "the Wicca." Feels like an odd distinction upon which to insist, but okay.
"Never curse or hex under any circumstances."
Most witches make exceptions for self-defense scenarios. It adds to the overall feeling of this being a slightly watered-down, defanged form of Wicca.
"'The Wicca' believe in reincarnation."
Is there any sort of consensus on this in Wicca? I don't think so. From everything I've seen, beliefs on reincarnation in Wicca range from full-on Buddhist "we reincarnate to higher and higher life forms until we reach samadhi" to "we go to Summerland when we die, no reincarnation." Not to mention the thousands of witches, historical and modern, with Christian and semi-Christian belief systems (yes, you can be both Christian and a witch. Just ask the thousands of witches in Romania or Mexico who ask Jesus for protection as they burn their herbs and assemble their magic bottles.)
He also makes a remark about how "only strict closed-minded traditionalists refuse to walk a circle widdershins(counter-clockwise.)"
Again, this is just so unnecessarily judgmental and divisive. Why go out of your way to insult entire branches of your supposed religion?? I can understand explaining your personal opinions on the widdershins/deosil subject, but why the insults??
All-in-all, it took me many years to finally pick up a Cunningham book, and I was honestly pretty disappointed.
One credit I will give him is that in my understanding, he did a lot to popularize the idea of a "solitary witch" as opposed to requiring a coven. Although I can't help but wonder if this was indicative of a move away from a more mysterious, coven-based Wicca to the more mainstream, defanged, commercialized form of Wicca that eventually lead to Silver Ravenwolf and her infamous $20 "teen witch kits".
I honestly hesitate to even recommend this book as a very basic "introduction to Wicca" book due to all the bold misrepresentations. I feel bad for anyone who reads this book and comes away with the impression Cunningham is any sort of central figure in Wicca, or that his silly opinions have any sort of weight behind them. He's clearly just some guy sitting around playing wizard and making up rules and rituals for other people because it "seems right." You are under no obligation to take this guy's word for anything at all. Witchcraft is much bigger, older, and more vivid than Cunningham would have you believe.
What do I mean by overly prescriptive? Cunningham seems to have a penchant for making definitive statements on subjects to which he has no authority. Did I mention he's very vague as to his background? I'm not saying every witch or wizard must have some kind of magical PhD, but it would have been nice to have some idea of this guy's traditional background. Something as simple as "I belonged to an Alexandrian coven for 4 years" or "I took a class by Gerald Gardener's son-in-law".... give us something to give us an idea of who you are, man. As it is, he tells us "I had a girlfriend who was a witch and taught me about Wicca." That's it. That's his entire origin.
And with all that lack of expertise, he then goes on to boldly, boldly make controversial and definitive statements such as:
"Wicca that focuses on the Goddess without the God is 'unbalanced.'"
Way to dump on Dianic Wicca, an entire tradition of the religion you're supposedly representing. Not to mention the tons of witches who center only Odin, only Osiris, only Hecate, etc.
It just feels extremely limiting and dualistic to insist that the only right way is to obsessively cling to the male/female binary system, meticulously categorizing every tiny thing as "masculine/"God energy" or "feminine/Goddess energy."
"Seeds come from the God"
He repeats this ditty completely unchallenged, as an ancient Egyptian belief. Everyone with an ounce of botany knowledge knows the seed comes from the female. Goddess is not a dormant patch of passive soil waiting to be "plowed and tilled" by a seed-bearing God.
Females carry seed. Males fertilize the seed. Learn a little biology, please.
"Wicca is not old"
This one I can almost forgive because this book is pretty old, but still. Cunningham had access to basically the same records and artifacts we can observe today.
We know there are women in Italy and the Baltic countries claiming to be hereditary witches, to this day.
We know Isobel Gowdie freely confessed to being a witch in Scotland during the burning times.
We know Dorcas Good testified, as a child, that her own mother was practicing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts during the burning times.
We also know for a fact that around this era people were utilizing practices such as "witch cakes" and "witch bottles" in order to detect witches and ward off hexes. They were, de facto, utilizing witchcraft to ward off harmful magic. It's also well documented that people were using divination practices such as cracking an egg into a glass of water and analyzing the shapes in the strands of egg white, bobbing for apples to predict your future husband, scattering hemp seeds on Midsummer's Eve to cause someone to fall in love with you... if Cunningham had done a little homework, he could have learned about these things before writing a whole-ass book.
And he himself references ancient occult manuals such as the Key of Soloman and Three Books of Occult Philosophy.
I can understand skepticism when it comes to the notion of an unbroken witchcraft tradition surviving into modern times, but to dismiss it completely with no further explanation beyond "because I said so"? Pretty silly.
That being said, as I understand it, "Wicca isn't old" was the common belief at that time (and to this day it's a controversial subject.) But it just kind of emphasizes the fact that Cunningham is probably just repeating stuff he's read in other books moreso than doing the work for himself.
"'Witch' is a bad word"
Cunningham states that he "doesn't know why" many Wiccans refer to themselves as "witches," and insists on referring to witches as "the Wicca." Feels like an odd distinction upon which to insist, but okay.
"Never curse or hex under any circumstances."
Most witches make exceptions for self-defense scenarios. It adds to the overall feeling of this being a slightly watered-down, defanged form of Wicca.
"'The Wicca' believe in reincarnation."
Is there any sort of consensus on this in Wicca? I don't think so. From everything I've seen, beliefs on reincarnation in Wicca range from full-on Buddhist "we reincarnate to higher and higher life forms until we reach samadhi" to "we go to Summerland when we die, no reincarnation." Not to mention the thousands of witches, historical and modern, with Christian and semi-Christian belief systems (yes, you can be both Christian and a witch. Just ask the thousands of witches in Romania or Mexico who ask Jesus for protection as they burn their herbs and assemble their magic bottles.)
He also makes a remark about how "only strict closed-minded traditionalists refuse to walk a circle widdershins(counter-clockwise.)"
Again, this is just so unnecessarily judgmental and divisive. Why go out of your way to insult entire branches of your supposed religion?? I can understand explaining your personal opinions on the widdershins/deosil subject, but why the insults??
All-in-all, it took me many years to finally pick up a Cunningham book, and I was honestly pretty disappointed.
One credit I will give him is that in my understanding, he did a lot to popularize the idea of a "solitary witch" as opposed to requiring a coven. Although I can't help but wonder if this was indicative of a move away from a more mysterious, coven-based Wicca to the more mainstream, defanged, commercialized form of Wicca that eventually lead to Silver Ravenwolf and her infamous $20 "teen witch kits".
I honestly hesitate to even recommend this book as a very basic "introduction to Wicca" book due to all the bold misrepresentations. I feel bad for anyone who reads this book and comes away with the impression Cunningham is any sort of central figure in Wicca, or that his silly opinions have any sort of weight behind them. He's clearly just some guy sitting around playing wizard and making up rules and rituals for other people because it "seems right." You are under no obligation to take this guy's word for anything at all. Witchcraft is much bigger, older, and more vivid than Cunningham would have you believe.