Scan barcode
A review by dragonfriend
Book of Shadows by Cate Tiernan
3.0
I first read this book back when I was a teenager. A teenager who was already in the middle of leaving Christianity and seeking out information about other religions. So, to my teenage self, this series was wonderful and I identified with Morgan. Re-reading it now though, it is very much like an evangelistic book for Wicca, so it reads kinda like I'm listening to a missionary at the door, lol. I don't want to feel like I'm just politely listening to my book and waiting for it to be satisfied and leave, lmao.
Also... I've got a complaint... There's an inaccuracy that I now know about and am bothered by... the book says that Wicca predates Christianity and acts as if all ancient religions were all part of Wicca and that all people who practiced/practice magic were/are Wiccan. This isn't accurate and erases and appropriates all of the individual religions and cultures that exist/existed, absorbing them all into the faith of Wicca. Wicca is an eclectic religion whose founding was relatively recent. Practitioners draw their deities, beliefs, and practices from multiple origins, mostly from ancient Ireland, Wales, Greece, and the Romans, but also from others, including sometimes practices and beliefs inspired by Native American religions. It's especially problematic when Wiccan practitioners in America incorporate Native American concepts or practices or do rituals in Native American spaces, and that's actually where I've heard most of the complaints from. Wicca follows in the Roman tradition of associating one God or Goddess with the God or Goddess from another culture and treating them as the same Deity (for example, many Wiccans see the many Goddesses from around the world as the many faces of one divine feminine energy, and the same for the Gods). Now... my understanding (from back when I joined Wiccan groups in college) was that the intent here is to bring back old religions and cultures that were lost, even in cases where we don't have much historical information, to create a religion more welcoming and true to women, to connect people back to nature, and to, sort of, attempt to find the ultimate spiritualism by finding commonalities in a diversity of deities. However, the issue here is that a lot of people who practice the cultures and religions (or who are descendants of those who practiced them) that Wicca is drawing from feel that Wicca is appropriation and that it also erases their existence as a unique culture by claiming that all of these Deities and practices belong to (and according to this book have always belonged to) Wiccans.
And yes, this book is a fictionalized version of Wicca, so on the surface, it doesn't seem bad to be saying that all of those different ancient people were all Wiccans (to use the word Wicca as a catch all) and that Wicca predates Christianity, but the thing is this book is also obviously meant to be educating about and spreading the real world religion of Wicca, so it is likely to be used as a source of facts by young readers (and this theme of labeling things from other origins as part of Wicca is exactly the complaint that people have about Wicca)... so yeah, that might be problematic. I feel that practitioners and Wiccan content creators in particular should be more cognizant of this issue. There's my complaint.
But now that I've criticized, let me also give some praise. I think it's a great thing in general to see a teen or children's book featuring characters from minority religions/cultures. Although this book isn't strictly realistic, it still gave a good deal of information about the belief system being practiced by the characters that also applies to the real life version. Also, like I said, this book gives young people who are interested in Wicca, or really any other minority religion that their parents don't support, someone to identify with. It touched on the real life difficulty of being a teenager whose beliefs don't line up with your parents. It didn't quite delve into the difficulty of choosing to leave a previous belief behind, but it did show how a division can begin to form with family members when you grow up to be different than they expected. It also made a point of showing that Wicca is not devil worship (a commonly held fear). And I also remember that while this first book is mostly setting up the story, the plot gets more interesting over time.
Also... I've got a complaint... There's an inaccuracy that I now know about and am bothered by... the book says that Wicca predates Christianity and acts as if all ancient religions were all part of Wicca and that all people who practiced/practice magic were/are Wiccan. This isn't accurate and erases and appropriates all of the individual religions and cultures that exist/existed, absorbing them all into the faith of Wicca. Wicca is an eclectic religion whose founding was relatively recent. Practitioners draw their deities, beliefs, and practices from multiple origins, mostly from ancient Ireland, Wales, Greece, and the Romans, but also from others, including sometimes practices and beliefs inspired by Native American religions. It's especially problematic when Wiccan practitioners in America incorporate Native American concepts or practices or do rituals in Native American spaces, and that's actually where I've heard most of the complaints from. Wicca follows in the Roman tradition of associating one God or Goddess with the God or Goddess from another culture and treating them as the same Deity (for example, many Wiccans see the many Goddesses from around the world as the many faces of one divine feminine energy, and the same for the Gods). Now... my understanding (from back when I joined Wiccan groups in college) was that the intent here is to bring back old religions and cultures that were lost, even in cases where we don't have much historical information, to create a religion more welcoming and true to women, to connect people back to nature, and to, sort of, attempt to find the ultimate spiritualism by finding commonalities in a diversity of deities. However, the issue here is that a lot of people who practice the cultures and religions (or who are descendants of those who practiced them) that Wicca is drawing from feel that Wicca is appropriation and that it also erases their existence as a unique culture by claiming that all of these Deities and practices belong to (and according to this book have always belonged to) Wiccans.
And yes, this book is a fictionalized version of Wicca, so on the surface, it doesn't seem bad to be saying that all of those different ancient people were all Wiccans (to use the word Wicca as a catch all) and that Wicca predates Christianity, but the thing is this book is also obviously meant to be educating about and spreading the real world religion of Wicca, so it is likely to be used as a source of facts by young readers (and this theme of labeling things from other origins as part of Wicca is exactly the complaint that people have about Wicca)... so yeah, that might be problematic. I feel that practitioners and Wiccan content creators in particular should be more cognizant of this issue. There's my complaint.
But now that I've criticized, let me also give some praise. I think it's a great thing in general to see a teen or children's book featuring characters from minority religions/cultures. Although this book isn't strictly realistic, it still gave a good deal of information about the belief system being practiced by the characters that also applies to the real life version. Also, like I said, this book gives young people who are interested in Wicca, or really any other minority religion that their parents don't support, someone to identify with. It touched on the real life difficulty of being a teenager whose beliefs don't line up with your parents. It didn't quite delve into the difficulty of choosing to leave a previous belief behind, but it did show how a division can begin to form with family members when you grow up to be different than they expected. It also made a point of showing that Wicca is not devil worship (a commonly held fear). And I also remember that while this first book is mostly setting up the story, the plot gets more interesting over time.