When people recommend ways to start learning Wicca, why...?

Merry Meet Emily,

Though many people don’t realize that most publisher have controlling rights over an authors work. Most work published through publishing houses sign a contract given percentages outright to the publishing houses. Also if a portion of work is not workable by the publishing house they can exchange it with work already considered acceptable by that publisher.

Don’t people think it’s funny that there have been updated publications of Scott Cunningham’s work, but he has not been around in for a while? Also when the updated publications come out there has been serious modifications to the earlier work, but yet again Scott is not here to do the updates. In fact you can by a new book first publication of gems and stone and it was published years after Scott’s death.

I am not saying that several authors are bad and misleading; all I am saying is that if we consider ourselves educated and open minded then we need to look at all the facts before boycotting a certain author or publisher. For those who know nothing about the Craft or Wicca itself, all authors have something good to share. It might be a ritual by silver Ravenwolf, a spell by Grimasii, or even a lesson by Gerald Gardener. It might even be a basic lesson on circle casting by Edain McCoy. The bottom line is that as an educated Wiccan or Witch we should help those seriously seeking to learn and not discourage them by telling them all the bad material but the positive stuff of each of those authors sharing insight with us.

And to be totally truthful, self published work is not the most reliable source of information on the Craft. I can say this as a fact since I myself have read a few self published books of the Craft and they had loads of errors as well as blatant erroneous facts and/or statements in them. If you look for self published books you are taking a greater chance at bad books then you can ever at a publishing house because there is no outside proof reader nor paid linguistic to help out with language and sentence issues.

Just my two cents for what its worth.

Blessed Be to All.

Nyjh

People might be generalizing Llewellyn books, because they consider most of they overly fuzzy or not informative. I personally do not have much experience with that, because most of the Llewellyn books I have read, are by Scott Cunningham, but I have read a few others Llewellyn has put out, and I did indeed not find them as informative or useful as many other books I have read.

As for Conway, I do not know why many do not recommend her, as I have read a few of her books on Wicca, and I enjoyed them, though perhaps others know more then I. Either that, or they just don't like her style of writing. For Scott Cunningham, I knew its been Llewellyn, since the day I was waiting at the doctors office, bored out of my skull, and decided to read the spines of the book I had brought with me.

As for Y!A sorter, we may never know the mysteries of the automatic sorter.... ::cues music::

Hope this wasn't too vague for you.

I have to disagree with the response that says you have to study a lot before you are ready to choose this path.

One of the problems with Witchcraft today is that too many people practice it as though it were an intellectual exercise. The reason I, personally, recommend Scott Cunningham's "Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner" is that Scott makes it clear that one's personal relationship with the Goddess and God is the real meaning of religious Witchcraft.

I have heard many people criticize Llewellyn, but I have always felt that any resource that brings you to the Lady and Lord is a good one. It may not be good for everything, but if it's good for that then you're on the road, at least. The truth is - at least in my experience - there just isn't much depth in contemporary Witchcraft literature. There is some breadth; but when it comes to spirituality there just isn't much there. And that's a pity, because the spirituality is the important part - not the spells, or tarot cards, etc.

If you approach this religion as a relationship with the Goddess and God, you're going to do ok. Scott knows this. Not many other authors seem to talk about this.

Llewellyn publishes a ton of stuff, mostly aimed at beginners and mostly with the bottom line in mind. There is some very good stuff they put out (and I personally will never tell people to just avoid all Lewellyn books) but they put out piles upon piles of garbage as well, mostly feel-good stuff that make people feel special and promise great rewards for little work.

DJ Conway is a fad writer. She has repeatedly dressed Wicca up as ancient tradition, because that sells. She writes books like "Celtic Magic" that's really Wicca with Celtic knots on the cover. It's dishonest and appeals to the lowest common denominator. Long story short: she tries to sell her books from the history angle, but she knows very little about history.

I'm not familiar with the Buckland spell you reference. Where did you find it? I wouldn't dismiss ANY author on a single bad claim. He's non-faddish, which is a plus. He was publishing reasonably solid material when there was very little available. He's also Tradittionally trained, meaning what he teaches actually looks like Wicca rather than the New Age feel-good tripe some newer writers try to pass off. I personally am not a huge fan of Buckland (although i've only read one book of his, so really 'm just not a big fan of that book), but I have nothing against him either.

Emily, as you can see, there is a wide variety of people who feel that Llewellyn is not a credible source for books on Wicca. However, like ANY source, one can learn what one needs to learn from ANY source, provided one is careful and meticulous about reading thoroughly and reading with a discerning eye. Even Silver Ravenwolf can teach you things if you learn to filter out the inaccurate BS and look for and find the information that YOU find to be useful.

Oh, and for the ones that think that Llewellyn will publish ANYTHING by ANYONE, you are very wrong about that. Maybe for a while they were stuck on "Wicca 101" type material but they have made a conscious effort to actually pursue works of a more advanced level and material that is well written and well researched.

Actually, while I can't think of a thing I've read published by Llewellyn in the past 15 years, they have started to do things like, oh, not reprint their authors who are guilty of plagiarism (Stephanich.)

However, the incident around the (McCoy's) Witta book, where not one of the GLARING historical errors were caught by the publisher, is shameful.

As big a house as they are, they can afford a fact-checker.

I can think of 20-25 self-published and independent books better than the best of Llewellyn's past 15 years.

Edit: The plagiarism and fact-checking things are very big deals. When Random House or another big press finds these things out people get sued and books get destroyed...authors don't just go "out of print."

If Llewellyn were a publishing co-op (employee owned, works on consensus, authors usually not paid retainers/advances) or a pay-for-publishing outfit, then they would not be expected to fact check...but with contracts comes the expectation of fact-checking.

I would read any book about Wicca you can. Regardless of the author or publisher. All authors have their own insight and no one expects you to believe everything they say. I used to read Silver Ravenwolf when I was younger and even though I don't know there is still a lot I learned from her books. I also read DJ Conway and learned many things. I wouldn't discriminate against an entire publisher just because of a few bad eggs.

I would read anything you like, and just understand there will be bias by some authors, and some that you won't agree with.

As there are a few that are universally disliked, I would tend to go with those most recommended first.

I wouldn't dismiss a publisher just because they publish other books, any more than dismissing a record label because they chose various artists.

Saying that - I haven't found a decent book by the Gideon society yet.

answer: In the early days of Wicca Llewellyn was the only publisher that would print books on Wicca. Then it got popular and Llewellyn started (and continues) to publish anything by anyone and they lost credibility.

DJ Conway is a woman and she's one that has written several books that were fluff, poorly researched or downright wrong. The only good thing her books: Celtic Magic and Norse Magic are good for is kindling. Yes, I've read her books.

Raymond Buckland has a lot of faults (including being star-struck when his book became popular). I don't recommend all of Buckland's books. I do think his Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft is a good resource (better than Silver Ravenwolf).

The concern regarding Llewellyn for many, is that a good number (some would say the vast majority) of the authors are poor scholars, and the same miss-information is printed repeatedly in Llewellyn books.

Honestly if you want solid books on Traditional witchcraft, Asatru or Druidism, they have almost nothing to offer.

However, If your interest is Wicca, I feel there is still a great deal of value in many of the books they have published.

Not to mention that it was Llewellyn that made so many books on paganism available to a mainstream audience.

Just don't take everything you read as "fact" and research as far and wide as you can.....and you should be fine.