There are no atheists in twisters (or: The gods of Oz must be crazy): a theological review of Oz the Great and Powerful

Jewish date:  30 Nisan 5733 (night) (Parashath Thazria‘-Meṣora‘).

Today’s holidays:  Ro’sh Hodhesh (Judaism), Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast for the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law and Feast Day of Rabelais and Feast Day of Francis Bacon Lord Verulam (Thelema), Feast Day of St. Tommy Geogiarides (Church of the SubGenius), Day of Jarl Hakon (Norse Neopaganism).

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There are no atheists in twisters (or:  The gods of Oz must be crazy):  a theological review of Oz the Great and Powerful

WARNING:  THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, STARTING IN THE SECOND PARAGRAPH.

Much ink has been spilled (so to speak) recently by Ozophiles reviewing Oz the Great and Powerful, and a lot of is very accurate.  This includes a review allegedly by the Witch of the West on this blog’s sister blog, Weird thing of the day.  The graphic effects are indeed excellent and completely worthy of Oz.  The writing, while not as good as the effects, is good enough to be entertaining.  But while there is much that is good and many nods towards the literary Oz canon and the famous 1939 MGM movie, one needs to keep one thing in mind when discussing this movie:  it was produced by Disney.  Disney has a reputation for being driven by profits more than by the quest to produce true art—an attitude which produces botched works.

Oz the Great and Powerful is botched in an artistic aspect, because it was the wrong film to produce in the first place.  Oz the Great and Powerful has Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, also known as “Oz” and “the Wizard” as the protagonist, and Oz is absolutely the wrong character to center any prequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz around.  Oz the Great and Powerful starts off and ends with it being very clear that Oz is human and a fraud.  This completely removes the major revelation that the Wizard is a fraud for anyone watching the movies in order—a serious artistic offense.  The writers should have learned this from Star Wars, Episode III:  Revenge of the Sith but did not.  Nothing can truly compensate for this error.

Even ignoring this blunder, centering the film around Oz is a clear violation of the norms set down by L. Frank Baum, the creator of Oz.  As noted in my previous post on this blog about Oz, Baum incorporated ideas of matriarchy and feminism—ideas derived from sources that also influenced Neopaganism—into his works.  He created many strong female characters, and he favored using girls as his protagonists.  Making Oz the protagonist makes it harder to write Baumian feminism; the easy way to write such a story, given that he is the hero, is to give him the lion’s share of successes in moving the plot towards a happy ending.  Thus any other character on the side of good—regardless of sex—is going to look second-class by comparison.  Thus Glinda, the most powerful mortal character in Oz, is noticeably less powerful than how Baum describes her; otherwise she would have no use for Oz at all except maybe as a figurehead—a position any man sufficiently skilled in lying could fill.  As the villains, Evanora and Theodora, can be as powerful as the writers want, so long as Oz can beat them, are both women, it is very easy to interpret this film as having the message that it is wrong for a woman to be too powerful, whether or not that was actually intended.

“The Witch of the West” does a nice job of detailing how the writers further screwed up on its portrayal of women.  Suffice it to say that the result is a textbook example of regression to the mean and fitting the ideals of neither Baum nor his proto-Neopagan sources.  Given that (and how) people routinely poke fun at the portrayals in Disney movies of women, such is (disappointingly) to be expected.  (For examples of poking fun of Disney’s portrayals of women, see “ Advice For Young Girls From Belle”, “Advice For Young Girls From Snow White”, and “Advice For Young Girls From The Little Mermaid”.)

Bucking Baumian proto-Neopagan matriarchy is not the only religious aspect of Oz the Great and Powerful.  The plot can be understood as a religious journey for Oz.  Oz starts off as a flawed man, albeit not a hopeless one.  Part of this is that he is a professional charlatan, practicing stage magic.  Lest anyone think this is necessarily harmless, his audiences—unlike modern audiences—believe his powers are real.  This gets him into trouble when he is asked to heal a crippled girl and he cannot comply.  He also is a serial womanizer, habitually releasing his charms on whatever beautiful adult human female is available without foresight—which creates problems, as he is somehow extremely attractive to women.  He rather guiltily has to turn down one Annie, who is struggling to decide whether to marry John Gale or continue a sporadic relationship with Oz.  He also has to flee to avoid getting killed by a strongman who does not appreciate him having charmed his wife.

Oz escapes the strongman in a balloon, which turns out to be a bad idea, as it quickly gets caught in a tornado.  Vividly animated flying objects with the potential to kill Oz evoke a religious response:  he prays.  Oz’s prayer is a prayer of the saying “There are no atheists in foxholes”:  unfocused and desperate.  He does not specify to Whom he is praying, not even a generic “God”, and he promises little more than to improve and accomplish something.  At this point, he is ready to do anything any god demands, just so long as he lives.  And his prayer is apparently accepted by a god Who expects Oz to make good on his prayer.

The previous king of the Land of Oz, father of the witches Evanora, Glinda, and Theodora, prophesied about the coming of the Wizard.  The Wizard would be named “Oz” and save the people.  Disappointingly, nothing is said of the critical details of prophecy, such as the name of the god in Whose name it was said or how anyone knows that the king had actual prophetic powers and was not delusional—a large theological plot-hole.  (Would it have killed the writers to add in “Thus says the Supreme Maker” or “In the name of Lurline”?)  Whatever the real details are, the prophecy is generally believed, and the arrival of Oz, quite logically, only serves to reinforce the belief.

Not all the characters unambiguously believe the prophecy.  Oz, who was not raised on the belief, is more confused about it than anything else.  While never claiming disbelief, he repeatedly quietly denies he is the foreseen Wizard.  Evanora and Theodora (post-slide into evil) seek to prevent the prophecy from coming true by killing Oz; technically this not require belief in the truth in the prophecy, but removing Oz also removes the possibility that a rebel movement of believers will coalesce around him.  Glinda also is ambiguous about her belief about the prophecy.  She is aware from the moment she meets Oz what sort of man he is (probably by magic or Sherlock Holmes-like perception), and from that moment she charms him into fitting the role well enough to launch and execute a revolution against Evanora.  Whether the prophecy is real or not seems of little import to her.  That her subjects believe the prophecy makes it a lot easier for her and Oz to get them to prepare for battle and fight.  The result, of course, is in accordance with the prophecy:  the revolution, led by Oz as the Wizard, is successful, Evanora and Theodora are defeated and have to flee, and Oz becomes the undisputed ruler of the Emerald City.  

The fulfillment of the prophecy opens a whole theological can of worms.  Is the prophecy genuine, or did Glinda just engineer the fulfillment of a false prophecy?  If the prophecy is genuine, did whatever gods exist have a hand in its fulfillment, or did they just foresee what would happen? 

Along the way to fulfilling the prophecy, Oz does undergo some moral improvement.  At the start of the movie, the only relationship he has which is not exploitative is with Annie.  At first in Oz, he follows his usual pattern—most egregiously by taking advantage of Theodora and then abandoning her without so much as an “It’s not you; it’s me”.  But he also exercises real sympathy, helping Finley the Flying Monkey and the China Girl (despite no hope or desire of a romantic fling with either) and eventually Glinda’s subjects.  Oz also manages to form a relationship with Glinda without exploiting her.  (To be sure, despite her maltreatment by the writers, even in this film taking advantage of Glinda would be hard.  Instead, she is arguably exploiting him.)  Oz even issues a public apology to Theodora and offers her a place in the Emerald City if she finds her “inner goodness”.

On the other hand, Oz’s moral improvement leaves a lot to be desired.  At the end of the day, he is still a charlatan.  He uses large-scale humbuggery to win the war, and he remains a humbug in his capacity as the Wizard even after his victory.  Also, his apology to Theodora is too little, too late; she dismisses it without a thought.  And there is something disappointing in knowing that this “hero” down the line is going to send Dorothy and company to kill Theodora.  This is a horrible thing to do to Dorothy and company, given that if they are crazy enough to attempt it, they will probably get killed, injured, or enslaved.  And it is a horrible thing to do to Theodora, given how badly he has treated her already.

This incomplete repentance makes for some serious question for the unnamed gods of Oz.  If the revolution is really their doing, why did they put a fraud in power?  Why do they let him get so out of hand as to risk people’s lives?  What sort of morals do they hold by if they do such things?  These are not insoluble questions.  E.g., the gods of the Land of Oz may be trickster gods, or they may consider Oz as the Wizard as their best available solution to the Land of Oz’s problems, not an ideal one.  But no attempt is made to answer such questions.

Theological rating:  C-.  (Your humble blogger doubts the planned sequel is going to clean up the mess the writers left.  Note Disney’s Tron Legacy, which does little to answer the unsolved theological questions of Tron.)

Appendix (because your humble blogger cannot resist commenting on things beyond theology and morality):  

1) The way to write a prequel to Baum’s Oz books covering the arrival of the Wizard correctly is to not write it with the Wizard as the central character.  Such a prequel should be about someone young, preferably a girl, living in or visiting Oz at the time of the arrival of the Wizard.  The Wizard might well appear as a character, but never, ever in his true form, only disguised and scaring the heebeejeebees out of everyone in that time of political turmoil, thus avoiding spoiling a major revelation.

2) I would like to note one continuity nod which I have not noticed anyone else mentioning.  As noted above, in the film, one Annie tells Oz that John Gale has asked her to marry her, the implication being that Annie and John will become Dorothy’s parents.   Alexander Melentyevich Volkov created a loose adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in Russian and a series based on it which went off in a different direction from Baum’s books.  The equivalent of Dorothy in that series is named Ellie, and the names of her parents are… John and Anna.  This may not be a continuity nod to literary or MGM Oz, but it does indicate that someone who made this film really was an Ozophile.

3) “Oz” is conventionally translated into Hebrew as ‘Uṣ, apparently repurposing the name of the place ’Iyyov (Job) lived.  But “Oz” is translated into Hebrew in this film as ’Oz.  The name of this film in Hebrew is ’Ereṣ ’Oz (“The Land of Oz”)—corresponding to the conventional shortened title of the second canonical Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz.  Your humble blogger suspects these discrepancies may be due to less familiarity with Oz here in Israel than in the United States.

4) For those who are interested in seeing films which do a better job on certain themes in Oz the Great and Terrible, your humble blogger recommends The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space and Galaxy Quest.  Both films deal with the theme of people forced by their circumstances to impersonate people who do not actually exist and coming to accept the roles, albeit in science-fiction settings rather than a fantasy setting.  Captain Zoom also deals with religious issues, including having some uniquely dramatic evidence that a prophecy is real.  Both are very entertaining and worthwhile watching just for the fun of it.

Review of One Night with the King

Jewish date:  8 ’Adhar 5733 (evening) (Parashath Teṣawweh).

Today’s holidays:  First Sunday of Lent (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Isaac Asimov (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Giordano Bruno the Martyr (Thelema), Quirinalia (Roman religion)

Greetings.

Considering that Purim is a week from now, I would like to give a review on a relevant movie, One Night with the King.

I have been told that I tend to give negative reviews.  Fair enough.  This is Divine Misconceptions, the blog which concentrates on religious fallacies and misinformation.  Thus I often read or watch material containing religious fallacies and misinformation—material I know full well has something wrong with it—and report on it, thus leading to negative reviews.  I am thus happy, for a change, to review a movie based on a book of the Hebrew Bible which I consider done well.

One Night with the King is an adaptation of the Book of Esther, and the people who made it thought a lot about what they were doing, and they took care to go back to the original material.  The basic plot, most of the characters, and much of the dialog are taken straight from the text of Esther.  In doing the work of adaptation, the adaptors were very careful to interpret the original story in a psychologically plausible manner rather than rewrite it.  For example, some examples of interpretation:

• How was Haman descended from ’Aghagh when all of ‘Amaleq was wiped out?  ’Aghagh’s queen, pregnant with his child, escaped.
• Why did Haman hate the Jews so much?  ’Aghagh’s queen passed on a multigenerational grudge.  (That does happen at times.)
• Why was Mordokhay sitting in the palace gates so much?  He was a palace scribe.
• Why did Washti refuse to come to ’Aḥashwerosh’s banquet?  She was protesting ’Aḥashwerosh’s plans to go to war against Greece in revenge for for his father dying in war against them.
• Where was Haman to get that huge amount of money he promised ’Aḥashwerosh in return for being able to destroy the Jews?  He proposed to get it from the Jews by killing them and taking all their money and property; the money would be used to finance the war.

There was a lot of thought put into elaborating on the characters.

• Mordokhay is well aware of the inconsistency between his religion and his remaining in Persia.  (This was a very real problem in the Second Temple Period, when most Jews remained in the Diaspora rather than return to Israel, and the inconsistency is a major problem today.)  He wavers between hiding his Jewishness and taking pride in it.  (This happens a lot today, too.)  
• ’Ester has been blown up into a multilingual, literate, and educated character who wants to run off to Yerushalayim with her boyfriend.  After being conscripted into ’Aḥashwerosh’s harem, in the finest of human fashion, she becomes a writhing mass of contradiction.  She tries to make the best of her situation and becomes romantically entangled with ’Aḥashwerosh.  And she also cannot ignore the politics being worked about her; she has to become involved.
• ’Aḥashwerosh is portrayed as torn between his love of art and learning, on one hand, and on the other hand the need for following protocol and wreaking revenge.  His attraction to ’Ester is not just based on her beauty, but her mind as well.  (He has taste in women and finds less-intellectual women boring.)
• Haman is portrayed not only as carrying on a family tradition of hatred, but also as a master political schemer.  His ultimate goal is to become king, and he is quite willing to step on anyone who gets in the way of that goal.  About the only thing that matters to him other than revenge and political ambitions is family—and his wife Zeresh encourages Haman in his wickedness.  Haman repeatedly gives eloquent political speeches, spreading conspiracy “theories” about the Jews and the Greeks secretly plotting to destroy the Persian Empire.  He comes off as a truly evil and dangerous villain.

Are there inaccuracies in One Night with the King?  Yes.  For example:

• ’Aghagh’s queen passes down to her descendants a symbol which is a variant on the swastika.  While this is an obvious reference to the Nazis, the swastika did not originate with anti-Semites and has been used by a variety of cultures throughout human history.
• The anachronistic use of the swastika is balanced by an anachronistic use of the hexagram (Star of David, Shield of Solomon) as a symbol for the Jews.  Until Jews adopted the hexagram in the 1800s, it was a geometric and magical symbol.
• ’Ester probably did not have a boyfriend before she was abducted.  The concepts of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” do not appear in the Hebrew Bible at all.
• The Book of Esther makes no mention of the conscription of young men to become eunuchs.  Thus the undesirable fate of ’Ester’s boyfriend in the film probably never happened.
• ’Ester in this film claims to have read The Epic of Gilgamesh in the original.  Your humble blogger is under the impression this may be anachronistic.
• Haman is unaware that the names of the months are not Jewish.
• In the film, it is repeatedly claimed that the Greeks practice democracy, as if this were a universal for them.  Your humble blogger is under the impression that Greece in the ancient world, at least before Alexander the Great’s conquests, was a collection of city-states with a variety of styles of government.
• ’Ester’s fast is too short, and she only has one feast in the film.

However, none of the inaccuracies are large enough to make much of difference in an overall story which largely follows the original Book of Esther.  As such, they are for the most part forgivable.

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron

Proto-Neopaganism in Oz

Jewish date:  27 Shevaṭ 5773 (evening) (Parashath Mishpaṭim).

Today’s holidays:  Feast Day of Paul Miki and companions (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Tlaloc (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

I have decided to put off writing about The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know?  These movies/books are eminently worthy of criticism, and the way the magic espoused in them is supposed to work does resemble that of Neopaganism and LaVeyan Satanism.  However, The Secret properly belongs to the New Thought movement, and What the Bleep Do We Know? is a product of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment.  As such, discussing either properly requires a sizable amount of research which would be a major tangent away from Neopaganism.  The Secret also requires (or would prompt) digressions into the worlds of Chicken Soup for the Soul and Conversations with God, the authors of which appear in the movie.  As such, I deem them worthy of review at a later date.

Current reading more directly related to Neopaganism is going slowly, so please be patient.  I have read a little from The Key of Solomon, a classic grimoire which is cited as one of the sources for Wiccan ritual.  (And it certainly reads so far like something Gerald Gardner was cribbing from in writing High Magic’s Aid.)  I am also reading The Book of the SubGenius, a sacred text of the Church of the SubGenius, a parody religion connected with the Neopagan denomination of Discordianism.  (It’s also sufficiently disturbing that I want to get it over with.)

In the meantime, I would like to note Finding Oz:  How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story by Evan I. Schwartz.  This is not a book about religion per se, but rather a book about how L. Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  This includes not just his personal history and the state of society in the United States at the time in general, but also religious influences.  One of these was Theosophy, a religion which was having its heyday in Baum’s day.  (Those who have read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West will remember that the Wizard in that story was a Theosophist on a mission from Madame Blavatsky.)  Another was Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu monk who spoke at the Parliament of the World’s Religions at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and became popular for a time.  I hope to discuss Theosophy and Hinduism in the future, and thus I will not discuss them now, especially since I still have a lot to read of even basic Hindu literature (which is extremely extensive) and everything to read of Theosophical basic literature.

So what is there left to discuss from Finding Oz now?  Consider that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900, and society in the United States back then was noticeably different than it is today.  Today it is generally assumed in the United States that women are equals of men and have the same rights (despite problems in implementation), thus leading to Republican politicians making themselves look really bad whenever they dare to suggest anything appearing otherwise.  This assumption of equality was not a foregone conclusion back in Baum’s day, which was decades before the era of women’s liberation.  Baum happened to live at the time of the suffragette movement of Susan B. Anthony and company, which sought to obtain the right to vote for women.  And his mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage, was a leading suffragette.  Gage did not just break with common expectations for women at the time; she also broke with Christianity.  Not only did she embrace Theosophy as an alternative, but she also embraced... the pseudo-history of matriarchy, the idea of witches as “wise women” and Christian persecution of witches.  Please note that The Sorceress, Aradia, and the first edition of The Golden Bough had already been published, so these ideas were available already to be embraced.

These ideas rubbed off on Baum to the extent that they showed up in the Oz books.  This is not limited to Baum having a thing for strong female characters (Dorothy, Glinda, Ozma, Betsy, Trot, Scraps, etc.).  While Baum generally kept religious references in his books to a minimum, everyone is aware that Oz has witches.  (Gratefully, he avoids the cliché that witches are all evil or its inverse that they are all good.)  Dorothy Gale is told when she first visits Oz that Oz has witches, because it is an uncivilized country, the implication being that in civilized countries—such as the United States—witches are persecuted.  Both Glinda and the Witch of the North are definitely “wise women”, providing sage advice and help, especially the former throughout the series.  All four countries in Oz are ruled by women (specifically witches) when Dorothy first visits, and while there are male rulers after that, in The Marvelous Land of Oz a girl, Ozma, becomes ruler of all of Oz, a position she retains even in the works of succeeding authors.  Also note that Baum avoided the psychologically unrealistic equation of making all female rulers automatically good and all male rulers automatically bad, e.g., the Wicked Witch of the West is a terrifying dictator, and her replacement, Nick Chopper the Tin Woodman, is much beloved by his subjects.  (Baum still has plenty of fans today, and with good reason.)  Granted, the proto-Neopagan ideas were never taken to the extent of Aradia or The Golden Bough (e.g., Glinda never goes dancing naked in the woods, worshipping the Fairy Queen Lurline and doing something inappropriate with a warlock, and she most definitely does not murder a Quadling consort every year), but some of the basic ideas which later inspired Neopaganism are really in there.

(Now all I need to do is figure out how to tie Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Peter Pan into religious fallacies and misinformation...)

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron

Notes on 2 Corinthians + Paul's Neopagan-like thinking

Jewish date:  21 Shevaṭ 5773 (Parashath Yithro).

Today’s holidays:  Friday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Chronos (Church of the SubGenius), Candlemass/Festival of Light (Ritual of the Elements) (Thelema), Imbolc (Neopaganism).

Greetings.

I really need to find more time to work on my blogs…

Progress on reading the New Testament is slow.  Koinē Greek is a complex language, and Paul loves to wax poetic in it.  Included below is my latest installment on the New Testament, my notes on 2 Corinthians, for what they are worth.  Paul has not gotten any more rational or lucid.  If I can tie this in my series on Neopaganism, I get the impression that while Paul was a monotheist, he was thinking a lot like a Neopagan.  As recorded in Acts, Paul had a vision of Jesus, and the emotional effect on him was so powerful that he was an instant convert.  The emotional effect was so powerful that it took days for him to recover enough to interact with other humans.  By virtue of his vision, Paul believed himself an apostle, and he went off on his own vision of Christianity, one different from that the people who knew Jesus believed and practiced.  Very much like Neopagans, Paul put an emphasis on having a strong emotional experience over following formal rules.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

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2 Corinthians 1:1-2—Introduction.  Paul maintains that he is a God-chosen apostle of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 1:3-11—Comfort from Jesus.  Subtext of persecution.

2 Corinthians 1:12-2:4—Paul seems to be attributing a change in plans to God and Jesus, as well as not grieving the Christians of Corinth.  Emphasis on faith.

2 Corinthians 2:5-11—Paul preaches love and forgiveness of sinners.  Paul seems to think of himself as an authorized forgiver.

2 Corinthians 2:12-17—Paul went looking for his brother Titus.  He also waxes poetic about those preaching Christianity having the “aroma” of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 3:1-6—Paul uses the metaphor of people being letters from Jesus written with the Spirit.  Paul promotes antinomianism, claiming “the letter kills”.

2 Corinthians 3:7-18— Paul continues promoting antinomianism, claiming the Torah as bring death and his antinomianism of the spirit as bringing righteousness.  (As if YHWH did not want us to do what He actually told us to do.)  Exodus 34:34 might be cited, misquoted and ripped out of context.

2 Corinthians 4:1-18—Paul uses the metaphor of unbelievers being in darkness.  He cannot understand that they might have good reasons for doubting that there is anything special about Jesus and claims that “the god of this age has blinded” them.  Paul complains about persecution, casting the persecuted Christians (persecuted even unto death) as working in the same mode of the persecuted Jesus.  Cites Genesis 1:3 (botched) and Psalms 116:10 under the delusion that they are relevant.

2 Corinthians 5:1-10—Paul mixes metaphors, talking about being clothed with a heavenly building.  He seems to be talking about an eagerness to go to Heaven.

2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2—Paul speaks about living for Jesus rather than oneself and becoming reconciled to him.  Cites Isaiah 49:8 in botched form and out of context.

2 Corinthians 6:3-13—Paul readily accepts persecution.

2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1—Paul encourages separation from unbelievers, identifying the believers with the Temple.  Cites something which might be a botched version of Leviticus 26:12, Jeremiah 32:28, or Ezekiel 37:27, a fabricated quote, and a botched version of 2 Samuel 7:14.

2 Corinthians 7:2-16—Paul seems to be happy, because the believers in Corinth are such wonderful people.

2 Corinthians 8:1-15—Paul promotes love and generosity, citing Exodus 16:18, which is completely irrelevant.

2 Corinthians 8:16-9:5—Paul praises Titus and notes him being sent.

2 Corinthians 9:6-15—Paul encourages the believers to “sow” and “reap” generously, citing Psalms 112:9 unbelievably and incorrectly.

2 Corinthians 10:1-18—Paul defends his ministry, somewhat illucidly, but seeming to think that he has some sort of authority and power.  Cites something which might be a botched version of Jeremiah 9:23 irrelevantly.

2 Corinthians 11:1-15—Paul seems to be encouraging his followers to form a strong emotional relationship with Jesus, drawing on the frequently sexual symbolism for the relationship between YHWH and Bene Yisra’el in the Hebrew Bible.  Paul thinks of himself as equal to the apostles.  He accuses at least some of his opponents of being “false apostles”, bringing up Satan as a precedent.

2 Corinthians 11:16-33—Paul boasts about all the suffering he has undergone.

2 Corinthians 12:1-10—Paul relates someone who had an ecstatic vision.  He also talks about having a thorn in his flesh and interpretting it completely in theological terms rather than as something to be dealt with by removing it himself.

2 Corinthians 12:11-21—Paul asserts again that he is not inferior to the apostles and expresses concern for the Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 13:1-10—Paul cites Deuteronomy 19:15 in slightly botched form and irrelevantly to try to add more authority to his visits.  Paul claims that Jesus is “in” the Corinthians and encourages people to strengthen themselves in faith.

2 Corinthiatns 13:11-14—Paul sends his final greetings.

Review of ten Neopagan books

Jewish date:  7 Shevaṭ 5733 (Parashath Bo’).

Today’s holidays:  Friday of the First Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Martin Luther (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

I am finally getting around to posting something on a whole slew of Neopagan (mostly Wiccan) books, finishing up what I have for Wicca in print.  These are not ideal reviews, but this post has been put off too long so far.  After this I get to worry about pre-Neopagan magic, such modern magic as The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know?, Discordianism, the Church of the SubGenius, and various other surprises.

The reviews follow below

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

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The Sorceress (La Sorcière) by Jules Michelet (Michelet):

This pseudo-historical book, originally published in French in 1862. draws upon accounts of witch trials.  All the clichés found in the work of Margaret Murray, Charles Leland, and Gerald Gardner are present in abundance and luridly to the extent that any movie made of this book would have to have at least an “R” rating.  The Christian clergy and nobility are presented as being irredeemably corrupt.  This is emphasized for the priesthood, dwelling extensively on sexual abuse of nuns.  The peasants are downtrodden to the point where they are totally miserable, are rarely able to get married, and frequently resort to abusive incest.  The peasants, in their desperation, also resort to Satanic witchcraft, likewise depicted scandalously.  This book is useful as an example for how witchcraft was depicted back around the time Gardner was putting together his Book of Shadows.  As a representation of what actually happened, it comes off as if Michelet committed the logical fallacy of cherry-picking:  choosing the material which suited him—in this case, anything and everything smacking of sexual impropriety—and ignoring everything else.  Since all the characters are evil, desperate, or crazy, the book comes off as unbelievable.

Drawing Down the Moon:  Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and Other Pagans in America Today by Margot Adler (Adler):

Anyone who wants to know about Neopaganism needs to read this book.  This is a genuine academic work, looking at what Neopagans actually believe.  Ms. Adler not only took a survey of the views of Neopagans, she did it twice.  Your humble blogger has the revised and expanded edition.  And what she turns up in the interviews, over and over again, is the real key to understanding Neopaganism.

Abrahamic religions put an emphasis on truth.  For example, Christianity hinges on the question of whether Jesus is the Messiah.  Thus the New Testament, especially the Gospels, spend a good deal of verbiage arguing that Jesus is the Messiah.  If he is not, then there is no point in being a Christian.  

Neopaganism, to the best of your humble blogger’s knowledge, never works like this.  There has been a good deal of arguing over whether there is any truth in the historical claims of Robert Graves, James Frazer, Margaret Alice Murray, and Charles Leland, but one will look in vain in the Neopagan works your humble blogger has read for any rational reason to believe in the Triple Goddess and the Horned God.  What one finds in abundance throughout Adler’s book, on the other hand, are emotional reasons.  People who convert to Neopaganism do so because it resonates with them.  They have had deep emotional experiences in response to paganism and have decided to adopt it as a lifestyle.  Some come to paganism through study.  Others have visions of various gods and goddesses.  And almost incredibly, some people play-act paganism for one reason or another and have such a powerful emotional experience that they become pagans.

How participants feel affects every aspect of Neopaganism.  They believe what resonates with them, even if the “belief” is what they act as if is true rather than what they actually think is true.  If polytheism resonates with them, then they are polytheists.  If duotheism, they are duotheists.  If belief in just a single goddess resonates with them, then they believe in just a single goddess.  Likewise, they do what resonates with them for rituals and magic.  If they enjoy Gardnerian rituals, then they perform Gardnerian rituals.  If they prefer rituals practiced by historical pagans, they do that.  And if they prefer to make up their own rituals, they do that, since whatever gives them a spiritual high is important.  The religious stories (“myths”) they tell are what resonate with them, be it genuine historical pagan religious stories, the pseudo-histories already discussed in this series, or brand-new stories which fit their tastes, or science-fiction.  Their moral/ethical behavior is also what resonates with them, which can be liberal or conservative, egalitarian, female supremacist, focusing on men, ecologically oriented, politically active, politically neutral, or just about anything else one can imagine.  So they end up creating such unusual-sounding groups and ideologies as the Church of All Worlds, the Reformed Druids of North America, Feraferia, Ásatrú, and Discordianism, and they go off in all sorts of unforeseen directions.  And since how one feels is all they consider important, many Neopagans indulge in whatever misconceptions they like without critical thinking, even if outside of religion they are fairly rational people.

Also in this book are some ideological discussions, a disdain for Christianity, rationalization that polytheism is somehow inherently more moral or otherwise better than monotheism, some talk of the predominant Neopagan theology of pantheism (belief that everything that exists is divine), and trying to subsume all Neopaganism (and sometimes even more) into a single, unified ideological framework.

The Witch’s Bible by Gavin and Yvonne Frost (Frost and Frost The Witch’s Bible), The Prophet’s Bible by Gavin and Yvonne Frost (Frost and Frost The Prophet’s Bible) and The Magic Power of White Witchcraft by Gavin and Yvonne Frost (Frost and Frost The Magic Power of White Witchcraft:  Revised for the Millennium):

The Witch’s Bible happens to have been briefly reviewed by your humble blogger before this blog was founded (Adelman).  Unfortunately, his evaluation of it has not improved.

The Frosts are the founders of the Church and School of Wicca.  The School of Wicca runs a correspondence course, and thus naturally much of the material in these books instructs the reader how to practice magic and this version of Wicca.

The Church of Wicca is theologically unusual, to the point where some wish that it would not be labeled as Wicca at all.  Its doctrine is that there really is only one god, but in its rituals participants pretend there are two.  There is also a lot of theological emphasis on “the Other Side”, which is inhabited by the dead, who are progressing in their spiritual development and occasionally contact the living.

While Neopagans commonly practice ritual magic—which does get its fair share of discussion—these books push magical and irrational thinking to unusual levels and in a new direction; they are largely about how one can develop one’s psychic powers, and they are full of pseudoscience.  These books also deal extensively with magic as a form of self-improvement; one can read in them about how to use magic to increase one’s income, get what one wants, and rearrange one’s life for the better.  Intermixed with this is more traditional financial and career-development advice.  As such, these books come off as less spiritual or religious than many other Neopagan materials discussed in this series.

While Neopagans seem to be in general more sexually permissive than traditional Christians, the Church of Wicca actually mandates sex magic and regular swapping marriage partners.

Like Neopagans in general, the Frosts seem rather annoyed by Christianity and continue the tradition of botching Hebrew and Qabbalah.

A Witches Bible Compleat (Eight Sabbats for Witches and The Witches Way) by Janet and Stewart Farrar (Farrar and Farrar):

This is an extremely serious ritual manual and series of essays on Wiccan magic and theology.  The Farrars practice Alexandrian Wicca, one of the early offshoots of Gardnerian Wicca, and they worked with Doreen Valiente, one of Gardner’s high priestesses, to research the textual history of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows.  (Valiente actually wrote parts of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows.)  This is thus a useful book for anyone wanting to know about the origins of the Book of Shadows; it was not handed down intact, but rather was compiled from a number of different sources, and parts were written from scratch.  

The Farrars are not even vaguely rational people.  Their “rationale” for Wicca is philosophical, without the least bit of evidence to back it up.  They mix together anything from older religions which suits their tastes, factual or fictional, whether or not the combination actually makes sense.  They are also no more accurate in general than the Neopagan authors whose works are reviewed in this series.  They buy into Gardner’s doubtful pseudo-history of witchcraft and matriarchy, and like Gardener they love bashing Christianity over (real or imagined) crimes.  Like Gardner and the Frosts, the Farrars buy into pseudoscience constantly, unable to distinguish that which is supported by evidence from flimflam.  What separates them from the Frosts is the lack of financial and self-help advice, and a tone that many will find downright creepy.

This book should prove very useful for anyone wishing to study the practice of Wicca.  It may also prove useful for those looking for a peek into the minds of serious Wiccans.

A Wiccan Bible:  Exploring the Mysteries of the Craft from Birth to Summerland by A.J. Drew (Drew):

Mr. Drew does not appear to be a major figure in Wicca.  You humble blogger acquired his book only because he is aware of a large number of “Bibles” other than the Jewish and Christian ones, and he is collecting them for the Divine Misconceptions project.  Mr. Drew presents his own system of theology and ritual for Wicca, and much of what he writes can be found in other sources.  However, he goes into depth presenting a creation story, unlike other writers, and he takes a truly unique approach.

When trying to write a religious text, writers tend to take one of two paths:  either they present their text as something handed down to them, or they present their text as a work of scholarship.  The Wiccan works reviewed for this series tend to take one or some mixture of both these paths.  Mr. Drew takes a third path:  he blatantly claims he made up his own creation story.  While many people try to pass off something fabricated as something meant to be taken seriously, Mr. Drew is honest that he is simply making up his own story.  While this approach can work well when writing parables, Mr. Drew transparently cobbles together his story from the stories of previous religions and genuine history, actually having paragraphs giving the purported original stories.  The effect is to make for tedious reading and no aura of respectability that a (real or purported) transmitted text or a (real or purported) scholarly text might have.  The effect is even worse when one is familiar with any of the sources he draws upon and can recognize that he is fudging.  Since Mr. Drew is blatantly making things up, there is no point in him bringing sources, especially when he cannot be bothered to get them right.

This tedious “cobbled” approach is carried over to discussions of theology and ritual, as if any older religion’s tenets were evidence of Wicca (Mr. Drew’s version or otherwise).  Actually, it gets worse, with long lists of the gods (and purported gods) and holidays of numerous older religions.  How accurate any of this is unclear; for example, Mr. Drew is intent on finding polytheism in Judaism and Islam, in complete disregard of the fundamentals of Judaism and Islam.  Your humble blogger has no trust that Mr. Drew got anyone else’s religion right.

This book is for the Wiccan literature completist and the scholar of Wicca.  Almost everyone else can skip it.

The Wicca Bible by Ann-Marie Gallagher (Gallagher The Wicca Bible:  The Definitive Guide to Magic and the Craft) and The Spells Bible by Ann-Marie Gallagher (Gallagher The Spells Bible):

Like Mr. Drew, Ms. Gallagher does not appear to be a major figure in Wicca either, with her books also acquired for your humble blogger’s “Bible” collection.  While Ms. Gallagher seems to have some sort of academic credentials, they do not show in her books, which read like she is on a spiritual high due to Wicca, untempered by critical or analytical thought.  Practically everything in these books can be found elsewhere, only packaged with a plethora of color photographs and careful typography.  The main reason to read these books is the photographs.  Otherwise they can be safely ignored.

Witches’ Craft:  A Multidenominational Wicca Bible by Bruce K. Wilborn (Wilborn):

There is a bit of the history and theology of Wicca in this book, with the author buying into historically questionable claims of a secret witch cult persecuted by Christians.  There is also a section on how to perform divination and work magic with herbs.  However, the most interesting thing about this book is that it details the rituals of many distinct denominations of Wicca.  As noted above, Neopagans change their rituals in order to get the desired emotional experience, and Wiccans are no exception.  This book lists the variants of each ritual, one after the other, allowing easy comparisons.  This book is probably more useful for scholars of Wicca and Neopaganism than other people.

Bibliography:

Adelman, Aaron Solomon. “Beware of the Surprise Narrator.”  (2009).  [http://weirdthingoftheday.blogspot.co.il/2009/08/beware-of-surprise-narrator.html].

Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon:  Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today. 1979. Revised and expanded ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Print.

Drew, A.J. A Wiccan Bible:  Exploring the Mysteries of the Craft from Birth to Summerland. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books, 2003. Print.

Farrar, Janet, and Stewart Farrar. A Witches Bible Compleat. New York: Magickal Childe Publishing, Inc., 1984. Print.

Frost, Gavin, and Yvonne Frost. The Magic Power of White Witchcraft:  Revised for the Millennium. Paramus, NJ: Reward Books/Prentice Hall, 1999. Print.

---. The Prophet’s Bible. York Beach, ME: S. Weiser, 1991. Print.

---. The Witch’s Bible. Los Angeles:  Nash Publishing Corporation, 1972. Berkley Medallion ed. New York: Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1975. Print.

Gallagher, Ann-Marie. The Spells Bible:  The Definitive Guide to Charms and Enchantments. Hampshire, UK:  Godsfield Press Ltd., 2003. Cincinnati, OH: Walking Stick Press, 2003. Print.

---. The Wicca Bible:  The Definitive Guide to Magic and the Craft. London: Godsfield Press, 2005. Print.

Michelet, Jules. The Sorceress (La Sorcière). 1939.  [http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/sor/index.htm].

Wilborn, Bruce K. Witches’ Craft:  A Multidenominational Wicca Bible. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2005. Print.

The Fast of Ṭeveth and the non-end of the World

Jewish date:  10 Ṭeveth 5773 (Parashath Wayḥi).

Today’s holidays:  Fast of Ṭeveth (Judaism), Fourth Sunday of Advent (Roman Catholicism), Saturnalia and Larentalia (Roman religion), Feast Day of St. John Belushi (Church of the SubGenius), HumanLight (Secular Humanism).

Greetings.

1) Today is the Fast of Ṭeveth, which commemorates the siege on Yerushalayim.  More information can be found in “Asara B'Tevet” and “Fast of 10th of Tevet Marks Siege of Jerusalem”.  Needless to say, because of the fast, I am not particularly active today and will not wax poetic on anything.

2) Friday was supposed to be the end of the World according to various New Agers and a Christian sect known as “Almighty God”.  Also needless to say, these people were wrong.  The articles on the “Mayan apocalypse” did not stop, so today you get a followup.

• “'Mayan day of apocalypse' arrives”
• “Celebrations in Mexico as world survives Maya "end of days"”:  Not everyone who believed that Friday was something special thought it was the end of the World.
• “Denver sirens are just a test, not doomsday signal”:  Your humble blogger cannot make this up.
• “End of an era: Mayan 'apocalypse' today”
• “Hot spots draw believers, but not doomsday”

Peace and have an easy fast.

’Aharon/Aaron

Still waiting for the end of the World

Jewish date:  8 Ṭeveth 5773 (Parashath Wayyiggash).

Today’s holidays:  Feast Day of Peter Canisius (Roman Catholicism), the end of the World (predicted by New Agers), Winter Solstice (Neopaganism, Thelema), Divalia (Roman religion)

Greetings.

I did post yesterday on the predicted end of the World which is supposed to be happening today.  However, I have been deluged with a large number of relevant articles on the “Mayan apocalypse”, with reactions ranging from paranoia to commercialism.

• “Newtown, Mayan end-of-world rumors prompt Michigan officials to close 33 schools”.  (Some side-effects of the phenomenon are not so amusing or harmless.)
• “Maya "end of days" fever reaches climax in Mexico”
• “Mexico's ethnic Maya unmoved by 2012 "Armageddon" hysteria”.  (It is the New Agers promoting this idea that today is supposed to be the end of the World, not the actual Mayans, and, yes, they are still around.)
• “More Iowans prepare for Maya doomsday, other disaster by stockpiling food, supplies”.  (I suppose a little disaster preparedness cannot hurt.)
• “New Agers, partiers fill Riviera Maya region for Dec. 21, 2012”
• “Germans get ready for Mayan apocalypse”.  (Some people are using the alleged end of the World as an excuse to party.)
• “In Mexico, New Agers hope Dec. 21 brings new era”
• “Italian village aims to survive Maya prophecy”
• “Mayan apocalypse mania grips Russia”
• “Mayan apocalypse: believers flock to Serbia's pyramid mountain”
• “Russia Doomsday Party At Soviet Bunker Costs $1,000 Per Person”
• “Mayan calendar aside, end times theology has meaning for many Americans”
• “Mexico seeks 'end of world' Maya tourism boost”
• “Almost 1,000 doomsday cult members arrested in China”
• “Argentina, fearing Maya-linked suicides, closes mountaintop”
• “Brands Capitalize on the 'Impending Apocalypse'”
• “December 21 Mayan Apocalypse Observances Fueled By Mysticism And Internet”
• “French village prepares 'to be spared the 21-12-2012 Maya apocalypse'”

Finally, I would like to round things out with a bit of relevant religious humor.  A while back there was a cartoon from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:



This cartoon has been recaptioned into something relevant to today:



Peace, Shabbath shalom, and be happy this is not the end of the World.

’Aharon/Aaron