Origins of Modern Witchcraft: The Evolution of a World Religion [Paperback]

Ann Moura (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2000

In The Origins of Modern Witchcraft author Ann Moura, a practicing Witch and historian, makes a sweeping tour of more than 5,000 years of religious and cultural history. She studies the evolution of concepts such as original sin, and the Tree of Life, the relationship between cermonial magick and Wicca, and much more. This is an evocative account of Wicca through the ages, the evolutionary story of an ancient religion, and an uncensored account of Wiccan history.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Modern witches devote themselves to evoking and guiding the forces of the natural world to the benefit of humanity. Moura, a high school history teacher, is a practicing witch who has written several books on the practice of witchcraft and its nature-oriented spirituality. Here she goes a step further and tries to show that Wicca derives from the faith of the ancient Dravidians of the Indus Valley. She argues that Dravidian-like religions spread through all of south Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa. Eventually, though, Aryan conquerors overwhelmed the Dravidians of India and replaced the goddess based faith with the orthodoxy of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In the end, her arguments, while both well presented and well organized, are unconvincing owing to too many logical and factual errors. For instance, we do not have enough knowledge to claim that the Druidism of Celtic Europe clearly derived from the Dravidian faith of the Indus Valley; Latin and Aramaic have never been "sacred languages" for Christians, though they have been liturgical languages; the name Christ is not the Aramaic form of the name Krishna; the New Testament never taught a belief in reincarnation; and the Knights Templar were not trying to restore Aryanism in Europe during the Middle Ages. And so on. Not recommended.AJames F. DeRoche, Alexandria, VA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"To find the lost heritage, identify its threads, and trace those threads back to the present, we need to go as far back in our history as we currently can-to our beginnings." - author Anna Moura"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 1st edition (October 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567186483
• ISBN-13: 978-1567186482
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #844,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly researched, illogical "theorizing", December 31, 2001

By 

Barbara A. Fisher (Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Origins of Modern Witchcraft: The Evolution of a World Religion (Paperback)

This is one of the most poorly researched books on the subject of the origins of modern Witchcraft I have ever read in my entire twenty plus years as a practicing Witch. Moura calls her ideas a "theory," however, I would consider them to be at best, a weak hypothesis. A theory must be supported at least in part by factual evidence. Facts are not broadly evident in this work.

For example, this author's explanation as to why the Holocaust occurred fly in the face of all of the reputable Holocaust research I have ever read that was written by actual historians. She explains that Hitler had to terminate the mentally ill, the Gypsies, the Slavs and the homosexuals because they were a threat to his establishment of a new Arayan Pagan society.

The explanations that actual historians give for these killings generally has to do with Hitler's ideas of racial purity, and a society where all members exhibit qualities which are uniformly of service to the Reich. Gypsies and Slavs were killed because they were a threat to racial purity; the mentally ill and homosexuals were killed because they were considered to be a drain on social resources, and they either could not or would not do what a good Arayan must do: help create a master race by procreating and toeing the party line.

Somehow the historians' points of view on this issue make more sense to me, considering they are supported in large part by the offical records of the Third Reich itself. Moura gives no such primary source material to support her "theory." Her sources are not footnoted to show that there is one ounce of evidence to support her "theory." Therefore, to my mind, her ideas are nothing but fantastical speculation of the worst, and most uneducated, kind.

In addition, the author has a photograph of a "Hindu Snake Goddess" on her altar. It is a replica of the famous statuettes of the Cretan goddess or priestess who has snakes twined about her forearms. Last I checked, the Cretans were not Hindu.

Throughout the book, the author makes the very common mistake of believing that correlation proves causation. Just because there are linguistic and mythical similarities between cultures spanning the ancient Indus valley through Celtic Europe does not indicate that there is some unbroken line of belief throughout the centuries.

If anyone wants to read a real book on the real history of modern Witchcraft that happens to have been written by a historian, take in hand Ronald Hutton's excellent work, "The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft." It is dense with fact and historical veracity, but well worth the time and energy spent in reading it. It will contribute much more to an understanding of our modern Pagan beliefs than any amount of "creative theorizing" or whatever you want to call the words within Moura's work.

25 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A "Feel Good" Book Perhaps ... but NOT Good History!, March 8, 2001

By 

"gwydionoak" (Elkhart, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Origins of Modern Witchcraft: The Evolution of a World Religion (Paperback)

A lot of Pagans have, it would seem, a desperate, deep-down need to "legitimize" their religion, especially in the face of frequent attacks by fundamentalist Christians. Ann Moura has delivered a book that meets that need. What Pagan, after all, would not feel good to learn that we are not only "the Old Religion," but in fact THE Old Religion...and everyone knows "older is better", right? She claims that "European Witchcraft hearkens back to the worship familiar to the people of the Indus some 30,000 years ago...(I guess that puts "modern" upstarts like Jesus, Buddha,Laotze etc. who have only been around a few thousand years firmly in their place!). What is touted to be an "uncensored history of Paganism," however, is anything but history. It is a fascinating exercise in "wishcraft" and a fun read, but definately not to be taken seriously.

Origins of Modern Witchcraft is basically a reworking of and a considerable addition to the alternate history (or "herstory" as a Dianic acquaintance of mine once put it) first presented by Margaret Murray in 'The Witch Cult in Western Europe'and 'The God of the Witches,' Murray's thesis put forth the concept of a uniform, Goddess worshipping religion which existed in Europe from nearly stone-age times until sometime around the 16th or 17th century. Moura herself places the cradle of Wicca and modern Paganism in India and the Dravidic civilzation of Sind, a peaceful communal society who, she claimed worshipped the God and Goddess. She then paints a picture of how invasions and the interference of largely patriarchal religious founders and leaders launched a calculated attack on this peaceful world and caused the religious and societal mess we have today.

While Moura is careful not to directly mention Murray's work, which has been thoroughly discredited by actual historical research, she does cite the work of several of Murray's strongest supporters, such as Merlin Stone (When God Was A Woman) and Marija Gimbutas (The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe.) Not only does she present a truly unique version of history, but also provides rituals and spells for the reader to do while reading the book - presumably to confirm the truth and accuracy of the material presented.

While I am personally a firm believer in the idea that history has been written by the winners and that all historical accounts must thus be taken with a grain of salt, Moura's presentation departs so far from credible historical research that it moves at several points from "alternative history" to the simply absurd.

The most interesting part of this book for me was the selective...oops, selected bibliography. It's not so much the books she included, but rather what she left out. In the last few years a number of solid historical works on Pagan Europe and the modern NeoPagan movement have been published. Some of these, such as A History of Pagan Europe were written by Pagans who are firmly committed both to their spiritual path AND historical accuracy. Others like Contemporary Paganism : Listening People, Speaking Earth by Graham Harvey & The Triumph of the Moon by University of Bristol Professor Ronald Hutton are academic works which have made invaluable contributions understanding the actual origins of the modern Pagan movement. None of these were included, as they present a very different - and historically more accurate - view of Wicca's origins - a new yet fully valid and relevant religion for our time, which drew upon recent and some truly ancient material for its inspiration.

Moura does makes a most relevant and important statement at the beginning of her book (Intro - xiv) when she writes "By understanding from whence we have come, we can determine where we will go, and the path to true religous freedom is through knowledge of the past and hope for the future." How ironic that Origins of Modern Witchcraft fails so totally in this purpose.

15 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Well-intentioned but confusing and ahistorical, April 12, 2001

By 

happydogpotatohead "happydogpotatohead" (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Origins of Modern Witchcraft: The Evolution of a World Religion (Paperback)

I hoped for a good exposition on the history of Paganism and Witchcraft. Instead, I got a book that was very typical of what Llewellyn is releasing these days. Ms. Moura's idyllic view of the Indus Valley civilizations is not accurate, and does not agree with the archaeological evidence. It isn't possible, from the archaeological evidence, to determine exactly who or what the Mohenjo-Daro civilization worshipped or believed, nor is it possible to say how they lived. In fact, one structure that Ms. Moura identifies as a "temple" is believed by a great many archaeologists to be a public bath. This kind of pick-choose-&-fabricate interpretation of archaeology is the kind of stuff that frankly makes Wiccans and Pagans a laughingstock among serious researchers. Ms. Moura's interpretations of archaeological evidence get more convoluted and peculiar from that point, and evolve outward into pure fantasy by the middle of the book.

Other reviewers have pointed out the more specific flaws in the history and science of this book. I was disappointed to note the innumerable typos, typical of Llewellyn books, and even clumsy grammatical errors that made parts of the book impossible to interpret - or to take seriously.

At one time, the Llewellyn symbol on a book meant something, and in their back catalogue Llewellyn has a great many triumphs of publishing in the Pagan/Wiccan/Occult field. Unfortunately, in recent years, the desire to make money has taken hold at Llewellyn, and they have published a great many books that are unreliable, full of errors, and even dangerous, not to mention badly edited and poorly written. It is terrible to see how far down Llewellyn has fallen in their pursuit of the almighty dollar. Although Ann Moura seemingly means well and does not obviously mean to misguide or misinform, "Origins of Modern Witchcraft" is more of a work of fantasy than fact. If Llewellyn continues to publish books of this poor a quality, they will erode what little credibility they have left in the Pagan/Wiccan community. It would be a shame to see that happen. But it's also a shame to mislead and misinform people by publishing inaccuracies and outright fantasies about Wicca and Paganism, so perhaps the loss of credibility is the price you pay for sacrificing integrity for money.