Customer Reviews

Origins of Modern Witchcraft: The Evolution of a World Religion

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This an awesome book to read and I will recommended to anyone who is interested in wicca and witchcraft.
heather lynn keesling

The contention of this book is that the images and concepts within the Craft, such as the Horned God and various Goddesses, owe their origins to the civilizations of the Indus Valley and the expansion of Indo-European culture into Europe. The problem with this theory is that Neolithic cave drawings appear in western and southern Europe, depicting the horned god image, long before contact with the Indus Valley civilization or the Sarasvati River culture. While there appears to be some influence in Celtic iconography related to Hindu deity images, this would have come after the Neolithic concepts that arose and pre-existed in Old Europe, and therefore Hindu deity images cannot be the "origins," but would instead be simply later influences. Another problem with this book is that it views European witchcraft as something both created by, and unique to, the Celts. However, the earliest writings concerning witchcraft in Western culture appear in Greek literature circa 700 BC, some 400 years prior to Celtic contact in the Aegean/Mediterranean region. Literature/references related to witchcraft in Celtic regions do not appear until well after the Roman occupation of Celtic lands, circa 600 AD. So we a basic problem with chronology, which is a serious flaw that weakens the argument throughout this book.

This book is another curious example of how Westerners continue to seek their spiritual roots in other cultures. It is unfortunate that Westerners cannot simply embrace their own spiritual roots, which are found in the cultures rooted in Old Europe.

When I first saw this title, I was intrigued. When I read the book, I was dismayed.

Moura's "Origins" is one of the worst books I have ever read on this subject. It is poorly organised. The author's historical theory is weakly, if ever, supported by factual evidence (the author indicates in the preface that her readers might find such things dreary). She ignores recent scholarship in her "bibliography," listing almost nothing published within the last decade, which has been rich in Neolithic research. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect is the religiously inflamatory pseudo-historiographical ranting, often presented in the first person and interspersed within the chapters at irregular intervals.

Frankly, as both a Wiccan priestess and a historian, I would encourage readers to leave this one alone.

This is a must-to-avoid book.

which is why I give it a three. On the negative side, I was dismayed at the lack of footnotes, I found some of her arguements weak, and felt it was wishful thinking in some areas. Ms. Moura was stating her opinions as fact with no research to back it up. At times, she herself states that some ideas can't be proven, but then goes along with a train of thought that has already been shot through with holes due to lack of evidence. If she chooses to have the book go through another edition, I would like to see more archaeological support for her theories.

On a positive note, she presents alternative ideas that are incredibly interesting and thought provoking. For example, the prevalence of the Horned God seated in the same position in many different civilizations, the names of many gods and goddesses which share the same root word, and the prevalence of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone in different societies. I found that some ideas were so intertwined and resurface in many different cultures, that to dismiss them as trivial would be an error, for me, the reader.

To sum up, take what you can from this book. Use it as a jumping off place for more research. Make sure that you realize prior to reading it, that these are *theories* not proven facts, and you will be fine.

I was reading some of the earlier reviews of this book and can't believe someone would rank it higher than one star. Obviously, they hadn't bothered to research some of Ms. Moura assertions to see how they hold up against archeological proof.
If Ms. Moura had presented this work as a working personal theory of hers it might not have been so bad. But she puts forth unproven and unprovable theories and goes to state everything afterwards as fact. She even claims that the Dravidians taught the Sumerians how to write. Not only is there no outside proof of this, but recent discoveries in the tomb of King Scorpion revealed proto-heiroglyphs, which means this system of writing pre-dates Cuniform by roughly 100-200 years.
To add further insult to injury, when Ms. Moura isn't spewing her pseudo-history she's busy slamming Christianity as the root of all evil. Childish doesn't even come close to describing these portions of the book.
I'm only glad that I borrowed this book from a friend and didn't pay money for it. Do yourself and your wallet a big favor and pass on this one unless you want over-priced kindling because that's about all this book is good for.

While I make no claims to extensive knowledge of the Indus Valley civilization and it's branches of cultic practices, I found Moura's latest offering to be a laugh in the scholastic department. As a Greek Reconstructionist, I expect certain standards on books claiming an historical or "origins" angle, and Moura simply doesn't deliver them.

A complete lack of endnotes coupled with serious flights of fancy and wishful thinking, this "historical" book should be entitled "My Beliefs of the Origins of Modern Witchcraft." The misinformation surrounding Hellenic/Minoan-Mycenean deities is stunning (Hekate as the Goddess of Eroticism?? The Snake Goddess of Knossos being labeled as an unnamed Hindu deity?? There's more, but I lost track.). The author's claims that the Indus Valley civilization understood the speed of light when presented with no source material goes beyond the bounds of fantasy.

The most disturbing part of this book is the author's repeated attacks on other religions...virtually none (including most of neo-paganism) is spared, and I walked away with a very bad taste in my mouth.

For a book being billed as an "origins" offering and authored by an individual who has a master's degree in history, this is a most disappointing study. My advice is to skip this book. The claims are more than slightly outlandish, the scholarship is seriously lacking, and the inclusion of rituals and meditations really have no place in a book claiming to be of the "origins" variety.

Ann Moura tends to bash too much in this work for my taste. Not only does she bash many Judeo-Christian beliefs, but she bashes other traditions of Witchcraft other than her own Green Witch tradition. The theories, however, of how religions are entertwined, that belief systems can usually be traced to related origins are very interesting and intriguing. I think I've learned more about ancient civilizations (on the surface) than I did in HS history class.

The first two chapters are a complete bear to get through. If you can make it past that, you'll be OK. Very heavy in the dates and ancient geography that you've probably forgotten.