Customer Reviews

What's the Deal With Wicca?: A Deeper Look into the Dark Side of Today's Witchcraft

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(24)

 

 

Obviously the author didn't do any direct research into Wicca, or he would have found out right away that true witches do not do dark magic, as they believe in the law of threefold, and that everything one does comes right back to the person doing it. Kind of like what Jesus said about DO UNTO OTHERS. This is clearly a biased right wing Christian author who wants to turn people away from a spiritual tradition that is far less violent than modern Christianity, and that is taking people away from traditional religions in droves because it is a beautiful, earth based tradition that honors women, children and all living things - something Christianity DOES NOT.

1. Not all Wiccans are Witches. (Practice Wicthcraft)
2. Not all Witches are Wiccan. (Practice the Wiccan Religion)
3. We do NOT worship the devil, the devil is a Christian concept and has no place in Wicca.(Unless said Wiccan is also, Christian. Which is perfectly acceptable) Satanism is not a branch of Wicca for the same reason.
4. We have a "Do unto others" rule which extends to animals as well.
5. Wiccans practice tolerance. (Something many people should learn to practice themselves.)
6. We are an aultruistic religion.

There are so many other facts, and things that people should know about some religions before making decisions about a persons religion. As with any religion there are people that are associated with it that are less than desirable, but you can not judge a religion as a whole based on a few bad seeds. (i.e. Muslins, Christians, Catholics)I don't believe anyone should bash anyone elses religious beliefs, or badger them about the way they choose to believe. Do more research on any given religion before making any sort of determination about that relgion or subject. That means read more than one type of research material. If you want to find out something about anything, look outside of the box. Of course, if you read only materials against a topic all of your information will be negative. I am tired of people and their judgements based on one sided information. We are all people and we all deserve to be treated as such with all of the respect anyone of any race, creed, color, gender, or religious affiliation. By all means educate your children about different relgions, but do it in a manner to where you have all of the facts both pros and cons from many sources. Religion being a highly personal thing causes many debates, step back and let your children and others decide which religion is best for them. Never push any of your beliefs on others it doesn't help your cause and only makes the person to turn away more. For example my grandma used to litterally drag my mother to church every sunday, kicking and screaming. My mother practices no religion and is not very religious at all and she says it is because of her negative experiences being a christian. It's sad but it happens.

I found this book to be very narrow-minded and full of bogus information (I am being nice by using that word to describe what the book contains). This book IMHO, was written by someone who, rather than do research into the truth of alternate religious beliefs simply jumped on the bandwagon of religion bashing. I was raised Catholic, made my Holy Communion and attended Church every week, made my confession, the whole lot. Quite honestly, if I wrote a book on my problems with Catholicism than it would sound very similar to this book and make people afraid to be Catholic. That doesn't mean that ALL Catholics are bad people. The same could be said of those of "other" religious views. Note to all Christians--You are NOT the one people on this planet, and it IS OK for others to believe differently than you do. That does NOT make them "devil worshipers". I feel this book is a poison to the truth! If you want to "warn" your children about alternate beliefs, then EDUCATE them with REAL FACTS! We really don't need anymore religious bigotry in this world...come on people take your Saviors teachings to heart! In case you forgot-peace and love thy neighbor, not peace and love thy neighbor ONLY IF they think like I do.

This book is basically a rehashing of every objection that Christians have ever come up with about Wicca...

As for the claim that is was well researched? Maybe if he had bothered to read more than one or two books and call himself an expert... This book is far from the "truth", and far from an accurate portrayl of this religion. To reccomend this book for any family, Christian or otherwise, would be to reccomend a blatantly written out of context pile of half-truths and outright lies that isn't worth the trees that got cut down to publish it...

First, ths is the same book as his book on teen Wicca, just the passages have been rearranged.]
Secondly, the author makes a pretense of knowing about Wicca and Neopaganism, but his own born again bias of " all other faiths are deceptions of satan" and " all other religions are false" messages reeks throughout the pages. This is more to uphold a Bible doctrine than to actually INFORM about Wicca. The "tone" of " love" reminds me of sweetening a poisoned drink.

As for the reviewer who mentioned " anti-Christian bias", how about anti-nonchristian bias? The " message" counched in " love" is a disguise for the same old distortions and intolerance of other religions Wiccans like me have seen for years by evangelical Christianity. To cry " anti-Christian" bigotry in response to our criticism of dreck like this is to blind oneself to why we object to books like this. Just as a Jewish person would object strongly to an anti-semetic book claiming to " inform" about the Jewsih faith and a black person objecting to a book claiming blacks are inferior, Neopagans and Wiccans object rightly books like this one for its misnformstion, distortions and lies.

Carl McColman's book " When Someone You Love is wiccan" is a far better book. Don't waste your money on Russo's book and its duplicate.

This so called "expert" wrote nothing more than a re-worded transcript from a witch trial. It's presented as narrow minded now as it was centuries ago. Mr. Russo you should be ashamed. You have taken a beautiful, accepting religion and bastardized it to fit your own clouded vision. You've completely misrepresented Wicca and all it stands for.

The title says it all, "the Dark Side of Today's Witchcraft." This author is unfortunately following in the footsteps of ill-advised and uneducated evangelical Christians, spouting off all sorts of negative and totally incorrect information as if it were the gospel truth.

I have nothing against Christianity. It is a beautiful system of belief as Jesus taught it. Evangical Christianity, however, is a sad excuse for religious and social bigotry. For the Christian reveiwer who essentially said, "Accept my religion," I must say I don't think anyone who wrote a review has anything against Christianity. It is Mr. Russo under attack, not the reviewer or Christianity. It is Mr. Russo who is sadly misinformed and who more than likely garnered an unfortunately large audience of ignorant people seeking proof to uphold their ignorant state.

I wish the Christian reviewer well. May you continue in faith, hope and love on your path. And always remember that among faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is love. (I Cor. 13) If we could all simply remember that, then no one would have to tolerate or be misled by the religious slurs in this book, nor waste the beautiful trees that gave their lives so it could be written.

I was brought up evangelistic Christian, I was forced every sunday to go into church where "SOME" were turned away.At a very young age I saw such unjust intolerence for other people and thier belief systems, example:All who are not "BORN AGAIN" will go to hell.Unfortunately it was that attitude that was so common within the church, and not the actual teachings and love for christ that turned me away.I do not descriminate about the teachings of Christ only of the fact that MANY BUT NOT ALL Christians believe all who are not Christian will not be welcomed by god.

I simply cannot and then could not understand why only christians who belonged to the same series of churches could go to heaven and all others were going to burn in hell.As a very young person I made up my mind that I could not be apart of an organization with such prejudice and overwhelming and sickening
,self righeouness.I however never abandoned my faith in jesus christs love but decided to learn more about these other religions that in the evangelistic church I was told were "EVIL" and wrong.

Upon my research I found that most religions are based on a higher being often called upon different names only because of difference in location and language, in wicca there is a god and goddess however they are only represenatives as different sides of a whole.In every aspect of life there is a male force and a female force one cannot exist without the other and neither can life.Wiccans believe that the Divine spirit is within everything and all so revere nature, and show a great respect to all creatures, rocks , plants , animals , and of course human beings.They simply show the Great spirit or god respect by acknoledging the creation and recreation of all life.

I do not believe that any one religion is wrong or right I believe that religion is man made and therefore imperfect, but I know that one should research the "dark" and "light" side of everything before being capable of coming to a real educated decision.I would also like to point out that whatever is right for one person may not be for another and vise versa, and so it is with ones spirituality.

Now about this book, I read this as I have with many books related to neopagan religions.All I got from it was a great reminder of why I an no longer affiliated with the Evangelists Christian church.It was quite apparent to me that this book was not researched, because I have done my own research.This book was very Biased, and many things that were taken from other books and used as examples were twisted around to reveal something negative when much about Wicca is about living life positively.

Please if you do decide to read this book to gain knoledge on Wicca dont forget to do further reading on the subject before you make up your mind(it is only fair),And remember not all Wiccans use Witchcraft and vice versa.Also try to remember that everything we see on telivision is not accurate or truthful.Wiccans and witches are not learking behind trees in dark cloaks waiting for some poor Christian to put curses upon , and People who claim they are Wiccan or Witch and commit terrible crimes and murders are just psychopaths and nothing more just as the claimed to be Christian cult in Wacco Texas 15 years ago.

I would also like to say something to the teens who are interested in Wicca, If you are searching for a way to get whatever you want without hard work and dedication Wicca is not for you, If you want to harm others because of injustices done to you, Wicca is not for you, If you want to gain attention by wearing all black and listening to death metal,That is not Wicca that is Called "goth Style", and it does not validate any religion it is just a personal clothing choice, and makeup choice, ones religion or lifestyle GOTHIC or otherwise does not REQUIRE one to look any certain way. in my opinion One does not need to alter thier appearance to "BE WHO I AM", in my opinion that is exactly the opposite of being who you are, use your personality,open communication and, intelligence to throw out a better signal of who you are.Of couse feel free to have fun with the way you look if you so choose.

And for Christians, One cannot ever be fully knoledgeable about anything.A few hundred years ago we knew the world was flat,In order to become wise one never stops learning, and thus does not stop with learning about the spirituality your family forced upon you at birth.It continues with the unbiased research of other religions, do not only read about other religions through the authors of Christian writers , that would be stupid.Would you learn anything about politics in a cookbook?If of course you do not want to delve into another belief system , and actually learn what it is about then please do not descriminate against the people whom follow another belief system.That would be like a child insisting that he/she does not like yams without actually tasting them first.

Edited to limit any confusion my first statement about goth may have inflicted upon some

Focus on the Family. That should tell you what kind of review this is. It's written by someone who has an obvious anti-Wiccan agenda. What Russo writes about has nothing to do with true witchcraft.

Ill researched and ill written. Waste of good ink.