188 of 207 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Pagan's Encyclopedia?, July 30, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Paperback)
When Barbara Walkers The Womans Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets was published, The Los Angeles Times called it a feminist-scholars gold mine and a browsers delight. The San Francisco Chronicle called the book a mountain of scholarship, a vast mass of supremely documented material. The praise seems to be well-deserved. After all, Barbara Walker spent over twenty years researching the topic, distilling valuable information and deriving insights from hundreds of books and documents. I am therefore surprised at the very scathing criticisms of the book presented at the Readers Reviews section of Amazon.com. To understand this, there are at least two possibilities. The first possibility is that the scholarship of the book is genuinely poor(and the LA Times and the San Francisco Chronicle reviewers did not do a professional job). Another possibility is that such negativity is a reflection of the unspeakable anger one feels when ones long-held beliefs and values are shaken.
Certainly, the encyclopedia does not offer any orthodox or politically correct views. Barbara Walker is not a crowd-pleaser. She does not have too many complimentary things to say about patriarchy, Christianity or the Church. I see the primary value of this book as a bold and unabridged documentation of the historical struggle between the sexes and between the religion of Goddess and the patriarchal religions. Walker does not shy away from controversial or uncomfortable topics. She does not self-censor. She is not afraid to talk about the darker side of Christian historyits intolerance of other religions, its appropriation of pagan myths into Christian theology, its conversion of pagan festivals into Christian ones and its demonization of Goddess and sex.
I have had the book for a few years now. I must say that it has really opened my eyes. The book captures so much informationso many facts, speculations, conjectures, myths and legends that one simply cannot find in any other popular encyclopedia. Are there any error, omission or bias in this work? Probably. But no scholar is completely free of criticism. In the several years of owning the book, I have checked its accuracy on quite a few occasions. This book has stimulated me to do my independent research into history, anthropology, the pagan religions and other disciplines. I am happy to report that I have found no major error. More specifically, the general picture that Ms. Walker paintsthat of the political struggle between the patriarchal religions and the pagan religions, that of the Churchs role in entrenching sexism in the West, that of the Churchs vilification of the Goddess and the sacredness of sexis largely accurate.
On the other hand, I have engaged in several dialogues with other readers who are critical of this work, people who believe that Barbara Walker have been erroneous or misrepresenting the facts. I have spent many hours examining disputes and cross-checking for accuracy or factuality. What I find is that these critics are often much less knowledgeable of the subject matter than Ms. Walker and that their criticism is often a result of their ignorance or ideological bias.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in mythology, women study and the history of religion. Yes, this book, just like others, has imperfections. But as long as we read with a critical mind, this book can be invaluable source of information and research tool for Christians and pagans alike.
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54 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
this book introduced me to freedom, January 15, 2002
This review is from: The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Paperback)
this is the book that I first read about 7 years ago when I was hopelessly entrenched in a Christian Fundamentalist Cult and did not have a clue. I don't care if her footnotes and bibliography are accurate- it started me thinking. It was my first forbidden taste of feminism and paganism. It freed me from three generations of bondage and 34 years of personal slavery. Since reading her book I have found happiness, wisdom and liberty. Even if she happens to be biased or non-scholarly as some critics claim- it does not matter! Her information was fresh and life-affirming and it started the ball rolling for me! I have never again just taken someone's word for anything--I check everything now and I KNOW what I believe now with the ammunition of knowledge to defend it if I must. I could not do that before. I did not even want to! Her book changed my life, really it SAVED my life. If you read it only to prove her incorrect, read it! You will never think about things in the same way again...but beware! you will never think about things in the same way again.(or in other words--do you want to swallow the red pill or the blue pill?)
Ravyn
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146 of 181 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
More fantasy than fact, October 23, 2003
This review is from: The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Paperback)
There are a lot of people who want to believe this book is an accurate source of information about mythology and history. Wishing does not make it so. Some of the reviewers claim that the only reason people say bad things about it is that they are trying to defend Christianity and are closed-minded because of their faith. I am an atheist and mythology scholar who has no faith to defend, and I still think this book is pure nonsense. It appears to me that Walker's supporters are the ones doing it out of faith and dogma and refusing to face facts.
As others have pointed out, all you need to do is follow her footnotes. It may look impressive when she makes three statements in a paragraph and cites three references to back her up, but it's a lot less impressive when you actually have those books and they don't say at all what she claims they do. I've done it (I have a large library of mythology books), but so can you. Go to a library and pick a few to look up. You'll probably be shocked at the differences in what she claims those sources say and what they really do. The only ones that I have found so far that seem to be at all similar are a handful of others also in the neo-pagan movement (Graves, Stone and Gimbutas being the main three).
Here is just the highlights of a few of many errors in just one entry:
"Mara
Exceedingly ancient name of the Goddess-as-Crone"
The first sentence isn't even done yet and already it's got the crone theory that she tries to push on everything (none of the figures of Mara have anything to do with crones) and capitalizes the term for religious purposes. And, to top it off, all but the relatively recent (last 500 years or so) references to characters named Mara say that Mara is a male figure, not female. So this exceedingly ancient name isn't a crone and isn't even a goddess.
Then we have: "The gypsies, with their traditions rooted in Hinduism, knew Mara to be the death goddess who trapped the soul of the Enchanted Huntsman in a mirror and caused his death--" I bought the book she references, guess what... Mara in this relatively recent fairy tale is a gypsy girl, not a goddess. The one doing the magic is the Devil (called as such, the typical Christian male one). Mara loved the huntsman and didn't want him to die. Walker's summary of it doesn't accurately describe the tale at all. Her description of it ends: "a myth that paralleled ancient Pelasgian stories of the death of Dionysus" (in another reference in the book she outright calls Mara's huntsman "Dionysus" and doesn't claim it's a parallel but the exact figure even though it's more than a thousands years later and the wrong country -- the book isn't even internally self-consistent). If you look up the Dionysus myth that she conflates the gypsy folklore with, you'll find that they aren't related at all, except by the loosest of wishful thinking interpretations.
And then later in this entry she references supposed related goddesses like Mari, etc. that *no other source anywhere* (excepting those who borrowed from this book) has any records or even hints at. A lot of the entries are like this, in that they talk about feminine names that were never thought of as goddesses by any source out there, but she assumes they must have been because of her bias and a lot of twisting and misunderstanding of linguistics.
And that's just one entry. Researching the other things she writes about turns up just as many errors and outright distortions. She'll mention a specific moon goddess, reference an obscure 100-year old book in her footnote to support it, but looking it up shows that the original author was talking about a moon god, not a goddess. She'll talk about a trinity of Egyptian goddesses but actual research shows that they weren't thought of as such. It's so bad that I have not yet found a single entry in the entire book that doesn't have at least one major error, and it's usually several per paragraph.
I have nothing against pagan beliefs, and I think they are probably one of the most healthy religious faiths that exist. Pointing out that this book is horrible isn't attacking a belief system, it's attacking incredibly flawed and biased research. There are enough real historical goddess beliefs that nobody should have to make them up if they want to look to them for personal growth and religious faith. It's too bad that Walker was so insecure that she felt the need to twist everything all around, and it's even more of a shame that some people feel the need to defend her. Walker was wrong, which doesn't make paganism or feminism any weaker. You are only weak if you insist upon basing your own personal self-image upon the delusions of a highly discredited author.
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