Customer Reviews

The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets

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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.

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

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.

I picked up this book in 1987, and was quite excited at first. My own research, however, quickly proved "The Encyclopedia" to be highly unreliable as a jumping-off point of feminist/pagan scholarship. A small amount of digging into B. Walker's sources will immediately prove how little research actually went into this work. The actual sources cited in Walker's footnotes frequently don't support her suppositions, and her etymology is just plain fanciful. She seems to feel that, if one word sounds like another word, they must necessarily be related. Ouch!

Check this out for yourself. Pick a few entries, then look up all of the footnotes in your local university library. How many of Walker's sources have ANYTHING to do with the subject in question, let alone support her theories? It's a disappointing, but necessary, exercise for anyone determined to see "The Encyclopedia" honestly.

Enjoy this book for its empowering (and fun) ideas, but don't place any weight on its "scholarship". It's a house of cards.

One of the most frustrating books I have ever read. It reminds me of that old adage, "When all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail." In this case, the hammer is some kind of generic goddess that the entire world's people, no matter how culturally different or geographically removed from each other, are presumed to have worshiped. The author writes as though every story, every historical event, every major religion was somehow the result of shifty eyed, evil-minded men conspiring en masse to erase the memory of the supposed primordial goddess and to suppress her natural priestesses, the women of the world. And if you think that sounds silly and far-fetched, you should read some of the topics in this book!

"The Woman's Encyclopedia..." views the history of the world through goddess-colored glasses that bend the scenery to suit the wearer's fancy. Simple, logical interpretations and well-documented evidence have no place if they point to any answer other than "goddess". The book is so peppered with illogic that it is easy to pull up nonsensical examples at random. Since it is about "Myths and Secrets," let's take two examples from the M chapter just for fun, starting with "Mama".

We'll begin with "why mama is a word understood in nearly all languages", to quote the book's publisher. Hmmm... Could it be because it is the easiest word to say? Or is it because, as Walker tells us, it is "Title of the Great Goddess Ma, or Mama, the world's basic name for mother's breasts."? Having said that, the author launches into a string of goddess name dropping that has nothing to do with the language of babies, unless babies are born knowing about Hindu goddesses and Mesopotamian "creatresses".

What's under "Mammon"? The first sentence says mammon is "the medieval demon of commercial acquisitiveness, whose name meant riches." The author then puts on her seven-league boots and leaps to the Middle East, where we are told "...the original meaning of this name was the rich outpouring of the Great Goddess's inexhaustible breasts (mamae), which nourished all her children." Really? "Mamae" is Latin, so the author must have missed the Middle East and leapt to Rome by mistake. She continues: "Babylon named her Mami or Mammitu (Mother), the biblical Mamre. Some Sumero-Babylonian scriptures called her Mammetun the mother of destinies." Maybe I missed something, but what's the connection between money, breasts and destiny? But it just keeps getting sillier: "Jesus's precept, `Ye cannot serve God and Mammon' (Luke 16:13) meant a choice between God and Goddess, in a time when her temples were richer and more magnificent than his." By whose account? And where were these temples, in Jerusalem? (Recall that Jesus is addressing an audience of monotheistic Palestinian Jews). And how did the goddess connection creep into a sermon on the evils of money? Indeed, the following verse (Luke 16:14) says, "The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus." It seems these particular Jewish priests were really in love with a Babylonian goddess.

Of course, by this time Walker has strayed so far from any semblance of history, biblical storytelling or simple logic that we almost forget she began by telling us "Mammon" was a Medieval demon. If that's the case, how is it that Jesus was sermonizing about a demon that wouldn't be invented until the Middle Ages?

The author continues: "The Gospels demanded that her shrines be destroyed and her wealth taken away in an obviously jealous attack on the `Many-breasted' Goddess `whom all Asia and the world worshippeth' (Acts 19:27)".

Not only has the author inserted quotes around "Many-breasted" so as to make it appear to be part of the actual verse (which it isn't), she has launched an attack where none is warranted. In Acts 19:37, the city clerk of Ephesus (whom Acts presents as a defender of the goddess Artemis), tells the Ephesians who have captured the Christians, "You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess." The command for Christians to destroy and loot pagan temples clearly comes from Barbara Walker, not the New Testament.

Creating connections where there are none, inventing facts and ignoring the very sources she cites are tactics Ms. Walker employs with disturbing regularity in her book. Case in point: as we continue with the next sentence under "Mammon," Walker writes, "Like the Oriental Goddess Earth (Artha, "riches"), she stood for material wealth because her temples had a great deal of it and her soil was the ultimate source of all."

What oriental Goddess Earth? How was the connection made with Artha, since the word "earth" has a different derivation? Walker has now mysteriously connected money with soil. I'm surprised she didn't use this later in her book to invent a goddess-derivation for the terms "filthy lucre" and "dirt cheap".

As a reference book, "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" is about as reliable as "Chariots of the Gods". After all, the author creates connections to ancient goddesses the same way Erich Von Daniken created connections to ancient astronauts. In a rare fit of accuracy, Ms. Walker unintentionally summed up her own book when she wrote in the chapter on Religion:

"To purvey an unenlightened education, teaching myths as if they were facts, is another abuse of cultural communication". Amen to that.

As a classically educated archaeologist, historian, mythologist and linguist, I can attest that Barbara Walker is an impeccable scholar who obviously put an enormous amount of time into thoroughly researching and understanding her subject matter. She has reached far back into time and, through painstaking analysis, recovered lost and suppressed information that is invaluable to the enlightenment of the human species and the recovery of the role of women. She makes very few mistakes and is abundant in her references.

The criticisms of her work found on this "review" page are unfounded and specious. The "critics" themselves are obviously not scholars or academics, nor are they mythologists. Most likely they are religionists who are defending their faith. Walker's work, in the meantime, needs no faith but is based on sound reasoning and science, including the historical and archaeological record, which bears out her assertions quite abundantly.

I highly recommend this book to any and all who wish to know the hidden truth behind "modern" religions, which have their "pagan" roots in the hoary mists of time. Indeed, this book reveals the unity of human culture, reminding us that we are one planet.

Acharya S Author of "The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold" Member, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece

Walker does distort some fact and sometimes she doesn't write with complete accuracy. She has some far fetched ideas but I consider them good. Why, you may ask, I consider far fetched, inaccutare ideas good? Because they are different than what we are used to hearing and because they question the status quo. This book makes you think and even for some gives them a push to follow her sources and dig up more information. An accurate scholarly book is a treasure. But I believe that a controversial book that makes you search deep to find out information on your own and actually think is a bigger treasure because it challanges you. Take this book with a grain of salt but don't dismiss it entirely. The book does have its highlights and while you try to decifer what is good and what is not you will learn more than you ever bargained for.

As someone who has a passion for mythology, I was quite excited about The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Unfortunately, as any careful reader versed in mythology and/or history will soon discover, this "scholarly" book is actually a collection of supposition, opinion tossed off as fact, flights of fancy, and misinterpreted quotations (many from spurious sources). Indeed, the book is so full of supposition and error that hardly a page is left unblemished.

The author seems more interested in pushing a radical feminist agenda than in presenting and analyzing myths and historical facts. She consequently creates a history for which there is little or no evidence, and one in which there is a woman lurking behind every rock and tree. The author invents her own etymological system as proof that a god worshiped in one corner of the world must have originally been a goddess from another corner of the world--never mind that one may have been in Rome and the other on a south sea island! Her word play often becomes so silly as to be almost insulting to the reader's intelligence. Example:

Mare Nostrum: "Our sea," or "our mother"; Roman title of the Mediterranean, or "middle-of-the-Earth Sea." All seas were maria, "Marys," symbolized by the Goddess in her blue robe, sometimes a mer-maid (literally, Sea-Virgin) often named Aphrodite Marina. See Mary."

Huh? What a jumble of nonsense! Where did the mother connection come from ["Mother" in Latin is mater or genetrix]? Also note how "mare" (sea) jumps to maria (?) and from there to "Mary". Of course, the Biblical Mary "the Goddess in her blue robe" takes her name from Miriam, but facts don't matter when you're goddess hunting. And where mermaids enter the picture, I don't know.

Speaking of Biblical, the author very obviously holds a strong disdain for the church and her words often border on vitriolic. She even goes so far as to let Nero off the hook and blames the burning of Rome on Christians. In fact, the depraved and insane Nero was the first to offer this explanation (much as Hitler blamed Germany's woes on the Jews) and the Romans, rather than buying it, ran him out of town.

To the author, Christianity is simply another anti-woman myth, but her attempts at proof often fail miserably because of her poor scholarship. When she isn't missing the obvious point of a verse, she's making up new "facts" to support her thesis. For example, on page 470 she states that "..Herod also made a sacred marriage, and had John the Baptist slain as a surrogate for himself." Nowhere in the New Testament does it state that Herod "made a sacred marriage," and John the Baptist, as every Sunday school child knows, was killed at the request of Salome [who isn't named in the Bible, but is named by the ancient historian Josephus] as a prize for her dance. Indeed, the entire chapter under "Jesus Christ" is so full of errors that it would take an entire essay to debunk them all. For example, the author proclaims that the darkness during Jesus' crucifixion mentioned in Luke 23:44 was caused by an eclipse, though Luke doesn't say that and no other source for this opinion is cited. Having established this straw man "fact" of an eclipse, she then delves once again into Christian bashing: "In their ignorance of astronomical phenomena, Christians claimed that the moon was full at the same time."

Ever on the lookout for nefarious woman-suppressing Christians, the author is willing to misinterpret just about any Biblical story or verse that comes her way. In a well-known story from Mark, Jesus curses a fig tree for not producing fruit for him out-of-season (meaning that Christians are to be ever watchful for the coming of their lord and willing to bear spiritual fruit at all times). But the author ignores the obvious to further her own agenda, stating that "The story probably was intended to express hostility to a well-known goddess-symbol." [p.307]

In another chapter, she claims that Revelation 1:8 ["I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.] was originally a reference to Medusa (!). The path by which she arrives at this preposterous conclusion is so convoluted as to be almost comical [see "Medusa", p. 629]

Of course, when she isn't Christian bashing, the author is male bashing, and the practices of any society deemed as "patriarchal" are condemned carte blanche. Ancient Greece and Rome are favorite targets, and their statesmen and gods are treated as usurpers. Even the months aren't spared. Thus August is no longer named after Caesar Augustus, as history records, but for "...the oracular Juno Augusta." [p.79] January is no longer named for the god Janus (god of endings and beginnings) but for Juno [p. 461]. Then, in typical fashion, the author plays yet another silly name game to "prove" once again Christianity's pagan, goddess-usurping role in all this: "[Janus] was another form of the Petra, pater, or Peter, keeper of the keys to the Goddess's Pearly Gate."

To fully debunk this book would require a volume three times the book's size and I am already nearing the 1000-word limit for a review. Suffice it to say that The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets is so full of mistakes, fallacies and distortions that it borders on being a hoax.

--John Mitchell

Walker has produced a mammoth work of scholarship, and it's very interesting to dip into, but try to sprinkle a dash of salt over the entries. She has an obvious feminist bias, as would be expected from the title, but this is refreshing after reading works with a patriachal bias - every researcher has their own slant on things after all!

In reading this book I came accross some errors (a few things that I happened to know for certain), which I assume crept in because it is such a huge work - she has attempted to cover the entirety of feminine mythology and ancient history in one work.

Christian readers may find this book offensive, as it seeks out pagan roots behind basic Christian beliefs, but others will probably enjoy it for its different ideas.

Although I agree with the other critical reviews of this book in that it is unscholarly in the extreme, I encourage the reader to decide for him/herself. One needs only to check Walker's references to see her credibility evaporate. Dig into an article, check the references, look up the passage to which she refers and see if it matches up. I've found that in a majority of instances, Walker takes *extreme* liberty in interpreting material, takes material out of context, or blatantly invents "facts" to support her perspective.

My area of expertise is Mary Magdalene, so naturally, that is the article in this book that I am most qualified to critique. One of the texts she quotes as historical fact is actually a book of *legends* about Christian saints from the 13th century ("The Golden Legend," Jacobus de Voragine), something that should *never* be used as a source of factual information. She often quotes Marjorie Malvern, author of "Venus in Sackcloth," but in most cases either misquotes or takes comments completely out of context. Don't let the fact that some of her sources are out of print discourage you - dig until you find the truth for yourself. That's what library cards are for. If your library doesn't have her source, ask about free interlibrary loan. You can do this! Decide for yourself!

Barbara Walker's book should be, if anything, an excellent exercise in critical thinking on the reader's part. Find a topic on which you are well informed and read the corresponding entry. I'm certain you will find that she has twisted your area of interest into an unintelligible, unsubstantiated mess.