November 14, 2001
Review: Phyllis Curott's Witchcrafting
by Barbara Fisher
Having gone to one of Phyllis Curott's workshops at the Starwood Festival, and being generally impressed with the way she spoke, I have been looking forward to the release of her second book, Witchcrafting: A Spiritual Guide to Making Magic. The book is generally quite good, written in the same engagingly conversational style as her first book, Book of Shadows. Just as she promised in her workshop at Starwood, this is a book about "Witchcraft without rules," which is an interesting concept that has great potential for great good, but also runs the risk of being used for a great amount of personal gain by unscrupulous people.
That said, I did enjoy the interesting theological concepts she brought forth and articulated in this work. Far too many new tomes on Wicca and Witchcraft tend to be of the recipe/spellbook variety wherein directions are given for rituals that promise certain outcomes to the practitioner if they follow the instructions letter for letter. Or, they tend to be poorly researched rehashes of the works of Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente, Scott Cunningham and others, with lots of speculation and confabulation masquerading as "authentic ancient wisdom" from some Celtic or other European country through some dubious family link or another that the author has dug up or cooked up.
This book is nothing like the above, thankfully. This is a work that doesn't only give us the how, when, where, and who of practicing Witchcraft, but most importantly, Curott gives us the whys of the Craft. She shows us why we should do a ritual at a certain time or season, why we call on the elements as we do, and why magic works at all. This alone puts the book far ahead of most of the garbage that lines the metaphysical sections of major bookstore chains.
She does include exercises and spellwork throughout the book, as it is meant to be a work that is not only theoretical, but a practical guide to assist a beginner or even an advanced practitioner get in touch with the Divinity that is immanent in everyone and everything around us. There are some very effective techniques described in these exercises, and most of them revolve around self-transformation, with an eye toward personal growth, a mainstay of Wiccan practice since the publication of Starhawk's The Spiral Dance, twenty years ago. Energy work and movement are also emphasized, as well as divination.
There are some problems, of course. Not many, but they do stand out, since the rest of the book is so well-written and presented, that as I would read along, small errors would leap out from the page as if they had suddenly come alive and done a tap dance before my eyes. On one page, she states that Wicca is the only religion in the Western World that has a Goddess that is worshipped equally with a male God. This caused me to sputter, and not only because she seems to be using the word, "Wicca," which to me denotes a single religion in the more general religious grouping of Neo-Paganism, to refer to all of Neo-Paganism. That was bad enough. But in that sentence, she dismisses plenty of other religions in the west, such as the Native American religions, the West African diaspora religions of the Caribbean, Latin America, South America and North America, and the practitioners of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism and Taoism who have either settled in North America, or who converted to these religions in North America.
On the next page, she then puts the lie to her own words when she lists the goddesses White Buffalo Woman, Kali, Tara and Yemaya, not as divinities from the religions she blithely forgot to mention in her former statement, but as Wiccan. Excuse me?
I am not saying that Wiccans cannot revere any of these Goddesses or work with their energy but to ignore the religions from which they came and then call them Wiccan is blatant cultural imperialism of a rather ugly kind. I say it is ugly, because it was done so blithely, so easily, as if it was tossed off the top of her head in passing, without thought for the implications of the statement. Practitioners of Native American religions, in particular, already have issues with New Agers appropriating and misrepresenting their spiritual paths, so they don't need a respected Wiccan priestess jumping onto the wannabe bandwagon and proclaiming one of their most sacred Goddesses, White Buffalo Woman, as Wiccan. That, to me, is completely unnecessary and damaging to both Wicca and Curott. I suspect that she isn't insensitive to this issue, and I wouldn't want to portray her that way. However, I think that she just didn't think about it.
The other bit that I found disturbing was in a grief ritual that she was advocating as a spiritual practice. One of the most interesting parts of Curott's philosophy and theology is that she advocates that Wiccans learn from nature, rather than from books. Fine and eloquent advice indeed, especially for the many urban Pagans out there who "love Mamma Nature, so long as she doesn't get too close." Many a lesson I have learned about karma and consequences by observing the natural world, and when I explain Neo-Pagan theology to people, I often use examples from nature. In this ritual, which she says should take place by a natural body of water such as the ocean, or in her own words, "even a small stream will do," the practitioner is too take one cup of salt dissolved in three cups of water, and in the process of crying out her grief, pour the salt water, representing her tears, into the natural waterway. This ritual, she said, could be repeated as necessary, up to once a day, until you feel better.
What is wrong with this picture?
If this ritual were to take place next to the ocean or in brackish water, like parts of the Hudson river, I have no problems with it. However, when she states that, "even a small stream will do," questions start popping up in my mind. How small of a stream? And are there living things in that stream? And what, pray tell, are repeated applications of saline water doing to the living things who are adapted to fresh water in the stream? If you love nature and learn from nature, then why in the name of all that is holy would you take a fresh water stream, which is likely already partially polluted (since most of our fresh water streams are these days) and pollute it some more, with a substance that while it might be spiritually cleansing, is actually toxic to animals and plants that live in fresh water? That isn't learning from nature and that isn't loving nature: that, to me is the epitome of stupid human arrogance that comes from being born and bred in a city and not understanding the complexity of life that exists in a rural setting.
How to fix the little problem with the grief ritual? Well, the salt isn't magical: it isn't doing anything actually physical in the ritual. Its purpose is purely symbolic. It is representing something else, in this case, tears and grief. If it is purely symbolic, why use an entire cup of it? That's overkill. A pinch of salt in three cups of water will work just as well symbolically as a cup of salt, and it will do less harm to the ecosystem, if one is performing this ritual in a small freshwater stream.
Other than those little glaring bits, I actually really found the book to be thought-provoking and compelling. It was a fascinating read, and the exercises were enjoyable and useful, not only for a novice, but for a twenty-one year veteran Witch like myself. I look forward to more from Curott, and I think that once she learns a little more from nature by living out in the country, she will be well on her way to being not just a "Good Witch," but a "Great Witch."
©2001 by Barbara Fisher