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It's true that that's a very difficult thing to try to ignore, but it wasn't uncommon in the 70s for people to describe their religion as simply "witchcraft". Valiente did it, and she's still cool. But then, Valiente was in a very different position and place in her life in the 70s than Starhawk, was a much more intelligent person than Starhawk, and made up for it in other ways, for example having met every single person in the world almost.

At any rate, it's the sort of thing you have to overlook with books from that era. Witchcraft was essentially considered a religion and different religious witchcrafts were considered different traditions, or something. What they called witches who weren't pagan or religious, I simply don't know.

My problem with it really is that it generalises across different religious witchcrafts, assuming they're essentially the same and eliminating the things that distinguish them, and that it ignores forms of witchcraft that aren't similar to their religion. I don't really have an issue with people referring to their religion as "witchcraft", but when writing a book like this it's essential to be clear, and I'm at chapter four and still wondering whether she's talking about Reclaiming or witchcraft generally or what.

It's Starhawk's own witchcraft religion. Very feminism-based, and sort of derived from Feri.

Rightio, chapter five, teh gawdess.

Ten Year Notes (general):
Oh, so the goddess is just a metaphor for the universe? Or something? She's a monotheist, or an atheist, or what? This is very unclear.

She says the various goddesses are all real, but in her work she demonstrates contempt for them as individual entities by shoving their names into her rituals as if they mean nothing.

Apparently she doesn't believe in "the goddess" in a solid sense, she is just using that word and the "she" pronoun to extend her political beliefs. I'm not sure how horrified I should be. I mean, technically if your deity is gender-neutral there's no massive issue whether you say "god" or "goddess", but you have the OPTION to be GENDER NEUTRAL, so why pick a gender? The notes at the 10 year mark do seem to suggest she's doing it for political purposes which I find distasteful.

It's also a bit creepy that she says "the goddess has no genitalia" and then goes on to conflate sex with gender. Whether or not someone has genitalia does not determine what gender they are.

20 Year Notes:
Athena is not Demeter's sister. Dumbass.


Onwards!

10 year notes for Charge: Holy ******** s**t. How the HELL does someone write a book about witchcraft without knowing who wrote the Charge of the Goddess?! I don't give a flying ******** that the internet didn't exist then, that is utterly and completely disgraceful, especially because she quoted the Charge. If you're totally ignorant of wider witchcaft, DON'T WRITE A BOOK ON IT.

"It has exposed falsehoods in patriarchal history" - and created the falsehood of matriarchal history. Lawl. Replacing one lie with another lie =/= a good thing.

I was going to read this on the understanding that this goddess was a deity Starhawk worshipped, separate from the Unnamed Goddess I worship. However, upon reading her 10 year notes apparently this is not a goddess at all but some form of metaphor? I am unsure. Regardless, knowing she doesn't really believe all this stuff as written makes me wonder as I read it what I am meant to be taking from it. Is it really so hard to say "It" instead of "She"?

"She is the vaginal passage, through which we are reborn" - ******** ew. Was that image REALLY NECESSARY?

I think one of the problems here - one of the reasons this feels like oh so much waffle and wankery - is that Starhawk's goddess isn't a real entity. That is, it appears to be more of a pantheistic thing she's got going on. As such, what is there to say? - her goddess has no personality, no personal separate existence. So there's no way to describe her or any real way to relate to her. No wonder she plunders other pantheons. No wonder I get absolutely nothing from her writing. There's nothing to get, nothing to be inspired by. There's no image of her goddess to glean from her writing as her goddess has no image.

"A historical and/or cross-cultural overview of the goddess and her symbols would require several volumes, and I will not attempt it in the limited space of this book" - Good. I don't think I could stand you ripping apart all those religions and cultures to fit your own beliefs.

Just embrace your ******** pantheism. Pantheism is fine. FINE.

As I reach the moon exercises, I can already see the issue of this chapter. It's far too brief. If you want to go into the MMC concept, great! But do it properly. A brief snatch of a paragraph on it isn't doing it justice. And this is the problem. There are WAY too many deity concepts she's latched onto here, and she's totally over-burdened herself. She can't go into any of them in any depth, because there are too many of them, and so no particular understanding of her deity can be reached. It's too vague, too shallow, and none of the detail you'd want has been given. Which is a real shame, because I think the exercises would have been really great had she put them at the end of a couple of detailed pages on the MMC and moon-goddess concepts.

And the reason, flicking through, that this chapter has such a dearth of proper detail is because she's spent most of it on more of her crappy invocations. Just give the reader one or two, lady, and let the reader write their own if they need to.

As for the meditations themselves. More random names thrown in without a care. "Eternally unpenetrated, belonging to no one but herself" - because we all know that women belong to whoever is ******** them. I thought you were meant to be a feminist, Starhawk. What happened?

She mentions in her 20 year notes that she gets her "pentad" from Graves. I wish she'd mentioned that in text. It gives a hell of a lot more of a sense of maturity and intelligence to start off your paragraph with "Robert Graves discusses the concept of blahblah in his book suchandsuch. In witchcraft, we have a similar concept...." rather than ganking his idea and reworking it for yourself without giving him any credit.

Blah blah blah. Why does she bother with a god-concept, if her goddess-concept (or whatever) embodies everything anyway? Is this some sort of attempt to re-align herself with religions like Wicca? Is she confused? What's going on here?!

Pg 107 - "as I had room for only one example..." You'd have had room for more if you hadn't decided to take up so much room with all your awful "poetry".

"Nakedness is a sign that a witch's loyalty is to the truth before any ideology or any comforting illusions" - So, was chapter one just hypocrisy on your part, or what?

She keeps talking about "the Greek Goddess" and "the Celtic Goddess" as if these cultures only had one female deity. It's weird.

I'm actually very disappointed in this chapter. I thought this would be where Starhawk really started to shine and I got a proper idea of who her goddess was. Instead I'm left confused, and wondering whether Starhawk knows who her goddess is, or whether she's just s**t at explaining herself.

So I did some catching up over the weekend and have a few notes. I don't have much to add to San's notes on chapters three and four. She covered it pretty well. Here's what I've got on five and six. (San, I'm stealing your layout)

Chapter 5: The Goddess

pg 102 - So the very first sentence of this chapter is a problem. Are any of the Goddesses listed here a mother goddess? If not, they are not any great mother. Even if you think they're all aspects of one deity, you could use the names that actually comply with the facet you're referring to. If you're using the term "Great Mother" then use names that were actually worshiped as such.

And she has added several paragraphs before the Charge of the Goddess without noting it or making it clear that they are not a part of it.

pg 103 - Once again, she brings up her made up history without bothering to point out that it's a "creation myth" and conjecture and has no factual or scholarly support. She just states it as a fact. Just what proof do you have that the any of the many standing stones across northern Europe have anything to do with a goddess of any kind?

pg 104 - (in the waxing moon meditation) Wait a minute. Nimue? As Merlin's Nimue?!? Lady of the lake and/or lover/betrayer of Merlin? I mean, I love Arthurian lore and all but really? The farther back into the legends and stories you go the less sense this makes.

pg 107 - Eyes are breasts. What?!? I could maybe see the connection the other way around but it's still thin.

pg 110 - She finally brings up the idea of balance in reference to something other than female/male or life/death. She keeps talking about pride and whatnot and how its okay to be proud and embrace your strength. The idea of balancing these things only get a single short paragraph though. I know it was the 70s and she was pushing for ideas and identities that women were not encouraged to pursue but you need balance in your rhetoric and your activism. Responding to extreme attitudes with more extremes just makes more problems. Balance. I'm also annoyed that she says honor must be balanced with humility or it can become arrogance but I think I define the word differently. I would have used pride rather than honor.

The rest of the chapter is a bunch of chants that I don't care about. (Sumerian Chant my a**, cite your sources for it then.) Like San, I have no idea what she really believes about her Goddess or not. I was left with very little impression from this chapter and I just don't know what she was trying to say.


Chapter 6: The God

Here's a fun game for this chapter, count the uses of the word patriarchy.

pg 123 - What?!? There are some strange Oedipal things in there that I just don't want to think about. It's just...just...no.

The Horned God is not born of a virgin mother. Even if you agree with Starhawk's idea that the God is just part of the Goddess, it's still makes no sense. She still makes love to a separate manifestation. He is father to himself, not born of no father or an immaculate conception. He was conceived through SEX. Also, hasn't she been trying to say that sexuality is good and powerful and an integral part of creation and all that? If that's the case, then why try to claim that your Mother Goddess is a virgin and therefore has nothing to do with sex? She seems really confused about this.

So aggression and anger are good and should be owned and embraced but violence (the natural outcome of leaving these tendencies unchecked) is bad? Or is it just women who are allowed to express such things? Maybe she's talking about rape? I don't know. And considering her overall opinions about war and suchlike I don't think that's all she's alluding to here. Anyway, it's unclear and nonsensical the way it's phrased. I don't know about you, but male body or female, there are some things I would consider it a violation not to take up arms against.

pg 127 - Robin Hood. Robin Hood is the God. That...makes even less sense than identifying Nimue with the Goddess. This is one of those things she got from Murray isn't it?

pg 128 - "It is uncomfortable to be ones own authority..." Actually, for a lot of folks it's not. It may be difficult and it's certainly uncomfortable for some but by no means is this true of everyone.
"Men and women are no longer content...to place life and death decisions in the hands of a fearless leader..." And actually, a lot of them are. Otherwise, such people wouldn't still be in power.
Here she's just speaking for everyone when not everyone feels that way. If she had said "It may be uncomfortable" or "Many men and women" or even "We are no longer content" I would have less of an issue with this bit. I don't like people assuming emotions and reaction from people they know nothing about. She's just pasting her own ideas over the whole world and it's irritating.

More annoying invocations.

Ah, her notes. I want to comment on a few of these.
#4 While it may have been used to justify racism in history, I actually think it's roots lie more in the fact that we can't see in the dark. What we can't see is unknown and we generally fear the unknown. All sorts of terrible things could be lurking out in the darkness, waiting to eat us alive and we can't even see what they look like.
#17 I would like very much to know just what "burning times accounts" she's getting her information from. And how is "A boy" obviously a mishearing of "Evohe"?

This whole chapter seems to be more about her hang ups with "teh ebils of patriarchy" than her conception of male divinty. And her 10 and 20 year notes are no help at all.

Reflections on chapter 12:
-I'm very dissapointed that this chapter contains nothing but rituals. A little bit of the Lore and history behind the celebrations might be nice, especially for beginners. They should know what the rituals are about and why they're celebrated like thay are.
-Also, does the Southern Hemisphere not exist? Fair enough Starhawk may not have realised her book was going to be published worldwide when she wrote it initially, but she could've at least remembered us down here in her 10 or 20 year notes.
-The whole "giving birth" aspect of the Yuel ritual is really quite creepy. I would not feel comfortable doing something like that.
-She needs to write more history!! Including other names the Sabbats are known by.
-This chapter frustrates me.
-The rituals are really nothing interesting...a lot of speaking and energy raising and nothing really special (though some Feri material may have been omitted).

That chapter was the hardest for me to read. Very bloody frustrating. Hopefully the next chapter ends on a better note. But I doubt it.

I was going to say that San. stressed

It's tempting me to write a book and not mention the Northern Hemisphere.

Reflection on chapter twelve:
WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN'S BEARD IS SHE ON ABOUT?
Seriously, this whole chapter has been full of non-sensical (is that even a word?) waffle and contradictions. The whole chapter has now confused the heck out of me.

Now I get to read it with the 10-year commentary...