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Post by littleraven on Feb 26, 2009 23:08:08 GMT -1
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Post by megli on Feb 27, 2009 3:14:34 GMT -1
No, but I can't say I'd spend money on it either.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2009 6:51:50 GMT -1
Sometimes interesting author who borrows from people like Andrew Chumbley (and similar) and has some artwork in his books which enforces this point. Hard to pinpoint and research where he gets a majority of his information from so it is difficult to judge but I get the feeling that he writes about stuff without doing the practical if that makes sense?
Edited to say, it is worth seeing if your library has a copy or a friend does and have a look to make up your own mind though. Personally it is more a library job for me than a buy.
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Post by littleraven on Feb 27, 2009 9:24:23 GMT -1
Sometimes interesting author who borrows from people like Andrew Chumbley (and similar) and has some artwork in his books which enforces this point. Hard to pinpoint and research where he gets a majority of his information from so it is difficult to judge but I get the feeling that he writes about stuff without doing the practical if that makes sense? Edited to say, it is worth seeing if your library has a copy or a friend does and have a look to make up your own mind though. Personally it is more a library job for me than a buy. I'm thinking of buy simply because this guy has written out so much against the popular witchcraft scene in the past I'm feeling it might be worth having. Although tbh I exchanged a few e-mails with him about 3 or 4 years ago when he first started to mention pre-Christian British and all I saw was typical neo-pagan Mabinogion regurgitation. As for Chumbley, I doubt anyone who writes on witchcraft these days can fail to be influenced by him on some level.
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Post by Lee on Feb 27, 2009 11:15:41 GMT -1
im very dubious but also very intrigued. i have an idea about how to get a free copy will keep you informed
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Post by Sìle on Feb 27, 2009 19:41:21 GMT -1
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Post by littleraven on Feb 27, 2009 22:03:42 GMT -1
Is this the same Mr Artisson one finds around and about the net? If so, I thought he was now following an asatru line. Why, then, is he writing, according to the reviewer, on the "pre-christian celtic religion"? It's the same guy, that's for sure, can't answer the rest because I stopped taking any notice of him when his writings descended into a torrent of anti-isms a few years ago.
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Post by Lee on Feb 27, 2009 22:43:10 GMT -1
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Post by littleraven on Feb 28, 2009 8:12:04 GMT -1
Yes, had a skim and have to agree, there are some clear indicators (as well as some definate indicators of lack of understabnding/knowledge). There are some things later in the bok that would be interesting to see, but I'm not keen on paying full price for it.
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Post by Adam on Feb 28, 2009 10:54:37 GMT -1
:-) I can't say I was overly impressed with what I read (but I find I'm less and less so as I get older anyway), and particularly after finding his website, but I was wondering... what exactly would you want to be able to say about a book like this in order to recommend it? It's all out there, rehashed variants on the same ideas, blurred between fantasy, practice, fact and pure fiction. I can dig "Becoming the Enchanter" because I read it as metaphor for personal transformation, but if I had read it as factual personal oddyssey, I'd gag. I can generally only get halfway through historical tracts, because that isn't the way my mind works... no engagement, see? There was something I quite liked about Artisson's focus on language and perception in places, but certainly not enough to do it for me, and I'm left wondering, as I get older and more comfortably cynical, just what would do it for me? What would do it for you?
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Post by Adam on Mar 5, 2009 10:13:04 GMT -1
but I was wondering... what exactly would you want to be able to say about a book like this in order to recommend it? I hope no-one thinks that was intended as a flip comment? It was a genuine question... I am curious as to what criteria people might use to judge whether a book might be worth their reading (given that time and money are both investments, I hate getting part way through a book and thinking well, this is a crock of shit ;D ) I have quite a lot of "exclusion" criteria these days, but wondered what people had in terms of "inclusion" criteria, as that is something I struggle with
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Post by megli on Mar 5, 2009 15:07:37 GMT -1
Not being written by a pagan is usually a good start.
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Post by Tegernacus on Mar 5, 2009 17:59:36 GMT -1
yeah. Straight answer is: we've all read embarrassingly large of pagan books, and can probably count on one hand the ones that were any good. On the other hand, historical/anthropological/archaeological tomes have just as much to offer, are more accurate, and require you to think. Personally I haven't bought a "pagan" book for years, don't fancy it. I get my pagan fix here, the rest is in the hands of the gods.
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Post by Adam on Mar 5, 2009 18:39:42 GMT -1
ROTFL... fair comments
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Post by megli on Mar 6, 2009 10:28:02 GMT -1
've read some good books lately: Sara Maitland's 'A Book of Silence', someone called Harmless' 'Mystics', Kathleen Raine's beautiful 'Autobiographies', and Lex Hixon's 'Mother of the Buddhas: Meditations on the Prajnaparamita Sutra.'
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Post by Lee on Aug 2, 2009 21:11:15 GMT -1
i have gotten my hands on a free copy.
first impression from skimming through is he has taken trad craft workings and ideas and placed them within a pan-celtic context. lots of cross referencing welsh and irish etc but still hitting the bum notes in terms of using the mabinogion gods i suppose.
i did notice some interesting things in it which suggest he has done some homework - like the Lugus-Belenus thing mentioned on here recently. it also *seems* to go into linguistic origins of names etc - though no references or bibliography.
i think there might be some aspects to this that might be workable - particularly the ritual elements which are rather symbolic etc and could be adopted/adapted.
anyway, i shall have a proper read if i can be bothered to wade through it.
i am also happy to lend it to people if they fancy, it could even do a round robin of a few of us if you fancy.
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Post by arth_frown on Aug 9, 2009 20:29:53 GMT -1
i think there might be some aspects to this that might be workable - particularly the ritual elements which are rather symbolic etc and could be adopted/adapted. . Worth buying just for that bit.
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Post by littleraven on Aug 10, 2009 8:04:23 GMT -1
first impression from skimming through is he has taken trad craft workings and ideas and placed them within a pan-celtic context. lots of cross referencing welsh and irish etc but still hitting the bum notes in terms of using the mabinogion gods i suppose. /he is most definitely from a trad. craft background, and IIRC comes from somewhere like Kentucky in the USA so it might be useful to approach it with that in mind.
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