White Witch

AngieAki

New member
I saw the series at Walmart and got a little pissed. I didn't read the book because of that but I did read the back and that is how I got my info.

They have a book called "White Witch" or something like that and it is totally BS when it comes to the craft and its history. For example it claims that this woman practices "white magic" which doesn't exist. Magic isn't good or evil by nature, it is all how you use it, the intent. The second being that Wicca is "ancient" when it is a Neo-Pagan tradition that is fairly new. Are the roots ancient? You bet. But Wicca itself? Nope.

BTW if you don’t believe in Paganism/Wicca/Magic(k) don’t make some stupid comment, I don’t go off and tell you that your religious beliefs are BS so please treat me with the same respect. You can at least understand that the book is inaccurate to the beliefs of actual Pagans. This can just be a "now you know" moment. :D
 

|ZiR|

New member
I haven't read either of Caidin's books, but I think a lot of media about wicca from the 90s when the whole wicca/new age movement was garnering a lot of attention is incorrect. The whole thing was "new" at the time, and I'm sure there was much misinformation floating around.

My sister got into wicca a few years back. She even bought a book on it. "To Ride a Silver-Broomstick," or some such.

Thankfully we were able to beat it out of her before anything took.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
I think the first response I'd offer to your complaint is that it's based on the back-of-the-book blurb, which are a famously bad source of information. What you say may well be true, but that's something to consider.

The second is that "white magic" could well be a shorthand way of saying that the magic is being used for good purposes, or by one who is good.
 

Quickening

New member
AngieAki said:
I saw the series at Walmart and got a little pissed. I didn't read the book because of that but I did read the back and that is how I got my info.

They have a book called "White Witch" or something like that and it is totally BS when it comes to the craft and its history. For example it claims that this woman practices "white magic" which doesn't exist. Magic isn't good or evil by nature, it is all how you use it, the intent. The second being that Wicca is "ancient" when it is a Neo-Pagan tradition that is fairly new. Are the roots ancient? You bet. But Wicca itself? Nope.

BTW if you don?t believe in Paganism/Wicca/Magic(k) don?t make some stupid comment, I don?t go off and tell you that your religious beliefs are BS so please treat me with the same respect. You can at least understand that the book is inaccurate to the beliefs of actual Pagans. This can just be a "now you know" moment. :D

As someone who has more than a passing interest in Crowley, I agree with you totally here. What I loathe is when these silly teen "witches" take the persecution of some helpless old women in the Middle Ages as their burden as if they even have the first clue.
As for the book, don't worry, it won't infuriate you to read it. It's not that good anyway.
 

|ZiR|

New member
Quickening said:
What I loathe is when these silly teen "witches" take the persecution of some helpless old women in the Middle Ages as their burden as if they even have the first clue.

Sabrina.jpg


???
 

AngieAki

New member
|ZiR| said:
I haven't read either of Caidin's books, but I think a lot of media about wicca from the 90s when the whole wicca/new age movement was garnering a lot of attention is incorrect. The whole thing was "new" at the time, and I'm sure there was much misinformation floating around.

My sister got into wicca a few years back. She even bought a book on it. "To Ride a Silver-Broomstick," or some such.

Thankfully we were able to beat it out of her before anything took.
Sounds like Silver Raven Wood... I haven't heard anything nice about her from anyone who wasn't a fluffy bunny. :p
 

AngieAki

New member
Quickening said:
What I loathe is when these silly teen "witches" take the persecution of some helpless old women in the Middle Ages as their burden as if they even have the first clue.
Exactly. Is what happened horrible? Is it sick that we celebrate St. Patty's day when it was about chasing the Pagans out (the snakes=Pagans)? Yes. Does it make me mad? Yes. Do I go around acting like it happened to me? No.
But life as a Pagan is anything but easy. There still is persicution, I have known people that have been harrased and even had to move because of it. (n)
 

Reggie

New member
AngieAki said:
Exactly. Is what happened horrible? Is it sick that we celebrate St. Patty's day when it was about chasing the Pagans out (the snakes=Pagans)? Yes. Does it make me mad? Yes. Do I go around acting like it happened to me? No.
But life as a Pagan is anything but easy. There still is persicution, I have known people that have been harrased and even had to move because of it. (n)

is it fair to say that the feast day of Saint Patrick is about chasing the pagans out of Ireland? I mean, in America is has always been about Irish pride and culture, while in Ireland its a day to attend mass. And even if it is, what's so wrong about Christians celebrating one of their missionary's? By all accounts he did not 'chase' pagans out of Ireland, but rather converted them to a new faith

Also, the White Witch is a silly book from a fun yet absurd movie series that recently involved alien astronauts with crystal bones. Not much of the facts in Indy are meant to be taken seriously, being instead merely props to hang a pulpy action/adventure yarn on. I mean, Tanis was never lost, and it also never housed the well of souls. That was in Jerusalem. Don't take it seriously. Its really not worth getting upset over.
 

AngieAki

New member
Reggie said:
is it fair to say that the feast day of Saint Patrick is about chasing the pagans out of Ireland? I mean, in America is has always been about Irish pride and culture, while in Ireland its a day to attend mass. And even if it is, what's so wrong about Christians celebrating one of their missionary's? By all accounts he did not 'chase' pagans out of Ireland, but rather converted them to a new faith
If they wouldn't convert they were killed from what I understand.
 

otto rahn

New member
AngieAki said:
If they wouldn't convert they were killed from what I understand.
A fairly normal occurance when a new faith replaces an older one. Or even when a new version of the same faith arrives to challenge an older one. (Thirty Years War, Spanish Armada et al) Change of religious beleif or forms of worship frequently leads to bloodshed !
 

tupogirl

New member
AngieAki said:
If they wouldn't convert they were killed from what I understand.


From what I've heard, Ireland had one of the least violent religious transformations in History. A lot of their Christian practices still involve some measure of other, ancient Pagan activities (moreso than typical Christmas/Easter) things that we know.

Ok, I found this online: It's a bit lengthy but I found it to be so interesting. Reading past this passage, it tells about how Ireland reverted in a backwards way, by converting first to Christianity and then to the Romans. My family is from the area that St Patrick settled in. I hope you don't mind me posting all this, it was just so interesting to me that the conversion was not bloody.
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/4_ch02.htm

The church-history of Ireland is peculiar. It began with an independent catholicity (or a sort of semi-Protestantism), and ended with Romanism, while other Western countries passed through the reverse order. Lying outside of the bounds of the Roman empire, and never invaded by Roman legions,44 that virgin island was Christianized without bloodshed and independently of Rome and of the canons of the oecumenical synods. The early Irish church differed from the Continental churches in minor points of polity and worship, and yet excelled them all during the sixth and seventh centuries in spiritual purity and missionary zeal. After the Norman conquest, it became closely allied to Rome. In the sixteenth century the light of the Reformation did not penetrate into the native population; but Queen Elizabeth and the Stuarts set up by force a Protestant state-religion in antagonism to the prevailing faith of the people. Hence, by the law of re-action, the Keltic portion of Ireland became more intensely Roman Catholic being filled with double hatred of England on the ground of difference of race and religion. This glaring anomaly of a Protestant state church in a Roman Catholic country has been removed at last after three centuries of oppression and misrule, by the Irish Church Disestablishment Act in 1869 under the ministry of Gladstone.
 

AngieAki

New member
tupogirl said:
From what I've heard, Ireland had one of the least violent religious transformations in History. A lot of their Christian practices still involve some measure of other, ancient Pagan activities (moreso than typical Christmas/Easter) things that we know.

Ok, I found this online: It's a bit lengthy but I found it to be so interesting. Reading past this passage, it tells about how Ireland reverted in a backwards way, by converting first to Christianity and then to the Romans. My family is from the area that St Patrick settled in. I hope you don't mind me posting all this, it was just so interesting to me that the conversion was not bloody.
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/4_ch02.htm
Hrm thanks for the info...
 

indyclone25

Well-known member
indiana jones and the white witch

holy crap that was a long story -----there was some much detail in everything that was written , he described the kind of food they ate ---- c'mon who needs that and the action scenes were very short --- then by time i was near the end of the book i was wondering if indy was gonna catch the bad guy and find the treasure and they put that in the last few chapters --- like i said it took along time to get there ,, martin caidin really puts in alot of info --- but is all that info neccessary?
 

The Drifter

New member
I have yet to read this book. But what you described is called an "info dump". I find that Stephen King is bad for it also.
 
Caiden's Indy books were the worst of the series.

Sky Pirates might have been a good Pulp story, maybe even a good Doc Savage story, but it was not a good Indy story. White Witch was a little better, but not by much.

And yes, too much detail is annoying. It makes the reading become tedious and boring. Like the post above, I find the same thing wrong with Steven King's books. It took me years to finally get through one of his books (The Gunslinger). One I didn't make it through was IT!. I was 350 pages in when I finally got pissed and tossed the book across the room. My local library was not very happy with the condition in which I returned the book!
 

Morning Bell

New member
I thought White Witch was an improvement over Sky Pirates, although it still suffered from some of the same problems. I did feel like both books were almost TOO descriptive and both felt longer than they needed to be.
 

indyclone25

Well-known member
right when he goes into detail about the forest and all its intricate details and the suppers on the zeppelin it was just drawn out
 
Its far far far far easier to read then sky pirates though, at least White Witch has some sort of simplistic plot, as opposed to the random atlantic crossing of Sky Pirates.

Yeah lots of description, I mean that bit about the Mobius Strip is still one of the most surreal things I've read
 

Morning Bell

New member
There were times when Caiden's books reminded me of Tom Clancy: a good plot buried beneath far too much technical description. Honestly, I don't need a three page summary of every single part of an airplane. Just have Indy hop in and start the adventure already.:p
 
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