How Bad Scholarship Shaped Neopaganism

The 19^th Century was not the only victim of bad scholarship. Historian Ronald Hutton discovered a whole chain of events that led to the creation of modern Neopagan Mythology. One such instance was the creation of the "goddess" Ceridwen. In the 13^th Century A.D. , Welsh poets compiled a manuscript now known as the Song of Taliesin from earlier Welsh texts from 9th century. For some unknown reason, many human and semi-human characters of these poems were re-written as Pagan deities. These 13th century Welsh writers either deliberately chose to create a new mythology, or else did not fully understand 9^th century A.D. Welsh (not unlike how King James English confuses many people today). In either case, modern day Neopagans embrace these poems as a genuine Celtic Mythology, which they are not. It’s sort of like someone finding a copy of Paul Bunyon, rewriting it, and claiming that a religion that worshiped giant lumberjacks once existed. The fictitious character of Ceridwen, which is a popular name for the Wiccan goddess, is one such human being who got "mistranslated" into a goddess. Many other later writers copied this mistake .In 1849, Lady Charlotte Guest perpetuated these errors in a book of Welsh tales titled The Mabinogion. This gave the mistranslations a new degree of undeserved credibility, and later writers followed suit, repeating the mistranslations even further. Ceridwen appears only in one poem about the birth of Taliesin. The very name Ceridwen, meaning "crooked woman," seems to have been created by the poets solely for that particular story. So in other words, there was no ancient goddess, Welsh or other wise, named Ceridwen according to Ronald Hutton. The elements of this story are not exclusive to Wales and are found all throughout Eurasia.

The Bitter Fruit Of  "The Golden Bough"

Sir James Frazer, a Cambridge academic wrote the book The Golden Bough in 1897. Frazer has been described as a rationalist, anti-Christian, and anti-religion, and hardly the type to be involved in the occult. It was perhaps the first book to compare Jesus to many Pagan gods of the past who were "resurrected". Ironically, this book by anti-religious rationalist became a source of inspiration for many neo-Pagans and Wiccans creating their religion. All this talk about occultism, Paganism, Spiritism, Theosophy was about to come to a head. The roots for the Wiccan/Pagan movement had been laid. Skeptic and Agnostic Sir James Frazer unwittingly made his contribution to the Neopagan movement in a book called The Golden Bough.. Sir James Frazer had grown to dislike Christianity, and set out to make Christ appear as but one of many ancient god-kings who died and was resurrected. The Golden Bough combines material from all over the globe and during various time periods. The book ignores when these things are taken out of context and other discrepancies. Frazer popularized the concept that ancient Pagan religions were all fertility cults, and introduced the theory of the "sacrificial king". But Sir James never gave even a single example of a king being killed and replaced by a new king. If this was supposedly the tradition throughout the ancient world, why is there not one example? Frazer, in his hatred of Christianity, created a less than scholarly work. The Golden Bough is not taken seriously by modern anthropologists. It has never been accepted by credible historians or theologians.

Had it not been for the advent of Neopaganism, the book would have been long forgotten. Frazer attempted to make Christianity seem equal to earlier primitive Pagan religions, and therefore deserved to be treated as a superstition. However, this attempt backfired and help a shape a movement based on magic, spells, invoking spirits, and every kind of superstition! One author who perpetuated the Song of Talesin mistranslations was Robert Graves. His book The White Goddess (written in 1945) is still a favorite of modern Neopagans (especially Wiccan writers). Wiccans view The White Goddess as a source of universal goddess lore, but in reality it is just a fantasy based on mistranslations of ancient poems and prose. Perhaps Graves’ best comment on his work was one he wrote in a letter years later to an inquirer "It's a crazy book and I didn't mean to write it.." Graves fantasy work about a "triple goddess" of mother, maiden, and crone became the basis for the current Wiccan goddess. In reality, the idea of the universal "triple goddess" is not an ancient belief. Grave even told his close friends in private that he himself did not believe that the triple goddess actually existed, and was merely writing metaphors. He never thought "The White Goddess" was literally, true. Historian Ronald Hutton noted that by Robert Graves writing the The White Goddess Graves "built a fantasy upon a forgery."(The Stations of The Sun, by Ronald Hutton, Page 145). The book is anti-Christian in its tone, claiming Moses used tricks to fool the people of Egypt and that Jesus never really performed miracles, but basically used slight of hand. Even though the White Goddess is a book of ridiculous speculation many Neopagans took it to be a genuine book of history, very much the same way The DaVinci Code is erroneously taken as genuine history. It still is influencing Neopagans to this day.

MYTH: Stoneage people everywhere worshipped  a "white goddess".

Of the many Pagan temples of the past, there was not one dedicated to a being simply known as "The Goddess". Scholars acknowledge that the Pagans of old were genuine polytheists...i.e., they worshiped many gods and goddesses, believing each one was a distinct entity. They did not believe in the "all gods are but one god and all goddesses are but one goddess" idea of Wicca and most Neopagan religions. This idea is a modern idea meant to simplify things, and was unknown to Pagans of ancient times. Each god was in charge of his or own specialty. For instance, Diana (Artemis to the Greeks) was a goddess of hunting and childbirth. Venus (Aphrodite to the Greeks) was the goddess of love, sewers, and V.D. The Pagans didn’t see Venus and Diana as simply "The Goddess". In the 2^nd Century A.D. there was an attempt to unite all goddesses as simply "Isis" by Roman writer Apuleius, but his success was very limited and short lived. The idea of a universal goddess was made popular in part by Robert Graves’ book The White Goddess. Like the current DaVinci Code controversy, the White Goddess is fiction that many people rely on as fact.

The Wiccan Goddess

Something I should point out here is that Diana, Artemis, and Pan were Greco-Roman gods. They were NOT Wiccan gods. Neither are Isis or Ra; they are ancient Egyptian deities (idols). Even deities like Lugh and Dagda are Celtic deities, but Wicca isn’t very Celtic. Every god and goddess of Wicca is simply "borrowed" from the religions of ancient and sometimes modern, cultures, but this does not make Wicca an ancient religion. There is also a lot of borrowing from Native American religions. Native Americans, far from feeling like they are a part of some universal Pagan religion resent Wiccans, New Agers, and other occultniks stealing things from their religion. The Nocatee Indians, for instance, will not let any outsiders view their "Blue Corn Dance", and Wiccans, New Agers, and others are turned down if they ask to see it. The Lakota (Sioux) tribe has even gone so far as to issue a symbolic "Declaration of War" against Wiccans and New Agers for stealing their religion! Wiccans cite things from every Pagan religion of the past as examples of their religion in an attempt to create a history for it. The Pagans of Rome? Wiccans. The Pagans of Babylon? Wiccans. The heretics killed during the Roman Catholic Inquisition? Wiccans. Jesus and the Twelve Apostle? Obviously a Wicca coven. Folk tales like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves? A race memory of a coven consisting of 7 men and a powerful witch-queen high priestess. Robin Hood? Really a cloaked story of Wiccan persecution. ...and all of this is such a bunch of baloney it could have been written by Oscar Mayer! It would be sad if it weren’t true. Why did the Chicken cross the road? The Chicken was Wiccan. Where are my car keys? Wicca. Geeze.

You can't just simply say "Since people in ancient Greece worshiped Diana and Wiccans worship Diana that proves Wicca is ancient." Suppose I started a religion that worshiped dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are certainly very old. Therefore I could say my religion is millions of years old simply because I have chosen to worship an object from the past. Does this make my religion millions of years old? Of course not! Neither is Wicca tens of thousands of years old because it worships ancient gods and goddesses. Neither is every ancient story somehow connected to Wicca. All these things are just examples of "witch-ful thinking".