Category Archives: Uncategorized

Wiccan Books Need ‘Earth Tones’?

A couple of months ago, Judy Harrow, author of several worthwhile books on Wicca, mentioned to me that publishers–or at least one of her publishers–have decided that such books’ covers require (1) a pre-Raphaelite female and (2) earth tones. Check out the cover of Devoted to You, an anthology on the Pagan deities that she recently edited for Kensington Books. See what I mean?

In my darker moments, I wonder if Wicca has gone from being a mystery religion to a fashion statement in fifty years. If you’re young, unconventional, angry at the world, you announce, “I’m Wiccan.” You don’t, however, want to say “I’m a witch,” because then people expect you to “do things.”

As for larger Paganism, check out this page of so-called Pagan blogs. Exactly what’s Pagan about it. (UPDATE: The link was dead, so I removed it.)

Who and Where are the Pagans?

Sociologist Helen A. Berger, author of A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States, has a new book coming out in July, written together with Evan Leach and Leigh Shaffer.

The title is Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States. Like her first, it was published by the University of South Carolina Press.

I plan to post a fuller review after I have read it. The “census” referred to was distributed by Berger and by Andras Corbon of Earthspirit Community. The authors claim that (this time) they reached more than just the festival-going Pagan crowd.

According to the catalog, “The scholars . . . identify variations within the Neo-Pagan population, including those related to geography and to the movement’s multiple spiritual
paths.”