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Merissa (12051 KP) rated Stalking the Goddess in Books

Dec 17, 2018

Stalking The Goddess by Mark Carter is not a book to be taken lightly or to be read as a fill-in. This book deserves your attention as Mark Carter has tried to do the near-impossible and unravel a book that has long been thought of as a Pagan Must-Have. The White Goddess by Robert Graves has long been considered as one of the ultimate books for a Pagan to own, with links to the Welsh Celtic path and showing how, through poetry, that paganism lived on through the ages.

Stalking The Goddess is written like a thesis or dissertation from a university so will appeal to any academically-minded out there. This did make it quite hard going at times and I would read some and then take a break to digest what I had read.

Mark Carter has “untangled the woods” of The White Goddess and made it more accessible to the Pagan who would like to know more about it and where Robert Graves got his sources. Mark Carter has made it possible to see who has influenced Robert Graves, both in a positive and also a negative way, by showing whose work was used and which was not.

One of the things that I found most interesting was that although The White Goddess boasts a Welsh Celtic basis, Robert Graves had actually pulled on stories from the whole of Europe, as well as from the Bible, the Jews and used stories from the Saracens to compile his book and it somehow all seemed to fit which is where Mark Carter has excelled. Star Wars even makes an appearance!

In no way is Mark Carter dismissing The White Goddess and even states in the Epilogue that without The White Goddess it is unlikely that paganism would have developed as it did.

Overall, I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the history of The White Goddess, or for someone who has an academic “twist”. Thought provoking and a very interesting read.

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Lou Grande (148 KP) rated Wicca's Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality in Books

May 11, 2018

This book has a specific audience, and it can be hard to tell if you're a part of it. From the perspective of the confused Christian, it's a great resource. Sanders does an excellent job of describing why people are leaving Christianity for Neo-Pagan religions. She turns a critical eye on her own faith and holds it up to Wicca to figure out the appeal. Where she fails, though, is in thinking she's going to convert anyone. Her proselytizing takes up only so much of the book. I would definitely recommend it for the bewildered Christian, but it certainly isn't an "Occult/Witchcraft" book, as the back claims.

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KHPR: The Voice of Darkness

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Podcast

KHPR is produced and hosted by Magister Robert Adams a member of the Council of Nine within the...

Project Almanac (2015)

6.7 (7 Ratings) Rate It

Movie Watch

David Raskin (Jonny Weston) is a high-school science nerd who dreams of going to MIT. When he and...

The Heroic Legend of Arslan

6.0 (2 Ratings) Rate It

TV Show

Arslan is the heir apparent of Pars, a strong nation that sits at the hear of the trade route...

David McK (3425 KP) rated Blood of the Bear (Fire Born volume 5) in Books

Oct 18, 2024 (Updated Oct 18, 2024)

This is the final(?) entry in Angus Donald's 'Fire Born' series about the Viking berserker Bjarki Bloodhand in the time of Charlemagne, a series which - will enjoyable enough - has never *quite* managed to hit the heights of his Robin Hood 'Outlaw Chronicles' series of novels.

Here, we have Bjarki living a quiet life at the start of the novel, before events transpire to drag him - and his sister Tor - back into the conflict between the Christian Franks and the pagan Danes/Saxons, events that culminate in one of the few Frankish (temporary) defeats.

Worth a read? Yes.
As good as the Outlaw Chronicles series? No.