{"id":122,"date":"2011-06-07T12:23:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T17:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.wordpress.com\/2011\/06\/07\/source-review-the-study-of-witchcraft-by-deborah-lipp"},"modified":"2011-06-07T12:23:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-07T17:23:00","slug":"source-review-the-study-of-witchcraft-by-deborah-lipp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/07\/source-review-the-study-of-witchcraft-by-deborah-lipp\/","title":{"rendered":"Source Review: The Study of Witchcraft, by Deborah Lipp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having read The Elements of Ritual<\/em>, Aradia was already a fan of Deborah Lipp before we attended her workshops at Heartland Pagan Festival 2011.\u00a0 In her workshops and previous books, Lipp complains that publishers have been printing and reprinting the same dozen 101-level books on witchcraft for the last 30 years.\u00a0 Her most recent book, The Study of Witchraft: A Guidebook to Advanced Wicca<\/em>, is an answer to that complaint.\u00a0 It is an excellent answer to that complaint.<\/p>\n

Speculating as to why so few books on Wicca have anything new to offer, Lipp concludes that it is because in the Good Old Days (an implication she makes with all due irony) the shortage of books on witchcraft forced a Seeker to study farther afield.\u00a0 It is in those \u201coutside\u201d studies, Lipp argues, and in the process of applying the core ideas of witchcraft to both those studies and one\u2019s life as a whole, that \u201cadvanced\u201d Wicca actually happens.\u00a0 She goes on to suggest areas of study, both wide and deep, which she believes are essential.<\/p>\n

The Study of Witchcraft<\/em>, then, is ultimately an elaborate framing device for an extensive reading list and a few \u201chomework\u201d assignments aimed at better understanding those readings.\u00a0 I have read \u2013 at best \u2013 10% of the books she recommends.\u00a0 Those I have read, though \u2013 Ronald Hutton\u2019s Triumph of the Moon<\/em>, Carlo Ginsburg\u2019s Ecstacies<\/em>, Charles G Leland\u2019s Aradia<\/em>, Dion Fortune\u2019s Sea Priestess<\/em>, to name a few \u2013 and the number which have been in my \u201cto read\u201d pile, convince me of the quality of the rest.<\/p>\n

In the introduction to her workshop, Deborah Lipp admonished her audience, \u201c\u2026[I]f you haven\u2019t read two books on witchcraft, go read two books on witchcraft!\u201d\u00a0 My advice would be, having done that, read this book (and at least half of the books it recommends) next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having read The Elements of Ritual, Aradia was already a fan of Deborah Lipp before we attended her workshops at Heartland Pagan Festival 2011.\u00a0 In her workshops and previous books, Lipp complains that publishers have been printing and reprinting the same dozen 101-level books on witchcraft for the last 30 years.\u00a0 Her most recent book, … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[34,62],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedonism","tag-book-review","tag-deborah-lipp"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-1Y","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}