Featured Book Review

'Being a Pagan' by Ellen Evert Hopman & Lawrence Bond © 1996, 2002 Destiny Books 396 pages Paperback ISBN 0-89281-904-9 $19.95(U.S.)

I sincerely hope that this is simply a start of a trend. I remember reading A Witch Like Me by Sirona Knight (New Page Books ISBN 1-56414-539-5) a couple of years ago and thinking it was a good idea, even though it was extremely short (it only included 14 autobiographical sketches). This book is more wide-ranging, being composed of "Druids, Wiccans and Witches Toady", and including interviews with over 50 individuals.

As the Neo-Pagan population heads into its second and third generations it is past time for us to make a start on recording the history of the early days of our public existence in the recent past, and the thoughts and background of those individuals who were in the forefront of the movement. Even now, less than half a century from the first mass emergence of Paganism into the public view revisionist history has begun to make inroads. I have heard how, in the early days, all the different traditions got along with each other, and sectarianism is a recent development. That's not the way I experienced it.

Keepers of the Flame by Morganna Davies and Aradia Lynch (Olympian Press ISBN 0-9709013-0-5) was another book confined to Traditionalist Witchcraft. It included many more sketches, but they suffered from being too short. It included 37 individuals, representing a dozen different traditions.

This book fills in a lot of gaps in the previous works since it contains nearly as many individuals as the two previously mentioned works. The interviews which comprise this book were conducted in a variety of ways and locations (at conferences, via telephone, etc.) during the early '90s. The format is not static, and the individual personalities shine through.

You will not find a consistent theme in this book, except perhaps for the idea of tolerance. There are a wide variety of viewpoints, as you should expect. This book showcases the variety of Pagan thought in the United States at the end of the twentieth century. Even individuals who represent the same basic orientation (i.e., Druids, Celtic, Dianic, etc.) don't always agree with each other.

Combining this book with the two I mentioned previously, and adding in Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler, would yield a pretty good over-view of the Pagan movement in the U.S. at the end of the twentieth century. Of course, with the rapid evolution and growth the movement the is undergoing, much of the information is already our of date. Still, it serves as a valuable resource for the historical development of Paganism recently. It would have been nice if it had included updates on all the participants, instead of only a few. It would be interesting to see how opinions and attitudes have evolved over a five year period.

Reviewer: Mike Gleason

If you would like to join in on a discussion about this book, please go to the forum here: Being a Pagan