#inquiries ( ANSWERED ).

[localbloodmage]

This may be a weird question. But are you my coworker? Furthermore, have you placed a curse on me?

i am your coworker, but i'm not a witch and i didn't curse you!

[h999pe]

Letha would walk around the new area she seemed to have stumbled into, looking around as she takes in the surroundings not really paying attention to what is in front of her. She carries a pack seemingly full of stuff as well.

Artemis sat in her garden, seemingly looking for something that tried to cover her face. Sure, she had her prosthetic… but it wasn’t good enough. She still hadn’t noticed the… new figure in the garden.

[nebulous-apocrypha]

omg hiiii hi jasper hi!!!!!! haii!!!!!!!! ^_^

magandang umaga :D

[mystery-mage]

How may I gain your favor?

give me some-thing that gleams and glimmers with in-ward light.

[breelandwalker]

Oh no. What's wrong with Silver Ravenwolf? I feel like I see them recommended everywhere...

Yeeeeaaaah, it's an ongoing problem. Her books were wildly popular for over a decade and they're were widely marketed as THE Book To Have for beginner witches by Llewellyn, which was the heaviest of the heavy hitters in occult literature at the time.

The problem with Silver Ravenwolf is largely that she is wildly out of touch in a very New Age White Woman kind of way. Her books tout loads of misinformation, appropriation, and historical revisionism that are simply not acceptable (i.e. claiming victims of witch trials were actual pagan witches, citing a fictional ancient matriarchal goddess religion that never existed was the basis for Wicca, leaning into the hereditary superpowers / indigo child / starseed narrative, etc). Besides which, the theories she posits contradict each other from page to page and chapter to chapter, claims a Gardnerian lineage which can’t possibly exist, and trumpets Buckland’s personal theories on the Burning Times and interpretation of the Threefold Law as if they were fact.

And thanks to her runaway popularity, those of us who instruct and answer questions from newer witches have to UNTEACH all of this nonsense.

If it were simply a matter of being a product of her time, I could forgive some of the nonsense. But she’s still selling mammy dolls on her website, though she labels them as “primitive” and equates them to “positive voodoo dolls.” Yes, she's been confronted about this, and yes she doubled down. I don’t think I need to explain how gross and racist this is on SEVERAL levels. She's been given opportunities to show growth and self-work with regards to her work and simply refuses to believe that she was ever wrong about anything.

So, her books aren't entirely worthless by any means, but they require a LOT of critical reading and a strong understanding of actual history and science. Furthermore, she leans rather hard into a borderline cult mentality that boils down to, "Nobody understands you, but because you're drawn to witchcraft, you're SPECIAL, probably because of some ancient hereditary superpower, so don't worry - Mama Silver understands you. Also, there's no need to read further into anything, just take my word for it."

I would not recommend them for beginners, which is a problem because that's exactly the demographic her work is marketed toward. (Personally, I would not recommend them for anybody, but that's just my opinion.) They require so much effort to fact-check and unpack that it's almost not even worth the time and energy for whatever ideas and information you might actually find useful.

For more details, I suggest the following articles:

Continuing Anger Over Silver Ravenwolf

The Problem With Silver Ravenwolf

Trae Dorn (@traegorn) of BS-Free Witchcraft expands on the topic in this video. They've been wrestling with this issue for YEARS within the Wiccan and wider witchcraft communities and I'm sure they could cite examples I've missed.

[clairedaring]

Well, Bua, here's the thing. A friend of mine likes your friend. He thinks there might be potential so he sent me here to talk to you. So... what do you mean when you said "Be prepared"?

GELBOYS สถานะกั๊กใจ — 2025, dir. Boss Kuno & Junior Naron

(detailed translation notes in image description - courtesy of @virtualtadpole)

[askyofexplodingstars]

lil sebastian doodle page (ft my farmer)

[erinwantstowrite]

guys if you had to cast Adam Sandler to play one DC character who would you choose please this isn't for anything specific it just made me burst into laughter thinking about it

[remxedmoon]

i’m sorry beebo fandom.

[localbloodmage]

How do you feel about Kermit getting fired?

Also, did you have anything to do with it?

he deserved it.

[h999pe]

Nora walks through the garden, Christmas gifts in hand as she avoids the thrashing tendrils, looking for Artemis. She would be concerned about all the eyes in the sky, if she wasn't so tired. She barely got any sleep, working on everyone's presents, and she felt like she would collapse right then and there. She hoped to find Arte soon..

Artemis noticed Nora almost instantly, teleporting her up to where she was. She had a small bunny on her lap, seemingly a gift from her husband.

“Hi Nora!!!”

She greeted, seemingly excited.

[nebulous-apocrypha]

omg hiiii hi hi hi!!!!!! I missed u bestie!!!!!!

hi bestie hii!! ^_^ how are you doing

[mystery-mage]

How many orbs have you pondered in the past and was any of them made of Dragongem? It's like soulgem but more powerful and also dragons.

i have pondered a great many orbs in my time, but un-fortunately i have never had the chance to ponder one made of dragongem. it has always been a great dream of mine, ever since my child-hood - which was quite long-ago.

[capn-twitchery]

has twitch ever considered not dying at zee?

"Tsk. Well, if someone must die at zee, surely it should be the captain, no? I'm simply sparing my crew from such fatal follies."

>This doesn't answer your question at all.

[breelandwalker]

I'm starting to question how much the "old" pagan costumes and festivities were indeed about fertility, sex, etc.

Ronald Hutton claims that there is no evidence in history that the maypole was saw as a phallic symbol, for example. And there are other possible meanings. But you usually just read in books as a matter of fact that it was a phalic representation and the dance around was about fertility etc

I recently read the witche's bible because I was curious about traditional wicca rituals and there is suuch a high focus on how every single costume or holiday was about fertility and sex that honestly it makes me wonder, how much it was indeed about those things and how much is just the interpretation of modern people like Gardner making it about those things

You're hitting the nail on the head without even realizing it, Anon.

SO much of what we think we know about "old pagan customs" comes from books written by Victorian-era occultists. And if there is one thing to be said about Victorian-era occultists, it was that they were horny as FUCK. (And the Edwardians weren't any better.)

These people went around rubber-stamping FERTILITY in big red letters on anything to do with goddesses or springtime or even the most passing reference to pregnancy, childbirth, midwifery, or babies. Literally any excuse for ritual nudity or a sacred orgy. And no, that is not satire. Or a euphemism.

The other thing that can be said about Victorian-era occultists is that quite a lot of them were history buffs and very prolific writers. (If you look at the roster of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and their regular guests, it reads like a Who's Who of the writers of fantastical fiction and poetry at the time.) So the result of that is a whole lot of literature about folklore and "ancient pagan customs" written by people who were filtering what little historical information they had at the time through the lens of their own opinions and those of their colleagues.

(It's worth noting that that "lens" often consisted quite heavily of free-associated ideas not supported by history or things they completely pulled out of their own asses. Leland's "Aradia" is a good example of the "Ancient Sacred Text Given To Me By A Real Witch Who Totally Exists And I Definitely Didn't Write This Myself And Make Up This Claim For Clout" genre.)

Quite unsurprisingly, a lot of these beliefs got absorbed into the roots of the modern witchcraft movement a few decades later, since those were the popular resources available at the time and the same generally-prevailing opinions and biases were still present. So this started WELL before Gardner and his coven were on the scene. They just picked up the thread.

And as we all know, once there's a generation or so of removal from the founding beliefs of a movement, people tend to take the older texts as gospel, regardless of how flawed they might be.

See Also: We Still Have To Talk About The Witch-Cult Hypothesis Because Margaret Murray Wrote The Encyclopedia Britannica Entry On Witchcraft And It Wasn't Updated Until The 1960s.

See Also: We Still Have To Explain The Difference Between Historical Fiction And The Historical Record Because Of The White Goddess And The Mists Of Avalon.

See Also: We Still Have To Talk About The Burning Times Myth Because Raymond Buckland Made That Stupid Fucking Documentary.

See Also: Why The Hell Is Anyone Still Recommending Silver Ravenwolf.

Anyway, the short answer is that yes, your impression is correct, and I'm glad you're reading Hutton and forming that practical context for the witchcraft/pagan literature and media that you encounter.

Keep honing that bullshit detector and best of luck!

[primordial-land]

Maxie

- @primordial-sea

What do you want, Archimedes?