This seems to be the trend. I picked up a book in a London store today and had a look. It had ‘ADVANCED WICCA’ written all over it, it claimed in the description to be for advanced practitioners of the art magical who wish to learn the secrets of advanced Wicca. So I was curious and I looked.
What was clear to me was that the book did cover the very basics. It told me all about the Gawdess and the Gawd, the Four Elements and how to do spells. It told me all about how to open my chakras and how to close them, how to choose the correct phase of the Moon even. Boohaadaadihay! I say. What is so advanced about that? Besides, do authors like this really believe that their readers are as idiotic as to believe that such nonsensensical dribble is ‘advanced’? Well, it seems like their readers are indeed idiots, where as the authors are clever people who know how to take candy from a child without making them cry. It seems to be a trend. Write P.H.D. after your name on the cover of a book and you are an expert in whatever you are writing on, write the word ‘advanced’ and people believe you too. Of course with Wicca it is even more nonsense than usual because the only way you can do advanced work is by working through the degrees with a good and disciplined coven, none of this nonsense of chakras and a hundred goddess names!
So, why do people who call themself pagan and who support ecological causes and honour the Earth buy such dribble? It is clearly wasting the Earth’s resources! It is clearly nonsense! Is it that Pagans nowadays are actually new age consumers who wish to be trendy and that the idea of reading a book with real information in it seems like hard work? It reminds me of an article I read recently about how the sale of oranges in the UK is down significantly due to the fact that people think its too much hard work to peel it! I say, peel an orange hard work? Reading a real book on Wicca hard work? I guess it would be, because it will probably tell you to read a dozen more and then seek out a teacher!
