Goofball Reviews

These are some reviews I've written about I've books I've read for one reason or another. It might prove amusing.

Enchantress Mine - Bertrice Small

When I think about it, Bertrice Small does a good job of making those of us with Celtic blood seem completely flakey. The good news is that--so far as I know--this is an inaccurate portrayal. But I got to a point in this read where if I read one more thing about the heroine's inbred Celtic mysticism, I was going to make a cross quarter fire from its pages.

This is neither a good book nor a bad book. I thought this was an indifferent book--one interesting enough to keep reading in order to find out what happens, but not interesting enough to suggest to a friend. For the umpteenth time, perfect heroines are utterly boring. Mairin is perfect in body, mind, and soul. Heck, she is said to have even been a beautiful child--breathtaking at age five. Five? For crying out loud, wait to begin the story until she's around puberty. With three "heroes" in the cast, I hoped at least one would be interesting. No such luck. So much for the leads in this melodrama!

In this book's favor, I have to applaud small's exploration of history, in this case the circumstances around the Norman Conquest. Actually, large parts of the book read like a history text, which is probably a bad thing in a novel.

This was a quick read, so if you're reading for sheer fun, there's much worse out there. Of course, there's also much better. That's the quandary of being indifferent.


Nocturnal Witchcraft - Konstaninos

Basically this book is taking Scott Cunningham's classic Wicca and reading it in a dark closet. It's the same stuff all over again thinly veiled in shadows.

Now I'm not at all new to the Craft or mystical studies, so I'm always looking for new books that seem to promise a new perspective or new ideas. Having read the suthor's Vampires--The Occult Truth, I thought Nocturnal Witchcraft would be such a book. It's not. This is the same old thing rehashed, greyscaled, and repackaged.

I also don't think the author was as careful with his research as he should have been. One point pricked me in particular. He talks about Anubis, the Egyptian deity most associated with embalming and funerary rituals, having the ankh of eternal life as his symbol. While it's true that Anubis was sometimes depicted holding an ankh, the symbol is most closely associated with the god Osiris. Elsewhere, the author seems to give the powers and traits of Osiris to Anubis. Additionally, the ankh appeared with ANY figure representing death or the underworld. So if the author happens to be especially fond of Anubis, maybe he should have just said this instead of mangling Egyptian myth. He had the opportunity to teach and didn't take it.

So if you're new to the world of Craftiness, you might find this interesting. But anyone really interested in the shadows won't find anything of use here.

The Jesus Papers - Michael Baigent

Baigent wrote this for the money? As Samuel Johnson once said, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Besides, if it sells, who's really at fault--the author or the readers?

Perhaps because I am not a Christian I am more open to possibilities presented in texts like this one. That is, that's not my faith, so there's no faith to be tested. This time, Baigent presents the mother of all cover-ups for our consideration. I think for the sake of intelligent debate, all arguments need to be examined outside of the realm of faith. To a large extent, it would be faith in the traditional concepts of Jesus that would render Baigent's work "blasphemous". Otherwise, we have a historian working at his craft--and take it from me, historians aren't usually rolling in money.

Sure, I understand where a lot of this book is not supported by solid facts or resources. The Bible has the same problem.

If your mind is open and you don't put all of your eggs into one faith basket, you may find this to be an interesting read. Yet I wonder, if a book like this can shake one's faith, how strong is that faith in the first place?

Piercing The Darkness: Undercover with Vampires in America Today - Katherine Ramsland

Let me begin by saying that vampires/vampyres ARE in fact real. What might need adjusting is your definition.

Ramsland wrote this book much the way I imagine a child would write about his day at the zoo. I got the feeling that she wanted the reader to understand how adventurous and intrepid she was in plunging into a psychotic world of fetishes, blood, dysfunctionality, and flaky "professionalism".

How Ramsland could have had so much contact with the life and have understood it so poorly astounds me. She is supposed to be a psychologist. How can she not see the validity of the life and the psychological foundations of "vampirism/vampirism"? How could she not understand that what one embraces as reality is, in fact, reality?

Read this is you value shock and schlock over substance. If you'd like a peek into the online vampire/vampyre world, plug the subject into a search engine.

The Teachings of Don Juan - Carlos Castaneda

If you have a field of devilweed (datura) growing behind your house, don't get down on all fours and start grazing. Don Juan is not about teaching US this "Yaqui Way of Knowledge", but rather the unique story between a sorcerer-teacher and an eager student.

Ladies and gentlemen, I for one know with a preternatural certainty that Don Juan is not fiction. Let me say the shamanic experiences described herein ring true to me in recollection of my own visions and travels, and let's leave it at that.

Carlos Castaneda was a brilliant man. This is most obvious in his writing. After all, this is not the simplest topic in the world to write about, and yet Castaneda did so with wit, verve, and style. I especially appreciate how Don Juan is divided into two parts, experiential and academic (Castaneda was a graduate student at the time).

Someone said to me that Castaneda was "trite" compared to authors like Depak Chopra (cough cough). I'd believe that this person simply was unable to "get" Castaneda--maybe Don Juan was too intense and too earthy. Draw your own conclusions.