Kaatryn MacMorgan

Autorka se proslavila knihou All One Wicca: Study in The Universal Ecclectic Tradition of Wicca, který je volně dostupný na internetu , a je současnou prezidentkou Church of Universal Ecclectic Wicca (Církev univerzální eklektické wiccy).

Knihu tvoří několik samostatných esejů do hloubky se věnujících základům spirituality wiccy. Třebaže jednotlivá témata se běžně vyskytují prakticky ve všech knihách typu wicca 101 (101 označuje v angličtině kurzy pro začátečníky), zde jsou rozebírána podrobně a do hloubky, což ocení všichni, kterým už pouhé základy nestačí.

V první kapitole se dopodrobna rozebírá problematika rede a už její samotný název – Wiccanské rede: dospělý pohled – naznačuje, že se rozhodně neomezuje jen na tradiční opakování známých osmi slov bez hlubšího zamyšlení, co toto pravidlo s sebou přináší v běžném životě wiccana.

V dalších kapitolách se autorka věnuje historii wiccy, otázce autentičnosti i třeba vztahu mezi wiccou a náboženství bohyně. Pojednává o tématu kreacionismu ve vztahu k wicce, vědy a víry nebo o obzvláště diskutovaných tématech proselytismu, satanismu, tzv. post-moderní wiccy a formování etického kodexu.

Kdo hledá knihu, která ho poučí jak oslavit esbat nebo sabat, tuto knihu by otvírat neměl. Ale ten, kdo hledá hlubší filozofické aspekty wiccy, jak implementovat wiccanskou spiritualitu do každodenního života dospělého, duševně vyspělého člověka, rozhodně by si ji neměl nechat uniknout.
Obzvláště pak výborný je test o padesáti otázkách, na kterých si ověříte svou hlubší znalost wiccy.

Kniha je zaměřena na dospělého čtenáře a její jazyk tomu odpovídá – není úplně nejjednodušší. Přesto není natolik obtížný, aby si průměrně zdatný angličtinář knihu nedokázal přečíst s minimální prací se slovníkem.… (más)

This book is divided into 12 topics (and a few mini topics) the author feels, in her experience, are advanced. Some of the criticism I've seen of this book is that the material in the book is not advanced and every Wiccan learned this stuff in their first year. I really wish I could agree with that, but my experience is otherwise. I would agree that any Wiccan who has been around more than a year or two *should* know the information in this book, but my dealings in real life and online is that at least half of the Wiccans out there (even those who've been Wiccan for years and years) don't know a lot of this stuff.
Some of the best topics include; The Wiccan Rede, All paths lead to the same place, The real history of Wicca, Wicca is not Celtic, Satanism for non-Satanists, and then the mini chapter on evaluating sources. These chapters provided a lot of good discussion on some commonly held misconceptions within the Wiccan community and were handled very well. I'm paraphrasing these chapter titles as I don't have the book sitting in front of me (I loaned the book to a student within hours of finishing it) just so you know. There were 3 chapters dealing more with science which were good, but were not my favorites. I did however think they were very well done. I hate to listen to non-scientists tell me about science. I do however, like to read scientists tell me about science. At no time did the author try to tell me that science proves magic works or any other such nonsense. No, she used her scientific expertise (the author is a biologist) to explain things like evolution and how science and morality might be linked. Things that science has some business explaining. So those might not have been topics *I* would have written about, but I can certainly see why the author choose them. They were interesting and educational.
If I have any criticism of this book it would be the heavy use of websites as recommended reading and footnotes instead of books. I can't remember if the author said why she did this, but I can imagine some valid reasons to do this. Websites are free and the reader can put the book down immediately and go look up a web resource. The downside to this is that web links are much more likely than books to disappear over time. Even an out of print book can be tracked down. One can buy it used or track it down through the inter library loan. I found several sites that were no longer in existence and this book was published only 5 years ago. I do believe that I read that there is a revised edition coming and I'm sure it will have updated links.
All in all, I think this is one of the best books I've read on the subject of Wicca in quite some time. Most of the material covered was information I was already familiar with, but there were things that I did gain some useful info about. Certainly the science topics were educational. I had also seen a lot of the links, but found some new ones and I love collecting useful links. I would really hope that anyone who has been Wiccan for more than 5 or 6 years would know about the bulk of this stuff, but sadly I know for a fact not everyone does. I also enjoyed this book from the perspective of evaluating my own trainings. I admit that I don't always hit all of these things. My students certainly know about the Rede and the history and the common misconceptions. But I don't generally train them on the truth about Satanism or why we don't proselytize unless it just comes up. And you know... we probably should.… (más)