Ty Falk

I'm a fan of Ronald's, not so much TL - you seem to be implying that those
who have pointed out some
errors in RH's research and methodology
are all fluffy types who just can't take the truth -
but in my experience that's not really what its about.
In such as large piece of work you'd surely expect the odd error, would
you not?
I'm more familiar with the slight criticism from "sabbatic types" who'd
say RH is not really consistant in his methodology - sometimes (to him)
absence of evidence is important, othertimes not.
You can always read his stuff both ways, so where he says there is no
evidence of "prehistoric materiachy" or "Gerald Gardner's New Forest
coven",
really he is leaving the question open - but that's not always clear -
and some assume he is debunking modern wicca, which I don't think he is.

But there again in other parts of the book (as for example) with Andrew
Chumbley -
RH seems to accept (or swallow) completely AC's own foundation myth.
So there are strange lapses like that, that subsequent researchers have
merely questioned.
I'm no expert, but that's how it looks.
In my own field RH says that "Pan was the 2CV of the ancient world" -
and that just doesn't seem true - PAN or Egyptian Min
was one of the most important gods of the ancient world -
etc etc.
so its just little corrections rather than any bad reaction IMO

bb/93

mogg






but i think that's rather an unfair argument - wrote:
> Funny, I like Hutton and Luhrman too.
>
> One of the questions that I would pose to you is whether you were a
> practitioner or an anthropologist first? I think that (possibly
> chicken vs egg) question might give you a starting point.
>
> I know for me, I became an Erisian before I began to study
> anthropology, and one of the first books I read was Hutton's
> "Triumph". For me it was interesting to read a lot of the criticisms
> of modern Paganism and how much it differed from traditional craft
> practice, but when I ran excitedly to show some of my pagan-y (and
> fluffy, now that I think about it) friends, they got their cloaks all
> in a bunch. I've noticed since then similar reactions from a good deal
> of pagans to that information (although there seems to be differing
> levels of resistance along tradition lines, interestingly enough.
> Dischordians and more formalized practitioners like those in the OTO
> seem to be less threatened by it then Heathens or Neo-Wiccans and the
> like). Pagans face a lot of criticisms from society, even now, and
> they don't take kindly to discrediting information they can't just
> shrug off as religious zealotry.
>
> I wouldn't let it bug me. Books like yours have a way of finding
> themselves in the hands of people who will be able to appreciate it.
> The ones who can't handle the truth, as it were, won't change their
> minds no matter what, just like the Christian zealots who spend their
> summers in the Badlands looking for human tracks that date the same as
> dinosaur footprints. For them, Faith trumps everything, even Fact.
>
>
>