Teen Witch

Way back in 1997, when my interest in Wicca and Paganism was still very new, I was browsing in Waterstone's Occult section when I spotted a book called Teen Witch. I shelled out fifteen quid and bought it. I was just a young sproglet back then. Browsing last week in Waterstone's, I spotted Teen Witch again and noticed it had changed its cover. It was now a stylish black and white design. This alone inspired this review and my interest to read the book for the first time in years.

When I did pick it up again I found myself asking things about the book that I hadn't dreamed of thinking at the tender age of fourteen. So let me state now, what I tried to do with this was review the book and its contents fairly and impartially. I am not trying to insult Silver Ravenwolf nor am I trying to say she is Goddess's gift to Wicca.

I just want to say something about the cover, which started this whole thing. On the original cover of the book, there are five "average" teenagers on the cover from left to right we have: an African-American girl wearing a red starry dress, a boy wearing jeans and a backwards cap, a girl wearing a yin yang belt, an oriental girl wearing a red shirt with a gold pentagram on it and a blonde girl wearing dungarees.

It wasn't until just recently I realised something about this cover. It wasn't trying to accurately represent a cross section of American witches. It was doing what all the TV networks do with teen comedy shows. It was showing a collection of beautiful people. It's saying (not literally but in a marketing idea kind of way) "These people are witches, they are beautiful people." I suppose it's trying to neither be sexist nor racist in the PC world we live in. However, if they really wanted a PC cover, maybe they should have had the following on instead:

1. A fat girl/guy; 1 in 3 people in the US are obese, a shocking 1 in 2 in the UK. I had my weight checked recently, I am not obese however I am fat. I don't care, I'm happy and I'm quite fit for a fat person or I wouldn't be able to dance for five hours solid, three nights a week at selected nightclubs I go to. Why did they not include a fat person on the cover? Was this not the image of the average witch they wanted to portray? After all I have no doubt that a percentage of the people who will read this review will be overweight / fat / obese / etc. And WHAT is wrong with that? All of my ex-boyfriends have been big-woman lovers. They say they prefer a woman with a lot of meat on her bones. Not that I think there's anything wrong with being slim / toned / skinny / etc. as long as YOU the person is happy with their shape and appearance. So why in this Land of the Fat, home of the skinny and the United Kingdom of extreme weight differences isn't there ONE fat person on ANY witchcraft book?
2. A Goth, I am not saying that all Goths are Wiccans / Pagans / Thelemites / Etc. Nor am I saying that all Wiccans / Pagans / Thelemites / Etc. are Goths. However in the Circles I run with (no pun intended) most witchcraftly (is that a word?) minded people dress in Alternative clothing. Note Alternative incorporates: Goths, Punks, Hippies (yes hippies - I do know some), Rockers, Metalheads, new romantics et al. (But NOT Moshers, Moshing is a style of dance not a style of dress, call me snobbish if you like but I'd much prefer someone to describe themselves as alternative than as a Mosher.)
   I know a Punk Satanist (Not a Devil Worshipper as there is a difference between the two as I have been told by both sides many times.) I know plenty of Goth Wiccans and Pagans, I know a New Romantic, a psychobilly-punk (don't ask) and an old school Goth (frilly shirts and stuff) who are greywalkers / shamans. I know a Hippy (yes a hippy) who is a Pagan and a complete Metalhead who is a Thelemite. Don't get me started on the people I know in organisations or we'll be here all day.
   I have always hated the idea that you can't have a piercing / tattoo / black-eyeliner / black clothing / a bong and be taken seriously as a witch. If I stopped talking to the people I know who have previously smoked cannabis at one time or who smoke regularly now, (including relatives,) the only people I would talk to would be my thirteen year old cousin and the dog. So many Alternative people do practise the craft, why isn't just ONE of them represented?
3. "The Craft" fanatics: Oh yes those guys are still around. For all those of you who have been living in a cave for the last ten years and have therefore not seen 'The Craft' let me give you an example with a very, very, very sad confession:
   The first person to introduce me to a form of witchcraft that wasn't fronted by Bette Midler or the Mad Madam Mim was a girl I call Sami. Sami was a Craft fanatic. She had a big homemade poster on her bedroom wall that said 'MENOR' on it, she was deathly afraid of black candles (as they hadn't explained what black meant on the film, a ploy I think was on purpose) and she thought everything should be done "In perfect love and perfect trust." Now I personally think that it isn't a bad philosophy however if the only reason you employ it IS because of seeing "The Craft" then I think there is something wrong. Sami and I went on the internet and printed out some stuff on Wicca, neither of us had heard of it before, but we were thirteen and intrigued. I bought books like Principle of Wicca and Everyday Magic, she claimed that she didn't need to read books because she already knew everything there was to know. After all she could light candle by blowing on them and make the wind stop. I'm sure almost everyone has met someone like that before. Needless to say she isn't practising Wicca anymore.

So on with the actual contents of the book. I'm going to go over everything with a fine toothcomb, but I'll pick out the bits that stand out to me.

Introduction Just for Parents: In this introduction Silver is obviously trying to put any parents mind at rest. But she doesn't have to do this by blatantly lying. What I am talking about is:

"Witchcraft is not, nor was it ever, a vehicle for Satanic worship. If you believe this, then you've fallen into a misinformation trap that we quickly need to get you out of...."

Since when did Wiccans and Pagans have exclusive claim to the word Witch? Silver states many times throughout her book that 'real' witches do not worship the devil. This is totally incorrect. Wiccans and Pagans do not worship the devil. But I know Satanists and Devil Worshippers who are a bit pissed with this kind of blatant discrimination. They have a right to call themselves witches as well. I'm not judging ANYONE on their religious beliefs. This includes Satanists and Devil Worshippers, if that's what they want to do let them. The amount of times I have stood up for these people is more than I care to mention. I share no personnel beliefs with them, except that I think they have rights and shouldn't be shunned and looked down upon by the witchcraft community because of their religion.

There are two basic rules of life: don't discuss religion or politics. Since I am reviewing a religious book, this is pretty hard to do. But if this were a book about Islam and it said 'real MUSLIMS celebrate the death of saints and martyrs' then the Sunni Muslims would feel the need to disagree as this is a Shiite custom. Yes it's taken a bit out of context, but you understand what I'm getting at.

Introduction just for teens: I'm opening this chapter with a quote:

"I'm a lineaged Witch and author. Lineaged means I've gone through years of private training, made mistakes, rolled with the punches of life, and elevated through ceremony to the position of elder in my group."

Funny because when I looked up 'Lineaged' in my Collins English Dictionary it says "Lin'eage; descent from descendents of an ancestor." This is not the first time I have seen Silver use words out of context. I doubt it will be the last. Maybe someone should buy her a new dictionary. We could start a fund "Silver dictionary fund" and highlight in it all the words she's used out of context over the years when we send it to her.

The next problem I have with this chapter is its little history story. The story of Silver's first Tarot deck. Now there are a few possibilities with this story

1. It's completely true and Silver just wants the reader to know some of her past.
2. It's a made up story to tell some facts about witchcraft.
3. It's true but missing the real facts because Silver didn't want to point out the mistakes.

I believe option 3 is right. Just to point out some things that are wrong with this story. NOT everyone on the planet believed that God was a woman. She is obviously forgetting the many centuries of Eastern philosophy that have existed for a long, long time. Also Hinduism, which claims to be the oldest religion in the world. It is not a polytheistic religion. The many Gods represent different aspects of the same God. But they believe there is only one, but has many faces. Does this sound familiar to anyone? (By the way this was explained to me by my long time friend, Geeta who is a Hindu. If any Hindus or former Hindus are reading this and want to correct me. I am very sorry, I am just going from what my friend said. As Hinduism is one of the few religions I've not looked into in great detail over the years.)

The next thing I have a problem with is the whole Burning Times statement. Basically "Silver's cousin" says that in the Burning Times Christian men burned two million women and children believing that they were witches. This is so wrong I don't know where to start. If this story is true and this is what Silver was told by her cousin, Silver could have looked this up for herself and realised the long established fact the figure was nowhere near two million or nine million what ever has been claimed over the years. It was somewhere between forty to one hundred thousand between America and Europe that were tried and convicted as witches. The other basic fact is that it wasn't JUST women and children. In fact, children were almost never tried as witches and the ones who were tried were more often than not tried by Bible. A Bible would be placed on one side of a set of scales, a person would be sat on another (think Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Duck scene. Massive scales. This actually happened. But with a Bible. Not a duck.) If the person weighed more than the Bible they were innocent. A lot of people were proved innocent this way and the authorities often tried the few children that were accused this way because although they were possible witches, they were still children. In fact, just as many MEN were tried as Witches as women were. In Britain however this was more often than not, people who were Catholic / Protestant during the time of the Tudor reign. (NOT THE MIDDLE AGES, SILVER) During the time of Elizabeth I, who was Protestant, everybody had to be Protestant. If you were a Catholic you had to go to a Protestant church and have services in English instead of Latin. Often if the local authorities knew of a Catholic who was or wasn't going to Church, they would build a case against them accusing them of witchcraft. Often being successful in prosecution. Bloody Mary had just burned Protestants, Elizabeth I would have been happy if the Catholics had just gone to Church once a week. So you see although I am very saddened by the Burning Times, I remember that most of the people who were killed, weren't witches anyway. They were just accused of it.

In fact most of the real witches, met secretly together and all shared a book of information between them. So if one of them got caught, hopefully the book would survive. Before then people had rarely written things down and just taught by word of mouth, but with have to meet in secret and often at night, they started to write things down. Witches met in night and shadows, hence Book Of Shadows. See, I know my history, I didn't doss about in school.

Now on the whole, the book is full of things like this. Misinformation. But I don't believe that Silver has put it in here book maliciously or on purpose with the intent to confuse or lie to the reader. I personally believe she was just trying to do good with the book. Most of the rest of the book is a guide through spells and rituals. Unfortunately, it is addressed as THE way to do things. I don't think people should be presented with just one way of doing things. There are many different ways. I recently did a ritual with a group of Thelemites. It was a silly ritual to a God of the War Hammer series we did for fun because we all wanted to experience different ways of doing ritual. There were funny looks all around however at the end because we all banish in different ways. Some did the standard LBRP, myself and another girl did the Paul Hume version of the LBRP while two of the guys banished by Tai Chi as they said it cleared their mind.

There isn't generally a standard way of doing anything when it comes to Magick. I think Silver really needs to point this out when she writes. One sentence: "This is one way of doing it, but you can find another way of doing it yourself." That's all it needs.

Summary

I know I haven't gone into the book in great detail picking out what's wrong with it. This is because I have already picked out what I believe to be the major, major ones. I still believe that Teen Witch is one of the best written books for young people. It does explain things in an easy and simple way. But it is by no means perfect. Anyone who reads Teen Witch should also read Modern Magick by Kraig. That books goes into detail with everything and even gives alternate ways of doing things. Silver herself said she thought it was one of the best written books she had read.

I think anyone who is starting out in witchcraft and Wicca SHOULD read some of Silver's books. She is a good writer, but she shouldn't be hero-worshipped by people. What I personally recommend is that you take out all the stuff in Silver's books that says anything personal to her. Just concentrate on the stuff she says specifically about rituals and spells.

Teen Witch is a book I think all beginners should at least flick through if nothing else. If you disregard the bad points of the book, there is a good underlying message. I think Silver just wants the teens who practise Witchcraft to abide by the laws of the land and of moral fibre. There nothing wrong with that. Except that this book is aimed at teenagers. And you are severely misguided if you think that they are never going to drink or do drugs just because you say so. One of the main problems with the drink / drugs issue with the craft is that if your going to do it, your going to do it anyway no matter who tells you it's wrong. I think a drink every now and then is good for you. But then I'm old enough to drink.

Silver Ravenwolf had tried to aim this book at all teenagers and probably people of my age group as well. I think the problem is that once you hit 16, you do want to go beyond what one book says, even if you have treat it like a bible. I certainly recommend it to any 11-15 year old who are interested in starting the craft, or anyone who is older for that matter. But I would recommend if your 16-21 or older than that, you may want to read some other books first, to get a perspective of what all witchcraft communities are saying about certain things before you read it, or you may find it a bit patronising.

Orb Thesela writes for Xenex, so you can feel free to give her feedback through the site using the form below.