I've noticed that some folks may be getting twaddled whilst on their path. What do I mean by 'twaddled'? Twaddled is something that happens when we read a book and book is full of crap and we get temporarily taken 'in' by it (perhaps due to inexperience, naivite or just a plain old brain fart - oh yeah, I know the last bit all too well ).

So I was wondering if we could have a thread that would give readers little gobbits of wisdom that would help a person to avoid being 'twaddled' by nutty publishers/writers etc.

Heres my thoughts:

Does book suggest you can only work magic at a certain time (ie when venus is transiting jupiter and it has to be in a sacred trine with count dooku from planet wotsit) - if so its likely you are facing a twaddler.

Does said book advocate lots of witchy watsits that cost a lot of money and low and behold is only available at a certain outlet? If so, you may be faced with a money twaddler - a person who is using twaddle dressed up as a book to sell lots of useless paraphanalia (which he is trying to flog you).

Okay have started things off, what do you think folks?

He he, give me time to think about this one Fizzy!
Meanwhile, ponder the Twiddler....
(Opposable thumbs wasted on Twaddle Monkeys!)

If the word Llewellyn appears anywhere on the cover and / or Spine, it is written by a "twaddler" and published by a "money twaddler" so dont waste time opening it.

If there's a fuzzy faux-velveteen cover on it

If it talks about Wicca being an ancient religion

Does it tell you that you have to have a magicial name, and introduce various forms of numerology to help you 'find' one?

Does it advocate strange and ancient forms of Wicca handed down through the mists of time, such as Seax Wicca or Pictish Wicca?

Come to think about it - cut to the chase - anything at all written by Ray Buckland.

"I decided to write this book because my Granny told me lots of things about the ways of the Pagan when I was a little girl/boy, and this has had an amazing impact on my life which I felt I must share with you all*."


* "all" A.K.A. "suckers"

Any mention at all of Atlantis

Ditto inner child

The coy use of the word pre-Christian


And for novels: Comparable to Tolkien at his best read: jumped on the clapped-out bandwaggon for pseudo-medieval trilogies with elves.


My, aren't we bitter today?

He he! Tas LIKES bitter - it goes well with "twisted" too, doncha know!
I decided to go for a more mindless ramble than usual, and found this GEM,

"The Element Encyclopaedia of 5000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts"
By Judika Illes

Gulp. That's more than any self respectin' Witch should EVER need...

(Wonder what Granny would have said?)

oh come on its fab i love that book its hilarious and deliciously yucky in places

Oh I don't know, Llewellyn books are quite good as firelighters. Although matches are cheaper.

Anything that has references to Atlantis, mystic spirits, traditions going back thousands of years or recomends lots of expensive paraphanalia that you can get from the author's website at a knock-down price.

Oh and anything by Silver Raven$wolf.

Anything that refers the templars as being the keepers of ancient and secret traditions or that they are still arround us today as a secret organisation.

Anything that refers to caerleon as a mystical place linked with Arthur... I work here its about as mystical as my shoe.

temps

All hail, She of the mystical shoes!

To be honest many of the so called "pagan" books one can purchase from the likes of Waterstone tend to be a bit on the light fluffy side and generally are 101 type books, which are a bit thin on substance generally.

Much better to look in the folklore, herbal, and history type sections...oh and quantum physics.

Mind, I do own quite a few of the fluffy tomes and I do find them quite interesting although I do prefer my mythological/herbal/aromatherpy/history etc type books... and as I say I do love the 5000 spells book... hehehehe, I laughed so hard when I read the spell about keeping a lover faithful.. it involved a live fish and inserting it in an unmentionable place and then after a number of days feeding it to the lover.... apparently a medievel spell.

hey, really? Do you work at weekends? It's only about half an hour from me and I actually quite like the place. OK, so maybe only the baths, museum, amphitheater and that strange little passage of shops...

Shoe shops perchance?

Hey, stop that.
Thats one of my favourite books your casting aspersions on, I sold more of them in the past 12 months than any other single title, including those great works by the world renouned true witch, "Titania".

Bet she went down a treat!

I had a book of 'Dream Interpretation' (always dodgy, I know) from the 1940s and it said, (brace yourselves) under the heading 'man'- "If you dream of a negro, it fortells a dark and dangerous time for you. You will have an encounter with a thief." Needless to say, upon reading that shite, I tossed the book on the proverbial bonfire. Since then, I haven't really come across anything that made me want to burn a book, but that kind of outright racism and complete lack of understanding of the world made me almost physically sick. Ick. I guess it was very different 'back then'.

At least, I *hope* it was 'very different' back then.

Sorry folks but I think I'll stick to advancing my magick skills with the latest edition of "Pyrotechnical Engineering for Metaphysicists"!

ROTFLMFAO

Its the way you tell em Q, to be sure

Yep, In the past I've bought a Llewellen book and a Buckland book . I managed to finish the Llewellyn book. . Buckland is crap.

I've read Bucklands The Tree. What utter arse-dribble.

Never read any Llewellen books and never likely to. Never heard of Titiana.

Conspiracy theory books are twaddle as far as I'm concerned (whether they think the moon landings were faked or that there's a secret ancient religion actually running things).

Any book supposedly channelled from the Ancient Masters (including Madame Blavatsky (or whatever her name was)) I think are twaddle as well.

Any New Age dolphin-crystal-healing books and their ilk.

The list goes on!

good point, I was thinking a similar thing - I mean if a nuclear weapons designer was researching into new designs and they found a paper on said subject and it was by Ivor Bigraygun you'd be a little suspicious, wouldn't you?

fizzy

As I'm in a grumpy mood I'll probably also add anything by Graham Hancock, The DaVinci Code and The Bible Code.

I'd almost managed to erase the dolphins from my memory, Wulfric!

CROP CIRCLES!
Complete & utter bollox!

And hack me to death with a blunt teaspoon, but I LOATHE bloody Feng Shui. YAAAARGH! I mean, if you get it wrong, then the Toilet Dragon will have his revenge...

Sorry Tas!

I agree with Crop Circles. Two bored students with a plank of wood.

I'll add Ley Lines as well.

Shock ..... Horror ..... You have never come across the great series of books by Titania Hardie ..... what sort of witches are they breeding nowadays:

Hocus Pocus, Titania's Book of Spells
Enchanted, Titania's Book of White Magic,
Zillions, Titania's Book of Numerology
Titania's Book of Hours, A Celebration of the Witches Year.
Love Potions, Titania's Book of Romantic Elixirs
Bewitched, Titania's Book of Love Spells

All nicely produced in lovely fluffy flock covered boards.

Know what you mean. I especially don't care for what Hancock contrives of Angkor Wat. The whole complex is clearly the most aesthetic blend of irrigation genius and reverence of the elementals of water. Trying to construe this into some half-baked cosmological coincidence on a laptop, is no better than implying that Stonehenge was built by extraterrestrials. As for all the illuminati bollox, and any other conspiracy theories, anyone can suggest 2+2=7 if the price is right.

The Burning Times

Stonehenge was built by the Celts

Ye ancient Goddess worship dating back to the Paleolithic era in an unbroken line

All gods are one god and his name is Cernunnos (Ok, OK, so that's just a personal one. Don't all leap on me at once! )

Yes esp All Gods one God & Celts built Stonehenge ! Boils my piss

Ah, not a witch. Or Wiccan. Just a humble Heathen



Quite agree. I saw this programme where Hancock was convinced that the temples of Thailand (? or was it Myanmar - can't remember now) made up the constellation Draco. Only one or two flaws in his theory. He got rid of all the temples that didn't fit and why would a culture with no dragon lore (according to the expert they interviewed) build their temples to the Dragon design?

The worst part of all these so-called "alternative histories" or conspiracy theories is that they deny the human ingenuity and skill of the ancient builders, planers and craftsmen.

Hi Pash

I'll do you a favour, if you ever get lumbered with Llewellyn's

Teutonic Magic
or
Teutonic Religion
by Kveldulf Gundarsson

I'll take them off your hands, no charge, I'll even pay the postage

dav

is there such a thing?

Especially when the words

Witta

and

Edain McCoy

also appear on the cover.

dav

books that have cute little fairies,goblins, sprites or some other such nonsense carefully, artistically placed to encourage misguided belief and produce a good ole brain fart.

(I have nothing against this sort of artwork - some of them are very beautiful - but what has that got to do with nature? I mean the last time I was in a wood I sure as heck didn't see no fuzzy winged nymphette with boobs the size of melons flitting sexily about the place - did you?)

fizzy

Unfortunately not

Any books in the Van Däniken mode claiming that all ancient engineering feats are the works of aliens, or books claiming that we are somehow genetic alien experiments. Get right on my goat, they do.

ouch that has to hurt!

And what would you do with it if you did, Fizzy?

Oh but those are funny! Chariots of the Gods is always good when yer feelin down.

And am I setting BabyBadger up for a lifetime of disappointment by getting her the Flower Fairy books to read?

I am trying to avoid obvious fluff but can I read the White Goddess? Or will I just get confused.
BM
xx

Well, I'm sure you can read it!

Just bear in mind that Graves later admitted it was poetry, not fact.

OK, "may" I read it. Sheesh... pedant
BM
xx

Yep!

Dunno about Fizzy, but I would put it onna stick - fuzzy winged nymphette onna stick please, with French fries, and a side salad, and some dipping sauce - MMmmmmmm.....

I was in Rant mode when posting this

Frith.

wolvie

But I thought the Druids built Stonehenge

One of my favourite mistakes I read was that Yorkshire was the next county to Scotland Wow, how did that happen?

I also hate ones about utsy cutsy little friendly fairies, that the three fold law applies to all witches and worse still all pagans. That we all adhere to harm none. As the saying goes, 'Harm None? Where's the fun in that?'

Or that all pagans must veggies cos they love the earth so much

Or even that heathens & pagans are the same ...

Or that our ancient ancestors did it this way etc, etc, etc or the Goddess books that see vulva's everywhere in the earths surface. Just because something is an opening in the ground it doesn't make it a vagina anymore than it makes it an anal opening

Although perhaps it may well lead to the bowels of the earth

Pecti Witta/Wicca - EH?

Anything trying to state that "Scottish Craft is Picti, or Pecti, or Fairy/Faery" or variations thereof.

Clueless bloody muppets.

I've moved this to Starters Orders Basics as it's quite valuable really

Also another thing, is when books state that the moon is feminine. It may be for many but it is not for all pagans

Aaaaarrrgh! Yech!!!!!!!!!!

<MH lopes off to THOC for a heady draught of Tas's quaich to recover>

I've "met" the toilet dragon.....................usually after a particulary hot balti!

Following on from the Ancient Goddess worship, the other one that bugs me is the "we used to worship a Triple Celtic Goddess".

I don't even know where to begin with that one... Grrr...

Oh! Or that our ancestors worshipped "aspects"...