Aradia -- the Articles (review)
Jenny
jennyg@compuserve.com
Wed Apr 21 16:19:03 1999
The articles in Aradia ranged from splendid works of scholarship to rather half-baked pieces.*p*First, Stewart Farrar did a brief introduction.  It wasn't particularly "scholarly" -- but who cares?  Are any introductions?*p*Next came a wonderful article by Robert Mathieson, a medieval philologist (ie., person who studies languages).  Mathieson's piece was everything I'd hoped for:  insightful, penetrating, and carefully researched.  Mathieson pointed out that there is evidence, both in the text and in Leland's personal letters, which suggests that only the first couple chapters of _Aradia_ are the manuscript that Maddelina gave to Leland.  The remainder is a compilation of other material Leland collected.  Mattheison was also able to prove that Maddelina actually existed and was not (as some claimed) imaginery.*p*After this, Chas Clifton did an excellent summary of Aradia's impact on Neo-Paganism.  Again, this was a good, solid, scholarly article.  He also published a copy of a song Leland wrote later, called "La Bella Strega".*p*Then came the problems...*p*Mario Pazzaglini did a couple articles.  The first was on the magickal world-view of Aradia.  And looking at it, I was immediately struck by one hideous, awful flaw:*p*There were no footnotes.*p*None.  There were a couple citations -- not many.  And some of those were useless, because they didn't reference books in the bibliography, so you had no way of knowing what books they referred to.*p*This is a HORRIBLE sin for a scholarly book.  A "history" without citations isn't a history, it's a gospel.  You have to take it on faith, not evidence.*p*And Pazzaglini made a LOT of statements that I wanted foonotes for -- badly.  Like Italian witches have secret languages.  That there are towns in modern Italy that remain fully Pagan to this day.  That Christianity was never introduced to some mountain villages.  That the goddess Diana was worshipped in South America.*p*Over and over again, Pazzaglini relied on the teachings he'd received as a child, on Strega documents that he had seen (but never published...), etc.  This is fine in a religious book.  For example, this chapter reminded me a lot of Raven Grimassi's _Ways of the Strega_.  But a scholarly work demands evidence, citations, and proof -- not mere assertions.*p*Religiously speaking, Pazzaglini's second article ("Magical Principles and Practices") was quite nice.  He basically lists off a bunch of magickal precepts that he collected from practitioners in Italy.  Academically speaking, however, it's useless.  We don't know who these practitioners were, where they came from, what circumstances the information was collected under, and how much Pazzaglini edited the material he gathered.  There are some parts that I'm sure come from Neo-Paganism, not ancient Italian ways.  For instance, he claims that the number seven is sacred because it's one quarter of the moon's cycle.  This is a Neo-Pagan error, based on Robert Graves' _The White Goddess_.  Lunar cycles have 29.5 days -- no ancient lunar calendars use the 28-day months of modern Paganism.*p*His third article was a short piece on the Firefly Verses, included in Aradia.  Pazzaglini collected another variant, thus proving that Leland was dealing with real, repeatable folklore, not the inventions of one lone woman.  A critical point for folklorists!  However the article still contained some painful assumptions.  For example, Pazzaglini found it significant that the Firefly charm had 16 lines, because there were 16 directions in Etruscan divination.  This ignores the obvious point that most folk-songs have 4-line verses, and 4-verse songs are pretty damned common.  Pazzaglini offers no evidence to suggest that these verses owe anything to Etruscan divination techniques.*p*The final article, Robert Chartowich's piece on the Enigmas of Aradia, was the only one in the book that was just plain bad.  It was a combination of terrible research (using texts like _Holy Blood, Holy Grail_ to "prove" that the Strega were Gnostics), wild speculation (the Fireflies of Aradia were hallucinations triggered by LSD use), and illogic.  Chartowich, for instance, insists that Gardnerians have misunderstood Aradia's command on nudity.  The famous line "And as the sign that ye are truly free, Ye shall be naked in your rites" actually doesn't say "in your rites" -- Leland added that, unnecessarily.  However Chartowich goes on to insist that this commandment has nothing to do with rituals... ignoring the fact that the entire chapter it comes from describes a ritual.  Only by taking the line completely out of context can you say that it isn't talking about a ritual.*p*In summary, my feelings were mixed.  Two of the articles were first-rate scholarship.  Pazzaglini's three weren't, but they were good gospel.  I think that modern practitioners will find them very useful, even if scholars won't.  And Chartowich's piece was bad, but it was the only one I thought was a complete write-off.*p*It's funny, if I had expected this to be a religious book, I would have adored it.  It's well-thought out, contains some notable pieces of scholarship, and is eminently useable.  But I was expecting an academic text -- and that it's not.*p*So take my grousing with a grain of salt.  If you're looking for a good guide to Stregherie, you'll probably like this book a lot.  Aradia can be dense by itself;  Pazzaglini's articles on its worldview and magickal assumptions make it far more useful for a practitioner.  *p*Jenny