Author! AUTHOR!

I was inspired recently by my best friend Di. When she truly loves a book, she will often track down the writer and send them a nice email. I resolved to try it the next time I read something that really moved me.

The occasion came sooner than I thought with Wicca's Charm by Catherine Edwards Sanders. I was moved, but not in the happy-fun way. Below is my hastily typed letter to her webmaster. I don't suppose I need to elaborate on my not reccomending this book...

Ms. Sanders-

I borrowed your book this weekend from the Santa Monica Public Library. I am feeling more and more fortunate that I didn't buy it.

In your book, you point out how displeased you are that Pagans stereotype Christians as ignorant, Bible-thumping, Evangelical southern hicks. You then cleverly combat this stereotype by portraying Pagans as drug-addled, ill-educated teenage slackers. You then follow it up with a "Jesus is panacea!" cautionary wail that falls just a little short of original, but hits somewhere near the borders of the Land of Irony.

Your scholarship is poor. Your interviews are badly planned, chosen, and conducted. Your preconceived notions bleed through the book like the smell of library air. Your Christian sense of charity stays your hand before the edge of outright insult, but just. This book is a pathetic attempt at a grass-roots ethnography and a failure.

It fails to inform anyone of what Pagans are truly like. It fails to impress me, a Pagan, that a Christian writer is capable of anything like fairness on the subject of religions not their own. It failed to teach you anything, it seems.

Thank you for continuing to assassinate the collective character of a minority faith. Thank you for ensuring that I will be asked, again and again if I worship the devil or harm children. Thank you for your bigotry and small-minded lack of insight.

It galvanizes smart Pagans like me to do this work ourselves. We need puppet journalists like yourself to remind us how much ignorance is still out there.

Blessed be,

Meghan Elison
Pagan Meghan
youtube.com/pagantv