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Summary: A Book That Sets The Record Straight
Review: I am so proud to see a book like this finally enter our male dominated world. In a time when even the bible (something that is supposed to be spiritual and enlightening) is sexist and harsh, the world needed something like this. The power of women is emmense and its time the record was set straight about it all. I was glad to see so many things revieled about our culture and our past. Light is shown upon things that most people had no clue about. This book is beautifully done. This is a MUST HAVE especially for anyone of the Old Religion.
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Summary: Gloriously frustrating!!!
Review: Good resource for interesting tidbits. You'll have to wade past the 'feminazi' attitude but there is real treasure here. Hours of fun, but frustrating in that some of the material is poorly referenced, but it sure is thought provoking. This book will make you mad!
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Summary: A GOOD REFERENCE GUIDE
Review: This is an excellent reference book. There is a ton of info here. Just skimming through it, I learned a lot! I was particularly impressed with the meanings behind letters & numbers. Any student of women's studies will find it indispensable.
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Summary: Future feminist scholars, beware!
Review: I picked up this book in 1987, and was quite excited at first. My own research, however, quickly proved "The Encyclopedia" to be highly unreliable as a jumping-off point of feminist/pagan scholarship. A small amount of digging into B. Walker's sources will immediately prove how little research actually went into this work. The actual sources cited in Walker's footnotes frequently don't support her suppositions, and her etymology is just plain fanciful. She seems to feel that, if one word sounds like another word, they must necessarily be related. Ouch! Check this out for yourself. Pick a few entries, then look up all of the footnotes in your local university library. How many of Walker's sources have ANYTHING to do with the subject in question, let alone support her theories? It's a disappointing, but necessary, exercise for anyone determined to see "The Encyclopedia" honestly. Enjoy this book for its empowering (and fun) ideas, but don't place any weight on its "scholarship". It's a house of cards.
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Summary: this book introduced me to freedom
Review: this is the book that I first read about 7 years ago when I was hopelessly entrenched in a Christian Fundamentalist Cult and did not have a clue. I don't care if her footnotes and bibliography are accurate- it started me thinking. It was my first forbidden taste of feminism and paganism. It freed me from three generations of bondage and 34 years of personal slavery. Since reading her book I have found happiness, wisdom and liberty. Even if she happens to be biased or non-scholarly as some critics claim- it does not matter! Her information was fresh and life-affirming and it started the ball rolling for me! I have never again just taken someone's word for anything--I check everything now and I KNOW what I believe now with the ammunition of knowledge to defend it if I must. I could not do that before. I did not even want to! Her book changed my life, really it SAVED my life. If you read it only to prove her incorrect, read it! You will never think about things in the same way again...but beware! you will never think about things in the same way again.(or in other words--do you want to swallow the red pill or the blue pill?)
Ravyn
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Summary: Walker's references say it all...
Review: Although I agree with the other critical reviews of this book in that it is unscholarly in the extreme, I encourage the reader to decide for him/herself. One needs only to check Walker's references to see her credibility evaporate. Dig into an article, check the references, look up the passage to which she refers and see if it matches up. I've found that in a majority of instances, Walker takes *extreme* liberty in interpreting material, takes material out of context, or blatantly invents "facts" to support her perspective. My area of expertise is Mary Magdalene, so naturally, that is the article in this book that I am most qualified to critique. One of the texts she quotes as historical fact is actually a book of *legends* about Christian saints from the 13th century ("The Golden Legend," Jacobus de Voragine), something that should *never* be used as a source of factual information. She often quotes Marjorie Malvern, author of "Venus in Sackcloth," but in most cases either misquotes or takes comments completely out of context. Don't let the fact that some of her sources are out of print discourage you - dig until you find the truth for yourself. That's what library cards are for. If your library doesn't have her source, ask about free interlibrary loan. You can do this! Decide for yourself! Barbara Walker's book should be, if anything, an excellent exercise in critical thinking on the reader's part. Find a topic on which you are well informed and read the corresponding entry. I'm certain you will find that she has twisted your area of interest into an unintelligible, unsubstantiated mess.
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Summary: This book will change your life!
Review: I'm not the only person who believes Barbara G. Walker's Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets deserves a "five-star" rating! In England it won "Book of the Year" awards. It takes a courageous view of what our ancient ancestors may have thought before theocratic authorities branded their (and thus our) brains with their learned, infallible views. No doubt its current Amazon Book rating of "three-stars" (I was astounded) is based on prejudice, for the work will be more-than-controversial to anyone who has been brought up in a patriarchal society (that would be all of us) ... it certainly will be rejected wholesale by anyone who holds to a worldview based on the authority of The Bible. Ms. Walker makes the radical assumption that history began before the time of The Greeks, and, through careful footnoting and extensive notes, she formulates a consistent theory of ancient philosophical trends. And it's fun to read, even should one simply open its pages randomly. No index is available, but the alphabetical organization of the headings make it easy for one to find the name of any goddess a good pagan could imagine, though some god-names have been studiously avoided, perhaps in deference to the title's obviously feminine gender-focus. And though many of Walker's statements will be diametrically opposed to our long-accepted philosophies [under the heading for MAN, for example, she claims it originally was a word meaning WOMAN] her treatment is consistent and thorough. I challenge anyone to open this book - to any page - and not be astounded by some idea that had never before occurred to them. This is one astounding work; but I have no doubt that American schools will burn it rather than allow our children to read such sacrilege. Bravo, Ms. Walker! Bravo!
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Summary: Don't even go there.
Review: I simply couldn't get through this book. The "logic" is simply too twisted in too many cases to make it a useful reference. Perhaps it would work as historical fiction, but as a reference book? Only if you have never read a real one.
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Summary: Must have for English majors
Review: An excellent resource that provides insight and explanation about a huge variety of rituals etc. Very interesting by itself or as a reference when studyong literature.
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Summary: If It Makes You Feel Good As a Feminist, It Must Be True!
Review: Having consulted this book recently at a library and been stunned by it's scholarly pretense, I thought I would review it here -- only to find that others had already nicely dismantled it. Just one comment for those who wonder if deriding this bit of propoganda makes one a woman-hater, as is implied by its True Believer advocates: has it occurred to them that just because something makes them feel good as feminists, that doesn't make it true or accurate? This book is a historical hatchet job, no more scholarly than the "scholarship" of Communist Party hacks in the late and unlamented Soviet Union, and the idea that people are *afraid* of Walker's book because it's TRUE, and therefore threatening, rather than FALSE, and therefore disturbing, is patently absurd. There's much of interest in the world of myths concerning women. It's just that it all manages to escape this author.
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