bgruagach said:
RE: Hutton.
Hutton is a scholar, and in his very visible position as a leading historian in the British university system, he has to be careful to stick by the old conservative and rather staid rules about how to construct arguments, what constitutes verifiable proof, and when claims or conclusions are strong or weak. He's been very open about this and admits that some evidence couldn't be used because it didn't conform or hold up under the conservative rules that scholarly historians must follow.
That's b.s. methodology and conforms to the academic pretense to objectivity, plain an simple, and absolutely unforgivible. Other scholars are not so stoic, why must he be? In fact, this is what makes Hutton so unreliable as a source for information. In fact, if anything, he should NEVER have drawn the conclusions he did from such limited evidence! He should have come out against such stoicism re: "old academia" and why it was wrong, or why he wasn't able to use such-and-such for evidence, rather than extrapolating conclusions based upon the exclusion of evidence he wasn't able to make use of. That is academically inexcusible! Also, he was biased towards his own conclusions many times, rather than weaighing both sides of a given argument (e.g. his chapter "Finding A Folklore"). In essence, he so often refuses to cite anything, academically, which goes against his agendas. I abhor scholars' matter-of-fact positions, btw.
Also, I'm not sure if I'd mentioned it, but...according to historian Nigel Pennick (whose work Huttion endorses), Hutton has made dozens of mistakes in
Triumph, for example.
bgruagach said:
And to be honest, claims are much more compelling if they convince even the skeptics and stuffed-shirt scholars!
Why try and convince the most skeptic of scholars, when there will always be sceptics, regardless of how convincing once's argument? Indeed, academia is wholey agenda-driven regardless of the weight of the evidence! A great example of this comes from a past issue of Pan gaia and pagan archaeologist Jeri Studebaker. A few years before she related that she had attended an Archaeology symposium in Texas and witnessed something truley horrific: She noticed that those scholars presenting papers who merely toed the academic-line, with relatively weak evidence, were applauded; whilst those presenting papers and questioning current academic sacred cows, using FAR stronger evidence by comparison to the last group, were all but laughed off the stage!
bgruagach said:
Hutton's work did not end with "Triumph of the Moon" either -- he has produced other books and papers on the topics of Paganism within the British Isles. I'd strongly recommend anyone who is reading Hutton's "Triumph of the Moon" to also check out his newer book "Druids, Witches, and King Arthur" as it addresses some of the issues that Hutton has changed his mind about, and provides more information about some issues as well. Hutton doesn't seem to be afraid of admitting when he makes mistakes. I admire him for that.
I have read it, and whgile commendible in some parts, it coems too little, too late. His book
The Triumph of the Moon and
The Pagan Religions have alreadsy done far too much damage in engendering a form of scholar-worship amongst Pagans, to the point that they mock anyone's research if they don't have a degree, which is idiotic, and excuses academia of mistakes. This is inexcusible logic.
Indeed, a great example of Hutton's leaps of faulty logic occurs in
The Pagan Religions. He says, for example, that we don't know exactly what the ancient pagan religions of the British Isles was; but we can be sure that it was nothing like what modern Pagans practice." Well, if hiustory cannot say with any degree of certainty, than it also cannot say, with any certainty that it's nothing like modern Paganism in any way. He also does academia a disservice in his refusal to admit any theories within the pages of his books, as academia (specifically history) is made u far less of so-called "facts" than it is of theories, conjecture, and even innuendo. All of this was (and is) lacking in Hutton's work.
And, while I'm thinking about it: a lot of good his articles will do anybody when so few have access to them, or know when and where they may have been published! You give Hutton more credit than he deserves considering the damage his purposefully limitted research has done to modern Paganism.
bgruagach said:
It does not surprise me that Hutton fails to look at proof for things (such as the origins of the Maypole) outside of the British Isles. Hutton's specialty has always been the British Isles, and he is very open about that. Just like Raven Grimassi's expertise is mostly focussed on Italian witchcraft -- I wouldn't expect Raven to be quoting Chinese evidence as that's not his area of expertise.
This is a moot point when he does draw upon other evidence as it suits him, such as Germano-Celtic evidence in
Stations of the Sun, yet...he fails to look at the May Pole outside of the UK? This also seems to happen in his book
The Pagan Religions. I suggest (if you haven't done so, yet) that you read the above articles concerning Hutton and other scholars.
bgruagach said:
RE: Philip Heselton's excellent "Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration" and his earlier "Wiccan Roots."
Hesleton has presented a huge amount of excellent historical evidence that does need a lot more examination. He's also pointed out directions that scholars could be exploring to turn up more. Where Heselton fails, though, is in his conclusions. Unfortunately he makes some rather large leaps of logic which are not necessarily supported by the evidence (including the newly revealed evidence he's presented.) For instance, Heselton's provided us with some excellent leads on who some of the members might have been in the coven of witches Gardner met in the New Forest area back when he says he was initiated into Wica. The evidence presented is very interesting but unfortunately it's not conclusive that all or even any of them (apart from Dafo) were actually witches. All we can say at this point, without further evidence, is that the people identified all <i>might have been</i> witches.
Concerning Hesselton's conclusions, what CAN be said is that is that hen is only guilty od what Hutton is also guilty of, academically. Indeed, Hesselton put's forth a great deal of good evidence re: the Mason family. Yet...because Hutton has a PhD., many refuse (indeed, blindly) to acknowledge this fact. But, I'll tell you something, a PhD. doesn't mean squat! I've known many PhD. who don't know nearly as much as some withoutn degrees (Independant Scholars are a gerat example of thgis: I don't know about the UK, but in the UK they are often invited to read their papers and their research, and are well-respected). Indeed, according to a British Witch friend of mine, Hutton has even come out and know accepts the ecxistance of the New Forest coven (though, I don't know where Hutton has come out about this, yet).
bgruagach said:
And while it is a logical fallacy to think that absence of proof is proof of absence...
And, Hutton all-to-often maintains this in his writings as a hidden agenda.
Take Care,
Wade MacMorrighan
