The Pomegranate & The Pagan Knight (Reply to Ronald Hutton)

by David Griffin

Ronald Hutton

Regular readers of the Golden Dawn blog are aware of my mistrust of the Pagan scholarship of Prof. Ronald Hutton of Bristol university. This article will come as a surprise, as for once I actually have words of praise for Dr. Hutton.

Ronald Hutton recently published an article in the Pomegranate on-line Pagan journal that attempts to address concerns raised by Pagan scholars around the world regarding Hutton's treatment of the origins of Wicca and the subject of Pagan survival from antiquity in his monumental tome, Triumph of the Moon. The new article, entitled "Writing the History of Witchcraft: A Personal View." has received accolades from numerous bloggers, including Barrabbas Tiresius on the Talking About Ritual Magick blog. I personally do not share Frater Barrabbas' effusive belief in Hutton's vindication, although the article does answer at least some of the objections raised by independent Pagan researcher, Wiccan HP Ben Whitmore.

Max Dashu

Perhaps the most noteworthy thing about Hutton's article is that Hutton actually engages some the arguments raised in Whitmore's recent book, Trials of the Moon. This stands in stark contrast to Hutton's past dismissive attitude vis a vis independent Pagan researchers like Don Frew and Max Dashu.

Don Frew

If there is anything negative about Dr. Hutton's Pomegranate article, it would be his immodest self-portrayal as a Pagan knight jousting against an implacable Academy. Judging by Triumph, Hutton's newly self-appointed role as champion of the Pagan faith is not really merited.

Hutton does deserve kudos for attempting to rescue Wicca from an abyss left by the collapse of Wicca's foundational story. Triumph, however, attempts to bootstrap credibility for  a baseless attack on Continental Pagan origins by Hutton, using an otherwise well-researched study.

Based on the new article, it appears Hutton may have finally learned his lesson. Gone are the sweeping generalizations that pepper parts of Triumph of the Moon. Gone are the unsubstantiated judgements as well. Instead, Hutton appears to finally confine his remarks to his stated study area of Wicca in Southern England.

Even in regard to anthropology, Hutton has now become more cautious in his presentation as well. Gone is every trace of personal anecdote masquerading as ethnographic data. Nonetheless, in the new article, Hutton does claim:

"Between 1999 and 2002 I therefore read 130 studies of the subject by anthropologists working outside Europe, which included the great majority of those made and all of the most important."

This is all well and good. Reading 130 anthropological articles, however, still does not make Hutton a trained anthropologist. In discussions I had with various professionals at the annual conference of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness last March in Portland, I found nearly unanimous professional consensus that the greatest weakness of Triumph is Hutton's tendency to play anthropologist, although he is completely untrained in the rigors of the ethnographic method.

Judging from the Pomegranate article, it would appear that, eleven long years after Triumph first appeared, Dr. Hutton may finally have learned his lesson. In the wake of severe criticism of Triumph by scholars, it finally seems Dr. Hutton will henceforth confine his pronouncements to his actual field of expertise and that his judgements might even remain in his stated study area.

Trials of the Moon Book Review: A New Witch War?

We in the Golden Dawn community are no strangers to flame war. The decade long periodical eruption of Golden Dawn flame war has gone far to destroy the reputation of our venerable tradition in the greater magical community.

Thankfully, this situation has improved greatly in our community, thanks to fine bloggers like VH Frater SR, H Frater AIT, and VH Soror FSO, whose fine and frequently well researched articles have raised the tone of scholarly discourse in our community to a level never witnessed before.

Sadly, events of the past week have shown that the Pagan community is not immune to flame war either, where the sort of propaganda war that we have witnessed being waged against one Golden Dawn order or the other, is now being waged clandestinely against Pagan scholar, Ben Whitmore.

For over a decade, Professor Ronald Hutton's study on the history of Wicca, Triumph of the Moon, has been considered by most Pagan scholars to have closed the book on the issue of the survival of elements of Paganism from Pagan antiquity. This has led to most Pagans defining themselves as "Neo"-Pagan, and the pervasive belief that the entire modern Pagan movement is based on mere reconstruction.

A new book has recently appeared, Trials of the Moon, by Ben Whitmore, that has reopened the case. Subsequent buzz in the blogosphere has made it clear that many Pagans are highly sensitive to these issues, and that even respected scholars are not immune to resorting to flame war tactics when cherished beliefs are called into question.

On The Witching Hour blog, for example, blogger "Peg" recently pretended to write a scholarly review of "Trials of the Moon", using flame war techniques to attempt to undermine Whitmore's credibility as an author. While completely ignoring the quite copious and well documented evidence that Whitmore presents, Peg writes:

"Whitmore is not an historian, nor even an academic. And this shows in his failure to observe the most rudimentary rules of objectivity and neutrality of stance."

I responded, commenting on her blog, exposing the flame war rhetorical tactics she was using and outlining my own objections to certain holes in Hutton's scholarship. Predictably, my comment was censored, underscoring that The Witching Hour review is not a serious critique of Whitmore's study, but merely the opening salvo in flame war designed to undermine Whitmore's credibility as an author and thereby suppress uncomfortable revelations about the holes in Professor Hutton's scholarship in "The Triumph of the Moon." 

This new-born flame war further escalated when respected Pagan scholar, Chas Clifton, quoted from "The Witching Hour" article, then added:

"Another example of [Unverifiable Personal Gnosis] UPG-fueld writing appears to be a book called Trials of the Moon, which purports to challenge Ronald Hutton’s historical books on Paganism without, y’know, actually having to do the depth of research that he does.

It’s sort of like wanting to bat against the San Francisco Giant Tim Lincecum’s pitching but demanding that you get to keep swinging and swinging until you hit one over the fence—none of that “three strikes and you’re out” stuff.

Some people like it even while admitting that it “offers no alternate theory or proposes any possible history” for Wicca."

One might consider Clifton's remarks as based merely on ignorance of the actual contents of Whitmore's study. It is, in any case, clear that Clifton has not actually read "Trials of he Moon." Whitmore is quite transparent that he is not an academic, but the evidence he presents clearly demonstrates nonetheless how Professor Hutton reached unsupported conclusions in "The Triumph of the Moon" and frequently even misquoted and misrepresented his sources. 

No, Whitmore does not present an alternative history, nor does he even try to. What he does do - is to conclusively demonstrate that the case for the survival of elements of Paganism from antiquity is far from closed, and that Professor Hutton has not at all closed the book on this as Pagan scholars have believed for nearly a decade. Moreover, contrary to what is misstated on both The Witching Hour and Chas Clifton's blogs, Whitmore clearly has done (and well documented) his research.

Sadly, I must also mention that on his blog, Chas Clifton likewise censored my rather innocuous defense of Whitmore's study in response to Clifton's rather uninformed remarks and having given "The Witching Hour" hack job undue attention. Thus, I can only conclude that we now have a full scale Witch War on our hands, where even well-respected Pagan scholars are stooping to flame war tactics (like cherry picking comments that represent only one side of a discussion) in order not to deal with uncomfortable new developments in Pagan scholarship.

In conclusion, my own criticism of Professor Hutton's study lies not in that it some sort of "evil" attack on cherished Pagan myths, but rather that Hutton's study is fatally flawed. Far too frequently, Dr. Hutton plays anthropologist, although he is not trained as an anthropologist nor does he even attempt to use the ethnographic method. Moreover, as Mr. Whitmore has demonstrated, Hutton frequently misquotes and misrepresents his sources. Finally, Professor Hutton makes sweeping, speculative generalizations completely outside of the stated geographic region of his study as, for example, in Hutton's completely unqualified remarks about C.G. Leland and the origins of Stregheria in Italy.