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Ways of the Strega: Italian Witchcraft: Its Legends, Lore, & Spells (Llewellyn's World Religion & Magick Series) ReviewOkay. First, the positive. Raven Grimassi does a good job of presenting various Italian folk practices, and some of the history is interesting as well. This book is by and large well-written, and the author is also diligent in presenting citations for his source material. This book has a more scholarly tone, and is not as fluffy as most -- although there is the obligatory mention of the Mean Christians.
There is one huge, glaring exception to the normally careful citations. The story he presents as the history of Aradia is nearly identical to a story presented by Leland in _Aradia: Gospel of the Witches_ called "The house of the Winds." Granted, the author does make faint mention of this being his own interpretation of Aradia's story, but it would have been helpful -- and frankly, more honest -- to point out the striking similarities (in fact, nearly identical) elements in Leland's version. Furthermore, Grimassi never makes it clear that the three witch clans mentioned in the book -- the Tanarra, Janarra and Fanarra -- are only three of many, many iterations of Italian Witchcraft. Possibly his story of Aradia's life is unique to those clans, but it's certainly not the version I was told as a kid.
The Gospel of Aradia is possibly the fluffy-bunniest part of the book. Certainly, there are elements of what Aradia actually taught but there are also distinct Wiccan overtones as well as a truly bizarre comment on homosexuality. (paraphrasing) "You have heard it said that homosexuality is unbalanced, yet I say to you heterosexuality is likewise unbalanced." Ummm, whatever criticism 14th century Italian clerics and society had about homosexuality, it is very unlikely that any of it had to do with some yin-yang balance thing. It was condemned as unnatural, as squawked about in the Judaic and Christian Scriptures. As for heterosexuality being likewise "unbalanced," all I have to said is ... what the heck is he TALKING about? In that case, the Treguende throughout the century have been seriously unbalanced as what is called "The Great Rite" often caps the evening's festivities, at least in traditional practice. Aside from grounding energy, it represents the union of male and female energies into a cohesive whole and as such is incredibly powerful. Among other things!
Now mind you, while male/female energies usually belong to their respective genders it is possible to be a male with a preponderance of feminine energy and vice versa which is why homosexual relationships are perfectly capable of being balanced (and I'm not saying this means anyone's effeminate or butch, "energy" is separate from mannerisms). There is a difference between sexual acts and energy balance, and this appears to be a odd and highly Wiccanized interpretation (I guess I can call it that) of an actual teaching by Aradia regarding sex magick.
And, there is no "J" in the Italian alphabet. "Janarra" and "Jettatura" may be phonetic spellings for the masses, but it looks so fake.
As far as the religious aspects go -- Grimassi is constrained, as most authors are, from revealing inner-court material, which is usually oath-bound. Regretfully, like many authors in this genre, he never explains the distinction between freely-available outer-court material and restricted inner-court material to the reader. I don't know if such authors believe that those who are truly called will eventually discover this or they're oath-bound not to even reveal that there ARE inner-court teachings or they forget or Llewellyn edits it out, but they really should inform people that what they're getting is the lite version of any given tradition.
I also have the updated version of this book, which has more information but alas, the same flaws. Still, it's good as a source of reference, and Raven Grimassi is to be commended for being a better writer and researcher than most of his contemporaries in this genre.
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