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Stalking the Goddess Kindle Edition

by Mark Carter (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 12 ratings
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In 1948 Robert Graves published The White Goddess. His study of poetic mysticism and goddess worship has since become a founding text of Western paganism. As Wicca emerged from what Graves called, a few hopeful young people in California, to over two million strong, The White Goddess has achieved near liturgical status. This rising appreciation brings all the problems of liturgical texts. Many pagans consider Graves’ work like the goddess herself; awe inspiring but impenetrable.Stalking The Goddess is the first extensive examination of this enigmatic text to come from the pagan community and guides readers through bewildering forests of historical sources, poems, and Graves’ biography to reveal his unorthodox claims and entrancing creative process. Relentlessly perusing each path it explores the uncharted woods and reveals the hidden signposts Graves has posted. The hunt for the goddess spans battlefields, ancient manuscripts, the British museum, and Stonehenge. En route we encounter not only the goddess herself but her three sacred animals; dog, roebuck, and lapwing. Perhaps the muse cannot be captured on her own grounds, but now at least there is a map. Robert Graves is known to many for his books which were adapted for TV, I Claudius and Claudius the God.
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  1. Print length
    346 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Moon Books
  5. Publication date
    June 29, 2012
  6. File size
    1542 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

I found this a valuable book, which enabled me to understand Graves himself, and his use of sources, better than any has done before.--Professor Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol

The influence of Robert Graves on Wicca cannot be ignored. In Stalking the Goddess, Mark Carter makes an important contribution in understanding the history of the modern pagan movement. This book is compulsory reading for anyone who wishes to understand this history.--Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, authors of A Witches Bible, The Witches Goddess, and The Inner Mysteries

I don't know why anyone hasn't thought of doing this before, because...The White Goddess cannot be ignored. And just like The White Goddess, I do think this book could well find it's way onto the intelligent pagan's bookshelf.--Harmonia Saille, author of The Spiritual Runes

This is a fine book packed with information. There is a lot of it but then there is a lot to it so all balances. It answers a need for a contemporary analysis and deliberation and the provocative title says it all.--Barbara Ford-Hammond, author of The Psychic Way

A book like Stalking the Goddess is long overdue, and Mr. Carter deserves a big THANK YOU for finally bringing these insights into the roots of paganism, Wicca, and modern Goddess tradition into the real world.--Anna Jedrziewski, InannaWorks.com

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B008H3W1RC
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Moon Books (June 29, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 29, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1542 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 346 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 12 ratings

About the author

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Mark Carter

Mark Carter

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Mark Carter lives, works, and writes in his home town of Bloomington, Illinois. He's contributed articles to the Pagan Writer's Press 2011 Yule anthology (ISBN 978-0984680023), The Druid Missal-Any, and Examiner.com. His first book, Stalking The Goddess, is a study of Robert Graves' influential masterpiece The White Goddess, documenting Graves' contributions to the early pagan movement. An avid music collector, his reviews have appeared in Subnormal Magazine and various music blogs. He is currently merging his love of books and music to write an examination of the gothic culture spanning from Beauvais cathedral to Bauhaus and the Batcave.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
12 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dorothy Abrams
5.0 out of 5 stars A Serious Wild Hunt
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2013
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Mark Carter assembles an impressive body of research and analysis in his examination of The White Goddess. It is a must read for anyone seriously investing the origins of contemporary paganism. Expect scholarship and detail from this book and you will not be disappointed. Enter for a lighthearted romp and you will be overwhelmed. I find Stalking The Goddess a great help in my work.
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K. Ward
4.0 out of 5 stars From whence we came…
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2013
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Carter has done a great service exploring the strange and idiosyncratic methodology Robert Graves used to write "The White Goddess" and the consequent massive and largely unrecognized influence of this book on the modern Pagan movement. More than Gerald Gardner or even Doreen Valiente, Graves is the progenitor of this new religious pulse. I wish the author had, in fact, explored this pervasive influence more than he did, but his agenda was more to analyze how Graves came to his conclusions, and those significant authors who pushed him to those conclusions. Nevertheless, for all those interested in how we came to be where we are today, an important read.
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Georgina Anne Taylor
4.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reading
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2013
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Essential reading for anyone who has, or is about to read, Graves's The White Goddess. Extremely well researched. Well written and engaging. Highly recommended.
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S. Cranow
5.0 out of 5 stars The Wild Hunt for the Goddess
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2013
Truth be told I recieved this bok as a free copy from the author. He told me that when I do a review even if it was harsh or critical there was no such thing as a bad review. In fact a les then glowing article that is realistic might help sell more book. Well I am going to have to let the author down and be brutally honest. THis book was totally awesome! Not only has Mark Carter delivered a tour de force analysis of Robert Graves "THe White Goddess has done a sdamn good job of explaining it.

"The Whiote Goddess" long a staple of the neo-pagan movement has been the starting point point of the pagan revival. Without his input Wicca or Paganism might not lopok the way it does today. Of course even Pagans will tell you that all the theories in Graves work have been smashed to bit by academics, the book introduces the reader to poetic thinking. For me the White Goddess was an eye opener. Everything PAgan that I read stemmed from it. I also found iot one of the most confusing books to read. Mark Carter exp-l;ained the book well. It should be note that when Robert Graves sent the book in to be publish that a gust of wind knocked the work from his hands. He hastily put it together and submitted it to the publisher.

"White Goddess" is not supposed to be taken as history rather it is supposed to taken as a poetic understanding of history. Robert Graves maintains that he wrote the book in an "Analeptic trance" this sort of trance put one in touch wioth deeper ancestral memories. True poetry was written to the muse or the Goddess who came to Britain by way of several bands of Greeks and Indo-Europeans. Of course none of Mr. Graves theories could ever be proven. I fact many have been disproven. THe argument of a poetic understanding serves to help deflect the criticsm. Even his analeptic tance which took him three week to write the book was a lot longer. More like several years. The first draft of his writing was called "Roebuck in the Thicket" this was later revised and expanded into the "THe White Goddess". Funny that I remember reading about "Roebuck in the Thicket" in connection with Robert Cochrane.

Robert Graves started the theory that Eueope and most of the world was in fact matriarchal and worshipped the Goddess. Women were in control of everything and men were no where near as powerful. With the coming of patriarchal invaders from the East and Greece men rose in positions of power. In an act of Iconotropy the male dominated religions including Christianity stole from this relgions and it's holidays. It si clear that Robert Graves did some. let us say biased researched. He would pick and choose from different reserachers and take what he found use ful, at tiomes even bending the information to fit his theory. Some authors that influenced him were Edward Davies, Margaret Murray and James Frazier. Margaret Murray was the Egyptologist who made the claim that Witch craft was a Pagan survival. He theory was pooh poohed and Graves would add to it saying that not only was witchcraft a survival but also the Druidic Bards were another survival. James Frazier wrote the Golden Bough which spoke of the sacrifical king. THis too would be lifted by Graves. Edward Davies believed that Druids were desecended from Israelite Phoenicians from teh Middle East.

THese theories have been bashed. THe Druid bards had long been influenced by Christianity and the Greek/Roman myth that filtered into Europe. THe Caballah of the 10th century infiltrated the baric schools as well. MAny Druidic stories that we have come to know are in fact no more then a few hundred years old with many revisions at that. ANyone getting into Paganism would be well advised to red this book either before or alongside RObert Graves work. Some parts of the Robert Graves book are very hard to understand, Mark Carter explains it in depth and makes it understandable. More over the theories have been proven false. The research is well documented with footnote going through out the book. "Stalking the Goddes" is scholarly for the laymnan and an be difficult at time. Best to focus and stay focused when reading this one.
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Morgan Daimler
5.0 out of 5 stars getting to the heart of the White Goddess
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2014
This book is an absolutely fascinating dissection of Robert Graves' book the White Goddess, without the usual romanticism or blind-eye to history that many use to view that book. Rather the author uses a variety of tools to take apart the major themes of the White Goddess and explain their sources and ultimate motivations in ways that provide a deeper understanding of the text itself. Stalking the Goddess relies on a wide array of historic Irish and Welsh material as well as authors contemporary to Graves and Graves own words from other works to provide this in depth understanding of the White Goddess, a book that has become the cornerstone - realized or not - of many modern pagan religions. This book has great value, I think, both to modern neopagans who need to understand the roots of the things Graves has made popular but also to those interested in Irish and Welsh material who might enjoy the author's discussion of topics like the Ogham. Definitely an enjoyable and educational read.
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Anna from InannaWorks
5.0 out of 5 stars The White Goddess Revisited
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2012
Robert Graves'  The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, Amended and Enlarged Edition  might be considered the "bible" of paganism. While it remains important to a spiritual practice that now has an estimated two million followers, it is not a book that readily proffers its information and ideas to the reader. Mark Carter describes Graves' masterwork as a "long hunt through his tangled woods". He means no disrespect, however. To the contrary, he has invested much effort in making Graves' ideas accessible to a broader audience. In many ways, this book is a "biography" of "The White Goddess", although Carter also provides much insight into Graves as he dissects the book's history. Carter puts it all into the context of post-WWII, explaining the metaphysical, mystical, and creative forces (many of which were influenced by "The White Goddess") that took shape during that time.

The "White Goddess" was influential in forming many of our current ideas about ancient matriarchical societies and early paganism. A book like "Stalking the Goddess" is long overdue, and Mr. Carter deserves a big THANK YOU for finally bringing these insights into the roots of paganism, Wicca, and modern Goddess tradition into the real world.

(InannaWorks.com received a free review copy of this book.)
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Top reviews from other countries

Elen Sentier
4.0 out of 5 stars good stuff
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 22, 2013
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Well put together book that brings Robert Graves into a better perspective. I've always loved Graves' work although he's damned by accademics in general - sigh! This book gives lots of insights into the man himself and how he got to where he did. Thanks, Mark Carter, you done a good and very necessary job.
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