This was, to say the least, not Ms. Adler's finest moment. On her behalf, I should point out that her role in this book, as an anthropologist, is to report, not to judge, and for the most part, she seems to do so conscientiously. However, perhaps unintentionally, her editing choices have left what might be picked up as a chain of argument in her book, and it is a misleading chain of argument. Some might say that she has "slanted" her reporting.

She begins by raising the issue of a provocative hypothesis that most would dismiss out of hand : the existence of magic. She then disarms the skeptical reader with examples which suggest that there may be far less to this hypothesis than he first thought. When she and some of her friends catch fish by pretending that they are bears, on pp. 7-8, this is called 'magic'. Quoth Adler :

" If I may presume to broaden Michael's definition of magic, it may read something like this : Magic is a convenient word for a whole collection of techniques, all of which involve the mind. In this case, we might conceive of these techniques as including the mobilization of confidence, will, and emotion brought about by the recognition of necessity; the use of imaginative faculties, particularly the ability to visualize, in order to begin to understand how other beings function in nature so that we can use this knowledge to achieve necessary ends. "

Sign me up for that course! Surely, nobody would question that this is a sensible thing to study? What is presented sounds like a cross between ethology (the study of animal behavior) and psychology. Adler continues, reminding us that :

" This magic did not involve the supernatural. It involved an understanding of psychological and environmental processes; It was a kind of shamanism, a knowledge of how emotion and concentration can be directed naturally to effect changes in consciousness that affect the behavior of (in this case) humans and fish. It is important to stress that this naturalistic definition of magic is not unique to the farm in Colorado, but is common in one form or another to the other groups mentioned in these pages. "

That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Nothing for the reader to be skeptical about at all. Continuing, we come to a discussion of the allegedly enhanced sensory abilities of the aborigines, the quoted source on p. 156 (the Dianic Covenstead of Morrigana in Dallas) informing us that

" Before you doubt my use of the word magic, let me describe a study that was done on the Aborigines of Australia ... It was verified that they really knew where a herd of game was though it grazed beyond the horizon; knew when a storm was approaching; and knew where water was-though it lay some 10 feet below the surface. These are abilities that our society calls 'magic'. "

" These talents are achieved, not by any sixth sense, but by using the five senses to their full capacity. The native of Australia is no more supernatural than your dog. Keep your dog out in the woods long enough without access to water ... Your dog will scout around a bit and dig a hole. As a reward for his efforts, and his ability to smell, he'll receive a puddle of water. We accept this as a natural ability in a dog but think its impossible for a human because, too often, we relate to cement and steel as our natural habitat. It becomes possible once we recognize our real environment and regain our kinship with it. "

Doesn't it sound like these poor Wiccans have been completely misrepresented and misunderstood? Why, it's all just a study of the natural world, right? In fact, she even goes so far as to state that

" Actually, the idea of the supernatural, of something outside of nature, is a thoroughly modern notion unknown to the ancients. "

and now we get the picture, but only if we didn't let ourselves be hypnotized by the restful patterns of Ms. Adler's prose.

Picture the entire population of Ancient Greece howling in disbelief, in unison. Ms. Adler has presented us with a half-truth. Yes, the Pre-Hellenic ancients probably wouldn't have seperated the gods from nature. But this is because nature, as we understand it, with its well-defined (and mechanistic) laws, was not a part of their world view, in most cases. All natural phenomena were seen as being a result of the action of this deity or that. A more accurate statement, and Ms. Adler knows it, would be that in the view of those living in early Antiquity, everything was supernatural, even nature itself.

Sure enough, Starhawk, the well-known writer of "The Spiral Dance", and certainly no skeptical materialist herself, appears in the pages of "Drawing Down the Moon". On p. 250 we encounter a group discussing the use of "orgone energy". And so on. Ms. Adler avoids rebutting those earlier denials of the supernatural element of Neo-Pagan belief by turning the word "nature" into a term of art, slowly redefined during the course of her book. So slowly, that many readers won't notice the transition. In this way, a skeptical reader can gradually be eased into a belief system without noticing that he has been nudged. Some call this "diplomacy". I call it "manipulation".

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