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The
book's publication in 1983 was greeted with cheers
and accolades such as this one from the Philadelphia
Inquirer:
"Walker has written a tribute to the goddess.
Like the witches and wise women of old, Walker has
eyes to see what the rest of us cannot: the figure
of the goddess hidden behind rites, dogma, fairy
tales, nursery rhymes, superstitions, even our very
language. She sees the restoring of the goddess to
her rightful place as an essential healing act for
women and our whole culture ... You can rely on it
to be witty and compulsive reading."
(More reviews
appear below.) |
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Click on the image to read about the book or buy it
at amazon.com |
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A perfect book??
Perhaps. Although that opinion is widely held, the Encyclopedia
has had its detractors . . . a bit more on that follows in the
discussion below.
I, for one, have
found it wondrously made. . . a fascinating read and an
excellent reference. But, I confess, when I return to find some
delicious morsel that I'd like to re-read or quote, occasionally
I find myself frustrated, cursing that I can't easily find the
section in the book's index.
Great news!! A new,
extensive index is at hand. (Just leave it to women to notice a
problem, roll up their sleeves to fix it and then offer it to
the world for free!)
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The index was
produced by Cheryl Brooks, a professional indexer, in 2003, at the
instigation of B. Parker who was frustrated by not being able to
retrieve many of the fascinating references in the Encyclopedia
which does not have its own alphabetic entries.
Barbara Walker
herself, who was contacted, said that the publisher did not feel
that an enormous index, added to an already large book (1124 pp)
would make sense. So Cheryl Brooks and Beedy Parker (see information
below) undertook to do it themselves and are now making it available
to others. |
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~~Use this link or the
one at the bottom
of the page to download
the
Advanced Index to Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths
and Secrets. ~~
More
Reviews:
The Womans
Encyclopedia of Myths
and Secrets by
Barbara G. Walker,
HarperCollins, 1983,
honored by the London
Times Educational
Supplement as 1986
"Book of the Year"
Quotes from book reviews
following the
publication:
"Awesomely
researched....Walker has
distilled 20 years of
research into an
absorbing treasurehouse....
This is a
feminist-scholar's gold
mine and a browser's
delight." --- Los
Angeles Times
"Whoever ventures
into this ... book runs
the risk of being
totally absorbed."----
The New York Times
"A mountain of
scholarship, a vast
mass of supremely
documented
material....demonstrat[ing]
the dominant role
women have played in
the cultural
evolution of our
species." ---
San Francisco
Chronicle
"Barbara Walker upsets the complacent
Judeo-Christian applecart of orthodoxy. [An] outstanding
endless well of information.... Her literary excellence
and unrelentingly fascinating material .... redresses
two millennia of cultural and sexual misrepresentation."
--- East West Journal
A Note From
The Index Builders
A comprehensive (40 page, 6400 entries) index to The
Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by
Barbara G Walker, is available, by e-mail or as print
copy (at cost of copying and postage), from Beedy Parker
at
beedyparker@ gwi.net
, (207) 236-8732, or 68 Washington St., Camden, ME,
04843. We view this as an ongoing project, subject to
correction if errors are found or more entries should be
made.
I understand
that the WEMS,
as we have come
to call it, is
not entirely
respected in all
academic
circles. Barbara
herself sees
this as largely
patriarchal
backlash. It is
also based on
scholarly doubts
about some of
her sources (a
marvelous
bibliography of
some 385 books),
within the
context of
a battle for
academic high
ground in the
shifting world
of history of
religion since
the arrival of
Women's Studies.
Barbara
Walker has the
advantage and
disadvantage of
not being an
academic, free
to read as she
pleases and
judge for
herself, as does
the reader, but
not held to
scholarly proof
and peer
approval. She
also has written
on more esoteric
subjects, tarot,
sacred stones,
women's rituals,
and is a gifted
and well known
designer of
graphic knitting
patterns, all
rather suspect
to serious
students. Her
book The
Woman's
Dictionary of
Symbols and
Sacred Objects
(HarperCollins,
1988)
provides an
iconic adjunct
to the WEMS, and
it would appear
that her work in
researching
women's
religious
history stems
from her
fascination with
pattern and
symbol, which
are often keys
to a hidden and
repressed past,
seemingly
innocent.
The book was
welcomed with
accolades in the
80's and has
been on course
reading lists
and many
bibliographies.
The essays at
particular
entries are
excellent, well
written and
often stand by
themselves as
thoughtful
critiques of
cryptic
subjects. I hope
that an index
will make it
even more useful
as a reference
to information
which is not
readily
available to
people,
particularly
women, who
wonder how we
got to where we
are.
My purpose in making the index available is actually
as an environmentalist, because I see, as does
Barbara Walker, our treatment of women, socially and
within the great religions, as part and parcel of
our destructive treatment of the "environment", as
"Other", and disposable, by the dominant mind set.
Feminine and Nature are often seen as similar and
even the same, now and in the past, whether
worshipped or abused. I do not think we can survive
our abusive views and behavior. Shaking this
domineering foundation at its historic and
prehistoric roots could help bring us round to the
respect, care and love of the natural world we are a
part of, to true awe. I see this reference as a
revolutionary resource.
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