Talk:Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today/Archive 1

Archive 1

This article is a mess

This article either needs to be severely cleaned up or deleted.

First up, why is this book listed at all? There's no reason stated for why it should be considered notable.

Second, this book is just full of nonsense claims invented up by the author with no factual basis. It's scholarship is shoddy (with bad info about Elizabeth Bathory, with seemingly much of it even invented on the spot for this book), it pushes a view that witchcraft is real, and so forth and so on. If we are going to discuss the book we can't write sentences that make it sound lik we are endorsing his claims -- saying that Bathory really did bathe in blood, for example, or that he really did have a friend who remembered being turned into a wolf, etc. If it's going to be mentioned, it needs to all the way through be mentioned as CLAIMS that the guy is making and stated that they are true.

Furthermore, it'd be bad policy to mention all these claims without the critical response: that he is an unreliable author, that the things he claims are strongly disagreed upon by other sources, etc.

DreamGuy 10:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

The book is by a writer who is reasonably well-known within his genre, and it remained in print for several decades. It also contains some interesting information about some alleged interactions with some significant historical figures - of particular note (in my opinion) is the anecdote about the pre-publication reception of Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub's Tales".

The other complaints are beside the point. A book can be "shoddy" and "full of nonsense claims" yet still be notable, and the idea that it should not be included because "it pushes a view that witchcraft is real" is hardly an NPOV argument. I included the material on Seabrook's anaemic friend and on Bannister because they featured in the book, not because I actually believe it to be true. Extra information showing certain claims to have been false would, of course, improve the article. I thought I had included sufficient qualifiers along the lines of "he claims that" and "an alleged case of...", but if you feel the need for a few more, go ahead. (By the way, I have also responsed to your other comments on my userpage discussion section). R Bartholomew 20:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The book does not push the view alledged above that "witchcraft is real." On the contrary, Seabrook explicitly states in the book that he believes that the "magic spells" he had witnessed could be explained by "induced autosuggestion" (his phrase).Plazak 18:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

If you think so R Bartholomew (or someone else), then you should add that info to the Beelzebub article as it is true and interesting. Aeuio 03:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Notability

We have not heard any discussion on this recently, but does anyone still believe that the book does not meet the notability guidelines? Simply not liking the book or disagreening with the contents is irrelevant as to the book's notability. As for myself, I believe that it is a notable book. It was written by a well-known author in the field, and has been published in a number of editions over a span of more than 60 years. Unless we hear a logical argument otherwise, I believe that the notability tag be removed from the article.Plazak 18:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, no one spoke up on the notability topic, so I'll remove the notability tag.Plazak 22:15, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

Does anyone still believe that the article violates NPOV? The one person who claimed that it violated NPOV, himself inserted a highly NPOV statement into the text and failed to cite a source for it. If anyone still thinks that the article is not NPOV, please be specific in saying where, or better yet, neutralize the text. Otherwise, I believe that the NPOV tag should be removed.Plazak 18:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

No one raised any NPOV dispute, so I removed the NPOV tag.Plazak 18:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Article needs to have some indication of the book's reception, possibly with reviews or other material. John Carter 18:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 18:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 10:47, 30 April 2016 (UTC)