Mab's MA Blog

It's been very stop-starty today, mainly because I'm exhausted and got other big things to be looking at. Seriously considered not doing the 'Year of...', not necessarily dropping out of the MA, but postponing the work on it until either work slows down or the WG website is sorted out, whichever happens first.

However, thinking about it counts. I thought on this while driving home from work:

The dissertation should normally include:

* an awareness of differing and competing methodologies (eg Marxist vs Liberal interpretations; quantitative and qualitative issues);
* a critical consideration of the historiographical debate;
* a comprehensive review of the secondary literature;
* the use of primary sources.

Of those, only the last one is giving me pause for thought. The autobiographies count, as do GBG's books on Wica. However, before I even start interrogating the primary sources, I need to research what's actually there. That will be covered in the chapter on the overview of sources.

It did occur to me that Prof Hutton may be able to advise on getting in touch with Patricia Crowther and that Ray Buckland offered his help too, before he was ill. I need to discover how ill Ray is now and then if he's still up for answering some questions.

I'm strong on the historiographical debates, as that's where my focus was in the beginning. I'm not worried overmuch about that. Ditto for the comprehensive review of the secondary literature.

The differing and competing methodologies was well covered in my project, but that doesn't count towards my dissertation, other than as a cross-referencing. Gardnerian v Alexandrian v Traditional... the religion isn't really old enough for the methodologies to have been formed academically, let alone be competing. They can debate theologically, but that's nothing to do with this dissertation.

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I also started thinking on Margaret Murray again, but couldn't think where I'd put the notes I made on her. I wanted to e-mail University College London with some questions.

However, went scutting in my e-mails and discovered not only had I already done that, but I e-mailed Witchgrove with my Margaret Murray notes and saved it there. :-D
I've not had a response from the e-mail though.

Notes:

10 March 2004 22:49 (day before the crash...)

Why am I so interested in Margaret Murray, as a Wiccan historian?

She fits into the picture because, in 1921, she wrote a book basically saying that the Pagan Witch Cult survived in Europe in the form of folklore and localized events like the Padstow 'Obby 'Oss or the Abbott's Bromley Horn Dance. She saw confessions of witches under torture, about the Devil, as being disguised stories about rituals in which the High Priest wore antlers. She wrote two more books on a theme, with the final one hypothesizing that the early English kings were Pagans too, and the deaths of some of them (eg William II (Rufus)) were ritual sacrifices of the 7 year King.

She also wrote the preface to Garner's 'Witchcraft Today', as an academic, in the same way as Prof Ronald Hutton nowadays writes prefaces for Philip Heselton.

The Wiccans loved her and she was their Goddess and Queen, because she basically said, as an academic, precisely what they were saying - Wicca is the survival of an ancient religion, stretching back way before Christianity.

Then disaster. Norman Cohn, another academic, wrote in the 1970s basically saying that Murray's work was bollocks. To this day, any Wiccan wanting any credibility for self, or the religion, basically does not touch Margaret Murray's books and ideas.

Ok, I'm with that. I'm trying to be an academic here, so I'll run away from Margaret Murray like a good like student...

Will I like heck!

This is why it's important that I find out if she's a Doctorate or a Professoriate. If we're completely honest, a Doctorate only has to get it right once - their thesis and viva. After that, if they do nothing again for the rest of their lives, they still get to bask in the glory of their Doctorate.

However, a Professor is a whole different kettle of fish. You don't pass exams or write a thesis to be a Professor. What happens is that you apply to become one and then a panel of internal and external people, from a University, decide whether to elevate you to the Professoriate or not. This is based on billions of things, but topmost amongst them, you have to provide a list of all the books, articles, theses etc that you've written. They ALL have to demonstrate your academic standards and your expertize in your field. They stand a better chance of being accepted for Professoriate level if they are also ground-breaking, cutting-edge discoveries. You also have to demonstrate that you have supervised a certain number of students to Doctorate or Master of Philosophy level.

So if Margaret Murray is a Dr, then she was brilliant once.

If she is a Professor, then her academic work is of a standard seen by other Professors as being perfect at the time. It was consistently so; and she was seen as an expert.

Also, if Doreen Valiente is right (sorry, but that's dubious), then Margaret Murray became a Professor AFTER the publication of her first book; and was one during the publications of both of her second books, and for a long time afterwards. If her work wasn't up there with the best, by the standards of her time, then she would have been stripped of the Professoriate status.

Bear in mind that this is 1924. Women didn't even have the vote in Britain at that time. By my reckoning, Margaret Murray would have had to have been stunning to get a Doctorate, let alone a Professoriate. I need to know how many women reached that level at that time, and if she was one of them.

I'm not the first to raise questions about the vilification of Margaret Murray. In 1998, Caroline Oates and Juliette Woods examined her working methods in 'A Coven of Scholars'. They found that her methodology was consistent with her times. Put another way, any scholar researching the same thing at the same time would have done the same, though her scholarship wouldn't have been acceptable today. We are far harder on ourselves today.

Also, though Norman Cohn's book rubbished her completely, thus making her an untouchable for the Wiccans and academics in Britain and America, another historian, the Italian Carlo Ginzburg, looked at her work and, using modern methodology, he concluded that it had a 'kernal of truth'.

There's also a lone voice on the internet, who never signs their name, who keeps arguing that if you compare Norman Cohn's book to the parts he's quoting from Margaret Murray and the primary sources, you'll find that he's lying through his teeth about her. He takes things out of context or accuses her of things that she didn't do, eg missing things out of original texts when it doesn't back up her theories. I haven't got the Norman Cohn book to find out.

It would be a brave British or American historian who went back to rescue Margaret Murray's name; but give me a decade or so. ;-)

yours
Mab
xxxxx

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And the e-mail:

Dear Mr Harte,

I am an MA History student at the University of Wolverhampton, currently writing my dissertation on the subject of Wicca and academia.

I wondered if you would be able to assist me in finding some statistics? I understand that Dr Margaret Murray was an Associate Professor in Egyptology at UCL in the 1930s and I am trying to ascertain how common this was for a woman. As far as you know, were any other women members of the Professoriate, or otherwise a member of the academic staff, at that time? If they were there, have you any idea of the percentages involved?

Thank you in advance for any invaluable assistance.

yours
Jo Harrington

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According to the Times Higher Education, there are only 14% of the Professoriate in the entire of Britain as are female now.