Argumentum Ad Nauseum

This is a paper written about my impression of “The Truth About Witchcraft Today” by Scott Cunningham. To explain my commentaries I have to state a something about myself that you don’t really care to know. I have been introduced to Wicca before, know many wiccans and sometimes considerer myself a wiccan. But after reading this the most I could call myself would be “Non-practicing Wiccan” I hold wiccan beliefs to my heart but have never tried to perform an act of magic, nor do I hold the sabbats and esbats special. I didn’t even know what esbats were until reading this book, and I thought there was only 4 sabbats, the ones in line with the equinox and the solstices. Having taken that out perhaps some of my biases and opinions are not that blatant or unreasonable.

I found this book to be fairly well written, except for the one major problem with it, which is why I named my essay what I did. Argumentum ad nauseum is a logical falsity that we have recently covered in Communications 1. Essentially, it means argument form repetition, which rarely works even on ignorant bystanders, which is why it is rarely used. But Cunningham decided it’d be good to use, apparently, for his entire book is pretty much one big argument that “Wiccans are devil worshippers”. Starting at the forward to the book, he say something along the lines of that very statements at least once per chapter. Probably on average twice a chapter. And it doesn’t have very long chapter. I happen to know Wicca isn’t a satanic, devil worshipping cult, and I think that anyone who read through the first 2 chapters is either going to side with that opinion or isn’t going to change their opinion no matter what he says, and will just look for anything to use against them.

Other than that, it is a quite good book. It includes introductory magic rites, ranging from ones on love to simple worshiping rites. It also includes a basic history of the usage of folk magic and the Wiccan religion. It explains many things people need to know in order to understand and appreciate the religion, like why we have no televangelists or other member of the faith trying to recruit, and what days are our holy days of worship. It also explains what our beliefs are, including the rule of three and our lack of a belief in, let alone the worship of, the “devil”. It includes details on what inanimate objects are used in spells and a brief discussion of the prevalence of people practicing magic today when they aren’t even realizing that they are doing it, such as when people pray. It in the end it even goes so far as telling people basic and simple magic spells that the average person can perform on their own.

All in all, I like the wiccans who are like Cunningham, who aren’t completely without reason. I cannot

stand some of the wiccans out there, who think anything that happens is spiritual, and cannot

be explained through science. You may know the type I’m talking about, the type who say “I have some bad dreams, they must all be omens” but they’ve had bad dreams on and off for, roughly, 8-10 years, and NONE of them have ever come true. Its like, at what point do you chalk it up to be your imagination or night terrors? Then there are others, perhaps not wiccans all, but who believe in magic and