A Plea to Pagans to Stop Promoting Child Abusers

On protecting sexual violence survivors (TW)

I didn't sleep last night. Partly because I'm in a really bad pain flare up, but also because I'm raging about an issue that I thought had died a death a long time ago.

The Mists of Avalon.

If you're not aware of it, this was book written by a woman called Marion Zimmer Bradley, retelling the Arthur legend through the lens of the women of the tales. It's still billed as a feminist triumph.

It was never just a book, though.

Bradley’s depictions of Avalon, with its pagan priestesses fighting to keep their Goddess religion alive in the face of an encroaching Christianity, inspired a whole generation of neopagans and people in the Goddess Spirituality movement in particular. It probably, even if unwittingly, inspired some of our modern Avalonian traditions, such was its reach.

As a young teen in the late nineties, I loved it. Or at least, I loved most of it. The scenes where Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, tricks (and drugs) Morgaine and her underage brother Arthur into having sex (this is child abuse and sexual exploitation) left a funny taste in my mouth, but I told myself it was just a story, and the author was perhaps just naive.

Even at that young age, I knew all too well what sexual violence is. I just assumed the author didn't.

It was years before I read about the allegations against Bradley. I'm going to briefly summarise what she was accused of below, so please don't read on if this is likely to be distressing.

It was already known that Bradley's second husband went to jail for child molestation, having allegedly raped more than six young boys, and it had also been alleged that Bradley covered up for him. But it was years later again before her now grown up daughter Moira Greyland revealed her mother had ‘cruelly and sadistically’ abused her sexually and physically from the ages of three to twelve. And that she was far from the only one. Moira’s revelations were horrific, and both other leading authors and pagan figures were quick to publicly denounce Bradley and any previous association with her.

And honestly, I thought that was it. I've seen a few people over the years still applaud the Mists of Avalon, but mostly it seemed that was because they had managed to miss the allegations against Bradley. I came across a few Mists of Avalon diehards, often sadly those practicing in modern Avalonian traditions, who insisted we had to ‘separate the art from the artist’ mainly because the book had informed their spiritual practices to the point that to denounce it would have left them floundering. But I honestly expected this sort of thing would be rare. If you had asked me yesterday, I would have assumed no one was talking about, much less recommending, the book anymore.

Then suddenly it was all over my feed, thanks to a popular page sharing it, with a long post extolling it's virtues. No mention of Bradley’s crimes. The post was happily shared by dozens of others, recommending the book. People complained on the thread of course…only to be jumped on by supporters of Bradley's work. A fellow pagan on Facebook shared her disgust at those who had been arguing with her in support of the book and I posted to my followers:

Uuuurgh….how are people still defending the Mists of Avalon?

Maybe I'm just naive, because it isn't as if I personally know all of my Facebook friends, but honestly? I didn't think it would be controversial.

Yet pagans came to that post to tell me I was wrong, that you can ‘appreciate the work’ even if ‘the author did bad things.’ Or other variations like ‘lots of artists are assholes’ or even simply that they loved the book and it had been the foundation for their spirituality, so that was that. Or my personal favourite; that genius could come from such aberration.

Let me just state again- we are talking about a woman who sexually abused her own children and other children, with her partner whom she then covered up for, and while this was happening wrote child abuse scenes in her book. According to Moira, Bradley abused her son, too. She literally was Viviane, only worse.

There's no separating the art from the artist there.

I honestly do not get it. How can anyone read this now and take any kind of spiritual message or inspiration from it?

And how can you be so blindly attached to something - to a fiction novel- that you will ride roughshod over the voices of sexual violence survivors?

One woman's response was to tell me ‘you’re clearly triggered by this. And I'm not.’

Well yes, I am triggered. Because for survivors, watching a bunch of people in a supposed spiritual community dismiss and excuse abuse, and downright promote the work of an abuser as if it's some kind of canon in the pagan world, funnily enough, is triggering. There were lots of us saying this, all receiving the same responses. Do the voices of survivors, on a topic we unfortunately know too much about, expressing something that deeply distresses us, not matter? Are we not entitled to feel safe in our communities, without having to beg to be heard on matters that affect us?

Before anyone mutters ‘snowflake’ let me remind you we are talking about child abuse. Even if you haven't experienced it (and I'm glad) you shouldn't need me to explain how abhorrent this is. Saying that it's ludicrous - if not downright damaging - to give this woman's work any kind of status should not be a hot take!

Isn't paganism, and spirituality in general, partly about ethics? Wasn't the Goddess movement always supposed to be about empowering women and our communities? Did I miss the memo where instead it became about ‘I will do what I want and don't come crying to me if you're triggered'? Where violent abusers are just assholes but never mind because they might be geniuses?

Am I the only one who sees the problem here?

Now, I'm not directly accusing anyone of actually promoting child abuse here, certainly not intentionally. But let's look at what's happening. Someone who was a bit of a big deal in the pagan community is being defended, and the wishes of her victim ignored (Moira has obviously requested people don't continue to read Bradley's books) because people don't want to admit their adoration has been misplaced. Haven't we seen this before? Politicians, celebrities, gurus…including in the pagan space? This kind of battening down the hatches to protect our problematic faves is contributing to the wider problem; a culture where abuse and the victims of it are dismissed.

Then there is the way this is treating survivors. I'm not trying to say we're all acutely vulnerable. Sexual violence survivors are some of the most badass people I know, because surviving in the face of such darkness can do that to you (no, trauma doesn't make us stronger. Surviving may.) Nevertheless, even the most recovered of survivors can at times find themselves disabled with PTSD, which is a very real condition which can be debilitating.

We listen to disabled people talking about ableism, don't we? To minority groups talking about cultural appropriation and accessibility? Why then, are sexual abuse survivors not being taken seriously? Why are the patterns of denial, dismissal and downright condescension and mockery still being used against us, perpetuating the very silencing of victims in our culture that allows abuse to survive? Gaslighting us when we try to speak up so that we will shut up again and stop inconveniencing you?

Over a bloody book?

If you don't understand the problem here, I don't know what to say to you.

I'm exhausted right now. I don't believe this is a position I should have to fight to defend, especially when I expressed my own opinion on my own page. This isn't an argument about what to call a deity or how to set up your altar. This is about child abuse, and the survivors of it. And not putting your attachment to a book before your ability to have any empathy.

No-one is telling you to what to read. No-one can do that. No-one is trying to legally ban the book. This isn't your free speech, anti-cancel culture crusade.

But maybe try and listen, if a survivor asks you not to promote The Mists of Avalon or treat it as some kind of sacred text. Maybe ask yourself why you feel the need to publicly defend your reading choices, which you didn’t need to share, to the point that you are mocking survivors for being ‘triggered?’ Is that really too much to ask?

That’s all. I'm done.

If you were on Facebook for this and it affected you, please take care of yourself today.