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I know, I know: lots of people just love Mists of Avalon. I even know some who became pagan because of it. I won't deny that it was (for its time, anyway) a significant book.

But it's a terrible book. These days, I find it virtually unreadable.

And as for its so-called paganism....

Pagan Nuns: Thirteen Things That I Hate About Mists of Avalon

Its medievalism.

Most Arthurian lore has come down to us in medieval form. MZB makes a half-hearted attempt to transpose these stories into sub-Roman Britain, but—since she hasn't bothered to educate herself about what 6^th century Britain was actually like—we've still got the castles and duchesses, the frenchified names (“King Leodegranz”) and the faux medieval language (“I beg my Lady's pardon”). Ugh. Authenticity: F.

Its anachronism.

There's barely a page out of all 500+ that doesn't contain at least one anachronism. (Sorry, Marion, nobody said the rosary in 6th-century Britain; the rosary wasn't invented until hundreds of years later.) Really, if you're going to set a novel in 6^th century Britain, shouldn't you know something about what 6^th century Britain was actually like? Cultural authenticity: F.

Avalon's horrible 'pagan' nuns.

Penances. Chastity. A distant deity who expects blind obedience. Dea vult: Goddess wills it.

These aren't priestesses, they're nuns. Avalon isn't a temple, it's a convent.

Honestly, if that's your paganism, I'd rather be something else. Anything else. Priestesshood: F.

Its 'All gods are one god' premise.

If all gods are one god, and all ways lead to the same place, then why bother with the hard way?

Why not just crawl back to the church on your belly before you die?

Oh, yeah: that's exactly what MZB did. Caveat fidelis: Let the believer beware. Theology: F.

Its cardboard-y male characters.

MZB is one of those woman authors who couldn't create a convincing male character to save her life. (Just like all those male writers whose women characters are so thoroughly unbelievable.)

Since her female characters lack depth or substance as well, I suppose that this is not surprising. Still, it is one of the tests that I apply to any author, and—unsurprisingly—MZB fails. Characterization: F.

The 'nature' is all wrong.

Unlike real pagan fiction, 'Nature' and the Land play virtually no role in Mists, and what little there is, she mostly gets wrong. I'm sorry, in a pagan writer, that's simply unacceptable.

This isn't paganism; it's Christianity—at its worst—in drag. Knowledge of nature: F.

Its essential Christianity.

MZB apparently thought of Mists as a major contribution to pagan theology.

Unfortunately, there's no there there.

There's nothing to MZB's paganism. Even the supposedly 'pagan' characters cite Christian Scripture and precedent constantly. Whenever they express a supposedly 'pagan' sentiment, it's always by contrast with a Christian example. Christianity is the point of all comparison; Bradley's paganism has no life of its own.

To repeat: This isn't paganism; it's Christianity in drag. Paganism: F.

I think of the Big Names of the American Craft who, before they died [bitterness alert] went crawling back to the Church: Eddie Buczynski, Jesse Wicker Bell (a.k.a. Lady Sheba)*, Marion Zimmer Bradley. I don't doubt that among the rest of us, we of the little names, there are others, locally known, who went the same way.

I'll be the first to admit, it hurts. Even to those of us who didn't know them personally, what the leavers did comes as a betrayal. To those who were their friends and students, I can only imagine the dissonance. What do you do when your mentor in the Mysteries, in the end, betrays those very Mysteries?

At the end of The Mists of Avalon, after fighting spiritual imperialism all her life, Morgaine realizes that maybe, as her elders have been telling her all along, All Ways Are One. Bradley's own cowardly defection demonstrates why this is such a poisonous belief. If all ways are equal, why take the harder?

I'm sure that, in the early days, Christianity had its share of defectors, too. Their stories haven't come down to us, but—human nature being what it is—we can be sure that they were there. In the end, the defection of a few Big Names, and unnamed others, proves nothing about the Craft itself, only that in extremis even the strong can be weak, the which we already knew.

That some, even among the leadership, should choose to go should be no surprise to anyone. What is perhaps even more surprising, under the circumstances, is that so many should choose to stay.

It's Watery Wednesday at the Pagan News Beagle: the day we share stories of our many communities.

The Wild Hunt offers a report from this year's PaganSpiritGathering (Circle Sanctuary.) http://wildhunt.org/2014/07/guest-post-the-heart-and-harmony-of-pagan-spirit-gathering.html