This page gets a mixed review from me.

It’s got some absolutely wonderful information on Classical paganism. Sources are cited.

But it’s dry like Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon is dry. It’s slow to download. And I’m not sure that everything on there is supposed to be.

Still, though, for raw information, this site is unbelievably worth your time.

Link: Biblioteca Arcana
Score: 7/10
Reviewed by Enyo Perseus

Wow. This page took forever to load on a DSL connection. Probably because the vast majority of the front page is button graphics to get into different areas of the site.

A new window opened when I selected the “Who were the Celts?” button. I then saw a ton of stuff quoted from books. As in, there is minimal content belonging to Joelle, but a lot of content from books. Not all of these books have great reputations. D.J. Conway was among the authors quoted.

On the plus side, when I clicked on the “Celtic Art” button, I didn’t get a new page, but the first new page changed over. That’s an interesting little bit of Java Script. Nothing was quoted in that section, but it was relatively basic and easy to understand.

Onward to the Celtic deities. The default browse for the Celtic deities is framed, which normally bugs me. It’s okay here, though. She does, however, give the option to browse without frames, and that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, I don’t think her section is. Fortunately, she cites her sources, but her sources suck: Edain McCoy and D.J. Conway. I don’t like that she sites other web pages as her source, though. I’m sure that’s just a personal thing.

Much of this site relies heavily on two of the crappiest Celtic authors. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend a site with such shoddy research to “support” it.

Other complaints: the text is centered on the entire site. That’s really annoying.

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Sorry. I came across another page that made me bang my head on the keyboard. Her “Wiccan Traditions” page is complete and utter trash. She also “includes the Alexandrian BoS” on the site, blah blah blah.

I’ve had enough. Sure, there’s a lot of material on this site, but it’s garbage. This is another site that is a complete and utter waste of bandwidth, and actually is problematic of the pagan web.

Link: Joelle’s Sacred Grove
Score: 1/10
Reviewed by Enyo Perseus

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Sorry. Reading this site caused me to repeatedly bang my head against the keyboard.

Here we have a page by some misguided person who feels that Wicca and Christianity are blend-able. Of course! Wicca isn’t actually a religion. It’s a LIFESTYLE! Sheesh, how could I have been blinded by those British Traditional Wicca initiates for so long?

Yeah, I was being sarcastic.

To start, this person believes that Wicca is, in fact, a meditation, rather than a religion. Guess Gardner didn’t know what he was talking about, either.

Of course, she also believes that the ancient gods do not exist (because there’s only one, duh), and divination and astrology are fakes. I wonder where on earth this person gets the idea that anything that she does should be categorized as Wicca.

In short, this page is a waste of bandwidth. I don’t think it’s possible for me to trash it enough.

Link: Wiccan Lifestyle, Christian Beliefs
Score: 1/10
Reviewed by Enyo Perseus

First page, no problem. It downloaded rather quickly. The background wasn’t meant to display on a resolution as high as the one that I use, but that happens quite frequently. Not many people surf at anything higher than 1024*768, anyway.

When I clicked on the link of the Temple of Astarte, I was offended. Horribly offended. It says flat-out that Muslims, Jews, and Christians aren’t welcome, and then goes on to say that, to enter the temple, you must click a button to curse the monotheistic god. WTF? Yeah, I find that highly offensive. I find the legal disclaimer at the bottom of the page to be offensive, as well. If you want to spread hatred of the monotheistic religions everywhere, fine. But don’t be a coward. Own your f***ing words. And that’s not even touching the design of the page.

So, for the sake of curiousity, let’s click the obnoxious, disgusting little curse button. I can’t properly review a site without looking over the whole of it.

Eh, crap about “spiritual preparation” required to read a web page. The next page is more of the same. Four pages of preparation to view a web page. Whatever. And when I finally got to the “temple”, I must say, I was really disappointed after all that effort.

The pantheon section is okay. It’s pretty basic, but since I know very little about the Mesopotamian pantheons, that’s not a bad thing. Still, you have to click on links to get to individual descriptions that are less detailed than my own descriptions of the Hellenic deities in the Greek section of this site. No way I’d want to browse this on my old 26.6 connection back in Florida. It would take all day for too little info.

The texts are a good thing, except for the fact that there’s a horizontal scroll on my super-high resolution view.

In the museum, there are images used that I’m concerned about. There are photographs of the Venus of Willendorf and other items that I *don’t* think he’s got permission to use. His world history also strikes me as heavily flawed. (So, I’m a Pagan against bad history. Sue me.)

All in all, I wouldn’t suggest that anyone go there unless it’s to read the Mesopotamian texts. And, even then, I imagine that those works are available at Sacred-Texts, thus eliminating any need to see this delightful work of bigotry.

Link: Virtual Temple City of Astarte
Score: 2/10
Reviewed by Enyo Perseus

I found this site while checking the logs for WarGoddess. Apparently, someone did a search for it, so I’m guessing the web mistress was looking for a review. So, I’ll give her one.

First impressions…. It’s a pretty site. Sure, it’s done in black, but it’s not just a flat black background.

But there were things that sucked, too. The dragon graphic, while pretty, is *way* too big. If surfing at an 800×600 resolution, the whole image won’t even fit on the screen. There’s also an animated candle .gif, which I hate. And she censors her guestbook. Yeah, it’s her right, but I don’t believe in guestbook censorship. (That’s why the accusation of libel against me is still in my guestbook. Well, part of it. It’s also there in case this crap comes back up again and I need to sue them. Just in case.) There’s also links on the front page that lead elsewhere without giving you any indication that you’ll be leaving the site. There’s nothing like being sent elsewhere as soon as you get somewhere.

Then there’s her art. The background on her artwork isn’t as nice as the other artwork, and it kind of detracts from the black background that her art sits on. The new background breaks up the flow of the site.

She did a beautiful job on her graphics, though. I can’t emphasize that enough. What makes that so awesome is that she actually made them herself.

On the awards page… well, pages, actually, she’s won a lot, but that just doesn’t impress me for the simple reason that *anyone* can make an award. While this is actually a nice looking site overall, I’ve seen awards given to sites that make my eyes bleed. So, pardon me for judging a web site on its own merits, rather than over an award.

Some of her information is a little trite, though well-meaning. This isn’t a site out to shock anyone or piss anyone off. But the art work is lovely.

Bottom line: for knowledge, there are better sites out there, but for art work, it’s definitely worth visiting.

Link: Magickal Dragon Dreams
Score: 6/10
Reviewed by Enyo Perseus

To give you a hint on how this review will go, this site is also mentioned in the message board’s Click Happy Freaks section.
To start with, the page opens up with a lovely image on the splash page. It’s stolen… or, rather, it’s editted in such a way that violates the artist’s copyright. The source code reveals that she’s stolen descriptions of other web sites and included them in her page for search engine listing purposes. One of the ones that the freak ripped off belongs to me. (She snagged the description that I used for Enyo’s Workshop back in the day when it was on Paganvillages, a now-defunct free service.)

Once inside, there’s this stupid little thing that flashes around my mouse. I’m guessing it’s supposed to be fairy lights or something, but the effect is just annoying. So is the other flashy stuff that she has.

Her spells are almost unreadable, since she uses a black cherry-ish color against a black background. She sells art, but I couldn’t in good conscience buy from her for the simple fact that I don’t know that the work is actually hers to sell.

She has links in the top of her index page that go off-site, but don’t look like they should. To me, that says that she thinks I should go somewhere else.

Now, if the webmistress sends me away, is that really a site worth visiting? I certainly don’t think so.

Link: Solitary’s Magick
Score: 1/10
Reviewed by Enyo Perseus

Let’s start with the positives. The colors work well together. The graphics are pretty. And… Well, I think that’s about it.

This site uses frames. It’s a personal peeve, but I hate frames. I loathe them. Maybe it’s because they are so rarely used in a decent manner. I am surfing in a higher than average screen resolution, and I still feel that I’ve lost too much screen real estate to the left frame, the header, and the footer. Maybe 25-30% of the screen is taken up by these things.

On a lower resolution, it’s got to be even worse.

Then there’s what’s on the front page. I feel insulted when I go to a website and the front page is telling me how to use the web page. Typically, if I need instructions, I’m leaving. And there’s instructions. The front page is also way too long, in my opinion, since the front page should be like a book cover, not a table of contents.

Now, onto the content.

In her FAQ’s, it talks about the origins of Wicca. The webmistress seems to find value in teaching historical inaccuracy. Her etymology is a little off. There is no clarification between eclectic Wicca and traditional Wicca. Her deal with the Rede is so wrong that I wanted to scream. She also references the Birchtree Tradition. I wonder if that’s a recognized tradition or if it’s a bootstrap tradition. (Considering what I see on this site, I’m going to guess it’s bootstrap, which means a tradition put together out of resources publicly available.) Her ranks are kind of off… there are some aspects that are correct in many traditions, but fails to recognize that some traditions and some lines within the same tradition do it differently.

Her Wiccan ethics makes me want to scream. Violently.

In short, this site is a good effort, but it needs some serious correction to be of any value. Some pages on this site, I think, are part of the problem with the pagan web, not the cure.

Link: Flame’s Firepit
Score: 3/10
Reviewed by Enyo Perseus