In the TV movie with Sam Neill about Merlin, the aged hero at the end makes a comment on the folly of starting to give advice, as he makes his living telling stories of magic. But, I think it would be best if I did say that the Craft of the shaman and the sometimes revisionist sects of neo pagan religions are not quite the same. I think pagans who embrace decadence in the name of tolerance sometimes play too heavily into the net of the witch hunters, who are out there as surely as any other trigger happy bunch of extremists. I look to the House Gryffendor habits as a fictional but fair representation of pagans with good values that really don't clash that much with moralistic default exoteric orthodoxies. As Willow and her friend learned in the Buffy stories, even a large witch coven isn't always the best place to find people who are more interested in spell craft than socializing in such a way that members compete for status based on glamor rather than ability. So, while books that are infected with reactionary sexism and romantic license for teens under the legal age of consent may be of huge value for the resource material they present, as well as a challenge to be tolerant in ones own habits, I resist the notion that pagan has to equate to license rather than the wise exercise of creative liberty. People of a more House Slytherin frame of mind would disagree, as is there right. But, I think it important to distinguish early between real shamanism and pseudo occultism. One of the best examples of this, I thin, is in the film, _Hot Fuzz_, where Timothy Dalton's character heads up a coterie of black robed thugs with eclectic beliefs, while Simon Pegg's character manifests the good humored ingenuity I look for in a real witch of the fresh air variety.