Sometimes it can be difficult to tell a good source from a bad source. The CRAAP Test was developed by a librarian named Sarah Blakeslee and her team at UC Chico to help students evaluate the trustworthiness of their sources for academic studies. But the CRAAP Test can be applied to our research process in witchcraft, polytheism, and the occult, too!
Buckle up, take notes, and learn how to apply these principles to your studies.
Thank you for tackling this subject! Sometimes, the most progress comes from sweaty boring repetitive work, and research is definitely work. I look forward to the next in the series.
As a heterosexual male, I’m not sure how I feel about the suggestion that I cannot be a powerful witch because I don’t have a vagina. On the one hand, it is disturbing and feels dismissive. It also would seem to be ignorant of history. At the same time, why do I care how powerful I am? Is there a competition? A prize? I am already vastly more powerful in my life than she is. In fact, in my life, she and her uterus are quite powerless.
And you’re right life is too short… I just finished John Beckett’s Path to Paganism. I didn’t finish reading it, I’m just finished with it. While there were things I found valuable, he and I are on different paths. Perhaps the most valuable part was learning what I am not drawn to, because this helps to mark my path’s borders. Though I disagreed with some of his ideas, the disagreement helped me clarify my own beliefs. So in that sense it was valuable. I got what I needed from it and didn’t need to finish the last few chapters.
Don’t worry about the visuals. You are the visual, and what you share is valuable!
Yeah, research can be boring but one of my favorite things to do (and I know it’s @Susurrus’s too lol) is to get caught up in a whirlwind and fall down a rabbit hole of research! It’s especially fun when what you’re researching is interesting. I take this approach to genealogy work too. I’ve got some mysterious people in my mom’s box of stuff that we can’t figure out who they are or where they belong in our ancestral line. It’s a mystery and that makes it all the more fun!
And I’m glad you put down that book! It was valuable to you in that you learned more about yourself and your practice, even if you didn’t finish it. I recently put a book down that was just the same! Good for you 
Thank you for this 
I very much appreciate this comment!
So many great things to unpack!
Drawing Down the Moon as a great example. The revisions in the book are educational on their own since they offer such an interesting exploration of what has changed in the last few decades in this space.
I didn’t know about the CRAAP test but thanks a lot for bringing it up. Super useful when we do research to advance our studies (in any field), but especially if we are going to share what we find with others.
The on-going case of Neil Young vs Spotify about podcasts comes to mind. There are so many ways to get opinions online that it’s really hard to filter the toxic stuff out. I hope the algorithms too, in the near future, will be using “CRAAP”, not only for the “Currency” factor which they are already very good at, but to promote accurate and level-headed information online.
Thanks for this video, I think you did a great job with the examples you offered.