Skinner gets into handbags at dawn duel with academic

Occult writer Stephen Skinner is demanding praise and acclaim for his involvement in the publication of a book which he had nothing to do with. 

Andreas Erneus' edition of Book 1 of the Summa Sacre Magice has just been released to fairly widespread acclaim from those who like their magical books to have been kicking around in Latin for 700 years. The only issue is that Skinner has already published all five volumes of the book and is inconsiderably vexed. 

Erneus has failed to mention his mighty tomes. “Although I know that in producing this book Andreas read my translation of the same work, published by me in January 2025, he does not mention it in his bibliography, nor in his text at all. This is rather dishonest from a scholarly point of view.” 

Skinner moaned to his Facebook chums. He pointed out that his edition has now translated all 5 volumes of this book, not just volume 1, which is certainly of interest to his readers. Erneus seems particularly puzzled by Skinner’s outburst, particularly as he thought that he got on with the Fung Shu grandmaster.

“I have never purchased or read Stephen Skinner’s English translation of Summa Sacrae Magicae. The only exposure I have had to it consists of a few isolated images of pages shared online by other users,” he said. 

In fact, his translation had been published in snippets online before Skinner’s version hit the printing presses. 

“Accordingly, a work that was neither consulted nor used is not included in the bibliography of our translation of Book I of Summa Sacrae Magicae,” Erneus said. 

He said the translation is based directly on the Latin text (the book includes the transcription), and readers were free to compare and draw their own conclusions. 

Skinner had a go at backpeddling without giving ground by saying: “My point was that even if you never read any of my books, it would have been basic good scholarly practice to mention my other, earlier translation (or at least include it in your bibliography).” 

Watchers of the Dawn are sure that there is an academic practice of lazy writers citing books they have never read in their books, but this is generally frowned upon. Erneus hit back with a bit of an academic burn, saying that since his book was “intended to be academic”, inclusion in the bibliography presupposes that the work was consulted. 

Listing a work that was not used would be methodologically misleading. In other words, “your book is not academic, so we did not look at it”, which is a real handbags at dawn low blow. “Chicago style (which we relied on for formatting our work) allows inclusion of uncited works only if they were actually consulted. It does not require listing works merely because they exist,” he added. 

Erneus’s co-writer, Bradley Sneddon, told Skinner: “Your original point concerned alleged use of your work, an absence of acknowledgement and an accusation of dishonesty. You have now shifted to a general claim that prior work should be cited regardless of use. In standard scholarly practice, inclusion in the bibliography presupposes that the work was consulted. It was not.”

It would appear that Snedon and Erneus have the support of Skinner's long-running business partner, David Rankin, which must miff him.