So I've been doing a lot of reading latey on Paganism and Wicca. Not because I endorse them, but because I don't and I want to see what would make a rational educated person think that these are ideologies to be embraced. (Just for the record, if there are any editors out there planning to write an article on Paganism, the phrase "out of the broom closet," has been done, and it wasn't clever the first 3,000 times either.) Anyhow, I really enjoyed reading the following because it perfectly reflected everything I had already felt about Paganism, neo-paganism, Wicca, whatever you what to call it:
"Witchcraft is also a magnet for feminists, who identify with its female deity, and for environmentalists drawn by the reverence for nature. It also exerts a pull on the eccentric, the sensitive and the socially disconnected. Wicca ''empowers the marginalized,'' said John K. Simmons, a professor of religious studies at Western Illinois University, who has studied contemporary witchcraft. ''It appeals most of all to the intelligent, poetic young woman who is not necessarily going to go out for cheerleader or date the captain of the football team.''
Perfect analysis. It appeals to the chick who keeps a journal and listens to folk or "new age" music. Essentially, the chick that didn't get enough attention from Daddy, and now gets off on how many people she can try to impress or shock when she states that she's a "witch." It's the religous equivalent of getting a tongue piercing right before going home for Thanksgiving dinner. You get to say goofy crap like "merry meet" and "merry part" and "blessed be." Plus, throw in the fact that there are no overt doctirnes, tennets of belief or oppressive dogma, and you got yourself the perfect crap-ola "religion." I also like the fact that it is made up as it goes. For example, The Scholars and the Goddess "Historically speaking, the 'ancient' rituals of the Goddess movement are almost certainly bunk" By Charlotte Allen, who writes:
"In all probability, not a single element of the Wiccan story is true. The evidence is overwhelming that Wicca is a distinctly new religion, a 1950s concoction influenced by such things as Masonic ritual and a late-nineteenth-century fascination with the esoteric and the occult, and that various assumptions informing the Wiccan view of history are deeply flawed. Furthermore, scholars generally agree that there is no indication, either archaeological or in the written record, that any ancient people ever worshipped a single, archetypal goddess -- a conclusion that strikes at the heart of Wiccan belief."
If you are a Pagan, Wiccan, etc. and have any interest in the history of your "faith," have the brains at least to read this:http://www.theatlantic.com/cgi-bin/o/issues/2001/01/allen.htm and let me know your thoughts.
Below are some of my favorite parts, after of course the parts refuting the "history" of Wicca:
"SUCH faith may explain why Wicca is thriving despite all the things about it that look like hokum: it gives its practitioners a sense of connection to the natural world and of access to the sacred and beautiful within their own bodies. I am hardly the first to notice that Wicca bears a striking resemblance to another religion -- one that also tells of a dying and rising god, that venerates a figure who is both virgin and mother, that keeps, in its own way, the seasonal "feasts of the Wheel," that uses chalices and candles and sacred poetry in its rituals. Practicing Wicca is a way to have Christianity without, well, the burdens of Christianity. "It has the advantages of both Catholicism and Unitarianism," observes Allen Stairs, a philosophy professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in religion and magic. "Wicca allows one to wear one's beliefs lightly but also to have a rich and imaginative religious life."
"Diotima Mantineia," age forty-eight, is the associate editor of the Web site The Witches' Voice, found at witchvox.com (she would not divulge her real name, partly because she lives in a southern town that she believes is unfriendly to neopagans). She summed up her feelings on the debunking of the official Wiccan narrative this way: "It doesn't matter to me how old Wicca is, because when I connect with Deity as Lady and Lord, I know that I am connecting with something much larger and vaster than I can fully comprehend. The Creator of this universe has been manifesting to us for all time, in the forms of gods and goddesses that we can relate to. This personal connection with Deity is what is meaningful. For me, Wicca works to facilitate that connection, and that is what really matters."
In a nutshell, matriarchal goddess "religions" are total and complete crap, pushed on and bought by disenfranchised women. They have all the history and significance of Kwaanza. Anyone that buys into an iota of it loses all intellectual credibility with me and most rational beings in a civilized society. If you are a Wiccan you will believe anything, any load of crap that advances your world-view, and that is very, very dangerous.
"Witchcraft is also a magnet for feminists, who identify with its female deity, and for environmentalists drawn by the reverence for nature. It also exerts a pull on the eccentric, the sensitive and the socially disconnected. Wicca ''empowers the marginalized,'' said John K. Simmons, a professor of religious studies at Western Illinois University, who has studied contemporary witchcraft. ''It appeals most of all to the intelligent, poetic young woman who is not necessarily going to go out for cheerleader or date the captain of the football team.''
Perfect analysis. It appeals to the chick who keeps a journal and listens to folk or "new age" music. Essentially, the chick that didn't get enough attention from Daddy, and now gets off on how many people she can try to impress or shock when she states that she's a "witch." It's the religous equivalent of getting a tongue piercing right before going home for Thanksgiving dinner. You get to say goofy crap like "merry meet" and "merry part" and "blessed be." Plus, throw in the fact that there are no overt doctirnes, tennets of belief or oppressive dogma, and you got yourself the perfect crap-ola "religion." I also like the fact that it is made up as it goes. For example, The Scholars and the Goddess "Historically speaking, the 'ancient' rituals of the Goddess movement are almost certainly bunk" By Charlotte Allen, who writes:
"In all probability, not a single element of the Wiccan story is true. The evidence is overwhelming that Wicca is a distinctly new religion, a 1950s concoction influenced by such things as Masonic ritual and a late-nineteenth-century fascination with the esoteric and the occult, and that various assumptions informing the Wiccan view of history are deeply flawed. Furthermore, scholars generally agree that there is no indication, either archaeological or in the written record, that any ancient people ever worshipped a single, archetypal goddess -- a conclusion that strikes at the heart of Wiccan belief."
If you are a Pagan, Wiccan, etc. and have any interest in the history of your "faith," have the brains at least to read this:http://www.theatlantic.com/cgi-bin/o/issues/2001/01/allen.htm and let me know your thoughts.
Below are some of my favorite parts, after of course the parts refuting the "history" of Wicca:
"SUCH faith may explain why Wicca is thriving despite all the things about it that look like hokum: it gives its practitioners a sense of connection to the natural world and of access to the sacred and beautiful within their own bodies. I am hardly the first to notice that Wicca bears a striking resemblance to another religion -- one that also tells of a dying and rising god, that venerates a figure who is both virgin and mother, that keeps, in its own way, the seasonal "feasts of the Wheel," that uses chalices and candles and sacred poetry in its rituals. Practicing Wicca is a way to have Christianity without, well, the burdens of Christianity. "It has the advantages of both Catholicism and Unitarianism," observes Allen Stairs, a philosophy professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in religion and magic. "Wicca allows one to wear one's beliefs lightly but also to have a rich and imaginative religious life."
"Diotima Mantineia," age forty-eight, is the associate editor of the Web site The Witches' Voice, found at witchvox.com (she would not divulge her real name, partly because she lives in a southern town that she believes is unfriendly to neopagans). She summed up her feelings on the debunking of the official Wiccan narrative this way: "It doesn't matter to me how old Wicca is, because when I connect with Deity as Lady and Lord, I know that I am connecting with something much larger and vaster than I can fully comprehend. The Creator of this universe has been manifesting to us for all time, in the forms of gods and goddesses that we can relate to. This personal connection with Deity is what is meaningful. For me, Wicca works to facilitate that connection, and that is what really matters."
In a nutshell, matriarchal goddess "religions" are total and complete crap, pushed on and bought by disenfranchised women. They have all the history and significance of Kwaanza. Anyone that buys into an iota of it loses all intellectual credibility with me and most rational beings in a civilized society. If you are a Wiccan you will believe anything, any load of crap that advances your world-view, and that is very, very dangerous.
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