brighid

It certainly isn't "fuzzy" speak simply because you don't understand the important concept of knowing ones self, ones desires, limitations, strengths and weaknesses.

As to cultural heritage, it is a part of my cultural heritage in the sense that many of my cultural roots are Celtic. My great-grandmother descends from the Isle of Man in Ireland, as well as my German and Native American roots. You assume facts not in evidence. Much of this "heritage" is incorporated into my individual practice. It is the folklore and archetypes of these "ancestors", some of the stories and iconography of my childhood, that resonate with me.

Gardner may have been the originator of the neo-pagan movement, but he is not the end all and be all of neo-pagan practice. I can honestly say that I have never read a single book of his and his ideas, thoughts, etc. have no influence upon my practice, nor does Anton LeVey, etc.

I have not "bashed" fluffies, quite the opposite.

I don't have any baubles, so I don't know of what you speak. Are you speaking of clothing, jewelry, herbs, etc? If this is what you mean I would say partly because I enjoy these things and I find meaning in them. I need nothing further than finding personal satisfaction in "baubles".

I am not religious, but many in my group are. I practice as I see fit and participate in way that enriches my life and those whom I practice with. I have no illusions about what is real and what is not. It is simply something I enjoy tremendously, something that is a natural extension of my personality, something that provides with a creative outlet that other avenues do not, and I find it to be something that actually helps me achieve a mind/body atunement necessary to accomplishing tasks by helping me to be mindful, silent when necessary, daring and knowledgeable.

I really don't understand your hostility. It's rather unfortunate.

Brighid

newtype_alpha

If you thought about it for a minute I'm sure you could figure it out. Don't be dense, there's no need for that.


Who knows? Gardner was weird.


"Bashing fluffies" is usually something done out of frustration. One gripes about fluffies the same way one gripes about the annoying neighbor next door with the dog that never stops barking. They are a nuisance, little more, and...

...this is a fairly clear indication of why they are a nuisance. Are you unable to tell the difference between fluffies and serious pracitioners? It definately appears so, as you are assuming that all Wiccans rely on "trinkets and recitations."


Kerr Chuhulain once said, "If paraphenalia was neccesary for magic, we wouldn't be magicians, we'd be mechanics."

The "trinkets" and props and such are what attract so many fluffies, much the way the cool weapons like quarter staffs and kendo sticks attract the passing dabbler in martial arts (plus movies. Jet Li has that affect on 12 year olds ). Does that mean martial arts is meaningless, linked to nothing, using arbitrarily defined props and movements to dress up and obfuscate what may actually be beneficial exercises which need no trappings for their proper practice? More to the point, if you challenge a black-belt and take away his uniform, his quarter staff, kendo stick, half staff and even his belt, will he not still be able to kick your ass? What about if the quarter staff is his favorite weapon? What if he has a really special uniform? What if he uses the half-staff more than anything else in a hand-to-hand fight? If he uses these things he does so because it is his style to do so. And that, I think, is the appeal Wicca has to so many: it's a very personal religion, and dare I say it's possible to customize it to suit your sense of style the way writers develop a specific writing style.

And in the earlier sense, I have to wonder, how do you suppose most religions started? Many of them were based on older ones, or combinations of older ones, or developed by accident by a radical new thinker looking for shift the paradigm for whatever reason and creating what became, by incident, a totally new religion. Wicca isn't even attempting to latch on to some cultural history or origin, but rather is indicative of what's going on in our culture right now. People are looking for ways to gain better understanding of themself and better control of their own lives, and perhaps even learn how they fit into it all in a way that makes sense. Westerners can relate to it in a way they can't really relate to other more conventional (or less conventional) religions that have the same structure.

So what's your malfunction? Bad experience with fluffies or something?

nermal

The issues raised by Brighid and newtype_alpha in the above two posts are similar enough that I will address their points together here:

I know what introspection is. I know what it means to learn things about one's self. I know the importance of acknowledging emotions and feelings and giving them the legitimacy they deserve. I know the importance of experience and allowing one's self to experience. Those things are vital to self awareness. I know that to "know yourself" as it is predominately applied today is fatuous.

Creating artificial experiences, on the other hand, is antithetical to self awareness. It's a distraction; it's escapism.

He certainly looked weird. But whence comes his authority? What separates him from the likes of Moon and Hubbard? Why are his musings profound enough to trust "self discovery" to religious practices founded on them?


Why are they a nuisance? Why do you allow their practices to annoy you, yet ask me how I can be "hostile" (I'm not being hostile, btw, but my enthusiasm for lively debate is often mistaken for hostility) toward Wicca?

I see the difference, but I don't think it's profound in kind. Only in degree. The fundamentals of the practice and the objective are the same as I see it.

Frankly, I think the fluffies are Wicca at it's best. Their motivation is completely understandable; completely human. They're looking for acceptance, and that kind of personal euphoria, however tenuous, that comes from fulfilling the desire to be unique, and the desire to fit in simultaneously.

Without the trinkets and recitations you have exercises in self improvement. What else do you have? What is Wicca without accolades to gods and goddesses, the practice of rituals, the incense, the runes, the cauldrons and chalices? Appreciation of a sunset? A love of nature?

If these things are what Wicca is truly about, then what's all the other stuff for? Why the tenuous connections to Celtic religions that are only marginally known about, much less understood?

Do either of you have Rune Stones (a metaphor. Replace with flame daggar/chalice/goddess icon as you see fit)? Why? How do they help you discover yourself? How do they help you better appreciate the soil under your feet? What are they, if not baubles?

If Wicca is a "journey of self discovery," then what is the magic you refer to? Every time someone brings up the subject of magic (thanks for not spelling it magick, btw) I see Wiccans begin to get very vague. Please, specifically, tell me about this magic. Does it travel through a medium? Is it another word for introspection? Is it simply connectedness?

He might be able to kick my ass. This is very telling, btw. If you think a black belt is in any way indicative of "ass kicking" ability, you're very inexperienced. A black belt means mastery of a portion of a martial art. Nothing more. It may or may not be relevant to actual violence.

But if he does, that's a measure of something, isn't it? This is why the analogy fails. After years of practice, the martial artist possesses something that can be applied in a real, measurable way. Other than the sense of belonging, what measure the Wiccan?

They evolved out of a need to anthropomorphosize one's environment. Maybe we as stone agers couldn't understand what the motions of the heavenly bodies meant, but we could at least make them something we can relate to. We could gain a sense of control over something we had no control over.

In time, the religions and the cultures coevolved and became so intertwined as to become indistinguishable. It's important to note that this takes millenia, and is a "natural" process. It doesn't happen over 60 years. It doesn't happen deliberately, through some kind of planned process. People didn't write books to start religions. By the time the books were written, the religions were already very real.

This is why religion can sometimes be practiced without belief in a supernatural. I've known atheistic Jews who practiced Judaism as an exercise in cultural meaning. They connect to their commonalities as a people through their religion.

But to go from that to the notion that you can invent a religion, and pay lipservice to lost cultures, and connect to those cultures in any meaningful way is absurd. It makes a mockery of meaning. As I've said, the religions exist in a context, and to take parts of them out of that context negates the meaning those parts hold. You cannot connect to Druidic culture by cobbling together what you read of their ceremonial practices anymore than you can drive a plastic model of an automobile. The context is lost, and the practices are meaningless without the context. You're trivialising a culture by doing so.

I could practice the Japanese Tea Ceremony for the next 60 years. I could become more proficient at the execution of the ceremony than most anyone in Japan. But without the context of the culture, and an understanding, an internalization of the meaning, I'll always be pouring tea. I won't get that context out of books. If I want to understand the meaning, and make it a part of my being in any real meaningful way, I have to become Japanese in a very real way. I have to live as a Japanese.

There seems to be considerable disagreement on this.
What's going on in our culture right now is a desparate search for meaning, community, and identity. It's soil ripe for the popping up of pseudo religions, snake oil salesmen, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Laura, et. al. And Wicca. They're all symptoms of the same cultural ailment. And there's nothing inherently wrong with any of them (except Dr. Laura), so long as it is acknowledged that they are not more than they are. In a way, it's a lot like the origins of religion millenia ago, but the scariness is internal, not environmental. We want to put our faith in something, because without a real anchor, we don't have faith in our own perceptions of meaning. We don't trust ourselves to derive our own meaning. We look to Chopra, even though a voice in our head says he's exploitative. We look to Wicca, even though we know some guy just made it up. We look to Dr. Laura because we know she's a nagging self righteous bitch, and there's power in that.

So to answer the question again, no, I don't see much difference between the fluffies and the "real" Wiccans, other than all the animosity seems to be flowing one way.

Again, I like fluffies just fine. I think they're swell. My posting on this thread was to point out the irony of "real" Wiccans bitching about fluffies.

Ed

newtype_alpha

There are alot of clues in your post that suggest to me that your only experience with Wicca in any sense whatsoever has been with fluffies. Thus you appear to be evaluating all Wiccans relative to your observation of fluffies.

Clue #1
I suppose "artificial experiences" could mean fakes memories or fantasies. That's what fluffies do, and sometimes less experienced serious practitioners (it's a learning process, you know). It might help if you understand the concept of pantheism; it's not quite accurate, but some would choose to simplify it as "Mother nature's proper name is Goddess." The concept of Pantheism implies heirarchical relationships: every small unit is an individual unit, but is also an integrated part of a larger unit. And every collection of smaller units is an individual, but also an integrated part of a larger unit.

The Wiccan concept of "as above, so below," implies there are too ways to learn about yourself: looking outside and looking inside. Everything around you can teach you something about yourself, and everything inside you can teach you something about the world.

What authority? Unless you're a Gardnerian he wouldn't have that much authority to begin with.


I was trying to illustrate that by your next statement. They are a nuisance because some people (like you, for instance) can't tell the fluffies from someone serious about it. It's rather frustrating to have someone walk up to you and say "Oh, I bet you bought one of those Wicca starter kits on e-bay, right?"

The objective of fluffies is usually (if not always) extremely different. I refer you back to the martial arts analogy. The "dabbler" is just in it because he wants to look cool and maybe impress his friends. The serious practioner trains to become disciplined, precise, and improve himself and the condition of his mind/body/spirit.

Clue #2

Which not at all what Wicca is about, let alone "at its best." If it was intended to a social club where you could go to find exceptance and personal euphoria, Wiccans would get together and watch Harry Potter every Sunday with a pound of weed and a bag of cheetos.

Fluffies are attracted to Wicca because it gives them a chance to be unique, and then only because Wiccans are the overwhelming minority in this country and it's very easy to fake it because most people (again, like yourself) can't tell the difference between a dabbler and a someone serious.

Clue #3
What is martial arts without uniforms and weapons, forms and techniques, sparring and training? Boxing? Street fighting?

The difference between Wicca and simple "self improvement" is quite massive -- not for the fluffies, obviously, but for the rest of us it is. It's a system of metaphysical study more than anything else, a method by which one can examine the world and ones self and see clearly how the two of them fit together. Some people use archetypes, some don't need them at all. What Wicca means to you (if you're serious about it) depends entirely on you, not on Wicca.

I don't know the celtic angle, it's not my thing. But think, then, what Buddhism is "truly about." At the core of the religion are some very simple concepts: everything in moderation to seek the "Middle Path," self improvement and understanding, and don't be attached to material, wordly things. So why do Buddhists have so many rituals, trinkets, statues of Buddha, costomes, tenuous connections to the older Hindu religion? That's simple: people can relate to them and it gives structure to their efforts, and structure is alot more important than you might think.

Algebra, for instance, becomes extremely difficult without +, -, =, /, x, signs, or variables, bars, formulas, constants.... of Algebra is just manipulating numbers then why all the extra signs and widgets?

I don't have much, just a stone garden and a pentagram among a few other things. They give me a physical representation of something I understand, so that I can take complicated concept that I understand and simplify it by replacing (in my mind) with a symbol. With that accomplished, I can compress other elaborate concepts into other symbols and understand how they fit together with one another. If and when I figure that out, I can combine the two of them into a single symbol or object and use that symbol to represent how it fits together with something else.

Have you ever taken an engineering course? Every different transister has its own symbol in a diagram, and one has to understand what each symbol means in order for the diagram to make sense. But if you were to take the symbol and draw, in the diagram, what it actually represents, the diagram would become extremely complicated.

Your welcome :wave:

There's a mystical aspect to it I don't think you'll understand (or believe) but in principle, imagine every living person is sitting in a canoe (sometimes alone, sometimes not) floating upstream on a river current. The current is time. When you want to change your position in the river as the current sweeps you along, what do you do? You can wait for the nuances of the current to move you in a certain direction and hope you get there, or you can stick your oars in the water and try and paddle one way or the other. Sometimes you get where you want to be, sometimes you dont, sometimes your cannoe runs into a rock or something and you fall out. Life is like that. :huh:

Magic is what happens when someone in the canoe has a sail. It is simply a more efficient way of affecting causality. Now this isn't a very comprehensive analogy, it's just bare bones, but for the most part it's primarily just a way of affecting either fate, moods, or states of mind (sometimes your own, sometimes not).

Most black belts I know don't need "violence" to do it, nor is it indicative of "ass kicking ability." I'm just assuming that you are aware that if you were to try to mug a master of Tae-Kwon-Do, whether he's armed or in uniform or not, chances are you will not be succesful.

Clue #4
Any deep study of Wicca will tell you that a "sense of belonging" is not the objective. If anything it's incidental, since most Wiccans are still solitaries. Once again you seem under the impression that all Wiccans have in common with fluffies that after years of practice and study, they learn nothing, gain nothing, and accomplish nothing. It's not about trying to get super powers and it's not about trying to make Gweneth Paltrow fall in love with you. The end result is a spiritual result. You gain knowledge of yourself and knowledge of the world, and as knowledge is power, you have the ability to change the world in ways that before you might not have been able to.

I'm rather amazed you understand that in light of your other posts :thumbs:

But let me suggest that nothing in nature is beyond a measure of control. Obviously we're not omnipotent and never will be, and nature does what she does no matter what. But Wiccans understand (or at least come to understand) that while nature can and will always run her course, we are also part of nature, and therefore do have a measure of control and influence.

That's true, in fact most of the people who started religions did so entirely on by accident. On the other hand this is also true most of the forests you might have walked through: all of the trees you see were dropped on the ground by accident, and began to grow and in time became large, massive treers. Wicca, at the moment, is a seedling, not even a formal "religion" in the way you use the word. But 400 years from now will we still be having this conversation about how religious development is a "natural process?" By then it will have evolved and developed based on the findings of its adherents, thus it will have become intertwined with culture and in fact will have influenced culture in its own way.


Fluffies borrow things from people they know nothing about. Serious adherents to Wicca generally try to study in some depth the religious concepts they incporate into their practices. Even then, however, they borrow only the concept not the actual practice.

Wiccans can be "inspired" by another religion or an older religion (in fact some that I know prefer not to borrow even the terminology, just the concept itself) but if a Wiccan were to perform something like a Tea Ceremony for whatever reason, unless he was a fluffy, he would not claim the ceremony was a Japanese ritual, nor would he attempt or pretend to draw on any Japanese cultural roots with which he is obviously not familiar. Only the concept behind the ceremony would be emphasized, and of course there would be differences between the Wiccan version and the Japanese version.

Japanese rock and role bands borrow American styles all the time, but very rarely do they actually borrow American songs or write their own songs based on American themes. Such is the nature of inspiration, simple exchange of ideas.


I dont see animosity at all. I just find fluffies to be a nuisance, mainly because of the image that gets assosciated with Wicca. Some black people don't like gangsta rappers for the same reason.

nermal

See, this is what I'm talking about when I say "lively debate." This is good shit. Very good shit. Excellent post, newtype_alpha. Much to chew on here. Thank you.

By "artificial experiences" I mean ceremonies and rituals fabricated to efficate a learning of self. I don't mean fantasies or fake memories. True self discovery comes from an honest analysis of how you incorporate experience. We all have "fantasies"--ideas would be the proper term here--of how we would respond to specific experiences. This character we invent who responds to experiences in the way we fantasize we would is our percieved self. Our true self is that character that responds to real experiences in real ways. The two are not the same. The former is completely idealized, and self awareness is the knowing of the difference.
We can't learn this difference through invented ritual--artificial experience. Our percieved self is too involved in the ritual itself. It is the self setting up experiences controlled and determined by the self. The percieved self is simply too integral to the process for a distinction to be made. Therefore, nothing is learned about the true self.

To go with the martial arts analogy (I'm a little uncomfortable with this for a couple reasons, but it's good enough, I suppose) we can set up drills and katas and all kinds of fun things to feed the idealized self. And if that is the final purpose of studying martial arts, and for many it is, that's fine. I should be careful here, because the analogy is very limited. There is growth. There is real change in the real self, through disciplined practice, which may be expressed in myriad ways.

But in every martial arts studio I have seen, MA is the study of a kind of "ritualized violence" and if we stay within the sphere of violence, those rituals tell one nothing of how the real self would incorporate the experience of true violence. That is to say the black belt, though well trained and reasonably fit physically, may well be incapable of fighting.

At some point, probably somewhere at the 4th degree, depending on the art, there is a bifurcation of the students, and things change, I'm sure. At this point the student, I expect, becomes quite formidable. But I am of the opinion that this bifurcation isn't a characteristic of the training itself, but rather a difference in the character of the student who carries his training that far. It's a kind of self selection process.

But there's a couple of ways the analogy breaks down. Firstly, and this also reflects our cognitive/linguistic disconnect, is that the martial arts rituals are real world based. Martial arts isn't a religion. The rituals, exercises more specifically, while hypothetical are tied to real world situations. "If this happens, do this... ." Even where the exercises aren't directly tied to hypotheticals, they are meant to develop the ability to respond to those hypotheticals. How do Wiccan rituals do this?

Further, unlike Wicca, martial arts evolved. Even when specific arts are invented, they are invented by people exceedingly proficient in martial arts. Things are borrowed, but not out of context. Jeet Koon Do and Krav Maga are pretty good examples of this. These were not developed by a civil servant working in a government building who met some self proclaimed ninjas. Again, the authority thing.

I should qualify this by saying I'm no martial artist myself. I practiced Kenpo for a year quite a long time ago, but what little I learned has long been lost. However, for other reasons, I have been inside several schools in the US. I'm sure there are schools elsewhere, particularly in the East, where the violence isn't ritualized and true fighting takes place, but that isn't analogous.

As an interesting aside, I had an acquaintance some years ago who was a real honest to goodness brawler. He had no formal training at all, but simply loved to get into fist fights. Otherwise, he was a real decent guy. He wasn't mean, he wasn't a bully, and never fought people who didn't step up, but he thouroughly enjoyed giving and taking beatings. He especially enjoyed fighting black belts, and to my knowledge, he never lost. Their training and ritualized practice simply didn't prepare them for a guy who lusted for the fight. If you've ever watched a kickboxing match the reasons for this are obvious. All the pretty moves go out the window almost immediately, and it looks no different than a straight up bar fight. Toughest guy wins.

Except for those Gracy guys. Those guys are octopii.

Well, he basically invented the religion, with some input from Crowley, I understand (weird guy there, too). Maybe many don't follow his prescriptions too closely anymore, and have modified the religion. But in the end, it amounts to building fabrications onto fabrications. You can modify something that's completely ungrounded and sans foundation, but what you have in the end is still ungrounded and sans foundation.

We're experiencing a linguistic disconnect here. Maybe we can work through it.

I'm asserting that it doesn't matter if one dabbles or is completely serious about the concept. I am addressing the concept itself. If the concept is arbitrary and insubstantial, then devoting one's life to it is devoting one's life to something that is arbitrary and insubstantial. Taking something serious, no matter how serious you take it, doesn't necessarily make it serious. People are very often obsessed with inconsequential things.

An analogy, not a perjoritave:

I can spend my life collecting Matchbox cars. I can devote all my free time to the study of Matchbox cars; the history; the scarcity of this car or that car; where specific cars were manufactured; what specific cars represented. I can search for years, and travel many miles looking for specific cars to round out incomplete sets. I can be completely devoted to this and say with all honesty that I take the study and collection of Matchbox cars seriously.

What I cannot do with any sense of gravity, is claim that the study of Matchbox cars is itself a serious pursuit. I can only say that I am serious about it. I cannot say that my interest in Matchbox cars should be taken more seriously in general than a child playing with a Matchbox car, just because I'm more earnest. We see people who don't make the distinction and wonder what the hell is the matter with them.

There is no correlative relationship between how passionate someone is about a pursuit, and the gravity of the pursuit in and of itself. That's not to say that my passionate interest in Matchbox cars isn't legitimate. If that's what brings me fulfillment, so be it; live and let live. But I can't rationally equate that passion, vis a vis a meaningful life, to a cosmologist's passionate persuit of the GUT.

All this assumes I'm not in the Matchbox market to make money. That changes motivations entirely and not necessarily for the better.

And neither am I equating Wicca with the collection of Matchbox cars. I don't think it's that trivial. But when people talk of Wicca as a religion, or a philosophical/metaphysical pursuit, the analogy is at least apt.

Well, there's hanging out, and there's fellowship. Hanging out is fun, but fellowship is meaningful, and relationship building, and usually involves coffee.

Uniforms are handy, comfortable, and allow free movement. And frankly, sweats are ugly. But I've known martial artists who work in sweats.

Weapons are historical things, primarily. Proficiency with them can come in handy though. Not much difference between a bow and a cue stick.

As for the rest, the goal of forms and techniques, at least theoretically, is street fighting, isn't it? I don't mean for fun, but for self preservation. That's why martial arts developed. That's why you find the word "martial" in martial arts. Sparring and training are, of course, integral to this.

The point of forms and techniques is to build muscle memory and strength so sparring and training and ultimately fighting are acts that require no conscious thought. As taught in the west, however, more interest lies in the collatoral gains, but that doesn't change what martial arts are, at the core.

You and Brighid brought up the "self improvement" and self discovery stuff, not me. I hadn't looked at Wicca that way, previously. I thought Wiccans believed in Gods and Goddesses, spells and magic.

Again, I don't think fluffies are interested in self improvement. I think they're interested in belonging while being unique, esoterism, and gratification. All completely human emotions. Very profound human emotions, in fact, which is why I said they represented Wicca "at it's best." And by that, I mean at it's most comprehensible and most, well, human. Her motives are completely clear.

To use the Matchbox car analogy, one looks at a Matchbox fluffy and says:

"She likes Matchbox cars. They're neat, and they make her happy. She even goes "Pbthbthbthbth" when she plays with them. OK, maybe she's disturbingly superficial, and might benefit from a therapist, but hey, until then, Matchbox cars are harmless (and besides, Matchbox cars make her horny)."

One looks at the serious Matchboxan and says:

That's a hell of a lot of time and energy spent on Matchbox cars, and what's with all the talk about the parallels between Matchbox cars and life?"


There are very deep metaphysical treatises out there. I've tried to read some of them. They're very dry. I understand why you are looking for an alternate route. Me, I just let the issue drop.

I have to confess. I know dick about Buddhism.

I don't wear any jewelry or other paraphenalia with algebraic notation on them when I do differential equations. Don't confuse symbols with symbology here. Mathematical symbols mean things, but they don't have meaning, if you get my drift.

I'm beginning to understand what you're talking about here. But the meaning you're talking about is very personal and unique to each individual. That's fine and understandable, but then what is Wicca? If it's different for each Wiccan, is there really such a thing as Wicca?

Brighid believes in the Celtic stuff. You don't, apparently. Others probably do Nordic stuff, and others yet do American Indian stuff. Yet you all call yourselves Wiccans. It doesn't make sense. Pagan is a perfectly cromulent word, but even that doesn't apply, as many Wiccans aren't deists, nor believe in the supernatural.

I think the word you all are looking for is existentialist.

Where I'm from we call that visualization and actualization. There's nothing religious about it. When you pray to the Goddess, if you do, do you expect the Goddess to intervene on your behalf? Or is the Goddess a representation of a human quality within you? If so, why prayer? Why the Goddess? Why not just look to yourself?

I suspect what you call spiritualism I call centeredness, tranquility, confidence, self awareness. I can appreciate the desire to call such things spirituality, as the notion of spirituality ties one to a kind of transcendence. But while I see the desire, I don't see the need. There's nothing wrong with centeredness et. al. as they are. There's no need to try and make them something transcendent.

But how real is that knowledge of the world? What specifically is it? How does it translate into doing?

Thanks. I do try to understand. Our pursuits aren't that different after all. I'm simply satisfied with those pursuits sans garnish. I don't choose to decorate the stage.

Many things in nature are beyond any measure of control. Spells and incantations won't change the movement of the heavenly bodies. The weather was what it was, no matter how many captured enemy the Incas sacrificed. There was no chariot pulling the sun across the sky, and offerings on alters changed its course not a wit.

Accepting the fact that one is wholly at the mercy of many things is profoundly important to any kind of understanding of one's self, and one's part in the natural world. It also takes a hell of a load off.

As I said, the Wiccan would be pouring tea. That's the difference between the Wiccan version and the Japanese version.

The point is taken. But the inescapable conclusion is that someone gets to define the practice, and that someone isn't the fluffies. But who decides this? Again, we're back to the question of authority.

By the way, to answer your implied question, I don't know how many of the Wiccans I have encountered were fluffies. I expect that fluffies don't think they are fluffies. In fact, I haven't yet met a Wiccan (and to be honest, I haven't had lengthy conversations with many) who didn't dislike fluffies. I expect even fluffies dislike fluffies, if you know what I mean. All Wiccans think they're Wiccans.

Now...recomend a good book.

Ed

newtype_alpha

This is true, if one stops at the ritual and doesn't internalize what the ritual means. I'll show you what I mean shortly.

Every kata, as you are probably aware, includes certain combinations of movements and steps, directions, etc. I believe this and other "drills" are what you mean by "ritualized violence."

As a student of Tae-Kwon-Do, I had an instructor once tell all of us, "If you end up in a fight with two people bigger than you, are you going to stand there and execute the Tan-Gun form? Of course not! The form is an exercise of technique, but the form itself is meaningless."

The rituals are a vessel of conceptual expression. You can think of it this way: water is the concept while a bottle is the ritual. After you've consumed the concept, what possible use do you have for the bottle, except to fill it again with more water or even a different drink?

Speaking from experience, it comes well before the fourth degree. It doesn't come quickly, however. There is something of a leap one must make between the theory and practice of a movement or combination of movements. When you grasp the mechanics involved in actual practice there's a sort of "Ah hah!" moment when you realize what all those stupid drills really mean.

This is more easily answered by a study of pantheism. In invoking a particular goddess or god, you are indeed invoking a part of yourself; thus the deity is an archetype of a characteristic or natural force. But remember that unlike the Judeo-Christian theology which you might be more familiar with, there is no distinction between creation and creator; the archetype invoked is not only part of ones self, but also part of the natural world in which one finds himself. In one of my own rituals four souls are invoked, two male, two female, each embodying different aspects both of human condition and natural conditions. The ritual itself is little more than a concentration tool, but of infinately greater importance is just what I am conctrating on.

The goal (for me) of such rituals and study thereof is to be able to invoke these natual forces without the need for ritual at all.

Even martial arts concepts must have a genesis. Kung Fu, for instance, was formed over time by very intuitive monks requiring a need to defend themselves against bandits. Other art forms evolved just from sporting neccessities, same as some gymnastics and wrestling techniques were invented literally on the fly by the ingenuity of a skilled practitioner (the granby system comes to mind).

And again, Wiccans who borrow things out of context gain nothing from the borrowing. If anything they borrow the context itself, or at the very least the intent the concept was meant to express in context. To make a religious point of it, you can borrow the concept of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," in the original context it was meant, without using the exact words in which it was originally stated or even the language in which it was spoken. The concept, not the words (ritual) or the language (culture) is the key.

I find that rather disressing. I thought that most (good) martial arts schools do, at least, practice a good degree of sparring and hand-to-hand combat drills. In Tae-Kwon-Do it was almost daily, and in wrestling and Judo we did so several times a day. It's impossible for the techniques to have any meaning unless you can apply them in real-world situations; and the better you get, the simpler the real-world situations become.

I knew a Chinese immagrant from San Francisco who was some kind of expert in some martial art (he never did specify which, nor did he really talk about it much). We all knew he knew his stuff but had never seen him fight. Long story short, some nucklehead decided to prove what a badass he was by picking a fight with him. We didn't think it would go very well, since he was three times his size and really big on weightlifting.

The fight lasted about five seconds and I'm still not entirely sure what the little guy did, but all I remember is that the gig ox came out swinging and next thing we knew he was on the ground, quite unconscious.

Like I said before, the ritual and the moves may be pretty, but the concept behind them (if one masters the concept) is far more potent than you would expect.

This would be the "Monty Python" clause. If you build a castle in a swamp, the castle will sink into the swamp. If you build another castle on the swamp, it'll sink too. But if you keep buiding them and building them, sooner or later there will be so many castles sunken in that swamp you've got a rock-hard foundation :thumbs:


That's true. And yet "arbitrary and inconsequential" are judgement calls depending on a single person's values. In the scheme of things, just about everything humans do is arbitrary and inconsequential, and yet we invest a great deal of meaning and importance to them.

If you spent your whole life collecting matchbox cars and all your free time and energy, then obviously matchbox cars is something that is very important to you and gives your life a great deal of meaning. It has a profound affect on you, and you might even write some good books of poetry inspired by matchbox cars that have a profound affect on others.

But is collecting matchbox cars more or less important than -- say -- string theory or classical music? Filmakers and science fiction writers invest a great deal of time and energy into writing new and imaginative scripts and stories to entertain their audience, and physicists devote a staggering ammount of time and energy into investigating the nature of things and forces which no human will ever interact with on a personal level or even experience directly. These are human pursuits, but there is nothing intrisically valuable to them except the importance humans find in them.

Likewise, if you cannot claim that the study of matchbox cars is important in our society, can you claim the opposite in a society that reveres and adores matchbox cars?

That's what I mean. Nothing humans do has any meaning whatsoever other than the meaning we invest in it. Passion is only meaningless when one applies such passion and has nothing to show for it, namely in the case of someone who passionately loves a woman named Sally but never acts on it in any way shape or form and whose love never affects his life to any real degree.

I understand what you mean, but again, everything is trivial if no one cares about it.

True. And again, this is not any specific doctrine of Wicca, nor is "coffee" a sacrament. It's just as humans do.

Martial arts, "at its core," is far more than merely a technique for organized street fighting. In some cultures it does include a religious aspect, but in secularized America this is nearly always phased out. While "fighting" is always part of the core concept, there are two fights going on: the battle between one man against another, and the battle between one spirit against another. The latter is usually an internal struggle, you against yourself, and gaining victory and thus total self control and discipline.

This is true. But clarity of motive is not always "the best" of anything. For instance, if you volunteer at a rape-crisis center just so you can pick up vulnerable women, this is a very clear, superficial interest, very comprehensible. But does that mean that someone who does these things is a counselor "at his best" when compared to someone who joins the center with a sincere yet misunderstood desire to help people?

The difference is that a fluffy who plays with matchbox cars is just that: someone who plays with Matchbox cars. A collector is someone who takes them seriously, who ascribes some meaning into them, who has some reverence and respect for what he does and who finds direction in his life because of it. The difference, therefore, is between a collector and a player.

An excellent example would be Samuel Jackson's little blowup in the movie Unbreakable: "Sir, this an art gallery, not a toy store. And you are wasting my time."

Yes, I do get your drift. Likewise, metaphysical symbols (pentagrams, statues, altars, etc) mean things, but they don't have meaning.

As many variations as there are of "martial arts" there are different variations within individual arts. Wicca, then, is not the smallest category of organization of the religion, since it is divided up into covens, followings, traditions, and solitaries with their own understandings. In general they tend to have in common more or less the same thing other religions -- Christians, for example -- have in common: similar concept of divinity, similar practices, similar rules, and similar if not identical basic beliefs. Nearly all Wiccans follow the Wiccan Rede, and many place some weight on "the Charge of the Goddess."

I don't see how you can be a Wiccan and not believe in some semblance of the supernatural. But variation is expected, of course, in a religion that does not attempt to be uniform in belief nor does it wish to be uniform. There are as many variations in Wicca as there are variations in individual people, and yet we are all humans and we are all Americans/Europeans/Germans or what have you. Such subtle differences can and often do exist within groups, and in fact such differences are ideal for progress. There is always more than one way to view any situation.

As a pantheist, looking to the goddess is looking to yourself, and looking to yourself is looking to the goddess. Since nature itself is the body of the goddess, and humans are part of nature, then "prayer" is just a way of interacting with a system -- or rather an entity -- that you are already part of.

How can the goddess "intervene" on my behalf? To do so she would have to be seperate from me in a very real way, and I from her. This is not the case. The godess "represents" something that we are all part of, so any time you speak to the goddess, (a small part of) she is talking to herself, and you are talking to (the larger part) of yourself. I know it's difficult to understand, but I can put it this way: a single neuron in your brain, properly configured, can greatly influence the workings of the brain tissue around it. It is both an individual, and part of a larger system.

And if one cell communicates a signal to every other cell in your brain, what's happening? Is that cell talking to you? Of course not, it is part of you. Then are you talking to your brain? Again, no, because you are more than a single brain cell. Then clearly, when one cell talks to the rest of your brain, it is you talking to yourself.

I don't consider that spiritualism at all, but maybe close enough. I don't see sprituality as truly "transcendent" except in part; it may be partialy transcendent but it is also primarily immanent. The concept of full transcendence of anything divine or spiritual just doesn't make alot of sense to me.

This is a difficult question. Scientists can use knowledge of the world (namely of evolutionary biology and genetics) to understand and control the development and viruses and bacteria in ways that can reduce the effects of human sickness.

I can give you one example from my own life: the Wiccan concept, "As above, so below," applies, in a pantheistic context, in that every larger system (a planet, asolar system, a galaxy) resembles, at least in part, a smaller system that is one of its components (planets, animals, objects) which in turn resembles even smaller components, (organs, tissues) and smaller still, (cells, viruses, bacteria) and so on. I once did a study on psychological effects of groupthink and mob mentality and discovered something interesting: groupthink is possible even in an individual, because even a human brain is made up of groups of cells and parts that work together to produce thoughts and additudes. In groupthink situations, every individual consents to agree with a single point of view, and therefore no exchange of information or data goes on and every individual sees the situation the same way. Sometimes an individual does the same within his own mind: when considering your options you conduct a dialogue within your own head, considering both paths as if two or more people were discussing what to do next. If no dialogue occurs, then it means all parts of your mind are united in agreement without any exchange of information or data.
Groups, therefore, can be understood in some of the same ways that individuals can -- logically, large and more complex groups with more fluid exchanges of data and communication between individuals is more intelligent as an entity than groups where there is little communication between individuals.

You'd think all this would be common sense, but proceeding from this, I can follow a simple logical process: large groups often behave as an individual entity, therefore by learning something about how groups behave and understanding the causes of that behavior, that same knowledge is also applicable, in part, to learning how individuals behave and the causes of their behavior.

I wouldn't expect "spells and incantations" to control these things. But they are not beyond a measure of control; magic primarily affects probability, so something that is extremely improbable will be very difficult to affect by magic. A good friend of mine demonstated this very eloquently: (I'm not convinced this wasn't some kind of parlor trick, but I haven't figured out any other explanatino yet ) She etched a rune on the back of a quarter, and the same one on the ground large enough for her to stand in it. She used one incantation, then flipped the coin. It landed heads. She flipped it 100 times -- every time it landed heads, rune side up. She used anther incantation and reversed the spell, flipped the coin 100 times, and all 100 times it landed tails, rune side down. She went back and forth two more times just to show us that it was a bit more than blind luck. :huh:


We are at the merct of many things, of course. But simply being resigned to being "at the mercy of nature" is not always productive, considering that we are also part of nature, so a great many things are also at our mercy. :thumbs:


There would be alot more to it than that. The form of the ritual would almost certainly change (for instance, unless all the Wiccans participating are Japanese, they would probably use chairs or stools) and they would probably dress differently as well. But the meaning of the seremony remains, and in a similar context (this is ideal, anyway. Some will make that mistake, of course.)

It would probably help if we cleared up the fact that that "fluffies" are generally thought to be "dabblers" in Wicca, not serious adherents, because of the differences of what they hope to accomplish. Even if they wish to be identified with serious Wiccans, the casual "fluffy" would still be distinguished by the serious practioner on a number of ways, not in the least of which is the intended result.

It's a little like the difference between some kid playing sitckball in a wheat field and an MLB professional. Both of them, obviously, are baseball players, but everyone knows the difference between a pro ball player and a kid with a stick and a round rock.

This is true, and highly ironic. I once had a girl come to me in school who wanted me to teach her a spell to make the captain of the wrestling team fall in love with her (she came back two weeks later asking for a spell to make his penis shrink :banghead: ) This one often griped to me about "fluffies" running around with magic wands playing Harry Potter and trying to magic people into doing stuff for them; in fact, when she asked me, I believe she phrased it to the effect of, "I need a serious one... you know, like the big time Wiccans use, not that fluffy garbage."

Studying Taoism might help you grasp the concept in a way.

As for books, try "Full Contact Magick" by Kerr Chuhulain (he does that weird "magick" spelling thing, but other than that it's a pretty good book)

brighid

Nermal,

I just want to clarify that I don't "believe" in the Celtic stuff, as I believe in no Gods. Celtic mythology simply resonates with me for various and personal reasons, however other mythologies do as well. I have a particular fondness for Kali Ma of the Hindu pantheon. I am also part American Indian and there are parts of those cultures and religious mythologies I find very fascinating. I simply and largely descend from a Celtic blood line and (along with "Roman" blood) and that is just where I find myself drawn.

As to "why Wicca" (if it is all just personal) I would say that Wicca orginally started off as a stepping stone on my road to complete deconversion. I was raised Catholic, eventually became disillusioned with the Catholic Church (especially because it provides extremely poor examples of the divine feminine) and then I became a liberal Christian of sorts until I found that completely lacking and through my own thought process I developed ideas about what I felt was the likely nature of "deity." I didn't even seek out Wicca. In a way you can say it found me (well, the person who would eventually become my high priestess which coincidentally came through our mutual participation in martial arts ... and so did the development of our group.)

I do not read the popular "Wiccan" books. As a matter of fact I have never read a single one all the way through but have merely dabbled here and there. My experience within paganism is purely "natural" or "instinctual" if you will. I create what I desire and even my "spell" work is with little or no aid from herbal or spell books. Even work I do for others.

I don't know if I can adequately describe, despite my lack of belief in Gods, why I continue to participate in a Wiccan group or why I continue to find myself fascinated with paganism and neo-paganism. Perhaps it has some link with my deep affection for Pre-Raphelite art and the archetypes of Warrior Goddesses (like Diana and Kali Ma.)

In the purest estimation of self-examination it is because I truly enjoy my participation in my group. I find a lot of positive in the exploration of these archetypes, in the poetic outlet I have that other outlets don't provide, and there is a deep and abiding human context that I found no satisfaction in other outlets either. It fulfills very human needs I have that perhaps other people do not. If you were to know me you would know that it truly is a natural extension of my persona.

Brighid

Brighid

Zagadka

"Wicca" is something insanely loosely defined. There is no central Wiccan ideology, and aside from a few basic concepts, most of it is made up of whatever people dream up. Some are very serious about their religion, and operate it as one. Some people are just either insane (literally, I've seen and read some "Wiccan" text that just... yeah) or trying to piss off their parents.

But I've never heard of a Wiccan tradition of raising the dead. That is somewhat anti-Wiccan, even.

Shven

not true. Wicca is very well defined - but everyone ignores the definition

Shven

Karalora

Perhaps when they say it's not well defined they mean it's not narrowly defined.