jon_frum

The interested reader may find copious information at www.doreenvaliente.com (list of books, capsule bio, etc.)
Revel.

I think that the next 'magus' Ms. Valiente was associated with was Alex Saunders. She also worked with Robert Cochrane.

Era

NiceWookie

By no means I intended to use the term “fluffy-bunny� as a method of classification. I do acknowledge that the coinage of the term does not aid in the introduction of more accurate information at all. The term meant to replace fake, but for the sake of the argument, I will refer these people in particular as ignorant. I do not see that they follow Wicca at all because most of the books that they have read are full of a watered version of Wicca as most Wiccan books in this era are characterized for.
No, I am not a neo-pagan. I used to attend neo-pagan message boards and the phrase ‘I used to’ does not mean that I abandoned the message boards because of spite. I used to be member of two Wiccan message boards, one on Traditional Wicca, two on Traditional Witchcraft, two on neo-paganism and one on Reconstructionist Religions.
The books that I referred to in the post are books that have given rise of the pseudo-history, they are not “my sources or only sources.�
Moreover, I do not like pseudo-history in general. I could have written pseudo-history that exists in the Baha’i religion too.
* I am sure that you do not need statistics to realize that most republicans are conservatives. Actions and words speak for themselves.

Sunfair

I never invalidated the religion.
I referred to the pseudo-history of it.
When I wrote “old religion�, I meant “the old religion� as if it were the oldest.
The points are not arguments, but misconceptions that are still believed till this era and they are not outdated.
The phrase “others may reply,� refers to those who defend the misconceptions.


�Just off the top of my head, there was the group who tried to kill King James, and the group led by a compatriot of the late Joan of Arc. These were considered Satanic in nature, but I think they do qualify as hidden witch cults.�

Where is the historical evidence on that? Perhaps, it was considered satanic in nature by the heavily superstitious people in those times. Anyway, you wrote, “I do think,� therefore, I will assume that it is your opinion.

�Sorry, I just don't understand the point you're trying to make here. It's not Celtic enough to be considered genuinely Celtic because we don't know that much about the Celts? Maybe the way the word is being used is not absolute as far as description goes. That happens a lot with language. Otherwise, genuine Celticness might involve wearing hide clothing and living in a hut with a central firepit.�

As if, “It is a 100% celtic religion.�
The statement on the holydays goes along with the “Celtic assertion�; the Celts celebrated two holydays, not eight.

�As for what Gardner said, why do you consider him wrong in his assessment of what his practice of his religion (whether he made it up or not) was composed of? If it was witchcraft to him, then how can you say it wasn't? Just because Wicca in general isn't and has further developed away from a major emphasis on it doesn't mean that it wasn't for him.�

I never wrote that he was wrong, but there is the possibility that his reference regarding Wicca being witchcraft was deliberate. And also, I was referring to the fact that some people assert that Wicca is a synonym for witchcraft.


�That's not true. There's no blasphemy. People can blend all they want if that's how they want to be. Too bad if it's not pure enough for you, but there it is.�



Have some curry sauce on your french fries, too.

I never implied purity.
If that is your view, then, it is all right. It seems that you hold that Wicca (including any other religion) is whatever the person wants it to be or anything that the person likes it to be. (a la Cunningham.)
What about Wicca’s 161 Laws?

I think that it would be more respectful towards the religion if the people interested in it were more interested in learning about Wicca instead of transforming it into something completely different and using it as if it were the latest fashion statement.
So, if a Wiccan adds some elements from Hinduism, Yoruba and Judaism, erases the horned god or does not worship any gods or goddesses at all and also, only gets involved into Wicca because of the magic. Is he or she a Wiccan because he or she calls himself or herself one?
I think it would be more considerate if he or she referred himself or herself as a thelemite.


By the way, I have had curry sauce on French fries and they do not taste dreadful, though, in reality I do not like French fries.

Regards,

Era

gsx1138

I consider myself Pagan/Witch but I say I'm Wiccan. Why? Because the first two titles have been so demonized by Christianity that anything I say is automatically dismissed. I have friends who believe in the psuedo-history and I choose to not confront them about it. As for "Celtic", I believe that many of the old stories from Ireland were preserved verbally and by being folded into Catholic mythology.

I've always seen Wicca as a mix of Masonic ritual, Celtic and Norse folklore, some stuff Gardner made up, and a wish to get back to an Earth/Nature centered religion.

I do agree with the "fluffy bunny" syndrome. I know many who would fall into this category however I would never call them fake.They are just doing and believing what they feel is right. As far as religions go they'd be the last to try and take your rights away.

lowmagnet

Apropos

Call it folklore or pseudo-history. I call it "Come meet the new boss, same as the old boss." The only religion that didn't rip off some other religion is Scientology, but that's only because L. Ron Hubbard was a genius writer. The man could spin a good yarn, a tale tall enough to hook thousands of people. At least his back-story is so ridiculous as to be copyrightable :P

['URL' has to be in upper-case now? stupid.]

0

Era & Jackalope,
Perhaps I am confused by your statements, but it seems that if a Wiccan follows a path completely of their own making, it seems wrong. Further, jack, you seem to believe that a vast majority of wiccans think this way based on the llewelyn prinicple as I call it.
Well, that's like stereotyping all atheists as immoral or all Christians as narrowminded.
Stereotypes benefit no one.
For the record, I am a Pagan solitary witch. Those three words have different meanings for me. pagan is the umbrella term for the areas of religious thought I follow. There simply is not a way to neatly label everything that I believe, so pagan it is. Solitary because I walk my path alone. I do involve myself in activities with members of all religious thought and independent thinking. I mingle with atheists, with Christians and Buddhists, I brush against other people's beliefs and debate and talk with them. But the path I walk at the end of the day is my own, not dictated by a coven or congregation. And lastly witch. I use my creative power and my intuition to help others. I give advice freely when asked. And I seek the higher path of enlightenment.
Now all this might seem like bs to you. But I and those that I know are not fluffy bunnies to be scoffed at simply because you met a few airheads who follow wicca because it is the new fad. I personally make no claims as from where wicca came. I read books that you would consider fluffy, but those are necessary to read in order to come to realize just what is crap and what is not. Trial and Error, if you will.
Many who start out on the pagan/wiccan path begin in defiance or perhaps because they are seeking solace from their inner pain or even for the "coolness" but those that continue on their journey do not all stay in the phase. In order to grow in thought, to expand the mind, we all have to start somewhere. The ones that follow the Path follow it without so much pomp and circumstance. We aren't all begging for attention, nor are we shouting from the rafters that we are different.
We simply are. As for our celebrational holidays. These are in accord with aspects of astrology, the position of the moon and planets as well as the equinoxes, eclipses, and so on. These holidays are just a way, for me personally, to be in accord with nature, to celebrate all that is life, and to seek inner peace within myself and harmony all around me.
And as for sex, Paganism is not all about sex. Each and everytime I get approached by someone this is the first idiot thing that gets said. If you want to go and have sex, my friend, you don't need an excuse to do it. You just will. Because some sects of paganism deal with sex and tantric sex, it seems that they are deemed immoral or "sluts, harlots, and rutting stags." What is so damn threatening about sex? It's a natural process. And Pagans are not the first to realize this. The Kama sutra is not a Pagan work. But if it suits you to think that all of us are this way, you are more than welcome to your opinion.
I'm not sure if this post has helped anything. perhaps you will read this and consider me to me one of the very ninnies that you are talking about, but I will say this: each and every one of us is a pathway leading back to the source from which we came. we are born and we die. But the journey, that journey is up to us as individuals how we will truly live in this moment.
If you would give your own journey meaningfulness, why should you cast such stereotypical light on those of others that harm none?
Live and let live, my friends. And may your path always, always give you the bounty and joy you seek in life.
Blessed be and merry part,
Tangie

Jackalope

Well, you seem to have concatenated a number of different people's posts (some of which are neither Era's nor mine) into your response. That makes it rather difficult to respond, as much of what you said appears to have been addressed to...someone else. I'm not sure whom.

I'm not actually talking about the Llewellyn Princicple, though that doesn't help things any. Gardner himself made many of the bogus claims about ancient historical practices and evidence. I've read his book. There's an awful lot of (let's be blunt) bullshit in it. As I said, even Valiente who was very sincere eventually left because of Gardner's habit of "discovering" ancient documents at convenient times. While Gardner also claimed to have had close contact with Alistair Crowley, the historical documentation does not bear out that claim either. Crowley kept rather meticulous journals of who he met with each day, and while he did have a few short meetings with Gardner, there's nothing to indicate he gave Gardner any extensive teaching (or even much time at all). Gardner appears to have had some rather good ideas about a new religion, but he apparently felt compelled to lie about its origins. And that's what Era and I were taking issue with. Especially since that misinformation has been passed on as the "real" history of Wicca until very recently.

On top of that, there are still people who believe in the myth of the "Burning Times," which stemmed from a combination of poor scholarship and plain making things up because they sounded good. I've actually read the dreadful book translated from french that was the source for the vastly inflated numbers and bizarre claims that get quoted as "truth." Plus, there's still that stupid movie out there that gets shown over and over again by various pagan groups. I believe it's just called "The Burning Times." It's a complete piece of trash, and many people don't do any further research after they watch it.

It's the extremely poor scholarship and plain lies masquerading as history that I take issue with. Wicca as a religion is no more ridiculous to me than any other. In fact, it's less ridiculous than some. It's the bogus claims of "30,000 years old" and "true remnant of the witch religion" and other BS claims about Wicca's great antiquity that I will debunk when I encounter them.

Era

Jackalope,

Good point.


Tangiellis,

Can you now understand the reason many academics tend to see the religion of Wicca as a silly fad or an incompetent technology?

Regards,

Era

0

All I'm going to say is that demonizing any view, be it a religion or otherwise based on a few of its followers does a disservice to that view. There are bad apples in every catagory and i've met more than my share of academics who know absolutely nothing but still tote the flag of intellectualism.

Those that are truely studious in their religions are usually the most open minded, from my experience. the Christians that I have met that have been nice are those that are secure in their faith while at the same time being comfortable with other people having their own.

Some Christians are ignorant.
Some Wiccans are fluff bunnies.
Some academics are idiots.
But that does not mean that the view itself without its bad apples is a total loss.

My belief doesn't make me a fluff bunny. My belief makes me human.
Just my two cents.

Tangie

edited to add: I can make assumptions and generalizations also, but it takes a real scholar to go and look at ALL the facts and then come to a conclusion. At least, that the path I try to take.

shivalinga

first to low magnet who said L Ron Hubblard was an original,
you might want to read some of these.


http://www.mt.net/~watcher/crowleyhubbard.html

http://home.snafu.de/tilman/j/origins6.html
===========================================

as for the rest it is clear to me from my cursory exam of wicca
that it was a mish mash of sorts akin to rosicrucian dogma,
as the old canard goes many had heard of the rosicrucians
but no one had met one.

But there were actual rosicrucians after all, they were syncretists of various stripes,the same with so called witchs
and therefore wicca, what we have is a mix of Kabbalistic
rituals,ancient "pagan" (mix of norse,celtic,and vedic),
and even heliopolitan and roman religio concepts as well
as gnostic and neo gnostic ideas, so when the idea of witchs
in the middle ages was put forth you were sure to find some
degree of one of these rituals or rites or whatever,alchemists
were probably wiccans and there female associates or otherwise
were probably witchs in the popular mind of the day.

so i see it as originally a syncretist concept on the par with rosicrucianism and this is why we see the same milieus overlapping with the likes of gardner et al.

we find the horned goat among the knights templar,
which possibly had some connection to Pan mixed with
other ideas from gnostic sources.

all in all to say there were no wiccans in the past
is not necessarily true,wiccans today are syncretists,
which means the similar syncretists in the past were
"wiccans" as well if they went along with the same ideas,
the names of rituals or whatever may be different,
but if it smells like a witch,tastes like a witch,
and weighs less then a feather....:notworthy

NiceWookie

*taps his foot* I'll wait for "many acedemics" to show up and proclaim Wicca a "silly fad" or an "incompentent technology".

Of course it's not going to happen because those are narrow, ignorant, and egotistical generalizations. Ironcially made in the guise of some sort of intellectual honesty. At least they are good was good for something.... a laugh.