Heathen Dawn

You did say non-coven initiation (which involves apostolic succession, lineage of initiates up to Gardner) could not rightly be called Wicca.

Shven

No, I accept solitary initiation. And even if I didn't I accept that a group of non-initiates can initiate themselves. What I dont accept is people who claim to be Wiccan while doing none of the above.

lulay

explain what your conversation has
to do with the subject of this thread please?

Shven

Sorry Lulay. Will stop.

Heathen Dawn

Yup, sorry.

4th Generation Atheist

So, back to the OP. I think it has a point.

If by "patriarchy" is meant the tendency to view male images and/or authorities as more important than female ones, or ideas originating from the minds of men as more important than those originating from the minds of women, you can bet the esotericisms historically associated with the recognizably patriarchal J/I/C religions would have plenty of baggage to let off! It doesn't surprise me that feminists who wish to study these things need to do some adapting.

I'm not a hundred percent sure what magic, esotericism, and Kaballah were for, but anything to do with ideas clearly has at least the ancillary (and possibly primary) purpose of serving the interests of those who come up with said ideas. Since these esoteric topics were for the most part invented (or at least, most recognizably elaborated) by male thinkers during the Middle Ages, it's no surprise to see whose interests they serve.

Maybe if the "feminist Kaballists" or whatever it is they call themselves keep it up, there'll be a workable alternate version soon. I'd be interested to see it, albeit only in my dry little academic way. (Frankly, I think the women would be better off focusing on equal pay, rights amendments, and affordable health and child care, but who do I think I'm kidding..... :huh: I don't mean anything especially nasty by this....but once there's equal power in society, all the misogyny hidden in any philosophy will merely look quaint, and we'll have new versions of anything someone wants to keep.)

lulay

HI...youconfess to having a 'dry academic way'--ie., of looking at what i have presented.....i would suggest to wetten it. give it a good long soaking

I feel you approach this fairly superficially. what is being implied goew to the roots of things. example...currently hard science is worrying over its 'hard problem'--ie., 'consciousness' especiallyits 'subjective' mode
THAt implies that we are living under its confused dead premise that matter is dead. because that is the paradigm

so, many are and have looked to the so-called subversive, heretical momvements offered by our western mystery tradition which is completely taken from eastern esoteric tradition, and hwat is found? why, more of the SAMe fear of the feminine as is shown in our supposedly secular culture....isn't this a big find!
and a clue to the stuckness of this schism between male and its fear of female. aren't we circumenting the very roots here?

all of this is really encouraging the insight into the severe limitations of dry academia and dry scientific endeavour, and pointing to direct experience of Nature and the universe as a way out of this constricted view of things. this DIRECT EXPERIENCE will need to be more direct than has heretofre been the way for those who practie it in the many branches of the mystery tradition.....where there --as seen--is homophobia and gynephobia, and literalization of mythology

this shit CANT be 'quaint'...not if you really grok it

4th Generation Atheist

Do you mean that women who seek practical equality in society are somehow "fearing the feminine", or that focusing on practical societal adjustments comes of such a fear? Because it's going to be a lot simpler to get legal stuff enacted than to change everyone's thinking at once...the thinking tends to lag behind. But if you change the laws, the thinking slowly catches up. It's no where near all the way caught up yet, but it's far closer than it was in, say, the 50s. My sister has a much easier time getting day-to-day respect than my mother did, though both are/were quite intelligent. (And there are still many practical adjustments to be made). Once this is done, a more equitable esoteric system might also evolve as a part of that.

Or you can look to design one now, and try to get it accepted into current esoteric sub-culture. Nothing wrong there.

My dry academic curiosity is merely that, if you have any such ideas, it might be cool to see them. But esotericists often don't want to share their ideas with people who don't want to "commit" as it were (maybe I mean "believe"), and I'm not about to at this point. That's just my style. I don't mean anything by it.

lulay

why SHOULD you believe what i say.
When i share views at forums, i WANT challenge. this doesn't mean i want contradicting all the time, which can get tedious. but i like to be challenged about whats said, because that fine tunes my rsearch.....a challenge may make me rethingk....explore more a certian thing. this means we are exploring and learning together doesn't it? rather than one person dictating, prechin, whatever
so i see what you mean by 'dry academic'.......

ok, about women now. i have been used to strong women, because my mum has alwauys been so.
But we also have to look closely at womens situation now. for example, here in the UK there is a phenomena now of women playing hard like the men. so, yes they have careers, and more 'freedom' but with this comes....boozing and smoking. again and again we are seeing groups of women out on the town pissed out of their brains, falling all over the city streets, and not giving a shit.
According to medical people, womens bodies cant take alcohol in the quantities men can--though even men are being warned to keep their 'units' down. but with the groups of women i have met, and seen interviewed on TV, they rally don't care. they feel if they work hard then 'playing' hard somehow justifies desroying their livers etc. what is frightneing, is that therer are no danger signals with the liver, unntil it is too late

i am seeing really not omens liberation as such, but rather women trying to fit into a man's world. a world that is based on a mechanical understanding of reality. Where literally 'matter' is dead...everything is dispirited, and we are manipulated to produce and consume, which includes their booze, an mcentertainments and ads which fuel the 'propaganda'

what am i offering as alternative? talkig about it at forums like this. really exploring IF realiy is as dead as the men say. if not, then how do we re-liven it for ourselves, and communicate about it?

Central to the subject of all this is hallucinogenic inspiration. this is really taboo. i can feel it here-at this forum when i try and braoach the subject....in society, everywhere. and th taboo manifests in diverse ways....as total silence, hostility, ridicule etc etc
i CAN understand some attitudes about this. i have mentioned here about J.Allegro. He was the author of a very controversial book called The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, and was the man to turn me onto looking more closely at myth. His revalations caused his colleagues to snub him till his death.....TABOO, like i said

now, this is the point. i read about it in a sensationaliy sunday paper when i was a kid. i can remember reading it, and the way i did. it really just went over my head. i hadn't had hallucinogenic eperience. only when 15 when i had hda LSD experiences which completely changed my life could i then understand the significance of these substances, not only for us but for our species

YET, from my experience at certian forums where people do take them. i still--shockingly have found a kind of passe view of them, regarding their deep sigbnificance.

All of this i am vitally into, because i feel that in order for us to re-member the spirit in Nature, we NEED helin medicine. NIT anit-depressants and all that ...rubbish, but what our ancestors took

Shven

Translation: If its bad, it must be male