geni
Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
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Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
It's a mish mash!
Checkmite
Skepticifimisticalationist
The first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Wicca is "a lot of whiners". This movement emerges in the 40's or whenever, and these people insist on calling themselves "witches" (a term which has carried a particular image for hundreds of years), but then they complain about "witches" being "unfairly stereotyped".
One of these geniuses tried to make me feel guilty in a chatroom once, talking about how witches are persecuted. She brought up Salem and "the Burning Times" in medieval Europe. There wasn't a single witch ever executed in Salem, and I have very little doubt that I could count the number of real "witches" ever burned in medieval Europe on one hand and still have enough fingers left to play a clarinet.
One of these geniuses tried to make me feel guilty in a chatroom once, talking about how witches are persecuted. She brought up Salem and "the Burning Times" in medieval Europe. There wasn't a single witch ever executed in Salem, and I have very little doubt that I could count the number of real "witches" ever burned in medieval Europe on one hand and still have enough fingers left to play a clarinet.
rastamonte
Thinker
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2004
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- 146
I have been hanging out with a bunch of these guys and it's a blast. A lot of dancing half naked around a bonfire with drumming and chanting and singing. Lots of fun and no real problem with their belief system, worshipping the sun and the moon and the changing of the seasons. Nature worship or just nature observance. It seems pretty natural to me.
crimresearch
Alumbrado
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2004
- Messages
- 10,600
Slightly oversimplified/sarcastic thumbnail of Wicca...
Woo-woo with an attitude Aleister Crowley sold Gardner the 'secrets' to the Order of the Golden Dawn for 10K back in the 30s/40s...Crowley took more than his share of loot sharing the secret with some others (the secret is 'Take everyone for whatever you can get'..most often expressed as the rede 'Do what thou will is the whole of the Law').
Current version has mixed in a hodge podge of New Age crystals, energy reading, and the rest of the stuff sold at the mall, and modified the rede to add a caveat about not harming anybody...and to pretend to be thousands of years old.
I believe that we are still waiting for anyone to come up with a scrap of evidence referring to 'Wicca' or 'Majik/magick' prior to the advent of this Gardnerian 'witchcraft'.
Woo-woo with an attitude Aleister Crowley sold Gardner the 'secrets' to the Order of the Golden Dawn for 10K back in the 30s/40s...Crowley took more than his share of loot sharing the secret with some others (the secret is 'Take everyone for whatever you can get'..most often expressed as the rede 'Do what thou will is the whole of the Law').
Current version has mixed in a hodge podge of New Age crystals, energy reading, and the rest of the stuff sold at the mall, and modified the rede to add a caveat about not harming anybody...and to pretend to be thousands of years old.
I believe that we are still waiting for anyone to come up with a scrap of evidence referring to 'Wicca' or 'Majik/magick' prior to the advent of this Gardnerian 'witchcraft'.
Checkmite
Skepticifimisticalationist
Z
Variable Constant
Yep, basically, Wicca is a hodge-podge of beliefs - in fact, Wicca isn't any one belief system, but rather any belief system that accepts the 'Rede' (short form). Thus, there are Christian Wiccans, Jewish Wiccans, etc.
Crowley and Gardner may have popularized Wicca, but some familial traditions have lasted for hundreds (not likely thousands) of years. There has never been a centralized, organized faith called 'Wicca', nor is there ever likely to be one.
Goddess-worshipping traditions are, of course, quite old, but as a sub-culture of polytheistic religion. For the most part, the practices and beliefs of modern Wiccans can be best summed up by 'An it harm none, do what you will' and 'If it feels good, do it'.
For me, Wicca is a convenient label to cover the fact that I believe Deity takes on many forms (probably better to say people think of Deity in many forms). I dress up my practice with Native American, Chinese, and Celtic trappings, but certainly there's never been a religion that comes from those three cultures combined, nor is there very much in common between the three cultures. My wife follows Correllian Wicca, which is more a framework of worship and study than an actual faith; she dresses it up with plenty of Celtic and Faerie trappings. I know a fellow who 'founded' his own 'church' based on Roman beliefs with a strong leaning toward Roman Catholic practices. A lady I know prefers 'Techno-Wicca' and refers to Science as her Goddess, and does her rituals in cyberspace.
Anyway, hope that helps enlighten a bit...
BTW - Woo is optional, but pretty damned common.
Crowley and Gardner may have popularized Wicca, but some familial traditions have lasted for hundreds (not likely thousands) of years. There has never been a centralized, organized faith called 'Wicca', nor is there ever likely to be one.
Goddess-worshipping traditions are, of course, quite old, but as a sub-culture of polytheistic religion. For the most part, the practices and beliefs of modern Wiccans can be best summed up by 'An it harm none, do what you will' and 'If it feels good, do it'.
For me, Wicca is a convenient label to cover the fact that I believe Deity takes on many forms (probably better to say people think of Deity in many forms). I dress up my practice with Native American, Chinese, and Celtic trappings, but certainly there's never been a religion that comes from those three cultures combined, nor is there very much in common between the three cultures. My wife follows Correllian Wicca, which is more a framework of worship and study than an actual faith; she dresses it up with plenty of Celtic and Faerie trappings. I know a fellow who 'founded' his own 'church' based on Roman beliefs with a strong leaning toward Roman Catholic practices. A lady I know prefers 'Techno-Wicca' and refers to Science as her Goddess, and does her rituals in cyberspace.
Anyway, hope that helps enlighten a bit...
BTW - Woo is optional, but pretty damned common.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Joshua Korosi said:
Methinks that thou has made an overbroad statement, the burning of witches was used as an excuse for seizing property and there are enough cases where names are mentioned and the like to mean you would need a lot of fingers!
I use the ten percent rule myself when looking at the figures, even if you use a one percent rule, there would still be at least 3,000 executed for witchcraft. Many of these case carried on into the elightenment and also involved the wars of 'reformation'.
So yes scepticism should be used on the 'three million' claim but there were witch burnings. On the Salem thing, Giles Corey(?) was pressed to death but found innocent because he didn't confess.
Remember as well that most societies, except for the US have a blend of religion and folk magic, and that such traditions continue in Africa where there are riots over hexed soccer fields.
Checkmite
Skepticifimisticalationist
Dancing David said:
You miss my point. I know that many were hanged, burned, executed for being "witches". I have serious doubts that the number of actual witches ever executed for the charge of witchcraft has more than 2 digits. The vast overwhelming majority of them were actually Christians.
Z
Variable Constant
That's exactly right - most 'witches' that were murdered or otherwise persecuted during the 'burning times' were just regular folks, many of whom practiced old folk traditions, but many of whom were simply disliked by one person or another. Very few, if any, were actually 'witches', per se.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Joshua Korosi said:
You didn't make your point, I didn't miss it.
For someone who likes anthropology you seem to be unaware of the nature of folk magic in Mexico or Haiti. The vast majority of 'brujas i brujos" in Mexico are Xian practioners of folk magic, Mexican folk magic occurs within the context of Catholicism and borrows very heavily from it. The same is true of Voodoo traditions, except that it includes an african component. So I would assume that some number of the people burned by the church were also Xian practioners of witchcraft. And even in the USA and the modern 'witch' tradition many 'white witches' are Xians they are not pagans. Shock and gasp, I know I was shocked when I met people who claimed they were witches and were just preformimng the catholic mass.
I already stated somewhere that the executions were mainly to seize property but I believe that the catholic church had strong reasons to shut down anybody dispensing god's grace without a license. So I feel that the execution met three goals, the destruction of temporal power, the seizure of property and the limiting of non church sources of Xian 'folk medicine'.
Cleon
King of the Pod People
Ratman_tf said:
One of my favorite comics, S*P, and one of my favorite strips....
(Though he left out the fact that nobody was "burned at the stake" in Salem. The Puritans preferred hanging.)
Dancing David said:
We may be running a risk of starting off on a "No True Scottish Witch" fallacy discussion, but I think that comparing syncretic Haitian folk religions with 17th century European beliefs is a non-starter. There's very little evidence to support the idea of a substantial hold-over or practice of pagan (or even obviously syncretic) beliefs in "core" Europe between about 1300 and the neo-pagan revivals of the 20th century. The modern earthy-crunchy neopagan witch simply did not exist in Europe, and you can look for her in vain.
The definition of "witch," therefore, has shifted over the centuries. In the 17th century, it was akin to "Satanist" or "demonologist," specificially a person who consorted with acknowlegedly evil spirits within the ontological framework of the Christian church. The idea that this was somehow a method of assuring religious orthodoxy or a power struggle between the folk religionists and the church hierarchy is ludicrous at several levels. FIrst, it's the reason there is no "save the dodo's" ecological movement -- there are no dodo's left, and similarly, there were no folk religionists left by the 17th century. Second, there was a genuine power struggle going on at the time between the Catholic and Protestant churches -- there was a well-established method of dealing with assuring religious orthodoxy and establishing power, specifically under the guise of dealing with heretics. Heresy and witchcraft are, and were, radically different crimes. Third, most of the witchcraft events were not related to the church hierarchy (one of the differences between witchcraft and heresy), but were produced almost entirely as a local, political, and largely lay dispute. The areas of Europe where the church was the strongest were, almost ironically, the areas with the least amount of witchcraft hysteria.
On a strict reading of the definition of "witch," there were by definition no witches, as evil spirits don't exist. On a slightly less strict reading, your "assumption" that "some number of the people burned by the church were also Xian practioners of witchcraft" (meaning people who self-admittedly attempted to consort with evil spirits) is at best a very tenuous assumption, and really doesn't fit the available evidence. Just to start out with,.... the church wasn't the organization that burned witches. If an accused witch was executed, it was typically done by the burgermasters of Bad Shoeshein, in response to a public accusation raised by the citizenrly, and over the protests of the local clergy.....
Checkmite
Skepticifimisticalationist
new drkitten said:
Also important here is the fact that Mexico and the Caribbean nations never experienced a "spate" of witch trials and execution the way Europe did. Folk magic in Latin America is irrelevant - the argument here is against the supposition that witches were persecuted in the manner claimed by Wiccans and other new agers. To support drkitten's explanation, I will reiterate that Wiccans are rather hostile toward the "stereotype" of a witch - the black clothes, brooms, evil spells, familiars, and the like - which they hold as complete nonsense; and that therefore it makes no sense for them to be protesting the church's crusade against witches of that stereotype. One can only assume that when these modern day "witches" insist that "witches were persecuted in medieval Europe", they must be using the same definition of witch that they apply to themselves. And of those types of witches, there were very few at most, and quite likely none at all, in that place at that time.
TillEulenspiegel
Master Poster
- Joined
- May 30, 2003
- Messages
- 2,302
New drkitten has it about right.
Wicca is older then Christianity and was based on "The Old Religion" which was pagan, usurped then co-opted by Christian mythos..under grave penalty if One was caught practicing the beliefes...Look out, The Priests would suffer no rival.
It was basically not a worship of nature but the representative god and goddess. The Goddess a symbol of fecundity in nature.. This centered around the seasons and planting cycles based on the moon ( which as we know is not woo-woo). The spring or rebirth of nature was seen for what it was a kind of reawakening or resurrection of nature. Sound familiar ? -Easter The God was more Bacchanalian with a Pan like character, goat hooves horns like character later "The Green Man". He was turned in to the Devil. Christmas replaced Samhain the winter soltice which existed back to the druids again BCE.
The goddess was done away all together as Male monotheism dominated. First in Judaism with women not allowed in temple or to pray with men later Christians reintroduced the goddess in the form of Mary- but they knocked her down a notch. She was seen as an intercessionary not an equal. Still farther to Islam where woman are chattel ( not that the rest of the world didn't take this view at one time or another) and live under excruciatingly strict rules.
Bottom line is it's been around for ever and like all religions has morphed into something the original practitioners wouldn't recognize, like the various flavors of Judaism and Christianity and Islam.
Wicca is older then Christianity and was based on "The Old Religion" which was pagan, usurped then co-opted by Christian mythos..under grave penalty if One was caught practicing the beliefes...Look out, The Priests would suffer no rival.
It was basically not a worship of nature but the representative god and goddess. The Goddess a symbol of fecundity in nature.. This centered around the seasons and planting cycles based on the moon ( which as we know is not woo-woo). The spring or rebirth of nature was seen for what it was a kind of reawakening or resurrection of nature. Sound familiar ? -Easter The God was more Bacchanalian with a Pan like character, goat hooves horns like character later "The Green Man". He was turned in to the Devil. Christmas replaced Samhain the winter soltice which existed back to the druids again BCE.
The goddess was done away all together as Male monotheism dominated. First in Judaism with women not allowed in temple or to pray with men later Christians reintroduced the goddess in the form of Mary- but they knocked her down a notch. She was seen as an intercessionary not an equal. Still farther to Islam where woman are chattel ( not that the rest of the world didn't take this view at one time or another) and live under excruciatingly strict rules.
Bottom line is it's been around for ever and like all religions has morphed into something the original practitioners wouldn't recognize, like the various flavors of Judaism and Christianity and Islam.