Okay… here it is, I am frustrated by “my own people” as some would call it. Right about no
w everybody who knows me a bit understands that I have an interesting relationship with religion. I love and hate it, I find it the basis for most of the world problems especially relating to war and oppressive politics. Judaic beliefs, especially Christianity as an organization has long been a favored target of mine because of some obvious flaws. I do however recognize that the underlying faith does have it’s value, don’t get me wrong, it’s the institution with it’s age old dogma’s that get’s the spiritual middle finger.
But these days I tend to aim my criticism more towards what some might consider my own “side”. Wicca, Wiccans and eclectic neo Pagans. I will start with the last because technically I would fit in that category. The eclectic pagan is someone who believes that older world religions hold some merit while new religions (yes Judaism, Christianity and Islam are considered new here) are mostly wrong. So far so good… however a large group of these neo pagans are follo
wing theories fit for fantasy novels of which most have already been proven wrong. Fun yes, exciting…certainly historically correct, sadly no. Though it is a popular believe amongst especially the larger female group of eclectic neo pagans… and let’s throw in a bunch of the new age ladies as well, there has never been a time in which the majority of the population worshipped one Goddess or better yet a Goddess as sole ruler of the pantheon. At best there have been small tribes that worshipped a goddess. Most of the time there was a divine pair of which the male was usually dominant as males have been throughout most of history. Since there were few anti-head-bashing laws physical dominance meant social dominance which meant religious dominance for the majority. I have posted about Goddess’ before and I think that there has been no time like the present for Goddess’. I think I will include Maria worship here as well.
Goth inspired neo-wiccans adore Lillith as if she is the only Goddess out there even though she is a Christian figure, yes created by God as Adams equal… when things didn’t work out God threw her out. Yes Christianity did a real number for feminism there still, worshipping Lillith means accepting the fact that she was created…by God… a male deity… who is her superior. So even über-feminazi Lillith has to admit the fact she is in no way divinely superior.
An interesting theory you might consider is this. In many ruling cultures female dominance was considered rather alien and a man being ruled by a woman was considered weak and was subject to ridicule. Now consider the need for propaganda in times of war, depicting your adversaries as weak and strange, most likely evil beings was easy… you just accused them of worshipping women.
Well enough of that, I could go on for ages there… but there is one more issue I’d like to address this time regarding modern day witches and Wiccans. First let me explain some thing… the terms Wiccan and
Witch are not… not interchangeable. Wicca is a religion, not all of it’s followers claim to be witches and Witchcraft is a the practice of magic which is not monopolized by Wicca. Wicca is not an ancient believe system, Wicca as a religion was founded somewhere in the 1950’s to 1960’s by self proclaimed high priest Gerald Gardner. Another interesting fact is the witch hunts, yes many people were falsely accused an burned at the stake (or worse) which besides being an inspiration for BDSM brought us little good and is nothing to cheer about. What’s interesting though is the number of witches, warlocks and werewolves (http:// www). Popular pagan authors claim the number to be up there with the plague and the holocaust running up to millions throughout 1480 up to 1700 is however historical accurately recoverable since the ruling clergy could do little without proper authorization regarding witch hunts. So it all had to go on record… “The total number of witch trials in Europe which are known for certain to have ended in executions is around 12,000”. Still nothing to cheer about but far from claimed millions.
So knowing these facts you can understand my complete lack of enthusiasm in replying to some skippety-Witch saying:
“Christianity hates us because we were there before them, worshipping the Goddess, that’s why they burned millions of us”
“Us”, no less.. as if she was present at the time. Now I know it is not easy living in the bible belt in America or other countries or regions where freedom of religion is debatable at best, but come on!
Well that is enough frustration for now. And really don’t get me wrong if any believe makes sense to me it would be that a mother would create life, a creator simply cannot be male in my view, but that’s not the point. It’s naive historic claims that border on the fantastic that annoy me and to be honest do little good for the pagan movement as a whole. Why I'm in this mood now? Probably because of the overload of fantasy based movies about witches, witchcraft and the like that seems to be on every channel throughout oktober.
w everybody who knows me a bit understands that I have an interesting relationship with religion. I love and hate it, I find it the basis for most of the world problems especially relating to war and oppressive politics. Judaic beliefs, especially Christianity as an organization has long been a favored target of mine because of some obvious flaws. I do however recognize that the underlying faith does have it’s value, don’t get me wrong, it’s the institution with it’s age old dogma’s that get’s the spiritual middle finger.But these days I tend to aim my criticism more towards what some might consider my own “side”. Wicca, Wiccans and eclectic neo Pagans. I will start with the last because technically I would fit in that category. The eclectic pagan is someone who believes that older world religions hold some merit while new religions (yes Judaism, Christianity and Islam are considered new here) are mostly wrong. So far so good… however a large group of these neo pagans are follo
wing theories fit for fantasy novels of which most have already been proven wrong. Fun yes, exciting…certainly historically correct, sadly no. Though it is a popular believe amongst especially the larger female group of eclectic neo pagans… and let’s throw in a bunch of the new age ladies as well, there has never been a time in which the majority of the population worshipped one Goddess or better yet a Goddess as sole ruler of the pantheon. At best there have been small tribes that worshipped a goddess. Most of the time there was a divine pair of which the male was usually dominant as males have been throughout most of history. Since there were few anti-head-bashing laws physical dominance meant social dominance which meant religious dominance for the majority. I have posted about Goddess’ before and I think that there has been no time like the present for Goddess’. I think I will include Maria worship here as well.
Goth inspired neo-wiccans adore Lillith as if she is the only Goddess out there even though she is a Christian figure, yes created by God as Adams equal… when things didn’t work out God threw her out. Yes Christianity did a real number for feminism there still, worshipping Lillith means accepting the fact that she was created…by God… a male deity… who is her superior. So even über-feminazi Lillith has to admit the fact she is in no way divinely superior.
An interesting theory you might consider is this. In many ruling cultures female dominance was considered rather alien and a man being ruled by a woman was considered weak and was subject to ridicule. Now consider the need for propaganda in times of war, depicting your adversaries as weak and strange, most likely evil beings was easy… you just accused them of worshipping women.
Well enough of that, I could go on for ages there… but there is one more issue I’d like to address this time regarding modern day witches and Wiccans. First let me explain some thing… the terms Wiccan and
Witch are not… not interchangeable. Wicca is a religion, not all of it’s followers claim to be witches and Witchcraft is a the practice of magic which is not monopolized by Wicca. Wicca is not an ancient believe system, Wicca as a religion was founded somewhere in the 1950’s to 1960’s by self proclaimed high priest Gerald Gardner. Another interesting fact is the witch hunts, yes many people were falsely accused an burned at the stake (or worse) which besides being an inspiration for BDSM brought us little good and is nothing to cheer about. What’s interesting though is the number of witches, warlocks and werewolves (http:// www). Popular pagan authors claim the number to be up there with the plague and the holocaust running up to millions throughout 1480 up to 1700 is however historical accurately recoverable since the ruling clergy could do little without proper authorization regarding witch hunts. So it all had to go on record… “The total number of witch trials in Europe which are known for certain to have ended in executions is around 12,000”. Still nothing to cheer about but far from claimed millions.So knowing these facts you can understand my complete lack of enthusiasm in replying to some skippety-Witch saying:
“Christianity hates us because we were there before them, worshipping the Goddess, that’s why they burned millions of us”
“Us”, no less.. as if she was present at the time. Now I know it is not easy living in the bible belt in America or other countries or regions where freedom of religion is debatable at best, but come on!
Well that is enough frustration for now. And really don’t get me wrong if any believe makes sense to me it would be that a mother would create life, a creator simply cannot be male in my view, but that’s not the point. It’s naive historic claims that border on the fantastic that annoy me and to be honest do little good for the pagan movement as a whole. Why I'm in this mood now? Probably because of the overload of fantasy based movies about witches, witchcraft and the like that seems to be on every channel throughout oktober.
Amen!
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