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The Dunedan · Sep 30, 2004, 01:06 pm

Techno:
A "witch" in the Medieval sense has nothing to do with a modern Wiccan. Nothing whatsoever. Being accused of Witchcraft back then was usually a conveniant excuse to grab some land ( see Salem ), kill off an annoying neighbor or relative ( Salem again ), or divert attention from one's own, temporal, crimes. As I've said, Wicca came into being in the mid-20th Century, and was pieced together by a man named Gerald Gardiner, using bits and pieces of various pre-Christian religions, and a healthy dose of stuff he came up with himself. This is not to say that it is irrelevant, evil or anything else; simply that it is new, and has nothing more than the most cursory connections to pre-Christian religions, and no connection whatsoever to medieval "witch" persecutions, no matter how much the Fluffbunnies insist that it does in order to make themselves feel superior.
Where did this "volcano god" stuff come from? You've apparently been reading/talking to Polynesian religious leaders, in which case you're totally correct. However, in Celtic Europe, human sacrifice was extremely common up until the 3rd Century AD in places. Roman historians ( including Julius Caesar ) describe such rituals as burning victims ( sometimes ciminals ) alive in wicker man-shaped pyres, and other contemporary writings relate that non-criminal victims were usually fed burner bread ( to honor Lugh, God of the Sun ) before being bludgeoned, strangled, and having their throats slit. Numerous bodies of people killed in just such a manner, found all over northern Europe and the British Isles, support these accounts.
Lastly, please don't presume to tell me which pages I have or have not examined. I have looked at several of these pages, two of them with my Wiccan friend, and they all fall under the "Fluffbunny" catagory. I will look at the rest when I have a moment, but suffice it to say that 2000+ years of history trumps anything "Llewelyn" came up with five years ago, especially since that history is bolstered with considerable primary-source and archeological information, unlike the vast majority of post-Gardiner Wiccan writing.

Sep 30, 2004, 01:06 pm	#42 (permalink) (top)
The Dunedan Hot Lava Posts: 925	Techno: A "witch" in the Medieval sense has nothing to do with a modern Wiccan. Nothing whatsoever. Being accused of Witchcraft back then was usually a conveniant excuse to grab some land ( see Salem ), kill off an annoying neighbor or relative ( Salem again ), or divert attention from one's own, temporal, crimes. As I've said, Wicca came into being in the mid-20th Century, and was pieced together by a man named Gerald Gardiner, using bits and pieces of various pre-Christian religions, and a healthy dose of stuff he came up with himself. This is not to say that it is irrelevant, evil or anything else; simply that it is new, and has nothing more than the most cursory connections to pre-Christian religions, and no connection whatsoever to medieval "witch" persecutions, no matter how much the Fluffbunnies insist that it does in order to make themselves feel superior. Where did this "volcano god" stuff come from? You've apparently been reading/talking to Polynesian religious leaders, in which case you're totally correct. However, in Celtic Europe, human sacrifice was extremely common up until the 3rd Century AD in places. Roman historians ( including Julius Caesar ) describe such rituals as burning victims ( sometimes ciminals ) alive in wicker man-shaped pyres, and other contemporary writings relate that non-criminal victims were usually fed burner bread ( to honor Lugh, God of the Sun ) before being bludgeoned, strangled, and having their throats slit. Numerous bodies of people killed in just such a manner, found all over northern Europe and the British Isles, support these accounts. Lastly, please don't presume to tell me which pages I have or have not examined. I have looked at several of these pages, two of them with my Wiccan friend, and they all fall under the "Fluffbunny" catagory. I will look at the rest when I have a moment, but suffice it to say that 2000+ years of history trumps anything "Llewelyn" came up with five years ago, especially since that history is bolstered with considerable primary-source and archeological information, unlike the vast majority of post-Gardiner Wiccan writing.