Quote:
Originally posted by The Dunedan,
Techno;
I hate to bust your bubble, but "The Burning Times" are another of those smarmy "anti-Xian" flufbunny scacred cows which don't exist. After the 9th Century, Christianity was "the only game in town" in western Europe. People burned or hanged as witches or heritics were typically accused, among other things, of poisoning their neighbors, stealing crops by magical means, etc. These crimes were, of course, total nonsense. The pre-Christian religions of western Europe were largely fertility cults, most of which practiced human sacrifice to varying degrees.
Wicca was "re-constructed" in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Gerald Gardiner. It bears only the most superficial resemblances to any past religions, and trust me, the largely peaceful Wiccan religion bears nothing like a resemblance to the warlike, polytheistic Celtic religion from which so many Fluffbunnies claim descent. Any honest Wiccan will quite happily admit this; the "Peace, love, and bunny rabbits" and "Christians are stupid, I hate the world" strains which run through a lot of Wicca today are mostly the result of surly adolescants ( of whatever age ) reading one of the innumerable unresearched, unsourced, and BS-filled books on the subject which haunt Barnes & Noble. If you'd like, I can give you the email address of a practicing Gardinarian friend of mine, and he can straighten out some of this: since I have only a very cursory understanding of his Faith, he would be better equipped to answer your questions. |
Greetings Dunedan, I guess I will respond to this last message in detail.
I am of the shaman belief system which is pagan and is linked to all other earth religions including wiccan.
I have no idea what a "fluffbunny sacred cow" is. You will have to fill me in on that concept before I can respond about it.
You are correct in that witchcraft was originally involved in creating medicenes that were used for treating people. They were experts when it came to using roots, herbs, plants, and other things to mix up brews for purposes of healing, and were also knowable about poisons as well. Our medical industry today is basically a current adaptation of the craft of witchcraft.
And they still make use of the anicent pagan symbol (two snakes on a tree) which you might see sometimes on the office door of a doctor.
The celtic shaman and Seer was not much different then any other earth religion found even today in the Native American community, Africa, South American Amazon, and elsewhere. It is the trend of some Christian religions to add the title "pagan" to just about every other religion such as those in Eqypt, those related to Creek - Roman concepts, as well as the Asian concepts in India, China, Buddha, and even the "New Age" movement.
Although some of our modern TV shows and movies are about teen witches who fight evil demons from the underworld that is just Hollywood, and I guess some kids have become involved in the gothic fad and all the dragons and spells and magic charms and other fantasy based mythology and the Harry Potter and the middle-ages reconstructed ideas played out in Star Wars, etc. Real wiccan webpages however often help those kids out by pointing them in more positive and logical pathways for lightworking or what have you. As do some of our modern phychology books such as "Women who run with wolves" did with the Carl Jung methodologies.
None the less Christian religion stands outside the door waiting to consume them if they can, and some of those Christians can be realisitic demons lurking in the clothing of sheep, and so one must dare to be aware of the demons of the christian dragon net, least they be abducted or abused by the satanic wrath of such people and end up like Joan of Ark, or worse yet, like Joan of Arcadia or those folks who are "touched by angels" or molested by the Preacher who is "touching" the taboo zone.
I would agree that some of the new books that are popular such as Harry Potter and those that show witches with supernatural powers is just foolishness, there is nothing really supernatural about being natual or about properly understanding nature or the spirituality of harmony and beauty. Nor about our natual potentials and talents that we often fail to fully develope and use.
Gerald Gardiner is not a leading spokesperson for Whichcraft any more then is Mr. Crawley. I doubt you would even find mention of him on any wicca webpage with current ideas and/or better historical knowledge. That would be like saying that Pat Robinson reconstructed Bible Belt fundamentalism and all new Christians follow his opinions.
Again I am not an outsider taking a look at the Wiccan belief system, so I have no bubbles to bust because I have confirmed by experience what works and does not work relative to manifestations and so forth.
If one has bad intentions then that is what comes out, if one has good intentions then that is what comes out, no matter what method of faith you wish to wrap it up in or which one you employ towards those objectives. If you plant apple seeds you get apples, that is simple pagan knowledge.
What is worse, to sacrafice the son of a virgin or the virgin? Ask any good mother and you get the same answer "take me, not my child". It is clear that it is the Christian faith that is founded upon the human sacrafice of Jesus by the will of God, and so those who live in glass houses should not toss stones by blaming such ideas on the pagans.
So how do you like those apples?
Technosoul.