On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Jenny Brown (was Gable) wrote:
> sometimes gender-balanced, sometimes tending more toward women. It's also
> not constrictive. In general it encouarges learning about other things,
generally speaking this is one reason that I decided that I wasn't wiccan,
rather my/our own brand of neo pagan...
there are so many individuals and groups that I have met who are terribly
constrictive, and a few orginizations that I've not heard good things
about (CAW to be one, wether these claims are substantial or not I'm not
sure)
I personally also tend to be on the skeptical end of neopaganism, i don't
necessarily refute claims of spirituality/magick.. but I like to play with
definitions and approach such concepts anthropologically... and there are
plenty of things we don't know about the human mind...
for instance (and as a reply)
On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Erin wrote:
> How does this relate to being a woman of *nix-y persuasions? I'd say a
> good part of my experience with computers is a "sense of wonder"
> apprehension of the infinite complexity which is entirely built upon the
> basis of 1 and 0.
this is one of the ways that I approach the historical concept of
"magic"... events and things that in the past exceeded human understanding
likie magnets and eclipses where magical, this is not to say that a belief
in the mystic or spiritual is an indication of "primitive" beliefs or
culture...
recently technology has advanced so much that I seriously doubt there are
many individuals who understand every detail of the operation of the
systems that we are working with right now (from application to OS to
hardware to network and back...) and certainly noone could concieve of it
as a whole, it is easier to abstract in terms of some kind of metaphysical
paradigm (ownership of files, processes, etc etc...) that is steadily
becoming more complex, but like the universe founded on very simple
principles (or so we think)
this concept of magic cooperates with a few persional ideas about
divinity, and form a working beliefs system that I think falls into a
category of beliefs that could be described as "technopagan" (considering
fixing majordomo if interest in such a discussion list perks, hard to come
across individuals with this specific belief system that think the label
fits them)
-andross
http://technopagan.dhs.org/
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