I'm going to try really hard to speak my piece once
and shut up, because this really is off-topic and
flammable, but it also (IMNSHO) needs to be said.
> Peter Alling wrote:
> > My wiccan friends tell me warlock is a very insulting
> > term to use on one of them.
I know some folks who call themsevles warlocks, but most of
the Witches I know don't. It more often refers to one of
the "I'm so naughty/unconventional" non-Wiccan magicians,
fantasy role-players, or "bubble gum" Witches. Though there
are exceptions, it's safest not to use the term to describe
male Witches.
> > Witch is the term used to
> > describe a worshiper of Wicca the wise.
"Wicca the wise"? First I've heard that. There are several
subtypes of Witches, all of whom that I know about worship
a deity usually referred to simply as "the Goddess" or
"Mother"; sometimes identified as Diana; occasionally
identified with other pagan goddesses. Most recognize her
as having three aspects; "maiden", "mother", and "crone".
Note that I am simplifying radically here. This is the
"pamphlet" version, not a proper introduction.
Many Witches also worship a male deity, "the horned god",
consort of the Goddess, who parallels some of the Northern
European pagan gods. He is usually associated with death
and rebirth. Note that the horned god is not considered
evil, merely complementary to the goddess.
Some who identify as Witches are polytheistic or pantheistic.
I don't really know enough about Wicca to tell you how close
they are to core Wiccan beliefs.
My understanding is that "Wicca" means "wisdom", not the
name of a deity; so one _practices_ Wicca, the faith,
rather than worshipping an entity named Wicca.
(Similarly, you'll often hear clueless newspeople
describing Witches as worshipping a god named "Samhain".
Samhain (usually pronounced "saw'-wein" or sometimes
"shav'-(e)n") is the name of one of their _holidays_,
which coincides with the old Celtic new-year holiday
of the same name, and which the Christian church stuck
All Saints Day on top of to try to distract people
from it. That's why all the goblins and ghosties
and trick-or-treat on All Hallow's Eve (aka Hallowe'en);
those are holdovers and mutated-through-the-centuries
versions of Celtic new-years-eve traditions.)
> > As far as I can
> > tell it's a feel good religion as practiced by most moderns,
> > a Christian heresy mostly. (There that should offend some people
> > time to duck).
Oy vey. Okay, fine, it has some "feel good" aspects (but
don't a whole lot of other, more established religions as
well?). And the way _some_ practitioners practice it, it
can have some "New Age" aspects as well, though I know a
lot of Witches who pronounse that "newage" and make it rhyme
with "sewage" to show their opinion of "New Age"-y stuff.
As for being a Christian heresy, you're so far off base it's
not even funny (whether you were trying to be or not).
Wicca has no relationship to Christianity other than
stealing back some of the holidays that we Christians stole
from ancient pagan peoples back when our church was youngish.
graywolf wrote (using 100-column lines):
> Oh yes, we all have to change the english language to pacify
> some new age weidos who have reinvented an old religion
> without even understanding it.
[rude expletive]! "New age wei[r]dos"? First off, some
Witches do believe that they're practicing the "Old
Religion" but others understand that what they're doing
is a modern synthesis of what is known from several
ancient European religions (and some consciously add
in elements of Native American and Eastern religiouns).
So yes, modern Wicca is in fact fairly modern, but it is
a very real religion seriously practived by its adherents.
Wicca deserves as much courtesy and respect as Christianity,
Judaeism, Taoism, Budhism, Shinto, and Islam. It is newer
than the others, but if it weren't for Wicca, Christianity
and Islam would be the "new kids on the block". Are there
some real flakes practicing (or trying to practice) Wicca?
Youbetcha. _Every_ faith has its flakes. God knows I've
had to deal with enough flakes of my own faith.
For an outsider, the flakes are usually the ones you notice
first and the ones who get the most media attention. Pick
a group: science fiction fans, historical re-enactors,
Witches, Christians, murder-mystery enthusiasts -- it'll
usually be the nutcases that look the most "colourful" to
reporters not already familiar with the group being written
about.
As for not understanding the old religion(s), you'd be
surprised at the range of levels of scolarship that
exist within the Wiccan communities.
> The church attacted the term witch to the Wiccan Wise
> Women in an attempt to discredit them, they sure as hell
> didn't call themselves witch[e]s.
So? _Modern_ Witches _do_. Yes, it started partly
as an "in your face"-ism as far as I can tell (and
that's largely conjecture on my part so I might be
wrong), but even the modern Witches who are aware that
their religion is a modern synthesis tend to _identify_
with the old pagans the Christian church discredited
and sometimes killed.
You don't like the term "Witch"? Fine, "Wiccan" is
a perfectly acceptable alternate term -- use that.
In the meantime, look up what it means for a community
to "reclaim" a word (I can give you examples if you
like). Do the multiple meanings sometimes occasion
confusion? Yeah, but _usually_ it can be sorted out
by context, and we can always refer to the green-faced,
pointy-hat-wearing, broom-riders as "storybook witches",
the people (mostly women) persecuted and sometimes killed
by the Christian church and some secular governments as
"historical witches" or "alleged witches" (since they
were often falsely accused in the first place), and
modern Witches as "modern Witches", when you really need
to disambiguate the different sorts of witches.
After all, when I say "car", you can usually figure
out whether I mean one piece of railroad rolling
stock, part of a roller coaster, an automobile, or
a stack operation in LISP. English is kind of
interesting that way.
And yes, I who am not a Witch myself, have a lot of Wiccan
friends (as well as a few Druids and Norse, many Jews, one
or two Moslems, a few Discordians and SubGenii, and one
Taoist that I know of), and yes, there were plenty of Witches
(and Christians and Jews and Moslems) at Pennsic. Since we're
pretending to be medieval folks, many of the real-life Witches
there play the part of a Christian or Jew if the time period of
their persona was a time when it was unsafe to be a Witch
(which means most of them). SCA rules forbid making
religious ceremonies a required part of an official
function (such as formal court), to avoid making anyone
feel they have to do something they're not comfortable with,
but worship services for each of the faiths I've just
mentioned were organized separately on site for those who
wished to participate in them. And in the major middle-Eastern
encampment, there was someone calling out the prayer-hours
in what I presume was Arabic.
I seem to spend a lot of time de-mythifying Wicca for other
Christians, and explaining to Witches that not all of us
Christians are their enemies.
Let us hope that I have managed to provide refreshment for
those who thirst for knowledge, rather than gasoline to
fuel pointless flamage. I guess I'll find out in another
20-30 posts...
-- Glenn
..
-
This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe,
go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to
visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
