#2: Don't Let Words Fool You
Jenny
jennyg@compuserve.com
Wed Oct 13 14:49:16 1999
Words are power.  The way we label things affects the way we react to them.  To give just one example, think of Waco.  The State of Texas called David Koresh's guns "a gun dealer's inventory";  the FBI referred to them as "a cultist's stockpile of weapons".  One definition is terrifying, one is mundane and commonplace.  One encourages violent actions, one doesn't.*p*When we consider the Burning Times, words can confuse us in many ways.  We see false "connections."  We consider ourselves "witches", therefore when we see people attacked for being "witches", we assume that they were people like us.  In fact, most weren't.  Traditional magick users were treated very differently from people who were accused of being witches.*p*Far worse, however, is the fact that words can obscure real connections.  They can be used to divide us, to blind us to the ways that "others'" oppression mirrors "our" own.*p*There were many "Burning Times", not just one.  The exact same slanders hurled at witches were thrown at many other groups.  Both witches and Jews were said to meet at night in groups called "synagogues" (synagogue, not coven, was the earliest term for a group of witches!).  These meetings were called "sabbati" in Latin -- Sabbats.  We both worshipped Satan.  We both ritually killed and devoured Christian children.  We both used magick and poison to destroy Christians.*p*So did Moslems.  So did lepers.  So did the poor.  So did Christians, according to the Pagan Romans!  Today, virtually the same crimes are ascribed to Satanists or "satanic witches".*p*In each case, the "reality" is the same.  People fear the Others, the Un-People.  They believe that there is a conspiracy of Evil People, people who are not like them.  These evil-doers do the reverse of what good people do (they meet at night, they worship evil, they kill, they eat human flesh, they have illicit sex).  They use magick or supernatural powers to attack Good People.  And they must be stopped if Good is to survive.*p*Yet despite the obvious similarities between these persecutions, few people see the connections between these groups.  Each of us focuses on our own persecution and ignores the others.  We have different words.  We Witches speak of the Burning Times;  Jews, of the Blood Libel or Ritual Murder pogroms;  Satanists of "Satanic Panics".  Different phrases isolate us.  We fail to see that each of us has been accused of the same thing:  of being the Not-People, the Others.*p*Thus the second lesson I draw from the Burning Times is that we have to watch for patterns, not words.  We have to beware of Conspiracies of Evil, whether those conspirators are called Communists, Witches, Christians, or Devil-Worshippers.*p*America's recent panics over Satanic cults offers a particularly painful example of the power of words.  Modern "Satanists" and early modern "witches" are accused of doing the same things.  They meet in groups of 13, called "covens", and celebrate "Sabbats".  They ritually murder children and curse people.  They worship Satan.*p*The only major difference between Then and Now is that Then, these baby-killing devil-worshippers were generally called "witches".  Now, they're usually called "Satanists" (though "witch" is also popular).  Yet because this one word changed, many Pagans did not see the similarities.  We stared at an exact duplicate of the Burning Times and did not know what we were looking at.*p*All because of one word.*p*As I've said in other posts, I include myself in that "we".  I missed the similarities, until sociologists and criminologists pointed them out.  For me, there is no more powerful reminder of what a trap words can be.  We must not allow them to dazzle us, if we want to prevent the horrors of the Burning Times from recurring.*p*Jenny*br*