Re: TWT #1: Deadly Words
Shadow  Hawk

Wed Jul 26 21:26:27 2000
  Hello Jenny, as a Gardnerian, I was "taught" that the official party line was that to be a "Wiccan" or a "Witch", that one had to be practicing a British Traditionalist form of natural religion and magic.  The logic goes like this...  Wicca/wicce-witcha were evolutionary permutations of an anglo-saxon word that didn't happen until after the invasion of the British Isles.  Soooo, unless you practice something that came from England, then it couldn't "possibly" be witchcraft or wiccacraft because of the same reasoning that shamanism doesn't really apply to anyone other than a practicioner of specific tribes in Eastern Asia.  The blanket use of the term "witch" has more to do with the spreading of doctrine of the secular and church inquisitions than what the various cultures called their people of knowledge and power.*p*: Modern Witches tend to define all traditional magic-users as *br*: "witches".  To us, there's no difference between a *br*: village wise woman and a woman accused of killing her *br*: neighbors' cows by magic.*br*:*br*: Traditional French witches disagree with that -- violently.  *br*: Favret-Saada found that people distinguished sharply between *br*: people who harmed with their magic ("witches") and *br*: people who broke the curses laid by witches *br*: ("un-witchers").  Or, as we might say, there were *br*: Good Witches and Bad Witches.*br*
TWT #1: Deadly Words
Jenny
257
Wed Jul 26 15:59:36 2000