Re: Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs & Disease (Review)
Infiniti

Mon Oct 12 15:07:50 1998
Jenny wrote,*br*: : : You're right -- they can't.*br*: :*br*: : Ah, I like the sound of that.  I rarely hear those words.*br*:*br*: What words?  The first or the second half of the sentence? *br*: <g,d,r>*p*The first part, of course.*p*: : I try to avoid *br*: : the term entirely, actually, because I tend to be called *br*: : Wiccan when I mention I'm pagan, and I am not.  *br*:*br*: It gets even worse when you say (as I do) that you're a *br*: Witch, not a Wiccan.   *p*Have you run into the problem yet when you tell people you ae not Wicca, that they seem to view you as a sub-secies, and not worthy of their attention?  I get that a lot.  I get it from other religions, too, but Wicca and pagan in general are _supposed_ to be more understanding.  At least, that's what they keep telling me.*p*: : I am, by *br*: : modern standings, pagan, and I don't even like the word, *br*: : sounds weird, IMO.*br*:*br*: Well, history's on your side on this one.  Traditionally, *br*: "Pagan" is an outsider's term for our faiths.  *br*: Pagans didn't call themselves "Pagans" -- *br*: Christians did.  The word defines us by our relationship to *br*: another religion (we are pre-Christian or non-Christian) *br*: rather than by our religions' own merits.*p*I used Sassinach in IRC once as my handle, didn't go over to well.  I'm still waiting for some twit to come along and declare himself a heretic or infedel.  When (s)he does, don't be surprised if I smack 'em upside the back of the head.  I never understood the concept of insulting yourself, espesially when "the other side" quit doing it a while ago.*p*: I still use it, though, because there's nothing better around.  *p*Shame on you.  We can use Witch/witch, Celt, Wicca, Shaman, or whatever.  The continued use of this term, imo, only _allows_ us to remain apart from the rest of humanity.  We are religious, they are religious.  We don't call Jews, Christians, or Muslims by one lump term, why do it to ourselves?  It also gives the less thinking of those other religions something to spark another Burning Times with.  "Go get the pagans!"*p*Around here in the Summerlands, we all know each other enough I can use the term without problems, but beyond here, I have all but stoped the use of it, and I detour conversations so others can't, either.*p*: As far as sheer size goes, it doesn't even make it onto the *br*: radar.  It wasn't one of the greatest slaughters of its own *br*: time, let alone of all times.*p*I think that is why some "pagans" have this nine million thing going, it can then be the biggest and, therefore, most grusome, because the manner by which the Holocaust was carried out is a good running mate for gruesome.*p*many pagans also don't like it when I point out that "pagan" people had a good practice of sacking Rome, Greece, and whoever else was around.  They don't like to think they were of the same human stock.  Others have simply told me that they (Romans, etc...) deserved it.  These are the ones who I send flaming emails to, and in puplic, I have been know to hit... hard.*p*Two wrong don't make a right, nor do they make a left, they get together and breed...*p*: The Reformation was a monstrous period, fraught with *br*: terrible, lethal religious warfare.  Ronald Hutton pointed *br*: out that when the city of Madgeburg fell, its 60,000 *br*: inhabitants were all killed for adhering to the *br*: "wrong" type of Christianity.  The Burning Times, *br*: by comparison, were 40,000 - 60,000 deaths spread out over *br*: five hundred years.  Madgeburg was like taking the whole *br*: Burning Times and compacting it into one week...*p*I know how "they" come to nine million, btw.  They take all atrocities done in the name of Christianity (calling it the Church), no matter what time period or country/contenent.  This would then include the Crusades.  it would also include Christians slaughtering the Shinto and Buddists in China and Japan (even though it was done entirely by Chinese and Japanese peoples, not the direction of the Church).  It would include the Christianization of people in Africa and South & North America, or, more to the point, those who died in the process of "our" (Christian white man's) movement into the rest of the world.  This is the only way I can see to reach nine million.  You simply have to leave Europe/America to do it.*p*: (Now you see where I get in trouble for "dishing" *br*: the Martyrs? <g>)*p*Yup.  You terrible person!  Truth doesn't matter, we are after the downfall of that evil Church, dangit!  Get in line - oops, channeled the wrong response, sorry. <WG>*p*: The horror of the Burning Times doesn't lie in its size -- *br*: it's in its details.*br*<snipped good stuff>*br*: And it's not only painful, it's dangerous -- a philosophy *br*: that's likely to lead us directly back to the Burning Times. *p*And if I didn't know better, I'd thing that is exactly what some people want.*p*:  You see, all of the web-sites I've visited assume that we *br*: Witches were always the pure, innocent victims of the *br*: horrors.  We're never the Bad Guys, the ones responsible for *br*: the mess.  Therefore we modern Witches don't need to worry *br*: about our actions.  We *can't* be witch-hunters:  we're *br*: Witches!  The Burning Times are about what They did to Us, *br*: not what We did.*p*Yup.  As Searles wrote in a post to me, we don't often times see when we are the "bad guys".  Truth is, we all want to believe we are on the "right" side, and our ways/people are correct, and the most "holy", pure, and good.  Ah, just not true.  There are chitheads in every religion/faith/culture/group.*p*: Which is completely untrue:  witches were some of the most *br*: avid supporters of the Burning Times.  As Diane Purkiss *br*: notes (in _The Witch in History_), a "white" witch *br*: was far more likely to be found aiding a witch hunter than *br*: to be a victim of his attentions.*p*On a survivalist note, it is always better to be the burner than the burnee.  And, if done well enough, can be lucrative, too.  A sad thing, but true.*p*: Witches, like doctors, blamed illness and misfortune on *br*: baneful magick.  Like most people of the times, they divided *br*: magick into "black" and "white".*p*Just inhuman time for humanity, but has a good point for today.  If you can devide up people into groups, parties, classifications, you can slander, or even burn the whole lot of them, without fear of it effecting you.  It also breeds, but it breeds prejudice.*p*: If we forget witches like this woman, we forget the Burning *br*: Times.  We forget *our* role in the persecutions in our *br*: self-righteous indignation about what other peoples did.  *p*Amen!  oops, did it agian, dangit.*p*: And that has dire implications for modern days.  *br*: Sociologists and historians note that there were amazing *br*: correlations between the Burning Times and the Satanic *br*: Panics of the 1980's.  Yet we Pagans didn't notice this (and *br*: I lump myself in there too -- I didn't notice at the time, *br*: either).*p*I have to admit, when this was going on, I _was_ on the wrong side of the "fight".  unfortunately, I wasn't pagan then, I was still in the folds of the Christian religion... just the wrong side of it.*p**br*: I'll spare you my customary rant on how radical feminism has *br*: embraced the tools and ideology of patriarchy and become Big *br*: Brother in drag.  But it's like Nietsche said:  "He who *br*: fights with monsters should take care, lest he thereby *br*: become a monster.  And if you gaze for long into the Abyss, *br*: the Abyss gazes also into you."*p*I let her erad this post; she had a statement she wanted me to male to you.  She really, really, really likes you - a whole lot. <G>*p*Michael
Re: Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs & Disease (Review)
Jenny
63
Mon Oct 12 10:11:57 1998