Ignorance Surrounds Us

Ignorance Surrounds Us

Now. I've read lots of books in my life, and many of them about Witchcraft. I've read even more websites on the subject. And there's something distressing that I've noticed.
First of all, there's the ridiculous and, unfortunately, persistent myth that 'Wicca has been around for centuries'. I really don't want to get started on this one, but some things have to be said again and again. I feel kind of sorry to burst the bubble so many have decided to reaise around themselves, but this simply is not true. If you read any book about Witchcraft written by a company besides Llewellyn, you are certain to find something with the true history concerning Gerald Gardner and his history with the Rosicrucians and associations with Crowley, the editings of Doreen Valiente, and the many versions of the Book of Shadows. There is a reason that people should learn our past history. I know, it's short, but guess what? We'll be a lot more credible if we can happily say that, we won't be lying to anyone, not even ourselves (and sometimes that's the worst kind of lie), and we have to start somewhere. It's rather like a child who was to wait a week to go to the toy store - they want to go now and don't want to wait. Every religion starts somewhen. Ours started when Gardner published High Magic's Aid.
Second, is the fact that 'nine million Witches and Pagans were killed in the 'Burning Times'. Not so.For one things, I have very high doubts that any number of Witches were captured at all. To start with, the vast majority of 'witches' were plainly people who had incurred the anger of other people, either through being richer, having more land, being more beautiful, being stupid, being smart, etc. If any witches WERE taken, more than likely they were simple people who were only the local wisewoman or cunningman, knowing a few rhymes and bits of folklore, maybe a few herbal cures and a charm or two that probably didn't do anything. Certainly there no grand Sabbats or that sort of thing. How could huge gatherings have escaped the notice of the Church? The answer is simple: they had escaped notice because they did not exist. On the same note, all sorts of people were killed, not just women. I believe there was a case where a dog was executed. Animals, women, and men were accused. 'Witch' was a unisex term. It is fairly certain that few actual pagans were found. Most people would have been devout Christans, clinging in some ways to old bits and pieces of knowledge, but no full-blown worship of Cernunnos or whoever.
Third, Christianity is not the Enemy. Yes, there have been horrible acts committed by them, like the Crusades, the Conquistadores, the ruination of the Aboriginal People (somehow that seems like an insult, and I'm not sure why, but there is no other term that would be correct). There have also been nice things done because of Jesus. For one thing, Jesus' teachings really are Love. Look through a red-letter New Testament. The words in red are those that were spoken by Christ. He had some wonderful things to say that mean nothing but peace for everyone. True, his teachings have been distorted by hundreds of years of political manipulation, bad copying, misinformation, lingual shifts, and so on, and have been used for evil deeds. But go into a church and look at the stained-glass windows. Listen to the chants of the Gregorians and of Hildegard von Bingen. Admire the soaring pillars of a Gothic cathedral. Try to ignore the over-done artwork, and the absolute simplicity, and the strident claims that Catholics are Pagans (how could that be true when the Pope is Mr. Christianity?), and look at things, the beautiful things. Notice the trefoils on the arches. Notice the flutings on the columns. Notice the glowing colors cast on the floor by the windows. Christians may not be our cup of tea, but they are here and we can't get rid of them. Yes, there are some who would happily revive the Malleus Maleficarum. But there are those who peacefully live with us all the time. Sometimes it seems that stakes or gallows will be set up in the park, but rest assured that the people who cry 'Hellfire!' at everything that they don't like are ignored by sane people, and they're in the minority.
Four. Patriarchy is not the cause of all the troubles in the world. Some Witches would like to see an entirely matriarchal and matrilinear government with women in all positions of power. I confess, I find this rather frightening. Witchcraft as we have it is built upon gender balance. Men and women should be equal, and you cannot have that in a society that is entirely patriarchal or matriarchal. Some 'feminazis' as I will term the people entirely in favor of a Goddess-only religion, with men as secondary citizens and the cause of all the world's troubles, have made ridiculous claims that this and that ancient society was this peacefull idyllic culture where there were no wars, no slavery, no general human unpleasantness because women were in control. There is evidence that these societies were ruled by men, and were just as nasty as we can be. The Celts made swords as well as knotwork. The Vikings were noted more for war than agriculture. The Greeks were sexist and engaged in human sacrifice, but they also wrote plays and bulit beautiful temples. Any Goddess they feel like is automatically elevated to Great Earth Mother Moon Goddess and is given precedent over all the others, regardless of their cultural signifigance or the roles they played in their pantheon. The way they speak, Moses brought down patriarchy, plauge, hate, stupidity, and sexism from Mt Sinai along with those stone tablets. People who say that it's a 'man's world' make me want to laugh. Haven't they heard the saying 'Pa is boss, as everyone knows, but what Ma says always goes'? Have they ever seen a man asking a woman if he may marry her, a court awarding guardianship of children in a divorce to the mother instead of the father, even if the mother is unsuitable? Altering the spelling of words by these people annoys me so. Calling yourself a 'womyn' is unsightly, when it seems obvious that 'man' is an abbreviated form of 'woman'. They say things like 'Theaology', the study of feminine deities, and 'Herstory', which is violently ignorant when you realize that 'history' is from the French 'histoire', which does not have 'sexist' tones because it is from a WHOLE OTHER LANGUAGE! The same with 'person' which is quite close to the French 'personne'. Men are not the enemy. Sexism is. Of course, you will cry that as a male person, I can't know what rape is like, or being beaten, but of course you don't know me and you can say nothing. There are abusive wives. There is such a thing as a woman raping a man, when the flesh is willing but the mind is not. Or, emotional rape. My best friend dropped me like a hot stone one day, saying I was stopping her from getting new friends (that was quite her own fault but this isn't what I'm here to talk about), among other things. I was an emotional wreck for months. This was in part because I had to see her every day at school, and sit next to her, and know that a few weeks ago we had been best of friends. We had been so very close. When I make a friend, I stay with that person no matter what, helping as I can through life's difficulties. This was the first time such a thing had happened to me, and I didn't know how to handle it. We had a few shouting matches (I cannot remember what they were about) and on the message board I frequent we had a short flame war, with her saying some despicable things about me. I was not completely innocent either, I can admit that. But for five months I could hardly speak to anyone, and I was terribly, terribly lonely. Happily, I met my HPs and we are best of friends, and closer than me and the other ever were.
Without a combination of man and woman we would not be, though many would like to forget about that little technicality. If I acted in the way these people act, I would recoil from women, I would scream that women are horrible things that think with cold reptilian brains designed to hurt emotions. But I don't, thank the Gods.
They leap onto any strong woman of the past, and make her a Witch struggling against Christianity. Joan of Arc, Hildegard von Bingen. Robin Hood and the Merry Men were a coven of course, with Maid Marian as the High Priestess! Why, it all makes sense! Obviously there was a brutal patriarchal cover-up!
Five. Silver Ravenwolf (who shall henceforth be called $RW) is not the best author in the world. I can hear a massive cry from the teen-Witch crowd - 'But she loves us!' Oh, of course she loves you, because you're paying her mortgage, hospital bills, and so on. Llewellyn does too, because she's their hottest seller. 'Mama Silver'? COME ON! A person who gives a TEENAGER a spell invoking FROST GIANTS for a petty dispute cares for you? A Frost Giant is not, I would think, a being you would call upon lightly. And this recent new book - 'Angels'? I'm sorry, don't angels belong in a Christian mythology? Why would a Witch (of course, this may be quite acceptable for Christian Witches, either those who go to church and do magic, or Pagans who use Jesus and Mary as deities) choose to use an 'angel'? Nature spirit, possibly, or Elemental, or familiar, etc. You may think differently, but the use of an angel rubs against the grain. I find myself wondering, does the book specify? Would you call down a Cherubim (and the true Cherubim is most emphatically NOT the Raphaelite rosy-cheeked fat baby with little dove wings, oh no!) or a mighty Seraphim, with the four heads and six wings? A Throne perhaps? Or a Principality? Of course, there are the standard Ceremonial phrases invoking the Archangels Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, and Raphael, but that is a Ceremonial thing...
Simply put, she wants to sell you things. A 'Teen Witch' kit with an ugly pentacle and sundry other items that suggests you use the cheap box (wait, it's not cheap. It's thirty dollars, and I wonder how much of that goes to the sweatshop children who invariably make such things) as an altar. I'm certain that even the most impovirshed teen Witch can find something better than an inch-tall cardboard box. I would resort to using the floor instead of that. It's not even good cardboard, and it has stupid-looking people on it!
Six. Llewellyn isn't the best publisher out there. They have printed some wonderful things (Covencraft by Amber K and Scott Cunningham come to mind) but these are the diamonds in the rough, and there's a lot of rough. Case in point, The Grimoire of Lady Sheba. It's a prettily bound book, in black with silver embossed titles, with a ribbon bookmark. There's a wee bit of good info in it. But there is SO much bullshit. Lady Sheba was, I expect, the backwoods end result of generations of inbreeding to be dumb enough to believe anything she wrote (if she believed it and wasn't pulling a Tuesday Lobsang Rampa). Telling people that Theban is the true alphabet of the Witches (hardly likely since it was devised in the seventeenth century) and that Wicca itself is ancient, that you will loose all your 'Witch Power' (what is 'Witch Power'? Some kind of magical storage battery that vanishes if we can't attend Mabon?) if you don't attend every Sabbat isn't a wise thing to do. Another annoying author is D.J. Conway. The fact that someone would write a book of 'Celtic Magic' (which again has some very good points of theology, a plethora of ethical spells, and some wonderful correspondence lists), then proceed to do 'Norse Magic' (which I have never read) and then 'Dancing With Dragons' (ditto, and how would one dance with a spectacular gigantic reptile with wings large enough to level a forest and so on?) could do such a thing as use a Celtic AND Norse pantheon, is mystifying. So much of Llewellyn's stuff is 'Celtic'. I once heard of someone who wrote 'Celtic Reiki' and sent it in for publication. No-one knows if it was actually printed, and I've not seen it, but my bookstore has a small magic section as it is and a lot is quite good surprisingly. Keep in mind, they don't make all bad books. But they do have a bad publishing policy.
Seven. Fluff-bunnies. You know who you are. The people who like to think, in spite of all evidence, that Nature is wholly perfect, sweet, and good. The people who won't even read the definition of a Binding. They cringe that anyone could ever use a scourge. White puffy bunnies hop around like the set of the Teletubbies (a very good show, say I, that is great for releasing the inner child and has vast appeal on an infantile level. How can you not giggle every time Tinky-Winky sits down and makes that farting sound?). There aren't any nasty ravens or buzzards or scavengers, everything eats vegetables, and gets along wonderfully. The Gods are all happy and smiley and love each other very much (just like the Teletubbies!), even Osiris and Set and Hera and Leto. And they can be called upon to heal all life's little problems, no matter how trivial. Magic (spelt with a K on the end, of course) is the most important thing to do, because you're healing the Earth and engergizing your Chakras! Charging your crystals with love and using them to fix things and answer questions, and you talk to them (something I've considered when everyone around me is an idiot, but that's something else). These people have probably never been in a real woods, never tried to climb that beautiful rock formation, or been hurt by stinging nettles, bees, or anything else, and all things live without harming other things. Also called the 'Disney crowd'.
Eight. Spelling 'magick'. Every time I see this, I seriously have a need to vomit. I can't quite understand why, but it does. Strangely, it makes me thing of someone sticking their tongue out (I have no idea why). But I hate it. It seems to me to epitomize the fluff-bunny ethic. They say it's to tell sleight-of-hand from true spellwork. I say that the style of thing we do is older, so why should we have to change it? We were here first! Why can't they call it sleight-of-hand (a great term, I think)? 'Magic' seems sort, mysterious, and quietly powerful. 'Magick' just looks stupid. It's the same with 'mystick' - why do they change that? It's one of my favorite words, mystic. It's a very...well...mystical word. Damn. Anyway, that really annoys me.

Yes, I'm rather bitchy, but I need to vent and I know I'm not alone in these views.

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Email: seraphsephiroth@icestorm.net