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quote:Originally posted by Temple Goddess:
I am no historian, (and by the looks of things, neither are you) but I do know those dates are soooo wrong. I guesss the hermetic tradition began with Crowley?? Hermetic magick has been in practice since the Egyptians and if you tell me that is Thelemic Magick, I have to ask what do you think Thelemic Magick is?
One more thing "Rev.", I am not scared off that easily. Most certainly not by you.
*sigh* After saying how nice it was that people responded by not telling you to bugger off you throw this back at one of the people taking your thread seriously and participating in this 'debate'.
He was referencing not the words witch or wicca but the religion of Wicca as it stands now.
A bit of history from Isaac Bonewits, former ArchDruid and founder of Ar NDraiocht Fein which is one of the largest neopagan organizations.
"Sometime around the late 1930s or early 1940s, a Britisher named Gerald Gardner, according to his later claims (and those of others), came into contact with a British Familiy Tradition group in England. Feeling that their tradition was fragmentary, he began to use his anthropological training to 'restore' what he thought was the original faith. The result was a brand new religion, calling itself 'Wicca', using a relatively new system of group magic (although the 'Key of Soloman' cribs are obvious in the earlier versions), and worshipping a Moon-Sea-Earth goddess and a horned god of the hunt-vegetation-sun. Because this new religion bears far more resemblance to the various 'Neopagan' faiths invented in the 1960s than it does to anything ancient, I refer to it as 'neopagan witchcraft'."
Gerald Gardner is the progenitor of the modern practices that call themselves 'Wicca' or 'neopaganism'. If you follow the practices layed down in any Llewellyn book, or StarHawk, or any practice that has not been handed down generationally within your family, you can trace your practice back to his restoration that occured in the mid 20th century. Or do you think that things like chakras, reincarnation, and a sense of karma are inherently Celtic?
Also, here's the listing for Wicca from Religious Tolerance.org
which has these quotes from Joanna Hautin-Mayer:
"We know tragically little about the actual religious expressions of the ancient Celts. We have a few myths and legends, but very little archeological evidence to support our theories. We have no written records of their actual forms of worship, and the accounts of their culture and beliefs written by their contemporaries are often highly biased and of questionable historical worth."
and
Silver Ravenwolf:
"Wicca, as you practice the religion today, is a new religion, barely fifty years old. The techniques you use at present are not entirely what your elders practiced even thirty years ago. Of course, threads of 'what was' weave through the tapestry of 'what is now.' ...in no way can we replicate to perfection the precise circumstances of environment, society, culture, religion and magick a hundred years ago, or a thousand. Why would we want to ? The idea is to go forward with the knowledge of the past, tempered by the tools of our own age."
Rev. Jesse's history and dates are correct, the info is out there and is actually quite easy to find but there are a lot of neopagan writers that in order to lend their faiths credence do the same rewriting of history that they criticize the major faiths (specifically Christianity) of doing.
Similar with his point about hermeticism. While 'hermeticism' dates way back in the ages, hermeticism as people know and practice it today is a result of the practices and codifications that occured at the end of the 19th century.
For example the Kabbalah of western ritual magic is very different than the Kabbalah of ancient Israel.
Same words used for different things with a claim of ancient truths to help convince people that what they do is strong with ancient foundations.
[ 05-12-2001: Message edited by: Lothar Tuppan ] |
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If you just focus on the chaos and don't go anywhere, you might as well be a Zen master as that's where you're at, and about as useful. Chaos doesn't give you anything but options, the ability to change your tradition.