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Popularizing Wicca

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan,alt.religion.wicca,talk.religion.misc
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (Lorax)
Subject: Popularizing Wicca (Was: ? continued from very *old* email)
Date: 8 Dec 1995 13:30:16 -0800

[WARNING: IF YOU EMAIL ME A RESPONSE, I MAY REPLY IN PUBLIC, LIKE THIS!!]

kaliyuga
49951207 I've been trying to figure out what to do with this.  Here you go.

|Date: Tue, 23 May 1995 11:43:54 -0400 (EDT)
|From: Sally Eaton  [AKA Balachandra!]

|...as "Wicca" has grown popular among young, and/or magic(k)ally-
|inexperienced people, it has mutated. The way "in" now is to read 
|something by Starhawk or Scott Cunningham, then go looking for 
|"classes" in your local area. 

You'd prefer them looking 'Witchcraft' books (the ones which are neosatanic), 
getting alarmed, and developing their own tradition from scratch? :>  


|...most who come in now are have not really eradicated their Xtian roots 
|on a subconscious level. 

I doubt that any Wiccan with a JCI background has.


|They see no need to, as what's been offered to them is a publicly-acceptable,
|"safe", sweetness-and-light version that won't cause any controversy. 

Different strokes for different folks.  This is the foam that rises up 
betwixt the Neopagan and JCI traditions.  Sometimes it gets confusing.


|...I want to keep the door open for those unafraid to get
|their hands a little bloody while learning the ropes. 

Don't know why the 'door' would be closing any time soon, unless we have
draconian religious laws forthcoming.


|The "Lumpen Paganariat" will undoubtedly find "Leaders"  willing to teach
|them what they need to know in order to set up their own "churches" and
|become "clergy". This is the way of the world, I reckon.  

It is the way of the Christian meme-system.  So entrenched into the very
minds of adherents, it takes several generations to weed the vestiges of
evil JCI programming (religious structure, liturgy, morals, etc.) from 
the new converts.


|To offer a public alternative would be to set myself up to run 
|*yet another* bloody organization. I'm really not sure I'm up 
|to that -- are you? 

Top-down efforts at Witchcraft fabrication likely aren't all that
effective.  It has to bubble up, spontaneously, from within the rocks
and soil to be truly liberative.  Anything can be longlasting.  The
religious orgs that are *effective*, there's you're difference.

I would not create an organization to offer 'alternative Wicca' to what
is quickly becoming the shadow of puritan Xtian tradition.  I would
(and am) instead engaging public debate in order to BREAK DOWN the simple
notions of what Wicca could or should include (see the ARW FAQ, which I
think is fairly successful in this effort).
 

|connect -- and that's what the Net is for! If a even a *small* consensus
|could be reached, there might be a chance to encourage "Wiccans" who are also
|Witches to assert and define themselves. 

Definition is the death of religion.  Hodge-podge think-tanks which engage
in self-reflection, imagination and self-conditioning are able to arrange
some spectacular results, but to attempt to come up with The Definition is
the Problem (tm) with Western religion today: its absolutism (and resultant
stagnancy for many within it).
 

|...there are those who have been in the business for 20 or 30 years. 

Length of time in a tradition (absorbing its forms, etc.) is more an
indicator of potential than of ability.  Capitalization of time is
the deciding factor in longevity.  Anybody can 'be a member of a group
or tradition' for long periods of time without doing anything with it.


|...there is recognition among them that the collective vision has been 
|swayed by those whose agendas would seem to include popularity at all 
|costs. 

The desire for popularity and acceptance is one of the symptoms of a
strict (and oppressive) upbringing.  It reminds me of housewives who
struggle and grovel to become desirable to their abusive husbands.
Almost all Neopagans (esp. Wiccans and many 'Witches') have been
so concerned about being accepted as 'real religion' and 'not Satanism'
that there has been a serious and real threat of losing the valuable
innovations which have been associated with those labels for years 
(iconoclastism, eclecticism, acceptance, breadth of mind, anarchy, etc.).

[rest deleted for storage - tn]
EOF

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