good news to all wiccans

[KarenNC]

Most Wiccans that I know, and I mean know not just “talk to” don’t judge people who are homosexual, masturbating or using birth control (which is masterbating to most Wiccans) because that’s what they are doing.

??? You are going to have to clarify that one if you would like to discuss it further.

They are refugees from their teen years, can’t hold jobs and mom supports them as they go from carreer choice to career choice.

Could you provide a link to the demographic studies supporting this view?

The Wiccans of today are the Atheist/Libertarians of yesterday. Grown up spoiled children who can’t stand rules.
Trust me, I had a whole bunch of these little darlings hanging with my niece when she lived with me. She married one. He can’t deal with society either. In his thirties and D&D is his life.

I could just as easily point to any number of people with similar personal or emotional issues in any religion or none at all. This is no different than claiming that all Roman Catholics are pedophiles because of the actions and dysfunctions of some priests. Neither is accurate nor apt to lead to rational adult discussion.

**My Goddaughter/Niece is Wiccan because she believed that there must be more than one god. She found this out by listening to her friends and watching Xena, Warrior Princess. **

Again, there are people in any religion who make choices (including of their religion) for bad or less than admirable reasons. If you would like to learn more about the actual origins of the religion, I would recommend “The Triumph of the Moon” by Ronald Hutton, a British historian, which traces the origins of Wicca in Britain, its importation to the US and the changes that occurred and the effects of those changes on British Traditional Wicca. “Her Hidden Children: the rise of Wicca and Paganism in America” by Chas Clifton is a followup that looks at Wicca in America. I have read the former and highly recommend it. I have not yet read the latter.

As to the claim that Wiccans are not solitary by choice—again, could you provide me with your source for that (for the religion as a whole, not just for your niece and her friends)?

 

[netmilsmom]

So you give us references to two books written by people who are making money off the latest fad.
I’ll put personal experience with “Wiccans” over books that feed into it everyday.
Down to the “ex-Wiccans” I know and love that laugh at them now.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca

Wicca is a Neopagan religion and a religious movement found in various countries throughout the world. It was first popularised in 1954 by a British civil servant named Gerald Gardner[1] after the British Witchcraft Act was repealed. He claimed that the religion, of which he was an initiate, was a modern survival of an old witchcraft religion, which had existed in secret for hundreds of years, originating in the pre-Christian Paganism of Europe. Wicca is thus sometimes referred to as the Old Religion. The veracity of Gardner’s claims cannot be independently proven, and it is thought that written Wiccan theology began to be compiled no earlier than the 1920s. Various related Wiccan traditions have since evolved, or been adapted from, the form established by Gardner, which came to be called Gardnerian Wicca. These other traditions of Wicca each have distinctive beliefs, rituals, and practices. Many traditions of Wicca remain secretive and require that members be initiated. There is also a movement of Eclectic or Solitary Wiccans who do not believe that any doctrine or traditional initiation is necessary in order to practice Wicca. The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey estimated that at least 134,000 adults identified themselves as Wiccans in the US.[2]

I thought I was really something in high school by dressing in black, researching everything I could get my hands on about Witchcraft and just not letting anyone know that I wasn’t a “witch”.
Then I grew up.
The people who need to follow this mess are those looking for something out of societial norms to make them “special”.

 

[netmilsmom]

And here is a question for you Karen. Where is the research of the 135,000 self proclaimed Wiccan, how many are contributing anything to society? One, two, one hundred? I can tell you that the little group hanging out in Ohio are not contributing much except self promotion.

Personally, I don’t care at all if you want to worship your dog. It is none of my business. However, when one usurps legends of the past to rationalize it, perhaps a little common sense should come into your thinking.

When someone comes onto CAF and drops a Wiccan bomb, perhaps that person should be able to back it up.

 

[KarenNC]

So you give us references to two books written by people who are making money off the latest fad.

I was pointing you to an actual scholarly resource (Hutton) on the origins and development of this religion. Hutton’s credentials: bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Staff/hutton.htm

I don’t claim that Chas Clifton has the same academic credentials as Hutton, but his book has been recommended to me as a reasonable followup for those interested in American Wicca.
Certainly there is and has been a lot of useless trash published in the name of Wicca and other Neopagan religions. That is why Hutton’s book in particular is such a standout.

I’ll put personal experience with “Wiccans” over books that feed into it everyday.

That is your perogative. I prefer to test my experiences against a broader background.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca

Was there something in the Wikipedia definition (the page is much more extensive, for those interested) which you wished to discuss?

I thought I was really something in high school by dressing in black, researching everything I could get my hands on about Witchcraft and just not letting anyone know that I wasn’t a “witch”.
Then I grew up.

I am glad to hear it. I much prefer rational, civil adult conversation. Many people did foolish things in high school. If I understand the above you got your kicks out of pretending to be something you weren’t. If I were to go around pretending to be a Catholic priest just to be “different” and get my kicks in some way, would that invalidate Roman Catholicism?

The people who need to follow this mess are those looking for something out of societial norms to make them “special”.

Certainly there is a percentage who “play Wicca” in order to rebel, seem special or appear “non-conformist.” It is an unfortunate truth that many come to Neopaganism searching for some Hollywood or fictional idea of being a powerful “witch” and controlling others or that it’s some sort of live-action D&D. They hopefully find out fairly quickly that that is not what Wicca or Neopaganism is about and either mature in their faith or move on.

There are people who claim to see the Virgin Mary in a toasted cheese sandwich or a shower curtain to make money or feel “special.” Neither one invalidates all other practitioners of a particular religion. One can only hope that those people will also eventually grow up and mature in their faith or move on.

I am sorry that your experience with those claiming Wicca has been immature and negative. I have had other experiences, both with Wiccans and with those who follow (as I do) other Neopagan religions. I have had negative experiences with immature Christians (Catholic, Protestant and Anglican), but I do not tar the entire faith because of that.

 

[netmilsmom]

Well, 135.000 people in the US claim themselves to be Wiccan. When one cannot even define exactly what it is to be Wiccan, that’s about the same amount of people who can claim to be a massage therapist with no more credentials than reading a book.

Someone read a book and now call themselves something. Okay.

I read a book on Microsoft Windows. However, I cannot claim that I am a Microsoft Certified Engineer.
I can say that I am a Microsoft Expert because there is no definition of that.

There is no definition of Wiccan except what someone wants it to be. A man writes a book and some lost individuals follow it. It’s a fad. This too shall pass.

 

[Eden]

If I were to go around pretending to be a Catholic priest just to be “different” and get my kicks in some way, would that invalidate Roman Catholicism?

Interesting comparison. What characteristics differentiate someone who is Wiccan from someone who is pretending to be Wiccan?

It is not actually possible to casually “pretend” to be a Catholic priest just to be “different”. For instance, you won’t find the “Catholic priests” at their own lunch table in high school next to the “goths” and the “stoners”. “Catholic priest” is not an adolescent rebellious phase. Someone pretending to be a Catholic priest would have to be either be 5-years-old or mentally unstable. Someone pretending to be Wiccan would be… well, I don’t even understand what that means. Being ordained a Catholic priest is not a casual stroll through fads. It requires years of seminary studies and discernment. As far as I am aware, one does not need a period of discernment or study to be ordained a Wiccan.

 

[netmilsmom]

As far as I am aware, one does not need a period of discernment or study to be ordained a Wiccan.

All they need is a pentigram and an hour on the library internet connection.

 

[IanCorrigan]

As far as I am aware, one does not need a period of discernment or study to be ordained a Wiccan.

Depends on the Wiccan system. Like any Neopagan religion, Wicca isn’t based on ‘beliefs’. One doesn’t recite a credo, and ‘believe it in the heart’ and automatically become a Wiccan. Wicca is a body of specific skills - ritual, meditation, divination, healing, spellwork - that must be learned from somewhere and applied somewhere. So, when a teen decides to ‘self-identify’ as wiccan, unless she takes up training from the many resources that are now available, she is, in fact, only pretending. In the same way, a girl could deck herself in rosaries and cart around prayer book, without any real involvement in the Church. (Those who don’t think there aren’t cliques of catholics in public schools, just like cliques of goths and wiccans, don’t remember their upbrining, I suspect)

Traditional Wicca was always a process of formal training and initiation, in which one moved from student to teacher, if one wished. It was a process that usually took a minimum of three years, often much longer. One isn’t ‘ordained’ as a wiccan, one is ‘initiated’. Wiccans sometimes get ‘ordained’ as specific kids of ministers.

Modern neopaganism (which is often hard to discern from what some call ‘eclectic wicca’) has tended to allow a spirit of egalitarianism and DIY to reduce the importance of initiation and formal recognition. However, serious wiccans still understand that Wicca is about learning, practicing and growing, not just about symbolic or cultural identification.
Ian

 

[netmilsmom]

Depends on the Wiccan system. Like any Neopagan religion, Wicca isn’t based on ‘beliefs’. One doesn’t recite a credo, and ‘believe it in the heart’ and automatically become a Wiccan. Wicca is a body of specific skills - ritual, meditation, divination, healing, spellwork - that must be learned from somewhere and applied somewhere. So, when a teen decides to ‘self-identify’ as wiccan, unless she takes up training from the many resources that are now available, she is, in fact, only pretending. In the same way, a girl could deck herself in rosaries and cart around prayer book, without any real involvement in the Church. (Those who don’t think there aren’t cliques of catholics in public schools, just like cliques of goths and wiccans, don’t remember their upbrining, I suspect)
Modern neopaganism (which is often hard to discern from what some call ‘eclectic wicca’) has tended to allow a spirit of egalitarianism and DIY to reduce the importance of initiation and formal recognition. However, serious wiccans still understand that Wicca is about learning, practicing and growing, not just about symbolic or cultural identification.
Ian

The point being, there is no system of checks.
Anyone can say, I am Wiccan and do.

Even, as you say, serious Wiccans, can pick and choose the belief system. No one to correct them, no one to hold them accountable.

When you say there is a clique of Catholics in public school, normal people do get onto the internet to research being Catholic because it fits in with a gaming lifestyle. They don’t put on a habit and run around the public school claiming that they are now a sister.

However, I have known people who do vampire games and live as Goths. Unlike Wiccan, where they hold themselves up to stand out, Goths are more likely straight edges and would prefer to be overlooked. They actually contribute to society, working and making something of themselves, not at all the “look at me” type person who takes the Wiccan role.

So while there may be serious members of the Wiccan religion, the average person one will find proclaiming to be Wiccan, found a fad to fit in. Who checks otherwise? Of the 135,000 of them in the USA, how many fit this description? Every one I’ve met.

Some are Wiccan, some are Otaku, all put on a costume to play act what they are not. Whether it be from Anime or a pentagram and crystals.

 

[IanCorrigan]

The point being, there is no system of checks.
Anyone can say, I am Wiccan and do.

Just like being Christian. Of course, there are self-appointed priests, even those performing the Mass, and even wandering bishops making priests outside the church’s writ. You folks can say they’re illegitimate, but you have no actual authority about the matter.

**Even, as you say, serious Wiccans, can pick and choose the belief system. No one to correct them, no one to hold them accountable. **

Until they interact with the Wiccan community, at which point they will usually be nicely corrected by elders if they are flaky.

**They don’t put on a habit and run around the public school claiming that they are now a sister. **

I certainly knew young men who liked to play at priest…

So while there may be serious members of the Wiccan religion, the average person one will find proclaiming to be Wiccan, found a fad to fit in. Who checks otherwise? Of the 135,000 of them in the USA, how many fit this description? Every one I’ve met.

Your experience is plainly limited. I’ll guess that you’re a schoolkid yourself.

Do you really think there are many places where one can choose to fit in by being wiccan? Not many. People feel the call, and come in. Eventually, many of them take up study and real spiritual work in a wiccan/pagan context. Not all do, but not all members of any path are devout.

Ian

 

[netmilsmom]

Just like being Christian. Of course, there are self-appointed priests, even those performing the Mass, and even wandering bishops making priests outside the church’s writ. You folks can say they’re illegitimate, but you have no actual authority about the matter.

But it is not the rule of thumb, as with the Wiccans.

Until they interact with the Wiccan community, at which point they will usually be nicely corrected by elders if they are flaky.

The Wiccan community that I knew had no “elders” and it was a very large communtiy in Ohio, east of Cleveland.

I certainly knew young men who liked to play at priest…

Who any Catholic would have dismissed as needing their Haldol.

Your experience is plainly limited. I’ll guess that you’re a schoolkid yourself.

Everyone’s experience is plainly limited. Yours is limited as well.
And thanks for the schoolkid label. I turn 46 at the end of the month.
However, I was brought into the “Wiccan” lifestyle by my niece who lived with me and her friends. There were no surprises with the many self proclaimed Wiccans that were around. All of them were led by their gaming to something that made them feel that they were actually the charaters they invented. Once many of they grew out of the phase, including my nephew, they laughted at how silly it all was.
Perhaps you have the experience of an elder leading you down a path. Trust me, that is not how it is for the average Wiccan. Whether it was someone I knew personally or the huge internet communtiy these people belonged to, none of them were being led by anyone but each other and a longing to be someone they were not.

Do you really think there are many places where one can choose to fit in by being wiccan? Not many. People feel the call, and come in. Eventually, many of them take up study and real spiritual work in a wiccan/pagan context. Not all do, but not all members of any path are devout.

I know there are places where one can choose to be Wiccan to fit in. Just as there are places where people can choose to live a homosexual lifestyle to fit in. It becomes a “can’t fit in to societal norms so I’ll be really different, then they’ll look at me differently.”

If you don’t believe that, head over to the local High School and look around.

 

[netmilsmom]

And let me just add, I wish someone was leading these people to help them know where to spend their money and where not too.

The few I knew that could actually hold jobs spent more money on psychics than bills.

500.00 to the Psychic hotline does not an adult make.

 

[dessert]

Depends on the Wiccan system. Like any Neopagan religion, Wicca isn’t based on ‘beliefs’. One doesn’t recite a credo, and ‘believe it in the heart’ and automatically become a Wiccan. Wicca is a body of specific skills - ritual, meditation, divination, healing, spellwork - that must be learned from somewhere and applied somewhere. So, when a teen decides to ‘self-identify’ as wiccan, unless she takes up training from the many resources that are now available, she is, in fact, only pretending. In the same way, a girl could deck herself in rosaries and cart around prayer book, without any real involvement in the Church. (Those who don’t think there aren’t cliques of catholics in public schools, just like cliques of goths and wiccans, don’t remember their upbrining, I suspect)

Traditional Wicca was always a process of formal training and initiation, in which one moved from student to teacher, if one wished. It was a process that usually took a minimum of three years, often much longer. One isn’t ‘ordained’ as a wiccan, one is ‘initiated’. Wiccans sometimes get ‘ordained’ as specific kids of ministers.

Modern neopaganism (which is often hard to discern from what some call ‘eclectic wicca’) has tended to allow a spirit of egalitarianism and DIY to reduce the importance of initiation and formal recognition. However, serious wiccans still understand that Wicca is about learning, practicing and growing, not just about symbolic or cultural identification.
Ian

SO THIS SEEMS TO ME IN MY OPINION OF COURSE THAT YOU ARE TRAINING PEOPLE LIKE ROBOTS!

 

[Caesar]

good news to all the wiccans here, and jst news to everybody else…i found this out awhile ago, by the year 2024 or so wicca along with the islamic religion will be one of the major religions in canada and the US

your wiccan friend
R_pagan

Thats not good news. It is terrible news how the ranks of Hell are swelling.

 

[dessert]

Many people who "play act " at life or take on a roll of a type or stereo type cast for instance ploceman or woman often end up doing just that. So maybe the girl did become a nun or minister or teacher of prayers? Do you know?
The world is a stage nespa?

That is why Henry VIII, I think I saw this on tv that he banned the theatre but also wanted to use it for his own demise or media.

The dangerous part is when a child believes that he is superman and trys to fly off the 40 foot swingset
Setting aside our age level and Please don’t make me any younger than I am shhhh I might have to tell a whhopper.

You sound like you want to be serious, but God is also serious.
To deny the possibility of hell is in fact to deny the reality of human free wil. God had created us as perons who can choose to return his love. But love that is coerced is not love at all. If we are to be more tha mere programmed robots, we must have the capability of rejecting God, both NOW AND FOREVER . and if we reject him, we are in fact choosing hell, the state of eternal seperation from him . NASB

Your feelings about your discipling others seems to me to be based on the fact that you think think you are doing it better because you are doing it more thoroughly.
Because you are looking at “christians” catholics who aren’t or you maybe would say hypocrits and I don’t mean to put words there that you didn’t say because you are trying to be so respectfull.
Buuuttttt! three years is a very short time for a catholic because you realize that the laws used to say that you are an adult by 18 but of course no one is truly grown up.

So you are trying to rush your students along to get them initiated into and I have to disagree with you but they are beliefs. But then we can disagree. Dessert

 

[dessert]

okay if you read my post it will say what i have been TOLD…i used to be christian i went to church i still even have a bible.
and who knows maybe my gods arnt’ real, maybe yours arn’t or maybe your god created my gods who knows…and for the voodoo doll things THERE NOT REAL!!! sure theres dolls in voodoo but not the kind u stick needles in and it’ll hurt somebody…and im sorry that i was told that the devil was god of the underworld.

I am glad you still have a bible pray for guidance first then I’m giving you some refeences to look up.
Job 1; 6-12 Satan sked God for a chance to test Job

the church magestrium teaches about angels
Jude 6 They were created good by god but choose evil Luke 10 ;18
the leader of these fallen angels(or demons) has many names 1John 5; 18-19

I’d like to give you more. dessert

forum moderator please don’t take this thread off ok?

 

[MarcoPolo]

wicca is i think one of the least dangerous religion, if you look into it you will find out that we live in peace…

May be true, friend, in the context you say it…but you have to admit if we Catholics are right, wicca will wind you up in hell. I’d say that’s dangerous to your soul. At least a little.

 

[dumspirospero]

That is horrible news…that means there will be an abundance of heretics…can you say apostasy?

good news to all the wiccans here, and jst news to everybody else…i found this out awhile ago, by the year 2024 or so wicca along with the islamic religion will be one of the major religions in canada and the US

your wiccan friend
R_pagan

 

[Caesar]

That is horrible news…that means there will be an abundance of heretics…can you say apostasy?

Heathens, an abundance of heathens

A heretic is someone who perverts the faith- Luther, Calvin, ect.

Mohammedanism and Paganism are religions unto themselves. Therefore, they are heathens.

 

[CatholicNick]

Heathens, an abundance of heathens

A heretic is someone who perverts the faith- Luther, Calvin, ect.

Mohammedanism and Paganism are religions unto themselves. Therefore, they are heathens.

Not very Ecumenical of you Caesar… :tsktsk: