Help/ Wicca

[PioMagnus]

Hi guys,

I’m talking with a friend right now, and she’s really worrying me. She is talking about how much sense Wicca makes.

Can anyone help me dismantle wicca?

Some of her objections towards christianity are loving God Vs. Hell, Loving God giving us the ability to choose against him.

What are some of the holes in Wicca?

Thanks alot, and PLEASE PLEASE pray for her.

PioMagnus

 

[DJMarshall85]

Well, I was a wiccan for quite a few years, so I’ll se if I can put in my teo cents.

First on the loving God:

The gift of free will, just like any other gift can be abused. The fact that we have a choice is what makes this so wonderful. He does not want to control us like zombies, but give us a choice in our lives. And as with everything, different choices have different consequences.

People CHOOSE to go to hell. God does not send us there. He wants every human in creation to be with him. But what if someone refuses to accept him and the Truth? He will not force that person to stay with him for all eternity… Hence, they make the decision to go to Hell. It is an eternal speration from the Truth, a Truth that a person refused to accept and be with, so they are not with it in the afterlife. Does this make sense?

Now, as far as wicca is concerned, it can be very alluring. It can give the illusion of power. But challenge this person. Look at the various tenants of wicca with them, and point out this: they are continually focused on the power of the individual. Improving one’s own life circumstances. Even though a practitioner may be very philanthropic, over time wicca tends to turn the focus back inward. Also, the wiccan rede states “An it harm none, do what thou wilt.” It sounds nice, yet is quite dangerous, because a person can use this rule to justify almost anything. Just look at the lack of moral fabric among a large number of wiccan groups.

Also, dealing with supernatural realms with no experience is very dangerous (even the “experienced” should tread lightly!). What appears to be one thing may be another. What appears to be a good spirit or entity may be quite the opposite.

Finally, pray for your friend. Spend some time in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Pray the rosary for your friend.

I pray for you and your friend in this situation!

Pax,
Dean

PS: If you have any questions, feel free to PM me!

 

[dafalax]

As a former wiccan also (who knew there were so many of us?), i can tell you that this is indeed a dangerous road to tread down. I got into this “faith” when i was working in an adult novelty store. We had quite a large wiccan section, which should tell you something about the morality endorsed by wiccans. Your friend probably does not know that many covens engage in ritualized orgies for worship. Ask her how much she wants to engage in sex with some wiccan nerd she just met to please the goddess Ishtar. Any sane person would recoil from such an encounter, as well they should. It’s not right. Sex is indeed sacred, but in order to maintain its sacredness, it must be special and with someone special, not out in the open with a virtual stranger. Anyhow, your friend may be looking at being a solitary practitioner, which could neatly avoid this, but she will still appear in favor of such a practice by sharing the title wiccan, just like when one catholic screws up, we all look bad.
There are many things about wicca that are bad outside the devaluation of sex. The essential premise is that you make yourself into your own deity. You have the power to conjure the gods. This focus on self is in essence, satanism (not satan worshipping). The above poster already pointed out that the spirits you conjure for your spells are of unknown origin, which is so very dangerous to tamper with. What really turned me off about wicca, though, was that it seemed to foster greed. In order to become an effective spell caster, you must practice, which means you have to think of things you want to happen or have. I couldn’t really think of anything ever, since i felt bad asking for money when i was doing all right, really.
Also, though the rede is “An it harm none, do what ye will,” that is soooooooooo easy to interpret and stretch into meaninglessness. What happens when you know a guy you like would be better with you than with his current girlfriend, who is probably cheating on him anyway? I watched a friend of mine slide delicately into near black magick. She went from only doing spells for good, to wanting to do a spell so that the universe would bring karmic justice to someone who had wronged her. You can imagine where the slippery slope went from there.
I think what appeals to your friend about wicca is probably the rede, which is essentially the golden rule, and her soft heartedness not letting her see how a loving God could allow anything but perfect good in the universe. You might try this analogy: if my husband and i are on a deserted island with no other people, i can brag about his faithfulness, but is he really? You don’t know until he has options. Adam and Eve were content with perfect paradise until the devil tricked them by making disobedience seem good. God allowed this because He wanted his creations to choose Him. In order to truly deserve the paradise they had, they had to choose it, and they didn’t. God is truly love, though, because He knew this would happen and planned to come to earth as man and restore us by undergoing torture and an excruciating death. If she is Christian of any sort, try to persuade her to meditate on Christ’s passion as a perfect act of love. Wicca seems nonjudgmental and loving, but just because something asks nothing of you doesn’t make it loving. Quite the opposite because you are not challenged to greatness, but rather to what you can get away with. Furthermore, wicca lets everyone’s truth be correct, which is moral relativism, which means pedophilic sex could be right to certain people, who am i to judge? Look for arguments on moral relativism to explain lovingly to your friend and tell her that Christianity has some difficult teachings, but this is because God is a good parent who challenges his babies to become more. We can’t possibly understand Him completely; he doesn’t ask us to. But he does ask us to follow the instructions He gave us and pray for understanding when we so desperately need it. I’ll pray for your friend. Good luck.

 

[John_Taylor]

Dave Armstrong has a webpage with several links to articles addressing Wiccan beliefs:

ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ159.HTM#Occult%20/%20Reincarnation%20/%20Wicca%20/%20New%20Age%20Movement

I hope you’ll find something useful, but my thought is that offering prayer and sacrifice on behalf of your friend is the better approach until such time your friend is open to hearing the truth.

Keep the Faith
jmt

 

[Jocelyn]

John,
Please say the St. Michael prayer for her. IT WORKS!! Here is my story.

A couple of years ago, my cousin who is a good Catholic (or was) convinced me to go to Reiki. She said how awesome and positive it was. Well…While there, I felt like it was cultish. The reiki master was an ex-nun. Many of our faithful Catholics are going to and practicing reiki. YIKES!!
Well, while I was there, it DID NOT AGREE with my soul. Talk of being one with God and nature, using hands to heal. The reiki master made us meditate to meet our reiki guides. While my eyes were closed I saw this angel/man with huge wings. (No kidding). She went around the room to ask us who our guides were. Many said Jesus. I said St. Michael the Arc Angel.

Well, I went home and threw out the reiki book, told my cousin that all I needed was my Catholic faith, and forgot all about it.

Well, just a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine was reading the paper and saw that reiki was being offered in adult ed.(Can you believe that???) Anyways, she asked me what it was. I told her about it. Then, it got me thinking about my reiki guide.
St. Michael saved me. I know he did. While growing up, after my family said the rosary, we always prayed the St. Michael prayer. Who would have known that a prayer said so many times so many years ago could save me later on in life. Now, I say this prayer more than once a day. If you don’t know it, this is how it goes

St. Michael the Arc Angel
Defend us in battle
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray
and do thee oh Prince of the Heavenly Host by the power of God , thrust into hell, statan and all evil spirits who prowl among the world for the ruin of souls. AMEN!!!

Reiki isn’t Wicca, but satan is behind both of them.
That sun of a gun is trying to get our souls.
I thank St. Michael for saving me.
Also, my mom because she prayed many rosaries when she found out I was going there.
Now, I will NOT let anyone who knows reiki touch me. Make sure that if you have a massage, they don’t know reiki. One does not know what they can put into anothers body.
Scary stuff!!!

 

[Maryam]

PioMagnus…I am with other forum members who have posted in formerly being a practicioner of Wicca… I first got into the “Gardner=Gardnerian” form of Wicca… then got into the “Solitary Witch” stuff because I didn’t like the coven group stuff and then moved into an Italian form of Wicca called “Stregheria”…

Thank God I did not go as far as being part of “Drawing Down the Moon” ceremonies where you had to be naked with others in a coven to draw down the moons power into one.

I find that most who are attracted to this kind of stuff do so in order to gain some control or power over their lives or just because it is cool to be able to cast spells.

Don’t let your friend be manipulated into thinking that there is any kind of Good Magic spells such as promoters of White Magic will have your friend believe. Spellcasting is all about a manipulation of the environment around you in order to gain the desired effect.

I couldn’t understand this at the time because I was too deep into this stuff.

And being into Wicca can lead to Higher Forms of Magic such as the Conjuring of Elementals, invoking Spirits, Angels and so on. Heavy kind of stuff…

Wicca really came into being through people such as Gerald Gardner and is a mish-mash of local folklore, God/Goddess worship of various European extractions. Basically Wicca is just a way of trying to re-capture the practices in pagan cultures that are lost for the most part.

I don’t know about anybody else, but, I don’t want to practice something that is just recycled bits of this and that pagan culture.

It all boils down to this… The feeling of a lack of control in ones life. So, you cast some spells and invoke Gods/Goddesses making offerings and such… but, think about it…

These Gods/Goddesses have supposedly have been around thousands of years, but, **human beings will actually believe that by some ritual, drawing down the power of the moon and by invocations that they will have some God or Goddess do their bidding. **

If anybody believes that such powerful thousands of years old beings will bend to our will… I have a bridge to sell ya!! LOL

Our Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t desire offerings or will bend to selfish desires of anyone who thinks “Oh, I will do a spell, state my desires and give you an offering so that you will do as I wish”…

Jesus only wants our love and that we love one another… He is not some nature deity or God/Goddess of the moon, the oceans or whatever else… Jesus is real LOVE and this is all he asks of us. He helps us to accept if we have faith the “uncontrollable things in life” and gives us the peace to bear whatever comes.

God bless

 

[Milliardo]

PioMagnus…I am with other forum members who have posted in formerly being a practicioner of Wicca… I first got into the “Gardner=Gardnerian” form of Wicca… then got into the “Solitary Witch” stuff because I didn’t like the coven group stuff and then moved into an Italian form of Wicca called “Stregheria”…

Like you, I also went briefly into Wicca, but only as a solitary practitioner. Maybe it is God’s hand that He did not let me find a coven to join in, or else like-minded people would have led me deeper into Wicca then.

I find that most who are attracted to this kind of stuff do so in order to gain some control or power over their lives

So true. Just a heads-up for those who have not been into Wicca or have been into spell-casting: it can be, so to speak, empowering for one to be able to gain control over something, or at least that’s what you’re led to believe. It can be heady to have a spell actually “come true”, or “work”. You’ll be led to believe that Wicca and spell-casting is the answer to your problems. Luckily, I was able to get out of that.

Spellcasting is all about a manipulation of the environment around you in order to gain the desired effect.

Based on my experience, I agree.

And being into Wicca can lead to Higher Forms of Magic such as the Conjuring of Elementals, invoking Spirits, Angels and so on. Heavy kind of stuff.

Thankfully, I have not gone into that, or else I cannot imagine what I might have summoned just to gain “control”.

 

[Lillith]

This has been a most informative thread indeed! I have always been curious about Wicca…one question…can Wiccans be considered Gothic also…or are these two entirely different movements…or can one be both in certain circumstances?

 

[Milliardo]

Lillith:

This has been a most informative thread indeed! I have always been curious about Wicca…one question…can Wiccans be considered Gothic also…or are these two entirely different movements…or can one be both in certain circumstances?

In certain ways they can be, though a Goth may not necessarily be Wiccan, in the same way that a Wiccan may not necessarily be Goth. Goth is more of a fad, or as some sort of fashion statement. Wicca goes beyond that, and would be more of a way of life than Goth is.

 

[reborn_pagan]

okay i am a wiccan and as far as i know i will be a wiccan forever…now the illusion of power is made by hollywood which stupid people get into thinking they can make fire balls out of nowhere, these people get tired of it very quickly…but the tru wiccans know its all jst abunch of witchcrap, we live our lives trying our best to walk in perfect balance and harm none…and i have problems with people who try to look for “holes in wicca” as if they want to destroy it. wicca (witchcraft) has been long before christianity and for awhile back then we worked together. and i’ve been one for years and im engaged to a catholic and she loves me for who i am…metaphoricly theres the wiccan path a really rough road thats grown over and cracked which will be harder to travel, and with alot of christianity theres the highway; nice,smooth,and used by many…now this happend to me i was at a fork and i noticed some people going down the old rough overgrown road and everyquestion i asked i didnt like cause the people knew nothing about it but always said “its bad” so i took that road myself and i found that it is harder than going down the highway but while going through all the ruff roads i learn more and become stronger in spirit, so dont try to take down that road and please learn more about this route and not just shun it away because of your own teachings please

 

[Randy_Carson]

okay i am a wiccan and as far as i know i will be a wiccan forever…

Forever? Reborn, not two seconds after you are dead you will be a firm believer in Jesus Christ. I pray right now, in the name of Jesus Christ, that you will not enter His presence as a wiccan.

wicca (witchcraft) has been long before christianity and for awhile back then we worked together.

You speak the truth here - at least in part. Wicca has been around longer than Christianity. Satan and his demons were cast out of hell before the creation, and Satan began weaving his spells in the Garden of Eden. Jesus came to crush the head of that ancient serpent, and he has already been defeated. :clapping:

However, the claim that Wicca and Christianity EVER had anything to do with one another or “worked together” is just a blatant attempt by those who seek credibility for their otherwise incredible belief system.

Jesus said, “I am the way.” Your current “path” leads in another direction altogether.

 

[reborn_pagan]

Forever? Reborn, not two seconds after you are dead you will be a firm believer in Jesus Christ. I pray right now, in the name of Jesus Christ, that you will not enter His presence as a wiccan.

You speak the truth here - at least in part. Wicca has been around longer than Christianity. Satan and his demons were cast out of hell before the creation, and Satan began weaving his spells in the Garden of Eden. Jesus came to crush the head of that ancient serpent, and he has already been defeated. :clapping:

However, the claim that Wicca and Christianity EVER had anything to do with one another or “worked together” is just a blatant attempt by those who seek credibility for their otherwise incredible belief system.

Jesus said, “I am the way.” Your current “path” leads in another direction altogether.

if its so blatant…then explain please explain why christmas is so closley related to ALOT of pagan holidays…the birth of the son (christ) was for christianity…and for the roman pagans it was the birth of the sun (sun god)…which has been celebrated way before christianity. and easter for christianity is the resurection of christ, then why are there not really any celebrations about it, as opossed to ostara (pagan easter) celebrates the fertilety element (i.e.) bunnies, and eggs which are symbols of fertility which was practiced by the druids who never even knew of christinaity for thousands of years

 

[jbuck919]

In my parents’ generation, and in the early part of my own, and I assume for many generations prior to that, Catholics were taught not even to talk to people with weird beliefs, and nobody has any weirder beliefs than the practitioners of Wicca. I am not exactly advocating that absence of dialogue, quite the opposite in fact, but I must say that the frequency with which the most bizarre apologetic situations come up here is positively alarming. Roman Catholicism is the original form of Christianity. It is everybody else who is supposed to be explaining until the cows come home why they have a leg to stand on, not us. This starts with weirdosities of however long standing like sola scriptura and sola fide and ends with flat-out superstition “religions” like Wicca.

The (admittedly pagan, but brilliant) philospher Plato has his Socrates remark, "The greatest fool will say *something *to the point. That strikes me as the basis for the psychology behind our tendency to be lulled by false belief. It is, in simplest terms, and extension of the unfortunate but undeniable tendency of humans to think wishfully.

 

[I_A]

if its so blatant…then explain please explain why christmas is so closley related to ALOT of pagan holidays…the birth of the son (christ) was for christianity…and for the roman pagans it was the birth of the sun (sun god)…which has been celebrated way before christianity. and easter for christianity is the resurection of christ, then why are there not really any celebrations about it, as opossed to ostara (pagan easter) celebrates the fertilety element (i.e.) bunnies, and eggs which are symbols of fertility which was practiced by the druids who never even knew of christinaity for thousands of years

** Chirstmas on December 25th**
People celelbrated it on that day because thats when they thought Jesus was born by consulting census records.
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm See Jerusalem)

These census records are cited by Justin Martyr (earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-firstapology.html, XXXIII) and Tertuillian (earlychristianwritings.com/text/tertullian124.html,
VII)

Now there is a case for the celebration of it on the winter solstice as Christians we have always seen the sun as a symbol of God to us, and I have heard talk about Mithra, but nothing that has convinced me. I would put the solar cylce many times more probable than mithra.
**

Easter being called Easter**
Easter is only the folk name given to the feast of the ressurection by those of us who speak English, its not the official name. Churches are built to face East, to where Christ ascended, for he will descend in the way he ascended. On Easter morning the mass was ususally a vigil mass at sunrise, as Mary Magedeline went to the tomb while it was still dark on the day of his ressurection. The term East was the name of a Pagan godess but its not like the English speaking Catholics were worshiping the godess. Its like me making up a godess called America and claiming all your children pledge alliegence to my godess because of her name.

etymonline.com/index.php?search=east
As you can see the word for East is austra, the same name for the godess.

** Eggs at Easter
**Traditional lenten fasts prohibit all meat and food derived from animals, including eggs, milk, etc. Fat Tuesday (the debauchery New Orlean’s isknown for) in English speaking countries was traditionally the day to make pancakes because they use up a lot of these eggs and milk and whatnot. So once again at Easter it was okay to eat all these eggs stored up.

Sure there are pagan cultural aspects incorporated into popular celelbration of holidays, like the bunny, holly at Christmas, etc, but what of it? Are you saying because you become Christian you must abandon your culture? Several of those you have cited are popular myth many people spread out of ignorance in order to level the claim that the church is pagan to justify their anti-Catholic beliefs. Many times the same people spread around falsehoods like Western Europe seriously believed the Earth was flat, etc. There is non-Christian influence on Christianity, but I seriously doubt those particular arguments.

Edit:
Reformed, this isn’t directed towards you, rather to correct falsehoods leveled against Catholics by a groups like Jehova’s witness, Adventists, etc. Much of what we call history is falsehood but is perpetuated because people don’t care about truth. As far as wiccans go I see you are more educated than most and don’t mean anything against you in these posts. Rather I am trying to correct these myths.

I see nothing wrong with bringing pagan customs of your culture into private worship, assuming they don’t contradict the bible. I would be upset with bringing it into public worship (ie Mass.) I’m not dealing with that in this post though, I’m just trying to fight these erroneous
canards.

 

[wjp984]

Those Wiccan or witchcraft/voodoo/hoodoo etc. movies scare me. I don’t believe any of them are true but the fact that they exist could mean that there is some truth to them based on satanic power and I wouldn’t want to ever get caught up with that. In fact, if I ever encountered any of it the first thing I would do is run to a priest. My previous neighbor’s 23 year old son is a wiccan and I had no problems interacting with him but his beliefs still scared me. I think Hollywood exagerates stuff but in answer to your free will question. These movies all have people messing with others free will with spells and then harm is also done with black magic.

 

[Randy_Carson]

if its so blatant…then explain please explain why christmas is so closley related to ALOT of pagan holidays…the birth of the son (christ) was for christianity…and for the roman pagans it was the birth of the sun (sun god)…which has been celebrated way before christianity. and easter for christianity is the resurection of christ, then why are there not really any celebrations about it, as opossed to ostara (pagan easter) celebrates the fertilety element (i.e.) bunnies, and eggs which are symbols of fertility which was practiced by the druids who never even knew of christinaity for thousands of years

Bottom line? We took your festivals away from you and made them Holy. In so doing, the Catholic Church freed people who were walking in the darkness of a false religion and gave them the Light of Christ.

There was no collaboration. We took your festivals and your people and made them Christian. You’ve been hiding in the shadows and edges of society ever since.

There’s really nothing scandalous about this for a Christian. The pale light of the moon gives way to the full light of the Sun every morning.

 

[reborn_pagan]

Bottom line? We took your festivals away from you and made them Holy. In so doing, the Catholic Church freed people who were walking in the darkness of a false religion and gave them the Light of Christ.

There was no collaboration. We took your festivals and your people and made them Christian. You’ve been hiding in the shadows and edges of society ever since.

There’s really nothing scandalous about this for a Christian. The pale light of the moon gives way to the full light of the Sun every morning.

so in other words, you stole christmas (yule) and easter (ostara) from us in order to convert us to your side…and yet people say that wicca has many holes in them, and another thing is the trinity of the father,sun,and holy spirit was taken from the roman pagans thanks to constantine who was the emporer of rome at the time to make christianity spread.

 

[wjp984]

You are largely misunderstanding what happened. Christianity didn’t steal Christmas or Easter. The people were just fortuntate to be shown the way of Christ and welcomed the religion and were glad to be a part of it. They would have gladly abandoned their hollidays if asked. However, why abandon a holliday and create a new one when you can just share and change the meaning of it. The exact time of Jesus’ birth was not known so if everyone was previously already celebrating a pagan holliday then why not also celebrate Jesus’ birth on this day. Why stop wearing medals and why stop having trees to decorate. That’s a good idea. Instead of worshipping pagan idols and gods the people can now change the medals to represent Christianity and the same with the trees. It is more like shareing good ideas in my opinion and it shows how non oppressive the early Christians were shareing customs and spreading the gospel.

Oh, and you have an even lesser argument for Easter. Althout the callendars are not exactly alike, gnerally, Holy Thursday falls on the same day as the Jewish Passover. After all, the last supper was celebrating the Passover. Jesus rose on the Sunday after Holy Thursday/Passover so I think I can make more of an argument that it is based on that then some pagan holliday.

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

Hi guys,

I’m talking with a friend right now, and she’s really worrying me. She is talking about how much sense Wicca makes.

Can anyone help me dismantle wicca?

Some of her objections towards christianity are loving God Vs. Hell, Loving God giving us the ability to choose against him.

What are some of the holes in Wicca?

Thanks alot, and PLEASE PLEASE pray for her.

PioMagnus

The claim to have continuity with Ancient Celtic religions is false.
The Celts had a highly educated Druid caste. Training was something like 24 years. In Britian, the Druids were massacred by the Romans as a political threat, though they survived in Ireland.
Druids, ironicaly, are now a separate New Agey type cult. Modern Druids, needless to say, have virtually nothing in common with Ancient Druids except in so far as the modern ones tried to imitiate them. Wiccans are similar.

Take the Wiccan rede, for instance.
Rede? What sort of word is that?
An thee harm none
“An?” who uses that word?
Then the whole thing is just a watered down version of the teachings of Jesus. It is just made to look old, and it is Christianity watered down to the point that it is dangerous.

Crowley’s “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”
had at least a bit of philosophical rigour.

“Justify whatever you want to do on the grounds that it isn’t harming anyone” is the sort of rubbish that has given us a 50% divorce rate. Harming no-one, according to Wicca, directly, but everyone, indirectly.

The you’ve got to remember that people with boring jobs who live in boring suburbs do need a bit of colour in their lives. That’s something the Catholic church is maybe failing to provide. However it doesn’t have to be that way. The Lord of the Rings is a Catholic novel, after all. Explaining the meaning of the elves’ lembas in Tolkien’s book will, I suspect, go a long way to convincing your Wiccan friend that what she is really looking for can be found with us.

 

[havemercy]

so in other words, you stole christmas (yule) and easter (ostara) from us in order to convert us to your side…and yet people say that wicca has many holes in them, and another thing is the trinity of the father,sun,and holy spirit was taken from the roman pagans thanks to constantine who was the emporer of rome at the time to make christianity spread.

One could say that all of these pagan myths and legends and celebrations were, in a way, provided for the Gospel.

Examples such as Dionysus and Mithra tend to point towards Christ, as if to say “look, this is who we are”, not expose him as a fraud or a myth among others. Similarly, the egyptian goddess Isis holding her child, would be a regional foreshadowing of Christ clinging to the Blessed Theotokos as depicted in icons. And, the celebration of Christmas at the end of the year (winter solstice) has symbolic meaning: It is the time when the sun sets sooner, as if to make room for the coming of the Son.

“Thy will be done”,