Q&A- You got Questions, We got anwsers ^^

[Keistera]

I'm well aware that the dictionary definition of Pagan is "country-dweller", but i'm not referring to the dictionary definition. smile I mean, in terms of defining the umbrella term that the Pagan religions fall under -- the one that Pagans of all traditions fight over and can't seem to agree on.

I'm one of those meanie-folk that believes Wicca started with Gardner. Other Wiccan Traditions branched off from the blueprint he set down, but they aren't "The" Wicca. The way Gardner wanted it practiced, and the way it's practiced today, seem to be different things. (i'm sure he's loving the attention, though) I'm reading "Witchcraft Today"... and finding myself laughing at his "historical" stuff. Uuugh. >.< I have to be careful when I read my books, though... I don't care what people think of me, but I really don't want to hear stupid questions from them. "OMG, are you a witch?"
"Uh... no. I've been called a Kitchen Witch before... but... no..."
(I could be a Kitchen Witch. I don't know.)

Age - I'm 19. When trolling the boards around Gaia, I feel older than that. razz (This site does that to people)

Do you all feel that Paganism has a bad reputation, and if so, why? I will answer later.  

[Jameta]

Computer_Junkie

Wicca is a religion that has a set hierarchy. There are no "real" branches except Gardnerian they may be considered branches but Since Gardner made the religion there are no other real wiccan branches. The tarot started in egypt. Modern tarot has influences from everywhere. never said it didn't but the tarot started in Egypt.

Pardon me, but you've hit a snag with me. Pardon my coming response if it offends or disgruntles you- tis' not my intention.

Yes, Wicca was originally in official terms established by Gerald Gardner in the 1950s.

However...

He claimed he was taught many of the rites/rituals from another person, which would make them the original source/founder; Gardner simply got credit. He never claimed that it was his solid idea- many things can be related to Golden Dawn practices (and his love of sharp objects, with the athame), therefore, the practice is not copyrighted to him or any of the current Gardnerian practicioners. Thus, anyone may create a faith based on his concepts and make it a branch; such is what happened to the Roman Catholic Church and all the branches that subsequently broke off from it.

However, just because someone creates a path based on Gerald's Wicca does not mean it deserves recognition from others. Individuals that claim to make and be something can only be deemed true if their practices are logical in a 'faith'-sense and their experience/background holds up. If one cannot hold up his or her side of the story, he or she falls under heavy criticism and is ultimately dismissed; those that do hold water are, after time, given certain degrees of recognition, possibly as a branch of a religion (although this state can be debated throughout time- take Mormonism... although I don't remember the exact argument for that sweatdrop ).

On the time issue, people will bring up that it would be too soon for Gardnerian to have branches, taking into account how long it took for Christianity to branch out. Yet, that time of development is completely different from today: we live in the most connected age in history, where ideas can go across the world faster than one could even fully percieve back in the conception of various Judaic-Christian denominations. The last century had technology developing at the fastest speed ever; it's fair to say as soon as a computer product comes out on the shelf that it's obsolete once it comes out of the box (thank you, Weird Al). With this in mind, it can be expected that faiths would grow as fast, as well.

One must also consider, when speaking of the older sources of faiths, the strong bond between religion and lifestyle. Take the hot-spot of religion, the Middle East: desert conditions can be extremely harsh, and if one does not follow all the rules carefully, he or she... well, you were buried in a sand pit. During the Middle Ages, when religion was a focal point, the peoples were prone to plagues and outbreaks of war, and the idea of something better beyond this life was deeply, strongly cherished. Thus, churches were able to play on this and manipulate the people into believing what was moral and acceptable, and what was sinful. if you went against the church, you went against this cherished concept, and usually, that meant you were subject to multiple tortures, like drawing and quatering, or, especially in France, being put in a cage overlooking an alley and starved to death, with no one coming to pick up your rotting flesh until it starts to fall out.

...I don't know why I just added that. sweatdrop I studied Mideval tortures for my 8th grade Middle Ages project.

Anyways, in comparison today, we do not need to be as strict to and adhering to original faiths if they prevent us with connecting to the 'higher power(s)'. Although "dissenting" from a path can still cause pain, i.e., harassment and discrimination, the consequences are not as radical in more 'civilized'* areas.

* I put it in dashes because different people have different definitions. At this moment, I am referring to areas where there is not an abusive dictator, nor is the environment incredible harsh to live in if your lifestyle is different from another's (such as a desert or hostile KKK region).

As for the Tarot subject, while its exact origin can be debated, the oldest tarot created by modern culture is the Raider-Waite(sp?) deck. Of course, the idea was new- the Golden Dawn members that created it were drawing it from an older form of divination.  

[Aloyseus_Wolf]

*kisses you*
thank you. i had not the strength to defend myself... just to clear one thing up... i said I was a SEEKER, which means I'm wanting to learn more about Wicca through that path and hopefuly be initiatted into it...

Edit: btw fyi, gerald gardner.. yeah not the biggest fan. sorry. *shrugs*  

[Jameta]

Aloyseus_Wolf

*kisses you*
thank you. i had not the strength to defend myself... just to clear one thing up... i said I was a SEEKER, which means I'm wanting to learn more about Wicca through that path and hopefuly be initiatted into it...

Edit: btw fyi, gerald gardner.. yeah not the biggest fan. sorry. *shrugs*

*shrugs as well* Ehh, I haven't read that much into him; I only know the basic facts and a spot detail or two. I plan on reading some of his books in the summer, but even if I don't like him, I have to give him credit and respect for doing what he did.

It's most individuals that become president- you don't always like what they do, but it's a tough job to do, and they are going to mess-up somewhere do to party lines and what not.

And yes, I said most- some people just get in because of Daddy. rolleyes  

[Keistera]

I forgot to mention him "borrowing" from other sources. You can't forget Crowley and O.T.O., either, no matter how much some would like to. razz I can't recall the Crowley-Gardner connection too well.

Gardner claimed to have been initiated by a "dorothy clutterbuck"(sp?), but she couldn't say anything because she was "oathbound". That sounds a little too convenient to me.

I'm a seeker, too, leaning somewhat toward Wicca... but I have to learn more about the history and such before I decide. And the practices - you know, the ones that aren't in those "Love spells for the teen witch" books. *fumes, sets said book on fire* ... That's better. razz  

[Rakei]

Keistera

I forgot to mention him "borrowing" from other sources. You can't forget Crowley and O.T.O., either, no matter how much some would like to. razz I can't recall the Crowley-Gardner connection too well.

I can't remember if Crowley had a connection with Gardner all I know is that:
Crowley became a member if the secret society; The Golden Dawns hermatic order. founded by three ppl from the rosenkruezers (another Secret magic society) in 1888. this was based of an old german order with a complex hieraki of 11 grades and 3 orders, the outer order, the sercon and the third order. the outer order was of 9 grades beginning with the novices and then going up with tests... The second order consisted of the founders (three people in total) and the third order was, it was said wy the founders, of spiritual beings on the astralplane. But Crowley was thrown out of this society by one of the leaders who it is said sent an army of demons after Crowley... Crowley then created his own secret society. He called him self The Great Beast 666 and claimed he was the reincarnation of many powerful "Wizards" (I'll use this word because I really don't know what else to call them) one of these was the "wizard" John Dee who was a practiser of Angel magic...
and Crowleys belief system gave the path to Wicca... or thats what this book said... sweatdrop  

[Aloyseus_Wolf]

note: all my comments are in brackets ([])


"AleisterCrowley: Poet, painter, mountaineer, traveller, ches player, brilliant talker when in the mood, asthmatic, heroin addict, satyriac and master magician was born in 1875, the year of eliphas lev's death. he later became conviced that he wasa reincanation of levi. (In earlier lives he hadbeen cagliostro and alexander VI, the Brogia Pope.) His father, a brewer, left Crowley a forune which he spent with astonishing rapidity. His parents were Plymouth Brethren and he was rbought up in a strictly puritanical atmosphere. He was educated at Malvern, Tonbridge and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he acquired a chess blue, a homosexual love affair, and the beginnings of a highly-sinister reputation. He enjoyed mountain climbing and as a young man made creditable assualts on K2 and Kangchenjunga. In 1903 he married Rose Kelly, sister of the painter Gerald Kelly, who wasaftewards President of the Royal Academy. She had clairvoyant powers and it was through her that a spirit named Aiwass dictated Crowley's first important magical work, the Book of the Law, in Cairo in 1904. She took to drink and Crowley eventually divroced her.
Crowley joined the Order of the Golden Dawn in 1898, taking the magical name of Brother Perdurabo (I shall endure). In a brilliant biography of Crowley, The Great Beast, John Symonds desccribes how Crowley attempted to oust Mathers and take over the leadership.
Mathers, outrages, sent a vampire to attack him, but Crowley "smote her with her own current of evil' and defeated her. The struggle was waged hotly on both sides. Mathers succeeded in stricking Crowley's entire pack of bloodhounds dead at one blow and caused Crowle's servant to go mad and try to kill Mrs. Crowly. The sevant had to be overpowered with a samon gaff. in reply, Crowley summouned up the demon Beelzebub and forty-nine attendant devils and sent them off to chastise Mathers in Paris.
Expelled from the Golden Dawn, Crowley founded his own society, the A :. A:. (Argentinum Astrum- Silver Star), but its membership was never as numerous or as distinguished as the Golden Dawn's. By 1914 it had thirty-eight members. In 1910 Mathers obtained a court order to stop Crowley from publishing the Golden Dawn's secrets in his magazine, The Equinox. Crowley appealed against this order, and rather impertintently, used a talisman from the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, which Mathers had translated, the one recommended for "gaining the affection of a jedge'. The talisman was effective and Crowley's appeal was successful. This taliman consists of the following letter, written on parchment:
ALMANAH
L
MARE
AALBEHA
N
AREHAIL
H A
[just for reference please... dangerous stuff here, karma wise]

Sexuality runs all through Crowley's poetry and magical writings. He had remarkable appetite for women and was apparently very attractive to them.He wore a special Perfume of Immortality, made of part ambergris, two parts musk and three parts civet, which gave him a peculiar odour [my theory is it was probably pheramones], but which he said attracted women and also horses, which always whinnied after him in the streets. In 1912 the leaders of a German occult society specialising in sex-magic, the Order of Templars of the Orient [there is a conenction here with the Nag Hamadi Libraries] were alaremd by the fact that Crowley was publishing their Order's secrets in The Equinox. They approached him in London, found that he had discovered these secrets independently through his own researches, and invited him to join the Order. He became British head of the O.T.O. with the title of Supreme and Holy King of Ireland, Iona and all the Britains that are in the Sanctuary of the Gnosis.
Crowley spent the First WOrld War in the U.S., writting anti-British propaganda for the Germans. Blood and iron always appealed to him. in 1916, living in Bristol, New Hampshire, he ascended to the high magical grade of Magus [has nothign to do with wicca, obviously since that wasn't founded for another...40 years], going through a ceremony of his own invention in which he baptised a toad as Jesus Christ and crucified it.
In 1920 he went to Cefalu in Sicily and set up his Sacred Abbe of Thelema ('the will' in Greek), with his current mistresses, the Scarlet Woman and Sister Cypris (a name of APhrodite). Ver few discipls arrived and very little money. Crowley was in rugent need of both for most of his life. Romours of abominable rites and orgies, some of them well founded, floated out from the abbey, and Mussolini's Government expelled Crowley in 1923. He was later expelled from France as well and wandered forlornly from England to Germany and Portugal and back again, musch in the eye of the popular PRess, whicch called him "the wickedest man in the world'. He himself prefered the title 'The Great Beast'.
Crowley's numerous magical writing appeared in obscure magazines or were published in limited editions at his own expense. The clearest and most accessible of his books are his brilliant occult, thriller Moonchild and his masterpiece Magick in T Heory and PRactice, published in 1929. ALthough he had the usual occultis's love of obscurity for it's own sake, Crowley had great gifts as a write, with a pleasingly sardonic snese of humour and, when he chose to use it, a talent for clarity. His Magick in Theory and PRactice is porbably the best single book ever written on the subject.
Crowley died at Hastings in 1947. his orgiastic "Hymn to Pan" was recited during his extermely odd funeral service in the chapel of the crematorium at BRighton, to the scandal and annoyance of the local authrorities. THe last few lines show him as he like to think of himself.

... I am thy mate, I am thy man,
Goat of thy flock, Iam gold, I am god,
Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod,
With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks.
Through solsitce stubborn to equinox.
And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend
Everlasting, world withotu end,
Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man,
In the might of Pan.
Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan!"


-The Black Arts, by Richard Cavendish 1967 "The World of the Black Magician: The Modern Magician, pg. 39-42"  

[x__CrimsonRegret]

Let's face it -- mom's not going to let me drop out of band, so this means this August for one week I'll be at Elkhorn Valley Christian Service Camp for a fun-filled ( domokun ) week of Band Camp.

The one thing I am looking forward to: The Nature there is absolutely beautiful. Surrounded by hills on all sides, a beautiful river, plenty of plant-life, wildlife, and being summer time, a vast amount of refreshing sunlight. And, before we have to goto bed there's an hour we have of free-time that reveals the beautiful moon and stars a city-dweller can only dream of imagining.

I intend to take full advantage of this chance to become one with the God and Goddess. However, I'm unsure how. Does anyone know of a good book on connecting with nature?  

[blukattt]

x__CrimsonRegret

Let's face it -- mom's not going to let me drop out of band, so this means this August for one week I'll be at Elkhorn Valley Christian Service Camp for a fun-filled ( domokun ) week of Band Camp.

The one thing I am looking forward to: The Nature there is absolutely beautiful. Surrounded by hills on all sides, a beautiful river, plenty of plant-life, wildlife, and being summer time, a vast amount of refreshing sunlight. And, before we have to goto bed there's an hour we have of free-time that reveals the beautiful moon and stars a city-dweller can only dream of imagining.

I intend to take full advantage of this chance to become one with the God and Goddess. However, I'm unsure how. Does anyone know of a good book on connecting with nature?

Actually, I found Nature herself to be the best teacher; books pale in comparison to the lessons I've learned from Her. But, for books I would more towards authors with shamanic influence, rather than predominantly Wiccan. Authors like Ted Andrews. D.J. Conway, maybe even Ann Moura. 3nodding  

[Elven Prince CJ]

x__CrimsonRegret

Let's face it -- mom's not going to let me drop out of band, so this means this August for one week I'll be at Elkhorn Valley Christian Service Camp for a fun-filled ( domokun ) week of Band Camp.
size]

eek surprised i was in band but a christian band camp? do you just play gospel pieces? neutral  

[Kireal]

A few friends of mine were being stupid and they went into a graveyard, at night, and cut themselves and were touching the graves. Well, they kept getting a serious shock outta one of them and since then they've been coughing up blood and feel a kind of negative prescense around them. They came to me asking for help and I'd like a few opinions on what to do. Anything is appreciated.  

[Aloyseus_Wolf]

Kireal

A few friends of mine were being stupid and they went into a graveyard, at night, and cut themselves and were touching the graves. Well, they kept getting a serious shock outta one of them and since then they've been coughing up blood and feel a kind of negative prescense around them. They came to me asking for help and I'd like a few opinions on what to do. Anything is appreciated.

Okay... well that is very disrespectful of the them to do to the graves like such... I would suggest maybe going back to the graveyard and bring the grave some flowers and make formal apologies. Also perhaps a cleansing ritual (im not quite sure of their religion, but if cutting was involved in the first place... well yeah.) A sorry goes a long way =\ I don't know what else to tell you. They are reaping what they've sown, chances are if they make a formal apology and bring something to the grave (i.e. flowers, a letter ect. ect. and do it with a good attitude) it should lessen the effects. BUt besides that they are going to have to have to let the negativity run it's course. Once you do something you can't change it. As cliche as this sounds like when the shop owner said in Craft, "Once you open the floodgates, how do you undo it?". =\  

[Kireal]

Aloyseus_Wolf

Kireal

A few friends of mine were being stupid and they went into a graveyard, at night, and cut themselves and were touching the graves. Well, they kept getting a serious shock outta one of them and since then they've been coughing up blood and feel a kind of negative prescense around them. They came to me asking for help and I'd like a few opinions on what to do. Anything is appreciated.

Okay... well that is very disrespectful of the them to do to the graves like such... I would suggest maybe going back to the graveyard and bring the grave some flowers and make formal apologies. Also perhaps a cleansing ritual (im not quite sure of their religion, but if cutting was involved in the first place... well yeah.) A sorry goes a long way =\ I don't know what else to tell you. They are reaping what they've sown, chances are if they make a formal apology and bring something to the grave (i.e. flowers, a letter ect. ect. and do it with a good attitude) it should lessen the effects. BUt besides that they are going to have to have to let the negativity run it's course. Once you do something you can't change it. As cliche as this sounds like when the shop owner said in Craft, "Once you open the floodgates, how do you undo it?". =\

^-^ Thanks. I already advised them on bringing some flowers and saying their sorry. I don't even know if they have a religion...Anyway. Thanks. I'll make sure they apologize cause it really was an uncool thing to do...no wonder they got that negativity. I'd be pissed if people did that to my grave.  

[Jameta]

I agree with AW... the rootbeer. whee

Sorry, sorry. Anyways, if they do not have a religion or practice they are most comfortable performing in/as, try to find out whos' graves they touched and their background. That may better connect them.

And if that doesn't work, you may need to pray for your friends safety and that they learn their lesson without serious harm.

...

When you thought the old foggies were dead... they rose...

...with canes in hand! xd

Ahhh, I'm nuts...  

[Kireal]

lol I have to agree...^-^"" Hehe sure you haven't had one too many coffees?

Good ideas all the same. Thankies!

Hehehe....AW....that place had good Hotdogs....