Witchvox Article

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Posted: October 14th. 2001
Times Viewed: 3,584

I have been involved with the Pagan religion and the(a)ology for 6 years, and in that time frame I have encountered any number of different writing styles, thoughts and opinions. Some have been useful and thought provoking, some have had me rolling in the aisles with beliefs that I believe laughable, while others have left me bored to tears.

For a practitioner of Witchcraft to even have a market for their work is in the course of history certainly not new, what is new, is the scale on which Pagan authors can now reach the masses, combined with a public that expects, even demands, easy access. When it comes to easy access is where I begin to get edgy. There is only so much information one can impart without completing another's task for them.

I have spent the majority of my time in the Pagan community surrounded primarily by women who like myself, consider themselves "feminist" of one form or another. I love the goddess community! However, (you knew this was coming didn't you?) I believe that the goddess community has some theaological bumps to iron out before its writers commence with writing more books. Issue #54 of SageWoman Magazine featured an article wherein a regular columnist allowed us to "see her sweat" over recent developments within the feminist archaeology movement and the challenge accordingly presented to the work of Marija Gimbutas. She used this as a platform to call for greater Pagan involvement in the global protest movement. For the average Pagan woman on the street who isn't involved with the University system, and isn't keeping up with the developments within the upper echelons of Feminist Pagan Dogma, to refer to academic events which many women may know nothing about is rude and insulting and alienating to the women such as myself who don't share the same views. That in and of itself limits many Pagan authors from reaching readers. Politics, whether between nations or between historians.

As a woman whose personal experience doesn't support and in fact counters the political views currently in vogue, I have had to turn to 'Muggle' authors to "round out" my education. I have unfortunately found that many Pagan authors use an intellectual sleight of hand when it comes to "facts" that all too often seems more like propaganda than truly envisioning what the world could be like with the Goddess and God in balance.

The Pagan community is a very diverse garden and rightly so. And just like any other diverse garden, it needs to be ideologically pruned every so often. Cause lets not forget here everyone that for the feminist Pagans we are building something from the ground up....psst.....hey, I hate to treat feminists like men but it helps to have a road map or ask for directions when you're lost. Or to put it another way, its going to take all of us to get there, so you ought to pay attention when some of us don't want to head in the same direction. Don't shun the women who disagree with you politically, encourage them. You just might learn something new, and guess what? That not only includes people like myself who refuse to choose a political party but Republicans too! Gasp! Controversial, ain't it?

I would like to see Pagan authors and writers acknowledge that they have a duty to the Pagan public, to act in harmony with responsible eldership. They are public, and like it or no, with publicity comes influence and power. Propaganda is not responsible eldership. It is ideological vampirism.

The struggle for the political identity of the Pagan soul has clouded an issue that was posed on TWV as "the question of color", and that question has degenerated into Pagans using questions of race and racism to merely prop up their political identities. And people are actually asking why we don't have more members of color? Sorry everyone, but as a white woman when my Asian-American family members tell me they feel insulted by the victim identity imposed on them in the Pagan community I choose to take them at their word: something is off in the rationale that says people of color are always victims and their oppressors are always white. That idea holds sway in the Pagan community and Pagan writers have contributed to the ideological confusion by using the questions of race and racism to prop up political affiliations. If your ideas don't support the Marxist analysis of institutional racism, your work wont be acknowledged here. Perhaps that's what happened to African-American author Thandekas' 1999 Learning to be White. Her work shows that its not as "black and white" as some would like it to be and I can't see why those who believe in the political existence of left and right would find it so offensive.(Well slap my rear end into a melanin-starved pulp, but its not easy being white.) Or perhaps, I wonder, did we not give Thandekas' work the attention it deserved because she is Christian? We say that the Nation of Islam's belief, that a African scientist named Yakub invented the "blue eyed devil" (ergo white people), in a genetic experiment gone wrong is in fact, a racist idea. And yet when Feminist Marxists and Socalists say the same thing in the name of politics and the Glory of the Matriarchy its suddenly not racist or less racist somehow?

I will not as an individual contribute any further money towards Pagan writers works, unless and until, Pagan authors begin to hold themselves to a higher standard of intellectual honesty. It has never ceased to amaze me how well some Pagans can bash the Catholics while spouting Catholic Jesuit liberation theology all at the same time. Ah, Dionysus' excess has always bred some confusion has it not? Be careful when you set out to liberate the public, for we may just up and liberate ourselves.

I'd like to see some scholarship that actually invites you to think thru both sides of an issue in an intellectually balanced way, devoid of the usual tearing down of the opposition. Its time to clear away the rubble from what's already fallen before we move forward. Besides, I have seen no evidence that says to me that those concerned with politics in the Pagan community have come up with anything new in violence control. They advocate political action and yet, have given birth to nothing different than what has already come before. The system of people control is the same. They claim to be progressive when they are regressive, and they are foolish enough to think that the average Pagan doesn't notice. They are wrong. They tear down and dont rebuild. They cut down and don't replant. They are what they expressly say they are not.

"Few people in this world really seek knowledge. Mortal or Immortal few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown answers they have already shaped in their own minds. Confirmations, forms of consolation without which, they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate both the question and the questioner."
Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat)

Some who have read this may have felt offended and I will simply say don't kill the messenger as the saying goes. Someone has to point out contradictions in thea(o)logy. Someone has to say what no one else dares to say. Someone has to ask the hard questions. Because its obvious that those at the helm of the ship have no intention of facing the whirlwind. At least they haven't yet. Since when is a Pagan woman afraid of a little thea(o)logical discussion, an archaeological difference of opinion? Who me, continue to spend my hard earned money on books by women who would rather intellectually drive around like men lost on a road trip than stop and ask for directions? No thanks. I can cover more ground on my own.

Lightning meets the Sea

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