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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 17604
[Pagan]
Date Posted:
4/6/2007
8:13:53 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 6,267
RSS: 18,758
Comments: 11
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Wiccans Say 'Craft' Is Oral Tradition, Not Cult
Author: Becky Paskievich Source: Murray State News (KY)
Title: WICCANS SAY 'CRAFT' IS ORAL TRADITION, NOT CULT
Contrary to popular belief, "Double, double, toil and trouble" is not the mantra for those who follow the Wiccan religion.
Jessica Page, sophomore from Hampton, Va., discovered Wicca in high school and is now a devout follower.
"I felt really connected to it and thought it would be a nice spiritual path," she said.
Wicca, sometimes referred to as "The Craft," is spiritually related to Native Americans, according to religioustolerance.org, a Web site devoted to promoting religious acceptance.
Although Wicca has its own books, the literature resembles more of a ritual manual as opposed to a handbook like the Bible, Page said.
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Community Thoughts: There are 11 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| What Do Words Mean? | Apr 8th. at 9:58:26 am EDT
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Finn (San Marcos, Texas) - Email Me
There is always a danger in going out on a limb and stating this word means "this" or "that." You stand a pretty good chance of being incorrect. Wicca, as a religion, is a construct of the 20th Century. That doesn't make it any more or less legitimate as a path. It is simply a fact. As the Pagan movement has aged, a slow (often resisted) walk toward proper research and the scholarly approach has continued. We now many things which make our previous assumptions somewhat of an embarrasment. There is no shame in learning one was wrong, as long as you have the ethics and strength of character to learn from those mistakes. Everything is a work in progress.
Here are a couple of good sites wherein some serious research on the origin of certain Anglo Saxon and Old English words pertaining to "witchcraft" reside. You should remember that even prior to the conversion to Christianity, being considered a "witch" was not a good thing:
[Web LINK]
[Web LINK]
While I'm not normally a huge fan of suggesting people get their information from the internet, it is refreshing when good research is done, posted, and references are cited. Those of you who still cling to any weird views on the orgins or meaning of "Wicca," I can only suggest (and I do) that you go forth and crack a few books that are not within the New Age aisle of your local bookstore. Wanting something to be true will not make it so.
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| Old Religion | Apr 8th. at 1:12:20 am EDT
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Terra Gazelle (Springfield, Louisiana) - Email Me - Web
For those who insist on Wicca being a 20th century construct...
Wicca is an Anglo Saxon word pronounced Wit-cha. Wit-cha in English it was shortened and called it Witchcraeft, Craft of the Witch. Each land has had their own title for those who pratice the old religion. It's just in this country we are culturally more European, though those coming from other places certainly had their own name for what we call Wicca.
Where did it come from? Well the anglo saxons got to England before Christianity did...where did the practice come from? How about Sumer or Mesopotamia? Or later...how about Crete or ancient Greece? People migrated, so did their religions. The Romans helped it. They would add other Gods to their Pantheons and just gave them Latinized names. The practices and religion is not as it was...like no there was not a group of religions called Pagan...but you would call yourself a son or daughter of Dis, or Hades, or Janus or Demeter, or maybe Rhea or Hecate....the God you followed ordained the pratice you followed. It was the Christianized Romans that called us Pagan...why did we not have a umbrella name like Christianity? Because there was only those religions of the old gods. Now we call ourselves Pagan and take the word and wear it with pride...under that umbrella of Pagan.
So stop with the mistaken view that Wicca is a new construct...it's not. And Wicca is Witchcraft. Read some history...follow the Goddess religion from the birth place of civilization in a place now called Iraq, but started out being Mesopotamia and Babylon.
Even in the Bible ( a good historical source book) it tells of the Hebrew priests going to the women and telling them to stop going into the hills under the full moon and giving offereings to the Queen of Heaven... (Ishtar) the women said that they would not stop..they would dance and make merry and give offerings to the Goddess, as in the days of old...because then they had abundance and plenty. They talked of making cakes and giving them as offerings.
Sounds like an Esbat doesn't it?
Blessings on the Path,
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| ... | Apr 6th. at 8:58:20 pm EDT
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Draken (Bronx, New York) - Email Me - Web
Somebody at that college paper needs to stop getting drunk in strange frathouses and do some actual research.
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| Very Poor | Apr 6th. at 5:22:00 pm EDT
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Art MacAilein (Radcliff, Kentucky) - Email Me
I'm surprised this article was chosen for the Vox news. The quality and interest level aren't at all the usual caliber. Very out of character for this site.
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| Meh | Apr 6th. at 5:08:51 pm EDT
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Ravenowl (Amboy, Oklahoma) - Email Me
Weather or not .. Wicca is a new or old religion.. really doesnt matter.. Wicca is Neo Pagan.. so? does that make it less of a religion.. nope... does it harm the effectiveness, nope.. does it need to be old to be a good path.. nope.. truth be told.. Xtainity is the same thing.. what happened when they got around to being a religion.. the Jews .. um didnt like it... they called them heretics and such... to put it nicely.. they didnt get along.. and if anyone can actually name ONE single ideal that is uniquely Xtain.. im all hears... but thats true of all religions.. in the most part... the Neo Paganism drew from Paganism.. at least we didnt pretend the ideas werent ours to begin with... any element of Xtainity tho.. can be linked to another religion.. another faith..
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| Yawn....same Old, Same Old | Apr 6th. at 11:23:29 am EDT
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Lady-hearted Mojo (Irving, Texas) - Email Me
Why is it that authors of articles like this one more often than not seem to interview teenagers or the less-than-knowledgable flakes for stories about Wicca. Do they just embrace the first (or most vocal) person they happen to meet?
It would be great to see an article in which a HP or HPS with 20 years experience and solid, factual knowledge of his or her path get interviewed or, maybe, a representative from schools like Cherry Hill Seminary or Ardantane rather than some self-taught teenager with only 4 years on the path. Maybe then we wouldn't, continually, see some of the nonsense we do. I guess it's just easier to stumble onto a teenager than rather do some serious searching a reliable information resource.
End of rant
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| Wicca Vs The Wiccanesque | Apr 6th. at 10:42:54 am EDT
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Finn (San Marcos, Texas) - Email Me
Trying to discern "what" Wicca is and what it isn't gets more and more difficult with each passing year. The Wiccanesque increase tenfold. Traditional Wiccans (i.e. people who actually follow the faith Wicca and have been initiated into the faith) must grind their teeth in irritation. It suffices to say that this article is humerous.
Wicca does have distinct texts and specific laws, 161 of them to be exact. It never ceases to amaze me that people who claim to be Wiccan can tell me all about Native American religions, Christianity, and so on but few of them have read a single book by Gardner or his pupils. Funny stuff.
Adopting the name "Wicca" and a few of the symbols that interest you doesn't make you a Wiccan. I can put on a white collar and black suit, but that won't make me a Catholic Priest. I know I'm going to rub every single "eclectic" the wrong way, but hey, I'm just being honest. If you make up your OWN religion, you ought to at least have the decency to make up your own name for it.
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| Wicca Isn't Ancient, Or NA | Apr 6th. at 10:06:32 am EDT
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Seshen (San Antonio, Texas) - Email Me - Web
*sigh* Wicca was NOT linked to Satanism by the early church, because Wicca is a 20th-century faith. The "Wicca is ancient" theory has been debunked by modern scholars for over 20 years now. And it's not akin to Native American religion. That's a recent idea, largely toted by pagans who want to latch onto a "peaceful warrior" ideal. Wicca's roots are European, but commercialism has tried to whitewash who we are.
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