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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 19517
[Pagan]
Date Posted:
3/27/2008
2:41:49 pm EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 4,735
RSS: 12,158
Comments: 10
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Lectures Casts Spell On History Of Witches
Author: Brittney Slovak Source: The Whit (NJ)
Title: LECTURES CASTS SPELL ON HISTORY OF WITCHES
"Sabrina the Teenage Witch" fans would have been disappointed this Wednesday as a lecture dismissed media interpretations of witchcraft, paganism and the religion of Wicca. Professor Helen Berger, a sociology professor at West Chester University, spoke to a group of students in the Rowan Hall auditorium regarding teenage witches and how the religion relates to feminism.
Paganism and Wicca, an Earth-based religion that began in the 1930s, have about a half million followers in the United States. The two practices allow for a person to celebrate the changes in nature and the changes in a person's life, was described in detail to the crowd.
"Death is seen as a part of life," said Berger, adding in reference to Nature, "She changes everything she touches and everything she touches changes."
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Community Thoughts: There are 10 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| I Emailed Professor Berer... | Mar 30th. at 9:53:49 am EDT
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DodiaFae (Rhode Island, Rhode Island) - Email Me
in the hopes that her lecture was grossly misrepresented by the author of this news piece. After all, it wouldn't be the first time in the last couple of days we've seen this happen, and it was a student reporter with little/no experience or knowledge about the topic she was reporting on.
Her response:
Thank you for bringing this article in the Rowan University student newspaper to my attention. I am glad that the lecture was considered worthy of receiving news coverage from the student paper. But, in response to your concerns there were a number of errors in the reporting. I suggest that you read the book I wrote with Douglas Ezzy, Teenage Witches: Magical Youth and the Search for the Self, which has a more thorough discussion of our data. The reporter states that we interviewed 30 young people in the US, Australia, and UK--actually we interviewed 90, 30 in each country. But, of course this is not your concern. I never stated that Wiccans worship the Goddess to the exclusion of the God. I did say that there are some groups that do worship only the Goddesss, but that my own work reported in Voices from the Pagan Census (Berger, Leach, and Shaffer) indicates that this is a minority voice. I also did not say that most of the new generation Witches are in covens--again in Voices, I show that is not the case. I stated that coven training was the norm in the 1960s and 70s and is less so for this new generation who self-define as solitary practitioners. There are a # of other errors in the reporting that I was outline. I would suggest that it is always best to look at the book and not rely on others "notes" even if that other is a reporter.
I hope you do read the book and would be happy to hear your responses to it.
All my best,
Helen A. Berger, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
West Chester University
West Chester, PA 19383
Sometimes it's best to get clarification *before* giving yourself an apoplexy over something that may have been misrepresented. Apparently, one or more of her books are listed here at Witchvox, and might be worth looking into.
Bright Blessings.
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| What The Bloody Hell | Mar 29th. at 12:36:16 am EDT
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Mordechai (Edmond, Oklahoma) - Email Me
i hate it when people who don't practice use phrases like that "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" one. Im not Wicca but i appreciate people trying to educate people on Paganism, unless their a little uneducated about it. By that i mean exactly that Paganism. No offense to my Wiccan brothers and sisters i have much love for all of you but, Wicca is just one slice of the Great Cake known as Paganism which is composed of more than one piece if you catch my drift. Don't give a lecture unless you know the full spectrum of what the hell your talking about, but it looks like she couldn't even nail a lecture on Paganism when she only focused on one specific group. I hope the people that heard her lecture looked it up afterwords so all the mistakes she made are corrected so that they do actually learning about it.
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| Poor Research Followed By Poor Writing | Mar 28th. at 2:35:54 pm EDT
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Titania (Smallville, New York) - Email Me
I expected more from a professor than some interviews from very young practitioners whoes only requirement was to have been practicing for one year. Fine for an initiate, but not enough experience and depth to have any real meat on the bones of this subject.
As for the article itself, very poorly written. My 6th grader could have done better.
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| Nothing Like A Fresh Cup Of Misinformation... | Mar 28th. at 10:49:14 am EDT
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Lady-hearted Mojo (Irving, Texas) - Email Me
"The religion of Wicca focuses on the Goddess and similar to most religions, having a direct relationship with the divine. "
This is what you get when the people you are interviewing only have the basics down. The Wicca I know honors both a male and a female Deity and is not a "Goddess religion".
"The female witches often feel that a male's world usually ignores and downplays the importance of a woman's menstruation."
This quote kinda made me laugh, I don't think there's a CEO of any company that manufactures feminine hygiene products that isn't aware of the importance of a women's reproductive cycle. It's paying their million dollar salaries, ha ha
"Wicca on the other hand, celebrates the goddess and has even a coming-of-age ceremony."
Well, gosh, golly, gee-whiz we even have a coming-of-age for boys, too! Who would have thought it.
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| Cynical Hat | Mar 27th. at 5:27:12 pm EDT
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Fraoch (Shelby, North Carolina) - Email Me
She said Paganism and Wicca. That would include me too, and I happened to believe in the preemanence of the Mother Goddess, so let's not follow example and speak for all.
What is a girl to do these days, sit on her hands? If you open your mouth you piss someone off. As long as someone doesn't claim their religion to be the end all be all, try to have the most cake, or lump me in with their silliness, chat away. It's called discourse. We do it all the time in academics.
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| Didn't Really Like This Article | Mar 27th. at 4:02:38 pm EDT
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Nocturnal Light (Camp Humphreys, Kansas) - Email Me
This article makes Wicca look more like little more than a spiritualized ecofeminist movement than a dynamic nature and occult based religion. People who think Wicca is all about feminism annoy me just as much as people who think it's mostly love spells or some anti-mainstream statement. While Wicca does fortunately embrace the feminine side of Deity that most other religions lack, it wasn't originally made to be a feminist movement. Many of Wicca's most influential founders and teachers were male.
Now before I get any angry emails I want to make clear that I strongly believe in equal rights and that masculine and feminine energies are equal parts of the balance; that's one of Wicca's most important teachings. I also have nothing against more "specialized" Wiccan traditions such as Dianic Wicca that are feminist or more Goddess centered. However I don't like it when people who are trying to be representative of Wicca in general misrepresent it by trying to push the God and masculine aspect of Wicca to the side, and therefore pushing the very important balance factor to the side. I understand and sympathize with people who are drawn to Wicca because the feminine divinity they longed for in more traditional religions was left out in the dry. But to be reactionist and over-emphasize female divinity is arguably just as bad as other religions over-emphasizing male divinity.
Sorry if I'm b-tching too much, just felt like getting something off my chest.
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| This Was A Student Newspaper Article... | Mar 27th. at 3:53:48 pm EDT
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Ben Gruagach (Oakville, Minnesota) - Email Me
... in a student newspaper.
There were a few mistakes. Either the student reporter didn't pay attention to what was being said, or else they failed to factcheck the things they were writing. And while I haven't read Helen Berger's books on Wicca and modern Paganism, I'd be surprised to learn she is so misinformed as to believe that Wicca does not include a God.
But maybe Professor Helen Berger might need to do a bit more research before making statements about what Wicca includes.
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| Oh, Really? | Mar 27th. at 3:08:38 pm EDT
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Bellagunn (fairmont, West Virginia) - Email Me
".....one woman even describing how she wanted to form a male god to equal things out in the religion..."
Whaaaaht?!?
And this person was used as a source (interviewed and quoted) in a book about Wicca! Whoa Nellie!!!! Granted Wicca may seem a bit goddess biased especially to someone who is coming from a patriarchal dominated religious back ground but to say there is no male god in Wicca is a bit silly and uninformed. Even those of Dianic trad acknowledge there is a masculine force, it is just not central to their worship. Better sources please!
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