Spells, Wiccans, and Witchcraft (page 7)

asleif_dufansdottir

hmmm, it was a joke, but it's not at all crude. Not that I care what you find amusing, as I haven't really ever seen anything that tells me you have any sense of humor, especially about yourself.

You might be surprised if you actually knew me. Actually, most Witches/Wiccans/Pagans/Heathens of my acquaintance (not counting Santaria and Voudoun) are sick to death of people associating their religious beliefs and magical practices with animal sacrifice. Not only is the idea horrific to most of us (in the sense that we are pet lovers), but it just gets damned old when religious fundies and police departments and news stories have to suggest that every time some looney-tunes or hateful teenager kills a cat, it has something to do with us. People gutting and torturing cats is not funny (it's certainly in the news often enough). Associating the practice with people who find it horrifying, even in jest, is not funny either.

So now witchcraft is a science?

(can't clear formatting) Depends on what you call "witchcraft"...You'd have got burned at the stake 400 years ago for flicking a Bic lighter. Or giving a woman herbs to keep her from conceiving.

Is, "and that is all that is necessary" your way of telling me to shut the fuck up about it?

Not really. It's just that one of the things I like least about this board is the inability for a group of people to carry on a conversation without people who disagree with the concept (ghosts, witchcraft, whatever) making the original conversation almost impossible to carry on. If people want to discuss pros and cons of things, would it be too much to ask to start a seperate thread and make a quick note to that effect on the original? All I meant was, it works for me and I don't have the time or energy or inclination to debate its merits.

neverthere

Witches, in general

do not sacrifice animals

do not eat babies

do not believe in Satan (if you don't believe in God you can't believe in his alter ego)

do not howl at the moon (ok, ok, I do, just don't tell eh LMAO)

do not drink blood (that's vampires)

do love and respect the earth

try to live in a "positive" way

and many more things, the point in general is that most real witches don't think that things will go like they did for Samantha and Endora on Bewitched, or blink their eyes like Genie on I Dream of Genie.

There is no "governing body" for witches, covens govern themselves and solitaries only have themselves to answer to.

GentlyFeral

Spunky, check out the works of Z Budapest also. Somewhere in one of her books -- Grandmother of Time, I think -- she describes a group working which laid a curse on a local rapist. The crucial phrase of the spell was "Let him be caught/By his own error, by his own fault!" The felon left his glasses at the scene of the next crime, and the police traced them back to him and caught him.

I think something of the kind is needed here; all you need do is kind of shape the psychic landscape to arrange this kind of thing to happen by "accident" or apparently "natural causes". Your relatives are acting shamefully but don't see it. Do you want to stop them cold, reveal their own nastiness to them, or do you just want revenge?

Revenge won't cure anything. A cure leaves you the moral high ground -- but it's less likely.

Me, I'm a big ol' softie, but I have reservations about the Wiccan Rede. Generally, I agree with what Raven said.

Oh, and plmkrazy...

eww, he gathered my fingernail clippings and hair from my hair brush and I don't know what else and burned them while looking into a mirror

Did anything happen? Anyhow, whatever he was trying to do, I should think the use of a mirror would bounce the spell back on him!

And, you know, it occurs to me that burning YOUR OWN nail-clippings, hair, etc., would be a powerful symbol of SEPARATION from all that crap...a way of making yourself VANISH from their crazy dysfunctional lives. But that's just intuitive, I can't cite references or anything.

Email me and we can talk about this in detail and at leisure.

(edited to improve content)

GentlyFeral
magic worker

plmkrzy

Freemasons

asleif_dufansdottir

Freemasons

Not sure what you are referring to... Many of the older traditions' rituals have lots of masonic type stuff...because Gardner was a mason and that's where he learned to do rituals. Beyond that, no Wiccan or Pagan group with which I have been associated has any ties to Freemasons.

GentlyFeral

Cat1759, I have the highest respect for Don Michael Kraig; heard him speak at a pagan convention this summer. If you want to do the whole Golden Dawn panoply thing, he's excellent -- but it looks exhausting. He gave a great little workshop on trance and hypnotism, but has yet to write a book about it; I wish he would.

GentlyFeral
back to work now

Ravyn

Lurk and Peaceful Pete, you are talking about Wiccans, not all witches. I am not Wiccan. I started out Satanic Witch, as I mentioned, which is basically atheism with a dash of alchemy and chaos magick thrown in(and some ritual for shock value that I think is now outdated and confusing to the post-60's/post LaVey crowd). But I realized I do believe in a Higher Power of sorts, but not in the 'worship and pray' kinda way. Then I was initiated into the family tradition of Stregherian that my husband's Italian side of the family practiced. Strega means witch and witch means wisewoman. In the old days, in europe atleast, there were different types of Witches. Some were sorceresses, some were seers, some were herbalists. But all this wiccan stuff, while it is useful to some, is not useful to all. Alot of witches who are not wiccan are very adamant about Wicca being a farce. I MAY not go that far, I know some nice folks who are wiccan. But, on the other extreme, a phrase that is heard commonly among witches who are not wiccan is that 'Wicca is nothing more than Christianity in Drag'. The experiences you two talked about with the ninny coven is typical of Wicca after 1990. The oldtimers from the 60's and 70's are not so childish. I call them Llewellyn Wiccans, after the publishing house that made witchcraft a household word with such brilliant pieces of literature as 'Why do Bad Spells Happen to Good Witches?--Teen Edition'. (RMEs) Even the obviously faddish tv show Buffy the Vampire Slayer made fun of ninny covens---when Willow started college she attended a meeting of a coven on campus and after some inane drivvle about the Mother Moon etc they proceeded to discuss some stupid bake sale and how it would empower them! Willow left and went on to kick some serious witchcraft butt, even tho the show did portray that as negative.

It is like going down the cereal aisle of the grocery store....you got Froot Loops and Cocoa Puffs, and Banana Nut Crunch and Granola, then you got good ole Corn Flakes and Grape Nuts and oatmeal.... we need variety. I can't imagine what a world would be like if everyone was a witch---there would be nothing to do.

Ravyn

asleif_dufansdottir

but I have reservations about the Wiccan Rede.

Which Rede? Hey, you knew somebody had to ask.

Seriously, though, since it has implications for this thread, the most quoted section of the Rede says something like (variations abound)

"An it harm none, do what you will"

Ok, so far as it goes. Note, it does Not say you are not to harm anyone...what it says is, if it doesn't harm anyone, go ahead and do what you want to. The implication being (in my opinion), if it does harm someone (and how many of our actions do not directly or indirectly harm another being? Even driving a car pollutes and harms the environment), then use your best judgement and accept the consequences.

I don't consider myself technically Wiccan. I'm more of a non-denominational Pagan (animist and animatist) who uses a stripped-down form of Wiccan ritual structure.

To those who are reading along and scratching their heads...there are Witches, Wiccans, Pagans, Heathens and a variety of others of non-Abrahamic (Jew, Christian, Muslim) faiths. The last 3 mentioned are religious affiliations. The first is not necessarily.

neverthere

The Wiccan Rede is "If it harm none, do what thou will" there are of course many different ways of saying it but that is the basic. And you have to think how far your actions will affect people.

LMAO Rayvn, have to agree with you on soooooo many points, especially the cereal comparisons, it's great!

Diana

GentlyFeral

Sixy,

So is starting my car [a form of energy manipulation], and I believe that one would have better success just running over the accursed!

Yeah, but that's so ... so traceable.

GentlyFeral

Spells, Wiccans, and Witchcraft

Share this