You Are A Coven Of Witches

The Wicca-Pagan Times has posted an interview with Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, transcribed from a 2001 radio interview. The whole things starts off with how Gerald Gardner started Wicca and talks about the evolution of modern Witchcraft and Paganism.

“That’s difficult because it’s hypothesis. There’s no factual basis, there’s only hypothesis to go on. We believe and I think a lot of other people out there believe that he actually didn’t really find Witchcraft. He believed he’d found Witchcraft but you’ve got to remember that during that period people studying the occult were very upper class. People like ourselves and your self wouldn’t have had a hope in Hel of being involved in the occult scene. We are talking of the wealthy; the elite. Gerald had been a tea planter out in Malaya and when he returned to Britain it was just after the First World War. You’ve got to remember how many people in Europe died in the trenches in the 1st WW and as a result of that there was a revolution going on. People wanted a spirituality; they’d lost it. So many people became involved in the occult via things like Rosicrucionism, Theosophy and so on. It would have appealed to these upper class people. We think that what Gerald actually found when he went to the New Forest when he discovered the Rosicrucian Theatre, wasn’t a coven of Witches but a group of Theosophists. He so wanted to believe they were the remnants of an old religion that he actually said to them, “You are a coven of witches.” I think it’s very possible that they turned around and said to him, “No, we’re not,” and tried to explain to him what they were, but he wouldn’t have it.”

The whole thing is worth a read. Including the parts about how several Wiccan leaders were all coming to a consensus on self-initiation at around the same time.

Christmas War is Over (If You Want It)

Now that the annual “War on Christmas” has died down we plunge head-first into New Years celebrations. Will there be any invented friction here? Bill Wangemann, writing for The Sheboygan Press lays out the pagan history of our New-Year festivities.

“There are many traditions related to the New Year. One of the common symbols of the holiday is a newborn baby, which represents a new beginning or a rebirth of the New Year. The tradition of a baby to signifying the celebration actually dates back to Greece in about 600 B.C. The celebration of a New Year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4,000 years ago. In those distant times, New Year’s began with the first new moon after the vernal equinox (the first day of spring). To people in those long ago days, it made perfect sense to celebrate a New Year and a new beginning on the first day of spring. It is the Romans that we have to thank for New Year’s Day being celebrated on Jan. 1; or more correctly, Julius Caesar. In 46 B.C. he rearranged the calendar, which by that time, was way off sync with the sun so that New Year’s Day fell on Jan. 1. To do this, he had to extend the previous year for 455 days. The early Christian Church banned the celebration of ushering in a new year as a pagan custom. Jan. 1 has been celebrated as a holiday by western nations for only about 400 years.”

Of course Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and some protestant sects are in the midst of the twelve days of Christmas. But these are hardly acknowledged by the popular culture outside of the Christmas carol. So perhaps a temporary truce will be drawn. At least till we get to Easter and the other rites of spring.

Another Counterculture Conversion

It is a well-worn tale by now. Person falls into sin and immoral behavior, person hits bottom and finds a caring voice and a place in a Christian church. Person turns life around and shares testimony. You could write a mad-lib version. The trick to keeping people interested is to find new twists and turns on the old conversion story. David Kithcart writing on the WDC Media web site focuses on professional skateboarder (and former drug addict) Jay Haizlip.

“Jay lived from one crack-cocaine high to the next. In between hits, he planned when and how he would be able to do the drug again. But he never would have imagined that he would end up doing some of the things he did. He was so driven and tormented to do drugs that he took his son into violent neighborhoods, crack houses where people were shot outside the front door, places the police would raid.”

So far, so good. The story is the usual drugs and madness conversion tale spiced up with the fact that Jay is a pro skateboarder. Sure to appeal to that coveted youth market. But then, perhaps feeling that drugs, violence, a broken home, and having your kids watch you smoke crack isn’t enough they throw in an occult chaser.

“The man and his wife [who lead Haizlip to Christ] had sensed other things in Jay’s life such as witchcraft. (Jay’s mother had been involved in Wicca and similar things growing up.) Through prayer, they broke the powers of everything that had ever worked in Jay’s life.”

So now his mother’s dalliances with Wicca while he was growing up helped lead him to an evil world of crack-smoking? Since they never hint that Haizlip himself was involved with the occult this seems to be a case of adding “spice” to the story. The truly modern conversion tale has to have occult practices and witchcraft in it to be complete it seems. The prayer warriors must be fed with spiritual battle so a “witch” must be produced. I somehow doubt that if the mother had been into Buddhism the article would report that “Jay’s mother had been involved in Buddhism and similar things growing up.”

I suppose Wiccans should feel flattered that they hold such a place of prominence in modern Christianity. After all they are naming what form of rebellion their children should take when they become dissatisfied with Christianity.

Happy Birthday!

No real blogging today, I’m busy with family obligations. But I just want to wish a happy birthday to Mithras, Sol Invictus, Jesus of Nazareth, Sir Isaac Newton, Dorothy Wordsworth, Clara Barton, Humphrey Bogart, Cab Calloway, Quentin Crisp, Rod Serling, Sissy Spacek, Annie Lenox, and Shane MacGowan.

Happy Holidays! Back tomorrow.