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The Hard Work of\u00a0Our Pioneers<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s pretty well known that Paganism, Witchcraft and the various related religions and traditions aren\u2019t exactly well understood and generally not well accepted.\u00a0 But decades and decades ago it was worse.\u00a0 The stereotypes that still exist today were believed by so many more people.\u00a0 Back then, you tell someone you\u2019re a witch or Pagan and you have a 90% chance of being accused of all sorts of awful things.\u00a0 Today, you have a 50\/50 chance of that or the alternative, \u201cOh so you\u2019re like one of those Wiccas or something?\u201d<\/p>\n
Our pioneers and predecessors must have spent a lot of time and energy attempting to dispel the myths and stereotypes about us.\u00a0 More, they would have done so in some dangerous circumstances.\u00a0 It is because of these people that we have that 50\/50 chance of being stereotyped as Wiccans instead of as baby eaters who are probably going to curse the neighbours cows.\u00a0 It\u2019s because of them that half the people we meet do not automatically assume we worship the devil, summon demons and ghosts, curse everyone for all sorts of reasons, sacrifice animals in blood filled orgies, eat people, kidnap babies and make potions out of bats wings and newt eyes.<\/p>\n
So, now we aren\u2019t automatically assumed to be evil killers by the majority of the population.\u00a0 We are more accepted and tolerated by the populace.\u00a0 Not in all places, not by all people, but certainly more people than if these pioneers hadn\u2019t worked so hard for our legitimacy.<\/p>\n
But What\u2019s Really Accepted?<\/h2>\n
The problem here is that the myths and stereotypes our predecessors dispelled weren\u2019t all myths and stereotypes.\u00a0 And the information they spread about us is not exactly entirely true.<\/p>\n
Removed from our religions and traditions are things like cursing, hexing, binding, demonology, summoning, animal sacrifice and more.\u00a0 Replacing those is the idea that Pagans and Witches follow a rule of harming none, and we believe in the threefold return, a bastardised karmic system that is a lot harsher and faster acting than the original karma.\u00a0 We are a peaceful people, loving and kind and we don\u2019t hurt anyone or anything.<\/p>\n
The worst that we might do is rant and rave about animals and mother nature, we might chain ourselves to trees and yell at you for eating meat.\u00a0 We might dress weird and use odd symbols, we might dance naked in circles and we might do things that are called spells, but probably aren\u2019t anything but poetry anyway.\u00a0 We are safe, a little odd, but safe and no threat at all.<\/p>\n
But this is far from the truth, far from reality.\u00a0 Many witches hex and curse, some Pagans and Polytheists and Witches do sacrifice animals, many of us don\u2019t give a toss about the idea of harming none and that threefold return.\u00a0 We don\u2019t fit all the old stereotypes, and not all of us will fit any of the old stereotypes.\u00a0 But the fact is, more of us don\u2019t fit the new stereotypes.<\/p>\n
Is Paganism Legitimate and Accepted?<\/h2>\n
If the things that people accept about us are not reflective of the reality of us and our religions and practices, then can it really be said that Paganism is legitimate and accepted by those outside of Paganism?\u00a0 The answer is a simple hard no!<\/p>\n
The Paganism and Witchcraft that was legitimised and deemed acceptable to the masses is the Paganism and Witchcraft that only a small number of people actually follow\/practice.\u00a0 The rest of us practice religions and traditions that are deemed unacceptable \u2013 as is obvious by the fact that the effort to legitimise us included the removal of us.<\/p>\n
Are we as barbaric in the eyes of our own pioneers and predecessors as we are in the eyes of the Christianised populace?\u00a0 It seems so going by the judgment some of our still living pioneers are aiming at us.<\/p>\n
If you curse or hex, you aren\u2019t one of those they fought so hard for.<\/p>\n
If you practice animal sacrifice, you aren\u2019t one of those they fought so hard for.<\/p>\n
If you worship the devil (or are a Satanist or Luciferian), you aren\u2019t one of those they fought so hard for.<\/p>\n
If you summon demons, you aren\u2019t one of those they fought so hard for.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t follow the rule of harm none, and threefold return, you aren\u2019t one of those they fought so hard for.<\/p>\n
If you are any of these things, you are not part of the Paganism that was presented to the public.\u00a0 You aren\u2019t part of the witchcraft that people find acceptable, or tolerable.\u00a0 No one fought hard for you as they sought to legitimise a religion by wrapping it in an appeasing Jesus bow.<\/p>\n
Maybe We Should Undo Their Hard Work<\/h2>\n
We owe a fair bit to those who are named our pioneers.\u00a0 But in this one area, perhaps people should stop acting like we owe them anything.\u00a0 What they did for us wasn\u2019t actually a good thing \u2013 how can it be good that we can\u2019t be open about the things we do in our religions?<\/p>\n
So maybe we need to undo their hard work.\u00a0 Maybe we need to reveal a bit more of the truth of who and what so many of us are.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t all love and light, we aren\u2019t all harm none, we aren\u2019t all safe and unthreatening.\u00a0 That\u2019s the truth and we should be able to reveal that without fear \u2013 not just without fear of the public judging us, but fear of our own pioneers judging us.<\/p>\n
Things like these public mass hexings and bindings are perhaps more important than we realise.\u00a0 Not just for what they are aimed at doing, but for what they aren\u2019t aimed at doing.\u00a0 Bringing a bit more of us to the light, bringing a bit more of our truth out.\u00a0 There is a lot of work to do to gain at least a semblance of tolerance for the less pleasing aspects of our many religions.<\/p>\n
Maybe we should get to it \u2013 instead of acting like we owe something to those who denied us the right to exist as we are.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The problem here is that the myths and stereotypes our predecessors dispelled weren’t all myths and stereotypes. And the information they spread about us is not exactly entirely true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2764,"featured_media":1158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11],"tags":[18,34,31,20,32,29,103,25,60,59],"class_list":["post-1157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pagan-blogosphere","category-pagan-community","tag-debates","tag-history","tag-misconceptions","tag-opinion","tag-paganism","tag-polytheism","tag-rant","tag-religion","tag-witch","tag-witchcraft"],"yoast_head":"\n