HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ba@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (B.A. Davis-Howe)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Gardenarian and Alexandrian Wicca
Date: 4 Sep 92 20:58:04 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

lib1p@rosie.uh.edu (Tammy Stark Blandino) writes:

>Stewart Farrar originally became a Wiccan under the Alexandian
>system.  He is now a Gardenerian.  In the reprint of his book
>_What witches do_ he spends some time discussing the two in
>preface and in notes to the original text.

Stewart Farrar is still Alexandrian, thought he is what he jokingly calls a
"reformed Alexandrian".  His practices have moved more toward the Gardnerian
(i.e., his coven works skyclad most of the time, rather than only occasionally),
but he has not stopped being Alexandrian because of that.  He and Janet address
this point in one of the volumes of _A Witches Bible Compleat_.  Of course, 
telling Alexandrian from Gardnerian is impossible without a scorecard. :-)


              Merry meet, merry part, merry meet again,
                               Br'anArthur

Queer, Peculiar, and Wyrd! :-)

******************************************************************************
Newage is hypoallergenic spirituality--
it's for people who are allergic to the word religion.
                                   --Jon Jay Obermark
From: ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T. Murphy)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Hello!
Date: 14 Sep 92 23:48:56 GMT
Organization: Ailanthus Project

scotts@meltdown.chi.il.us (Scott Szakonyi) writes:

> Just wanted to say hello -- I am a refugee from the Pod-net, which no longer
> available in Chicago.  The discussion here looks great.  BTW, I am a follower
> of the Norse Pagan tradition, and would like to make contact with any others
> the net...
>
> Freya's blessings!
> Hawkmoon

hi hawkmoon!  i remember you!!!  POD-net died?  we stopped getting it up here
too - i heard rumors of political infighting, but i don't actually KNOW
anything.  i was on under my own name sometimes, and under Autumn Greysquirrel
at others.

which, for everyone else, is NOT my magic name, my coven name, my wiccan name,
or anything of the sort, just so you know.  it was suggested to me when i
discovered PODS that i should have an alias, so i acquired one...  peopel may
make of my choice of names what they will  B)

                                        -ailsa

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
                    ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com
                                                          ________
And when they came to cut the forest,             Silence \      / Action
They cut my heart, they cut my bones.                =     \    /    =
                                                   Death    \  /    Life
                   -Cecelia Ostorow                          \/
From: amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Coming out to Parents (was books for new pagans)
Date: 14 Sep 92 21:06:18 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at Austin


I guess I've been pretty lucky with my folks.  When I was seventeen I
converted to Catholicism (which was the religion of my paternal
grandmother and her family so it's not like it was that big a deal),
so I already wasn't the same religion as my parents when the subject
came up.  We never really talked about it until the December before I
got engaged.  It was winter solstice, and we were driving from my
grandmother's house to my parents' (about 3 hours).  It was pitch
black, and somewhere in the thirty-degree vicinity.  Any road, we were
talking about my boyfriend (now my husband), and what type of wedding
we would be having if we were to get married, et cetera.  I said that
I wouldn't necessarily want a Protestant wedding, and my mother said
that that was understandable.  Then I said that we probably wouldn't
even want any kind of Christian wedding at all.

Silence.  You could hear the stars burning outside.

What the hell, I figure, it's thirty degrees outside and we're 80
miles from the house.  What can they do?  So I explained that I was a
Witch.

My father didn't say anything; my mother started asking me questions
-- not threatening or hostile, just genuinely curious.  I got her
copies of _The Spiral Dance_ and _Drawing Down the Moon_, and she read
them between Christmas and New Year's.  After that, everything was
just fine.

When we did get engaged and decide to have a handfasting, it fell to
my mother to explain to relatives ("It's a nature-oriented
denomination"), or not, as the case may be.  I still don't think my
grandmother really understands why my wedding was outdoors and why I
wore a green dress but that's okay.  Mostly, they thought it was a
garden wedding with funky clothes.

Two years after all this, I can talk to my mother quite freely about
it, and she's even been to a women's gathering with me.  My father is
a little stuffier about it, but if I talk about Celtic heritage stuff
or trees and nature cycles, everything's fine.  And now that my
daughter's born, nobody is trying to kidnap her and convert her or
anything like that.

As I said, I guess I've been pretty lucky.  But even though I'm out to
my parents, my friends and in public, I still haven't explained to
some of my older relatives or the parents of my friends.  And my main
concern now that I have a child is how to teach her not to be ashamed
of what we are, but at the same time let her know that what we do
isn't always anybody's business.

It's a tough line to walk sometimes, I think.

Well, that's been my experience to date.  Maybe one day this won't be
something we have to worry about.

-- 
-----Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik-------------------------------*<:-)-------------
"Queens never make bargains."  -- The Red Queen, _Through the Looking Glass_
-----amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu--------------The University of Texas @Austin---
From: eburke@aludra.usc.edu (Kethry)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: The lord of the dance
Date: 14 Sep 1992 20:38:58 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aludra.usc.edu


Please, post it on the board...I know the Xtian vesion of it from
my "good little girl to my parents" days, but I would really like
to see the pagan version as it seems other people would...

BTW, to those looking for sand dollars ont he East Coast, in the 
Mediterranean, I'm working on it...With school and work and all it's
taking a little longer than I thought it would...:-)

	Blessed be,
	   Kethry
If you e-mail me, do it to eburke@huey.csun.edu, thanks....
From: reykja@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Reykja Sigurdsson)
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 22:18:43 GMT
Subject: Re: Leaving the USA
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: alt.pagan

In alt.pagan, lib1p@rosie.uh.edu (Tammy Stark Blandino) writes:

> There has been a thread where people have talked about leaving
> this country if things get to bad.  Others have flamed about
> this leaving.  Saying that they should stay and fight to make it
> a better country.
> 
> CHOICE
> 
> It all comes down to choices.  Our religion thrives on it.  As in
> our religion "All paths are but different paths to the same end".
> One must choose the path which is CORRECT FOR THEM.  If that path
> is to leave, then leave.  If that path is to stay, then stay.
> You should never critize someone for their choices.  Right or wrong
> it is theirs to make.  If they are wrong then they will learn from
> it.  If it is right then they will learn from it also.
> 
> With all the intolerance out there against us, can't we try and be
> a little more tolerant of each other.
> 
> Blessed Be,
> 
> Tammy
> lib1p@jetson.uh.edu


          Thanks, Tammy! That was my point exactly. Everyone has a 
different journey to take and it isn't up to us to judge another. It 
wouldn't occur to me to say that anyone who chooses to stay here is 
an idiot/ignorant/lazy/blah/blah. 

          Tolerance of each other *IS* what it's all about. Even if we
don't like what someone chooses to do, we need to let everyone follow
his/her path. Otherwise, we are no different that Pat Robertson and 
his mass of *&*T&% followers. (Sorry. A judgement slipped through! ;-) 


-reykja

rks@teal.csn.org     (not above address. above is work address.) ]


                         The seeking of wisdom is the highest virtue- 
                                           Big O


Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: pagan self-defense
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 14 Sep 92 20:22:03 GMT

In article <1992Sep14.190521.8027@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>In article <2AB3EE30.28437@news.service.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>>Oh, please.  All I'm saying is that if we are turning out a large enough
>>number of fucked-up people that we are forced to gear a substantial part
>>of our society toward dealing with them, we should be looking for the
>>root cause of the trouble.
>
>That's wonderful, but it has no place in a discussion about what to do
>AFTER they've been turned out.

Oh?  Why not?  Discussions on the net have fractured and spawned others
before.  Why not now?  The fact that other people are posting followups
shows that the subject has an audience.  

>No changes in the criminal justice system can keep people from
>"entering" it.  If we're interested in reducing crime, we have
>to look towards the causes, not our responses because said responses
>are, by definition, too late.

My point!  We're not finding out WHY there are so many of them!  Why?
Because such motivations are "soft," and "fuzzy," and anyone who
attempts them is a starry-eyed liberal. 

>>There are more black men who are crooks and criminals than in college.
>
>Yup, and they're no different than white men in the same situation.

I'm saying that this then shows that there is a societal factor in
determining who's a crook and who's not.  I'm not saying that they are
any different from the white guys, god damn it.  Please read what I say
before you pick it apart. 

>That "situation" isn't much related to the criminal justice system
>and won't be affected by "rehabilitation" vs "fry them all" discussions.

Who sez?  Oh, let's not talk about it.  Nothing we say can accomplish
anything, so let's just forget it. 

>>>	The best mankind can do is identify these individuals when 
>>>possible and keep them seperated from us normal people, whom they will
>>>always prey on when given the opportunity.
>>
>>You are making a serious mistake in separating criminals from so-called
>>normal people (yourself, of course, included in the latter group, as
>>usual).  WE are the "normal" people; we are also the crooks.
>
>No, he's not making a mistake in separating them; they are different
>in interesting ways.  Those differences aren't surprising given their
>experiences, but they do exist.  Ignoring those difference won't make
>them go away and trying to "undo" them is way too late, even if we
>could/would.

So if ignoring them does nothing and doing anything about them does
nothing, pray tell what is to be done?  Nothing?  Just let them develop
and kill people and then say, "Oops!  Well, we can't give you your loved
one back, but we can lock up the offender where they will be cared for
for years at public expense."

I'm not fucking talking about undoing them.  I'm talking about finding
out, and I repeat here -- WHY ARE WE TURNING OUT SUCH A LARGE NUMBER OF
NUTS and what we can do to prevent this from happening. 

Janis C.
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Coming out to Parents (was books for new pagans)
Date: 11 Sep 92 23:28:41 GMT
Organization: University of California, Irvine

In article <0096075E.49901CE0@Msu.oscs.montana.edu> uphrrmk@Msu.oscs.montana.edu (Me) writes:
>  Ciaran, You sound very wise.  I'm grateful that you posted this.  I'm the 
>twenty-one year-old who was trying to recommend books, too.  Lately I've had a
>terrible time with myself, because recently I've made the decision to break 
>away for good from my entire family.  

This IS hard, and for reasons other than simply the (forced)
renunciation of people you've had around you all your life.  I can hear
what they will say now -- "My daughter joined some sort of cult.  Now,
she doesn't even talk to us.  THey've taken her from us."

And, a concerned friend will say, "I know.  I've heard from a sister's
best friend's hairdresser's wife's cousin who got involved with the
Moonies.  They didn't let her communicate with her family either." 

Little do either of them realize that THEY turned their backs on YOU.  

>The hardest part of this is weighing
>out how much you can honor your parent/s when you're not very close to them, 
>and what consists of duty to a family who really doesn't care that much about 
>what happens to you; save that it makes interesting gossip at family functions.

My heart truly does go out to you, hon. 

>                              Blessed be the ones that love us,

And may the rest of them wake up and realize what they're doing. 

Blessings,
Janis 
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey)
Subject: Re: Men's Mysteries
Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'.
	<16995@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 23:22:22 GMT

In article <fSq2OT9@quack.sac.ca.us>, 
pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey) writes:
>An idea for what it's worth. Go on a quest, a journey, road trip by car,
>backpack, just walk, whatever, some environment that forces the people
>involved to address only the issue, no distractions. 

In article <16995@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> 
darsie@eecs.ucdavis.edu (Richard Darsie) writes:
>This is a good idea. When I was a boy my parents and I lived for 4
>years in Kathmandu, Nepal (my dad was with USAID). This naturally
>was the best 4 years of my life, but the highlight was when my dad
>took me on a 12-day trek up in the Himalayas in northern Nepal.
>It was right around my 12th birthday.
>This was by far the nicest thing he ever did for me and it was 
>definitely a peak experience (except getting altitude sickness
>in the middle of the night at Tangboche). I have never before
>viewed this experience as a "rite of passage", but Paul's post
>made me realize that if any experience was a rite of passage for
>me, this trip was. 12 days of walking in the mountains, in a 
>basically alien (but very friendly) culture (we often stayed in
>Sherpa homes). ...

>I'll post more about Nepal if folks are interested.

Yeah, great post. Can you remember some of the things you talked about?
And the Buddhism you are talking about is a special kind, Tibetan
Buddhism. Have you read the Tibetan Book of the Dead? And I should
correct myself, you are talking about Nepal which is probably slightly
different from Tibet, but basically this is where Indian Buddhism fled
to when Islam invaded the lowlands.
From: v102qqq5@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (HIGH PRIESTESS)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Dudleytown Conn
Date: 9 Sep 92 20:55:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41


I am interesting in anyone having information about Dudleytown Connecticut
and many of the supernatural things that have been going on there for
over two hundred and fifty years when the settlers kicked the indians off
their land which is now called Dudleytown. No one lives there, because of
the supernatural forces that are there. Many ghost hunters will go there just 
to try to prove or disprove the theory, it is known that many photographers 
have gone in to the forest in Dudleytown and died, or just barely escaped.
There are friends of mine who took photo's of this place and strange things
appeared on the picture. I am positive they were not superimposed. No one
goes there at night. One friend had and experience of being slapped very hard
when standing in the foundation in one of the buildings. There must be someone
out there who has heard of this Dudleytown, and the ancestors of the Dudley
family who came to the colonies(STATES) from Spain, possibly France. There
were four brothers....One of them went mad, the other three mysteriously
disappeared....Where are these Dudley ancestors.....any Dudleytown experiences?
Please respond via E-mail  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                               High Priestess
From: n9020351@henson.cc.wwu.edu (James Douglas Del-Vecchio)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: pagan self-defense
Date: 13 Sep 92 23:36:26 GMT
Organization: Western Washington University

cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

>I though the penal system was supposed to REHABILITATE people.  Yeah,

	Where did you get that idea?  It is not intended to rehabilitate 
anyone, and never has been.  Penal is short for penalize.

>right.  If we have to kill them because we're failing to rehabilitate
>them, then we're not doing it right.  It's like a society that says that
>they have no abused children because when they find one, they kill it.
>We should be finding out WHY our culture keeps turning out loonies, not
>letting them get loony and then kacking `em.

	Your theory, part of the overall "life as a day care center
for adults" world view, is shared by some, but fortunately not most,
adults.

	Criminals, for the most part, do crime because they dig crime.
They have discovered that life is not a day care, and that they can
really do whatever they want and get away with it most of the time.

	The best mankind can do is identify these individuals when 
possible and keep them seperated from us normal people, whom they will
always prey on when given the opportunity.

I know you disagree, and that's fine.

Jim Del Vecchio
From: st923058@pip.cc.brandeis.edu (Rosaleen Dhu)
Subject: lots o'stuff
Reply-To: st923058@pip.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 23:41:55 GMT

To everyone who has been replying to my post about how to explain Wicca and
paganism to my parents, thank you very much. I wrote down the names of the
books you gave me and will look for them. I'm going to try giving my mom
"Mists of Avalon", she being more of a fiction reader--and a religious
liberal--than my dad, and maybe she can talk him around.
To Kethry: I am also a major Mercedes Lackey fan. I agree, the DT books were
not as good as some of the others. The Valdemar ones are my favorites,
although I also really loved "By The Sword" and "Winds Of Fate" because
they tell more about Tarma's people and the Hawkbrothers. (Of course, the
Vows and Honor duology was also helpful.)
To Morgan: yeh, you want to watch the herbalism stuff in a lot of the books
you read. My Craft sister has loaned me some of her books, and the herbalism
in them was misleading, if not downright wrong. I study herbalism too, but
I do it from several different sources, one of which is David Conway's
"The Magic Of Herbs" and another of which is a regular field guide to make
certain I'm picking the right things. I have a copy of "Celtic Magic" 
somewhere--its author, D.J. Conway, is, as far as I know, no relation to
the author of my beloved herbal guide--and I thought it was okay for people
who think "it looks cool" but not for serious practitioners. I did find
the tables of correspondence useful, but Ms. Conway obviously had not read
up on her mythology, because she left out most of the interesting things on
the table of corresponding deities.
To all the people whose posts I've been reading: I just want to let you know
how glad I am that I'm on this newsgroup. I've only been on for a week anbd
already I've learned a lot. More than that, though, it's really nice to
read other people's thoughts. And, coming from a high school where the vast
majority of people weren't very nice, it's really refreshing to read things
written by people who aren't afraid to treat other people like human beings.
(I'm thinking specifically of the Tuneweaver's posting a song as a gift for
Ciaran.) Talking on alt.pagan usually makes my day a little nicer, and I
just wanted to say thanks.
				Rosaleen Dhu
From: eburke@aludra.usc.edu (Kethry)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: hello again
Date: 11 Sep 92 16:34:38 GMT
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aludra.usc.edu


Another possible way to choose a name would be to choose one from a 
_favorite_ book.  I happen to be a _very_ avid Mercedes Lackey fan, and
one of her characters is gee, Kethry.  I didn't think about the name
until the post about names, but I guess it's a little more than coincidence
that I chose Kethry.  If you are not a Misty fan, then Kethry is a mage
from the White Winds school...From what I've been able to learn is a lot 
like the Craft when it comes to morals and ethics.....

Hmmmmmmmm......

Bright blessings,
Kethry
From: altheimm@nextnet.csus.edu (Murray Altheim)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Canada (was: Re: Freedom of Religion as well as everything else)
Date: 9 Sep 92 01:16:51 GMT
Organization: California State University Sacramento

In article <1992Sep6.010842.12127@u.washington.edu> mimir@milton.u.washington.edu (Al Billings) writes:
>In article <1992Sep5.013215.22342@csus.edu> altheimm@nextnet.csus.edu (Murray Altheim) writes:
>>
>>Bullshit.
>>
>>When you can't recognize some blatantly anti-socialist propaganda
>>promulgated by the American press, remember that in 1977 the CIA had
>>a _documented_ number of people working from their budget in the 
>>New York times. Now? Who knows?
>
> Gee, that Canadian doctor MUST have been lying and knows less than you
>about the business.
>
>Wassail,
>Grendel

...completely ignoring my mentioning of the absolutely fruitless discussion
of anecdotal information. Quote me some statistics from reliable Canadian
and American sources, and I might listen. As I said, my mother is always
telling me of someone who was electrocuted by a flashlight. An anecdote.

I was not contesting the validity of "that" Canadian doctor's opinion, only
stating that it is only the opinion of one person. An anecdote. And do YOU
know this doctor? Do you know he exists, or that his statements haven't been
doctored (excuse the pun)? I seldom believe what I read in the press, and I
stopped watching television as a source of information A LONG TIME AGO.

Blessings,

Murray the Undoctored.

-- 
Murray M. Altheim      "Ils ont l'orteil de Bouc, & d'un Chevreil l'oreille,
Instructional Consultant    La corne d'un Chamois, & la face vermeille
CSU, Sacramento          Comme un rouge Croissant: & dancent toute nuict
altheimm@csus.edu       Dedans un carrefour, ou pres d'une eau qui bruict."