From: dhardin@bbn.com (Dawn Hardin)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Nomenclature...i am confused
Date: 15 Dec 1992 20:25:50 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

In article <kre-141292200449@b61693.student.cwru.edu>, kre@po.CWRU.edu (Keith R.W. Elflein) writes:
> I have just recently begun to read this bb because i am interested in
> getting to know more about pagan beliefs and practices. I still am new at
> this, and am trying to make a decision as to where my beliefs are, but i
> have always been drawn to pagan beliefs and the like ever since i was a
> child. But i have noticed that in many articles some of the people who
> state that they are pagan also call themselves "witches." Now, a witch is
> someone who has sold her soul to evil, last time i checked. I thought that
> pagans believed in worshiping the life-force that flows through nature.
> That, to me, is certainly not evil, but the life-force which flows from the
> higher power. I need someone to clear this up for me please. Thankyou,

Wow, it's really strange to hear from someone who has such a positive
take on paganism and such a negative take on witches.  I guess old
propaganda dies hard.  

I guess the books to recommend for this one are anything by Gerald Gardner
and _The God of the Witches_ by Margaret Murray.  

The short form of the story is that the witches that were killed in 
Europe were really survivors of the pre-christian pagan religions of
Europe.  The god of the witches, the Horned God or the Green Man, looked
like Satan to the inquisitors of the time, and they didn't know what to
make of the Goddess -- there are references to Aradia, or Herodia, or Diana
or the Queen of the Fairies in the trials of the time, but not as many as
to the Horned God.  Murray's (do I have that name right?) hypothesis is
that when someone is torturing you, you tell them what you want to hear,
and so the trial accounts of the time contain a lot of crap mixed up with
some real knowledge of the old religion.

Gardner then said that the old religions survived to the present day 
(he published in the 40's) and that he was initiated into a coven of
witches that preserved the old earth-loving religion of pre-Christian
England.

Murray's hypothesis is a bit shaky, while Gardner's claims are at least 
75% horseshit, but who cares?  Many modern pagans prefer to call themselves
witches either because they believe that the witches killed by the church
really did follow our religion, or because they want to show solidarity
to innocent people who didn't get along with the powers that be, or
because they think the word has emotional power.

(Or because they want to piss their parents off.  Or because they like
people to look at them weird.  Or because they want morons to be afraid
of them.)

I usually call myself a pagan because I don't want to stir up any more
trouble than I'm usually already in.  I sometimes feel that it's 
unnecessarily beligerant to use the word "witch" but then I sometimes
feel that it's unnecessarily wimpy to avoid it.

And for Goddess's sake, kid, if you think witches have given themselves
over to evil, may I suggest that you check out alt.satanism sometime?
Just for laughs, you understand.

Dawn

Joseph Campbell gave me hope and now I have been saved.
"Folk Song" by Bongwater
Newsgroups: alt.pagan