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Why Wiccans Still Suck Forum
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| Viewing Page 1 of 1 (Total Posts: 5) |
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Sincere White Seeker
Jan 17, 08 - 9:05 PM |
Wicca and Cultural Theft: Some Intense Issues
Thank you for putting all this information on your site. I always try to see everyone's point of view especially First Nation's peoples. I have always been annoyed by how strident and intolerant my neo-pagans aquaintances are, but I didn't realize that Indigenous people were also offended by their cultural theft/borrowing. I have been struggling with whiteness issues lately and reading a lot about unpacking white privillege. This is intense and painful work and I have come to realize that I, like every other white person, have racist ideas still stuck inside my head. I have made a firm committment to work on getting rid of my indoctrination that white makes you right and that whiteness entitles you to anything that you want. The more I read about the issue of cultural theft, the more I see it as subtle, unconscious racism. I came across a post in a blog that criticizes ecclectic Neo pagans for what Indigenous people think of as cultural theft. The link is here: http://www.everythingunderthemoon.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=58984&sid=e5f41a801fa56133413726bc4b9866fa I hope its ok to repost it here since the link may not work for everyone. I am interested in what other critics of Wicca think of this post. This is an article a wrote a few months ago. At the time it was written it was a rant and is rather inflammatory. It is not intended to insult as some people believe. A follow up article was written to address some of the e-mail I recieved. Everywhere you look you see it. Every other Pagan book you pick up you see it. The mixing of different cultures, beliefs, and religions seems to be all the rage among our Neo-pagan friends. The Neo-pagan community calls this eclecticism. Eclecticism has grown quite popular in recent years. Why? It’s because people do not want to take the time or effort to follow a set path and simply make their own from scratch. It is sad that this has become such a common place in the pagan community. We see this most commonly in Wicca. With such various forms of it like Celtic Wicca, Norse Wicca, etc. etc. etc. it’s amazing it all just doesn’t collapse into a maze of misconceptions, misinformation, and just plain crap. All this mixing creates a mockery of the cultures and beliefs in almost all cases. People even mix paganism and Christianity. How is it possible to mix two very different things and make it work? It’s not possible. It just creates a mess. The same thing goes to every other belief, culture, religion, and tradition that one tries to mix. It just turns into a mess of distorted views, misinformation, and lack of facts and basis. People are now stealing and taking things from cultures and traditions without giving a thought to it. They just go with what feels right and not with what is right. The facts get distorted and the original idea is lost when this is done. A lot of times they won’t even give recognition to the sources of their thoughts and ideas when it’s obvious their belief is just a patchwork of traditions from many different beliefs. This is now an epidemic and has made a lot of paganism seeming “fluffy”. We as pagans make it a rule to stay away from all things fluffy. But we constantly see examples of how much our community has become saturated with it. We see this and are insulted by the continuous theft of our belief and cultures yet little has been done to educate. The only cure to this epidemic is education. We must learn not to turn away people with misconceptions so easily. We must educate people. So where did all this eclecticism originate? The mixing of traditions, cultures, religions, and beliefs have been going on since the beginning of time. It never has happened in the blatant and extreme way that is happening to Paganism today though. I believe the biggest factor in this is misinformation spread by “pagan” authors who write just for money and do not care what crap they spread. So the greed for money is one factor. We can also cite people’s laziness to truly study a path another factor. Also just general stupidity is of course reason for this. So we have three main factors why the problem persists today. But it still does not explain how it got its start. After Wicca got its start in the 50’s it grew fast. Its founder Gerald Gardner made it strictly a coven based and iniatory religion. It was a mystery religion more or less. Of course it took many years of study, devotion, and hard work to truly become Wicca. As we all know people can be rather lazy. People didn’t want to work for the right to be called Wicca. So now we come to the rise of modern Wicca (also known as Neo-Wicca). This is about the time insta-witch books began to get popular. Because people had become impatient with traditional Wicca many books were written for the “Solitary Wiccan”. These books contained little fact about traditional Wicca and promoted the idea of eclecticism and the “if it feels right do it” ideas. (Conti |
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Sincere White Seeker
Jan 17th, 2008 - 9:06 PM |
Re: Wicca and Cultural Theft: Continued
And so the seed was planted. The eclectic ideas spread like wildfire. People too lazy to work toward a religious path could easily create their own! The authors said so and as everyone knows the authors are always right. There is now a market for these books. And where there is a market for something there is money to be made. So this is where the money factor comes in. Authors who didn’t care about writing fiction as if it was fact could easily make a buck selling their insta-witch manuals. And unsuspecting newbie’s would fall into their traps and become seriously misinformed and become part of the problem. This is another reason why we should focus on education. The more people who know these books are crap the less of a problem we will have. Now which authors should one stay away from? Well for starters almost anything published by Llewellyn Publications. I can also list several authors. Silver RavenWolf: Her books for teens are misleading, misinformed, and she gives bad advice (such as tips for deceiving their parents). Douglas Monroe: Wrote complete fiction and passed it off as fact and said his books described real Celtic and Druidic practices. Truly it was just a work of idiocy. Though I know a lot of people will not like me including him Scott Cunningham’s books are one of the biggest promoters of this eclectic and “making it up as you go along” thinking. I suggest looking at the author’s sources and credentials and quickly scan over the book to determine if it is worth reading. We can also look at the examples of what Neo-pagan eclecticism has brought us. A good example would be Celtic Wicca. What an interesting combination. Especially since Wicca religion and Celt beliefs conflict in many ways. I know many Celtic Reconstructionist's who are insulted by this cultural and religious theft. There is also Christian Paganism. The conflicts in this are obvious. One of the definitions of Paganism is anything that isn’t Christian so there is no way the two can go together. To go to the extreme I have had someone tell me they were a Celtic Christian Wiccan who followed the Egyptian Pantheon. Don’t believe me? Well it is no joke though it is fun to joke about. It amazes me the things people come up with. Even the Native American beliefs are getting taken and being mixed with the Neo-Pagan beliefs. Some time ago the Dakota, Lakota, and some other tribe(s) met and made a declaration of war on anyone who stole something from their culture. The Indians have suffered much indignity because of these shameful acts. The white men just can’t stop doing enough to these people can they? Neo-shamanism seems as one of the biggest things "borrowed" from the Indians and distorted with Neo-pagan beliefs. Not to mention many other things. The Indian culture has been exploited far too much. A lot of people are tired of this ''mix whatever the hell I wanna and facts be ****ed" attitude that seems to be so popular today. Because of this the facts get distorted and lost. The ignorance people have for the original traditions, beliefs, and cultures grows everyday because of this constant mixing. It is sad that we do not care enough about the preservation of beliefs and cultures anymore and have to distort them as such. As I said before earlier in the article education is the best offense we have against this exploitation of other perversion of cultures and beliefs. |
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Danielle
Feb 19th, 2008 - 5:46 PM |
Re: Wicca and Cultural Theft: Neoshamanism is Masturbation
This article makes some good points. "Whiteness" is certainly a taboo subject among most neo-pagans. They don't like it if you point out that their religion is 99.99% white. There has to be a reason for this. I found this blog with an article entitled Neoshamanism is ************ http://anthropik.com/2005/10/neoshamanism-is-masturbation/ The author says, “Native peoples are often deeply insulted by “neoshamanism,” and with good reason. Castenada couldn’t even be bothered to make sure his fictive account of “a Yaqui way of knowledge” mesh with Yaqui beliefs. Neoshamans strike native peoples as hucksters, charlatans and frauds who, having stolen all their material possessions, are now set to rob their culture, as well. Neoshamans desecrate the last thing they have left–their beliefs.” It is not a very well known fact that Native people are insulted by neoshamanism. Maybe because whites control the media - the alternative and the mainstream. I would like to see more discussion about Wicca and cultural appropriation. If anyone knows of blogs or active forums that do this please post them. Danielle, A Recovering Ex-Pay-gun 
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Chris
Jun 16th, 2008 - 12:35 PM |
Re: Wicca and Cultural Theft: Some Intense Issues
ANd the ******* cow jumped over the ******* moon. Maybe I shouldn't say ****. Maybe it'll make me look angry. Maybe every ******* intelligent person here should get a grip and realize that if you have the ******* misinformation THIS is not the medium to best help. Anyone remember the intelligent teachings of the KKK??? And no one will remember you. Not for this ****. Err ******* **** anyhow. ***Legal Note*** I'm not Wiccan. I just get a kick out of bothering haters. Weeeeeeeell! It's just so nice to see all the haters gathered in one spot! Now stay here and leave the rest of us alone!! There is a connective knot that seems to bind you all. "I hate stupid people or people that spew stupid or false info." Very well. I have over a hundred fifty IQ I guess that give me the right to hate most people here if not all!!!! |
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Chris
Jun 19th, 2008 - 7:56 AM |
Re: Wicca and Cultural Theft: Some Intense Issues
Ok - this is my last visit here. I only came back because I knew it could open up a little to my exact point after a post, so one more visit was in order. But this is really not anything I want to dwell on for a number of reasons. A major one being that it is a waste of time to dwell on why who hates who, and really lame too. So in a round it off reply to all that would come - This IS a hate site. To say that it is not with welcome usage of stuff like WiKKKa is well just stupid. The KKK is a hater subculture. Period. To me it is not even rational to compare Wicca with the KKK. It is only a cheap ploy to gain superiority and put in a cheap cut down. And the IQ put in - well it should have been obvious and I can't believe I have to explain this again. I'll spell it out. And I'll use proper spelling too so I can't possibly get put down for being too common or stupid. Because you all see the logic in saying there are Wiccans that are stupid, can't spell, are uneducated in their own religion, and so on. . . Basically the idea being that people here have the right to bash an entire religion and people in it, well since everyone here justified themselves to be a hater because they are all sooooo much better and smarter - I was pointing out that if all can use the basis that they are all so much smarter and spell so much better, that gives them more rights, I was saying that following that logic I guess I have more rights than everyone spewing their hate. They want to say how they are so much smarter, I have a higher IQ than they do, so the logic laid down suggests that they would have to now listen to me. But now I am so shocked to see that someone is coming along saying their IQ is a few points higher and that gives them final rights. So shocked to see that. I just would have NEVER guessed that anyone would come along and do that!! But it does serve to make my point even more, doesn't it? Everyone hating here is just trying to prove one up. I am just so thrilled you win. Ya. Now you have more of a right to hate on your logic. Rules set by you. Ya. What a fun game. Still, all with an IQ under 155 have to listen to me, at least give me equal time. Or maybe we should get everyone IQ tested before they have a right to have a religion or perhaps we need to pass all ideals through the smartest yokel we can find?? And to anyone that will not get the inbred yokel hating haters idea idea I'm not even explaining. It already flew high over one head. The head of the one so much smarter than me I should add. In case the point is still not made - NO it does not give you the right to HATE because you're smarter or more well informed. NO you don't have the right to HATE because someone in that subculture ****** you off, even lots of someones. Spewing HATE remarks is not about free speech. NO Hate is not allowed as a good, health outlet to aggression of any kind. And all you'll ever get in return is hate. So decide if it's ok for someone to hate you back and decide if you want to live with that boundless, senseless aggression. I'll say only one thing more - This is hate, it should not have to be defended against by using wisdom or even with a level head. If someone opens their mouth and says "I hate" then they should expect retaliation to have no bounds, logic or consideration. There is no logic or bounds to hate. In the name of hate people can justify anything, war rape, murder and worse. There have even been implications here that Wiccans should burned as they claim to have been burned many moons ago. I do not care that someone spews false religion origins. It harms no one and is corrected ONLY with rationality and patience. Nothing is corrected with hate and boding ill to another. And the hate does hurt and when you begin it it will hurt you too. It is the oldest double edge sword. So though there may be some shame in looking stupid at a party saying hundreds of Wiccans were burned (false information) there is gigantic amounts of shame in saying that the person talking the false info needs to be burned. If all the energy to create hate sites and blog hate for stupidity was replaced with patience and respect you'd attain your goals you claim to have, ridding of the negative attributes, much more easily. I imagine that there are many here that know the teaching of the greats like Gandhi, MLK and Hitler, being the "well educated" folks you claim to be. Congrats. If you have ever learned about any of these greats Hitler is the only one that can covet your ideas without shame. Hope you're all proud. This was the perfect message to choose to first reply on I believe. You got returned to you what you put in with this very first post and deserved every ounce and will only earn more. Pat yourself on the back. I imagine everyone with the vast intellect gathered here already knew that. |
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