Too Scholarly

[Callisto]

If I recall correctly, what put me off was that it got into basic concepts, and then 60% of the book was about spell recipes. It's been awhile though. Have you read it?

Oh, ok. I thought you meant it was somehow too in-depth.

Yes, I've read Scott's books. They're very lightweight on Wicca for a couple of primary reasons. Mainly, actual Wicca is an initiatory mystery cult, a priesthood with no laity. Subsequently, it's not something that can be learned from books and engaged in a solitary capacity. Even initiates who are no longer active in a coven have no choice but to do a pared-down variation. There's also the issue of its inner-practices are oathbound and not something that could be covered in a book.

Another reason is that Cunningham didn't have extensive experience or knowledge of Wicca, he managed to attain First degree but didn't stick with anything long enough to know the extent of the religion. Couple that with Wicca being oathbound, he would not have been able to publicly write about it even if he had known. The purpose of those books was to show how a person could draw inspiration from Wicca to develop their own practice. However, the publisher can sell more books if they're marketed as being all you need in order to know and practice the religion. That and slapping the "wicca" label on anything and everything and not vetting whether authors are actual practitioners.

 

[The Hammer]

The Irish Celts also used to collect the heads of the battle dead as "acorns" for Macha, the Celts often warred against each other, and they too did their own misdeeds against Mother Earth

Idk if we could find a society that hasn't done this in the past. The Norse had "Nithing Poles", adorned with a severed horse head. They practiced human sacrifice, infanticide, etc. But no one wants to bring those aspects back around (most don't).

 

[The Hammer]

Oh, ok. I thought you meant it was somehow too in-depth.

Yes, I've read Scott's books. They're very lightweight on Wicca for a couple of primary reasons. Mainly, actual Wicca is an initiatory mystery cult, a priesthood with no laity. Subsequently, it's not something that can be learned from books and engaged in a solitary capacity. Even initiates who are no longer active in a coven have no choice but to do a pared-down variation. There's also the issue of its inner-practices are oathbound and not something that could be covered in a book.

Another reason is that Cunningham didn't have extensive experience or knowledge of Wicca, he managed to attain First degree but didn't stick with anything long enough to know the extent of the religion. Couple that with Wicca being oathbound, he would not have been able to publicly write about it even if he had known. The purpose of those books was to show how a person could draw inspiration from Wicca to develop their own practice. However, the publisher can sell more books if they're marketed as being all you need in order to know and practice the religion. That and slapping the "wicca" label on anything and everything and not vetting whether authors are actual practitioners.

The secret initiatory stuff about Wicca is what ultimately put me off to it. And a lot of what I read was heavily feminist, with little regard for the Lord, only the Lady.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Idk if we could find a society that hasn't done this in the past. The Norse had "Nithing Poles", adorned with a severed horse head. They practiced human sacrifice, infanticide, etc. But no one wants to bring those aspects back around (most don't).

Yeah. They too clearly had a respect for Nature, they viewed Life as coming from a Tree, but they also sacrificed a lot of animals and cleared a lot of trees to build and maintain their ships, which were the pride of many in their culture.
And it does homogenize the tribes, by a lot. Like the Gauls. If they were all we knew of the Celts we could reasonable assume the Celts highly prioritized war to the point of serving as mercenaries being not only a source of income for someone's tribe but also a source of pride. People often say Vikings to refer to those of Scandinavia, but most stayed home and didn't go raiding and terrorizing people. The Native Americans, some of those tribes contributed to the extinction of animals (I assume most peoples have, but we have confirmed evidence of this one).
About all that can be said from the evidence is in the past our ancestors generally lived more in harmony with nature and much closer to a state of homeostasis than we do. That shouldn't be read to mean they all highly revered and respected nature.

 

[Callisto]

The secret initiatory stuff about Wicca is what ultimately out me off to it. And a lot of what I read was heavily feminist, with little regard for the Lord, only the Lady.

Well, traditional Wicca isn't going to appeal to anyone who's drawn to folk religion type practices of ancient societies. Wicca isn't a religion in that regard, more precisely it's a religious order and one that doesn't involve the ministering to laity. It has more in common with ancient mystery cults (which also where not for the masses) than it does with the folk religions of which those cults were a subset.

And the feminist spirituality is another thing that gets conflated as Wicca. Actual Wicca is a cult with two tutelary deities, a God and Goddess. However, during the 1970s, feminist spirituality was really taking off and you did you have individuals who took elements from Wicca and fused them with feminism and Goddess spirituality. Further confusing things is that was a time when a lot of non-Wiccans were calling their practices "Wicca" because it didn't elicit the same knee-jerk response from the mainstream as the word "witchcraft".

Actual Wiccan traditions are evenly populated with both priests and priestesses. Initiations are cross-gender (priests initiate priestesses and vice versa). This means you don't have priestesses without priests and vice-versa.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The secret initiatory stuff about Wicca is what ultimately put me off to it. And a lot of what I read was heavily feminist, with little regard for the Lord, only the Lady.

That reminded me when I was a neo-Pagan, the one employee at the store made some comment about me being stuck with a girly store. But I didn't really notice that and felt quite comfortable with it.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Well, traditional Wicca isn't going to appeal to anyone who's drawn folk religion type practices of ancient societies. Wicca isn't a religion in that regard, more precisely it's a religious order and one that doesn't involve the ministering to laity. It has more in common with ancient mystery cults (which also where not for the masses) than it does with the folk religions of which those cults were a subset.

And the feminist spirituality is another thing that gets conflated as Wicca. Actual Wicca is a cult with two tutelary deities, a God and Goddess. However, during the 1970s, feminist spirituality was really taking off and you did you have individuals who took elements from Wicca and fused them with feminism and Goddess spirituality. Further confusing things is that was a time when a lot of non-Wiccans were calling their practices "Wicca" because it didn't elicit the same knee-jerk response from the mainstream as the word "witchcraft".

Actual Wiccan traditions are evenly populated with both priests and priestesses. Initiations are cross-gender (priests initiate priestesses and vice versa). This means you don't have priestesses without priests and vice-versa.

Yes, but Wicca does tend to lean more towards the feminine than masculine.

 

[Callisto]

Yes, but Wicca does tend to lean more towards the feminine than masculine.

Not in my experience as an initiate, there's a duality.

 

[The Hammer]

Well, traditional Wicca isn't going to appeal to anyone who's drawn to folk religion type practices of ancient societies. Wicca isn't a religion in that regard, more precisely it's a religious order and one that doesn't involve the ministering to laity. It has more in common with ancient mystery cults (which also where not for the masses) than it does with the folk religions of which those cults were a subset.

And the feminist spirituality is another thing that gets conflated as Wicca. Actual Wicca is a cult with two tutelary deities, a God and Goddess. However, during the 1970s, feminist spirituality was really taking off and you did you have individuals who took elements from Wicca and fused them with feminism and Goddess spirituality. Further confusing things is that was a time when a lot of non-Wiccans were calling their practices "Wicca" because it didn't elicit the same knee-jerk response from the mainstream as the word "witchcraft".

Actual Wiccan traditions are evenly populated with both priests and priestesses. Initiations are cross-gender (priests initiate priestesses and vice versa). This means you don't have priestesses without priests and vice-versa.

I know that now. It just wasn't my first encounter with it, fortunately or unfortunately.

Either way I was looking for something that had the ability for solitary practice more then group, especially as I was deployed military through a lot of my learning stages.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Oh, ok. I thought you meant it was somehow too in-depth.

Yes, I've read Scott's books. They're very lightweight on Wicca for a couple of primary reasons. Mainly, actual Wicca is an initiatory mystery cult, a priesthood with no laity. Subsequently, it's not something that can be learned from books and engaged in a solitary capacity. Even initiates who are no longer active in a coven have no choice but to do a pared-down variation. There's also the issue of its inner-practices are oathbound and not something that could be covered in a book.

Another reason is that Cunningham didn't have extensive experience or knowledge of Wicca, he managed to attain First degree but didn't stick with anything long enough to know the extent of the religion. Couple that with Wicca being oathbound, he would not have been able to publicly write about it even if he had known. The purpose of those books was to show how a person could draw inspiration from Wicca to develop their own practice. However, the publisher can sell more books if they're marketed as being all you need in order to know and practice the religion. That and slapping the "wicca" label on anything and everything and not vetting whether authors are actual practitioners.

What do you think of people who like what they read online about Wicca, the Horned God and Goddess, but kind of distance themselves from Gardnerian ways, aren't a part of a coven, and take in their own inspirations, but incorporate some online ideas that wicca "is a faith that empowers women to a level where things can reach being equal between men and women", but also separate witchcraft and wicca, and see the two seperately but going together well? Would you consider such a person kind of "New Age", or tied more down to Wicca roots?

 

[syo]

The Irish Celts also used to collect the heads of the battle dead as "acorns" for Macha,

It's a proper thing to do.

the Celts often warred against each other,

For what reason?

and they too did their own misdeeds against Mother Earth.

I doubt that one.

 

[Rival]

Personally, I find there isn't nearly enough scholarly research done among Neopagans which is why, overall, it's in a such muddled ineffectual state. Too many want to rely on social media and forums and that would be OK if it wasn't for the fact that there is exponentially greater misinformation and UPG than there is factual information. I've been active in the pagan community since the 1980s and, in my experience, people were far better informed about these religion prior to the internet. You would think it would have been a boon, opening access to information that once was only attainable by physically traveling to libraries and bookstores and, if you were lucky, access to university resources. Yet the opposite is true, regardless of the wealth of reliable info that is now easily accessible, most seem to prefer emotional, fabricated garbage. Along with anything that provides confirmation bias and appears to give people whatever validation it is they want. Factor in the anti-intellectualism that's pervasive in society as a whole, and "overly scholarly" isn't anything to truly worry about.

However, I do agree that there comes a point when the training wheels need to come off and there's a balance between learning and doing. The thing is, there isn't much in the way of learning, people often just want to jump to the doing. The problem with that is they don't know what it is they claim to pursue so then they default to the eclectic mantra of "there's no right or wrong way; do what feels right". That's fine if they're not claiming a tradition, it's not if they are claiming one because most pagan traditions are orthopraxies which, by definition, means there is a right or wrong way.

The value of having both primary (ancient) and secondary (academic) sources is they allow us to compensate for not being immersed in these traditions like ancient pagans were. The majority of ancient societies were peasants, they didn't read and write, they didn't have home libraries. But they were immersed in an environment where there was no demarcation between everyday life, culture, and devotion to the gods. It's like language, they were exposed to it from the day they were born. Subsequently, like learning a new language, it's not done overnight or in a couple of weeks, we have to play catch up and deep dive into studies on a recurring basis and practice what we learn because we lack that immersion.

But too many today want things quick and easy. They don't care about the how or the why nor care about the nature of the gods. That all makes it that much harder for the next crop of newcomers, more crap to wade through compounded by whatever fads and socio-political activism are trending.

I think it may be the other way around with Kemeticism. We are not wanting for sources in the way a lot of European Paganism is; nor do we lack a sophisticated theology, as we have texts spanning millennia; Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, lots of stelae, inscriptions, papyri, funerary texts, hymns, poems, prayers etc. There's a lot of academic work done on Egypt, some of it outdated, some of it updated and much better, but from the time of Budge to now we have a lot of scholarly material to work with, and I do see it being worked with in the Kemetic community. The books I own tend to have extensive bibliographies and footnotes, so I can look it up. However, where I would agree with you is that this has been too 'internetised'. There's no real Kemetic community, it remains an outlier even in modern Pagan movements, and so much of it is intellectual activity online. This is clearly no good substitute for actual religion.

There's also another problem you mention with the civic vs home practice - we have virtually no good records of at home Kemetic practice to the point some scholars think it didn't happen (or wasn't common). I think that's bunk, but it has made a lot of Kemetics try copying complex priestly rituals that, absent a temple and knowledge of secret rites, simply cannot be done; and even if there are no secret rites and we have whole texts telling us what to do, it can sometimes go into the tens of pages in a complex ritual no layperson really has time for. It's like a person 1,000 years from now trying to conduct a Mass on his own using only a parish missal. You've likely come across the 'we can't cut this down because that's sacrilege' kinds, but nevertheless in order for a layman to conduct this, it must be cut.

In lieu of home practice, a lot of Kemetics seem bent on being over-intellectualised, not engaging in much ritual (or overly-complex ritual), prayer etc.

 

[Callisto]

I think it may be the other way around with Kemeticism. We are not wanting for sources in the way a lot of European Paganism is; nor do we lack a sophisticated theology, as we have texts spanning millennia; Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, lots of stelae, inscriptions, papyri, funerary texts, hymns, poems, prayers etc. There's a lot of academic work done on Egypt, some of it outdated, some of it updated and much better, but from the time of Budge to now we have a lot of scholarly material to work with, and I do see it being worked with in the Kemetic community. The books I own tend to have extensive bibliographies and footnotes, so I can look it up. However, where I would agree with you is that this has been too 'internetised'. There's no real Kemetic community, it remains an outlier even in modern Pagan movements, and so much of it is intellectual activity online. This is clearly no good substitute for actual religion.

There's also another problem you mention with the civic vs home practice - we have virtually no good records of at home Kemetic practice to the point some scholars think it didn't happen (or wasn't common). I think that's bunk, but it has made a lot of Kemetics try copying complex priestly rituals that, absent a temple and knowledge of secret rites, simply cannot be done; and even if there are no secret rites and we have whole texts telling us what to do, it can sometimes go into the tens of pages in a complex ritual no layperson really has time for. It's like a person 1,000 years from now trying to conduct a Mass on his own using only a parish missal. You've likely come across the 'we can't cut this down because that's sacrilege' kinds, but nevertheless in order for a layman to conduct this, it must be cut.

In lieu of home practice, a lot of Kemetics seem bent on being over-intellectualised, not engaging in much ritual (or overly-complex ritual), prayer etc.

There are some similar situations with Hellenism, there are a lot of ancient and academic records too. It's generally true of ancient religions that far more focus has been on the civic side and yes, it is due in large part to there being less information about household practices in comparison. Subsequently, a common mistake by modern practitioners is to automatically assume what was done on the civic level was, or can be, pared down to be conducted in the home. But the purposes and manner of civic ritual don't always mesh with what would be domestic/individual purposes. It requires being a detective and looking at artifacts and records pertaining to everyday life and dwellings, sometimes the answer isn't what's stated but what isn't there. Does historic record support the claim? Sometimes assertions about household worship are due to an occasional reference and people run with it as if it was irrefutable fact and widely true. Yet if you dive into the historical records like archaeological sites of dwellings and the body of artifacts collected, there may be no evidence to support the claim, instead suggesting whatever alternative was more likely the case.

I think people who are inclined to do actual research can become over-intellectualized but I think treating the internet as a substitute for real-world action is a problem in general and has contributed not only to spreading misinformation (pagan claptrap) but has hindered the growth of IRL communities. I got involved in the pagan community long before the internet. If you wanted to do anything it meant getting off your arse and out into the world. Whether that was walking to the local library and spending hours there or having to take 3 buses across town to get to a metaphysical shop which was the only place that had pagan magazines and newsletters. If you wanted conversations with others, you had no option other than try and network (through said magazines and newsletters). Not to get all "back in the day" but... back in the day, it was nearly 2 hours one way to get to the Wiccan coven I was initiated into. Several times per month, sometimes during the week despite holding down a full-time job. And a number of initiates in my line are Reconstructionists of various stripes in addition to being Wiccan initiates, starting other non-Wiccan groups and we'd support one another by attending those too. One had an Osirian temple in the 1990s.

Today, if a person can't do something while sitting on their couch or they have to travel more than a half-hour then "there's no one else around" and they balk when you suggest examining what's important to them and they consider it may require getting out of their comfort zone. It's why Eclecticism appeals to so many and why it's now spreading to traditions: entitlement and laziness, they breed stagnation and isolation. Fewer people are willing to put in time and effort to earnestly study nevermind make the effort to contribute to a community. Then there is a whole other problem when you do manage to get a group going, the work falls to one or a few while everyone else, as a friend once put it, "stands around, waiting to be entertained". It's not long before burnout and resentment hit and the group falls apart because no one else is willing to step up.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I doubt that one.

Animal sacrifice - Wikipedia

 

[syo]

Animal sacrifice - Wikipedia

What about it?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What about it?

Animal sacrifice--something the Celts did practice--is a wrong against Mother Earth.

 

[syo]

Animal sacrifice--something the Celts did practice--is a wrong against Mother Earth.

I disagree.