Since it seems no thread related to witchcraft-centric paganism can survive on this board without it being derailed by shitposting and pagan in-fighting, let's make this a general. Let's keep discussion as civil and inclusive as possible.
General topic you fool! You forgot the most important part!
>>17375990
Sorry, it's my first time.
>Discussion of general religious beliefs
>Recs for and discussion of magic and religious reading
>Living pagan in an Abrahamic-centric world
Anything else that fits under the umbrella of paganism is welcome as long as no one's bashing or mocking each other's theology. Heathens, be nice to the wiccans.
i'm actually starting on my way to wicca. i've read a couple of books, but i'm more of a visual learner and it often takes me a while to get hold of something.
anyone have any tips? or any suggestions?
>>17375981
Putting us, honest to gods pagans, together with wiccan shits is what really hurts
Put your star over this picture and you got your gateway.
>>17377098
And what does that do? Leonardo did another Vitruvian before this one and tried to make it fit the pentagram, but it was out of proportion.
>>17375981
>as civil and inclusive as possible
Does that mean I can fina
Here is some reading material for the thread
The Case for Polytheism by Steven Dillon, a Catholic turned pagan.
>The philosophy of religion has been dominated by monotheists and atheists for centuries now. But, polytheism deserves to be restored to its respected position, and The Case for Polytheism (96 pages) sets out some reasons why. By developing a notion of godhood and employing a set of novel and neglected arguments, the author constructs a rigorous but accessible case for the existence of multiple gods.
I'm an eclectic pagan. I pull from many different pantheons and really don't follow any one particular teaching.
If I follow anything specifically it's more "ancestral acknowledgement" than anything else.
>>17376980
>tips
Don't learn Wicca. It's watered down thelema with pseudo pagan garbage thrown in.
>>17377554
Full disclosure. I am an atheist, so I have no vested religious interest in Wicca or any other faith. Wiccans DO cause me some consternation (fabricating history; insofar as they claim intimate knowledge of ancient worship of Celtic deities which we don't have very much information on due to their traditions being orally transmitted and claiming they are a survival).
Now that that is said
>It's watered down thelema with pseudo pagan garbage thrown in.
It is more than that though. I don't think it is fair to call it thelema, watered down or not, when there are clearly other influences at work in it. People often forget about the Freemasonic influences in classical Wicca.
Wicca is best described as a syncretic mystery religion. It is NOT. IN. ANY. WAY. A traditional pagan religion and traditionalists and recons need to stop holding it to that standard. Mystery religions always have a heavy dose of revelation (read: unverifiable) in them. That's how they work, so it would be pure autism to demand that a mystery religion not do so.
>But anon Gardner and other Wiccans are telling lies about being a pagan survival and the burning times and victim complexes and etc.
Yeah so call them out on that when they do it, because they don't understand what their own religion is suppose to be when they do it. Like I said, THAT is a real issue.
Anything else is stupid bickering about which religion is right.
>HUR THOR IS LIKE THIS BECAUSE MUH REVELATION
>HUR NO WICCAN HERETIC THOR IS LIKE THIS BECAUSE MUH VIKINGS SAID SO
>>17376980
Join a coven or participate in circle gatherings if you want to get serious about it.
>>17377013
>>17377554
>be nice to the wiccans
It's right there, guys.
>>17377852
Is it not nice to warn people who are about to enter hippie sex cult? We'd tear down Scientologists too and they're "technically pagan".
>>17377883
Why do you equate Wicca to a hippie sex cult?
>>17378214
Because it is? And they give other pagans a bad name. It's like JoS and Satanism, Westboro for Christianity, Dawkins for Atheism, etc etc
>>17378238
>comparing wicca with JoS, WBC, and Richard Dawkins
Wow
>>17378214
Because it was invented by Gardner as a way to get laid.
>>17378238
No, it isn't.
John Friend Anusara is the guy that gave it that reputation.
>>17378242
It's true. They are all obnoxious faggots
>>17378255
JoS is just a pyramid scheme, Westboro is a confirmed hate group, and Dawkins is just one outspoken guy. Wicca doesn't have a single organizational structure or really a set code of ethics or consistency or tradition, and most of the people involved aren't hurting anyone anyway so what's the big deal? The dirty hippy stereotype is stupid.
>>17378263
Maybe it's a problem of defining which is a subset of what.
Maybe it's just that hippies are obnoxios vegan faggots and wicans are just a subset of that shitty group.
I, like many people, dislike hippies, that's why I hate wiccans by extension
>>17378272
But like I said, it's a bad stereotype. I went to a hippie "market" one time and couldn't stand all the wiccan imagery and symbolism depicted alongside "DUDE ACID AND COLORS LMAO" homemade knick-knacks, but I also went to an occult/alternative religion bookstore and the wiccans who hang out there are chill and pretty normal. It's all about who you chose to associate with and see.
>>17378279
I get that. It's that damned stereotype thing. I honestly know nothing about wiccan culture and belief system, and those wackos I've met made sure I never would because they sounded like faggots, hipsters, hippies, and worst lf all, VEGANS! I love meat, especially of animals I hunt, kill, and prepare myself. Meat is sacred in my worldview, and must be celebrated accordingly
>>17377628
How can an atheist want to be initiated into an occult group? You lack the basic foundation of open-mindedness that the occult requires.
LaVeyan Satanism might be more your speed.
>>17378330
I'm not the anon who wants to be wiccan. I was just commenting.
>>17375981
Get out of here with that shit.
>>17378288
personally I'm a vegetarian, but i concur. as long as you're getting meat from a free-roaming source then i don't see the problem. they're not being denied the ability to enjoy life because they're not locked up in a factory farm.
>>17378238
>they give other pagans a bad name
Maybe I've just missed them all, but I have never seen Asatru, heathenry, or any other ethnic religion get grilled here for being a magnet for racism or other kinds of bigotry.
>>17378246
And had it's heyday in the 1960's, like it or not, wicca is hippie shit. Not work hard and sacrifice blood to nature in exchange for sustenance, but this is solely for sex. The knife cup thing was not done by other cultures. It's made up to seduce sensitive women away from the true, powerful religions that you can draw inspiration from.
Wicca = sex with priest in secret for initiation
Pagan witchcraft = lean knitting, learn sewing, learn to spin yarn, learn to care for herbs, learn to cut herbs. Learn to carve wood, learn the runes, know how to cut them, know how to stain them, know how to prove them. Know how to literally stitch thread before you dick around in the astral.
Learn the plant spirits before you go talk to "angels" or whatever egoistic dribble drips from silver raven-wolfs mouth.
Pic related, better source of magic learning than ANYTHING wicca.
>>17378752
>no hard work and sacrifice
>knife and cup thing was not done by other cultures
>Wicca = sex with priest in secret for initiation
Hilarious. First anon calls out wicca for being easy using techniques foreign to other cultures, despite it being an esoteric mystical (i.e. not traditional) religion. Then anon attacks Wicca for using sex (a clear borrowing from Crowley who has only rarely been called a hack here) as part of initiation, as if ritualized sex was absent from traditional paganisms. I know Indian religions are not what we mean when we talk about paganism, but, for comparative purposes, Hinduism is the most paganesque of the major religions and ritual uses of sex are canonical. The use of ritualized sex in Tantra isn't even debatable.
>silver raven-wolf
Its not the 90s anymore. Everyone uses this moronic "solitary practitioner" as evidence that wicca is retarded, and I've yet to meet one who actually takes her seriously. That said they were all in a coven. Maybe I've just met the less gullible Wiccans. Based on what I've read online, the "solitary practitioners" tend to be on the loopier side.
>>17377883
This anon has it right. People should always know what they are getting into especially is sex will be involved.
>>17379034
>Based on what I've read online, the "solitary practitioners" tend to be on the loopier side
Tell me more. Not challenging this, just interested.
>>17378733
That's because 4chan tends to be a magnet for racism or other kinds of bigotry
>mfw other pagans get so fucking butthurt at the very mention of wicca
>>17379499
wicca is new age faggotry. its just lesbians trying to make their own religion by ripping off a actual belief system. those bitches dont worship the green man. they ramble about some goddess they made up
Anyone got any good love sigils or spells? Cuz I need a passionate romance right now
>>17379136
Due to an interest in all things countercultural it was only a matter of time before I decided to learn about Wicca in particular and paganism in general. So I decided I should read some articles and blogs by believers since it is important to know what practitioners themselves think in addition to what the secular academics who study them think. As time went on I noticed that the "solitary practitioners" tended to be wishy-washier on the hard facts about their religion (like how Wicca is a recent religion and NOT a survival no matter how much Gardner insisted it was) and had an air of credulity about them that was either absent or tempered in practitioners who were members of a communal religious institution.
I'll use Scott Cunningham and Silver Ravenwolf as principle examples, since they are two of the people responsible for the proliferation of what less gullible practitioners call "fluffbunnies," practitioners who have no real connection to any tradition and make shit up as they go along. This goes far beyond mystical insight and straight into PIDOMA territory. In the works of Cunningham and Ravenwolf we got a glimpse of what was to become of popular solitary Wicca.
In an earlier post >>17377628 I said Wicca makes many appeals to revelation and mystical insight due to being a esoteric mystery religion. You can see how this in-and-of-itself could facilitate special snowflakery. But it wasn't until the proliferation of solitary Wicca things got stupid.
>>17379983
Cunningham was an early author on solitary practice disconnected from the traditional coven system. He set out to try to make Wicca palatable to the general public by de-emphasizing the polarity of the faith. This led to him pushing an idealized "sweetness and light" version of Wicca that, when combined with Cunningham's "make it up as you go along" attitude, is a recipe for hugboxing and credulity. But the worst feature of solitary anything, not just Wicca, is that its believers are atomized. Think about it anon, when you are alone, without others more experienced than you who share your belief system, and you are being told by an “expert” this is how its done, how could you know if you were being told truth or lies? And that brings us to Silver “$ilver Ravingwolf” Ravenwolf.
>>17379987
Ravenwolf has just about every hallmark of a historically illiterate fundamentalist and all the angst of an edgy teenage girl. One of her books, Teen Witch, was even written with that demographic in mind.
Ravenwolf's least endearing characteristics exhibited throughout her oeuvre include:
>overcommercializing Wicca
>frequent sweeping judgments about ALL neopagans' beliefs and practices not just Wiccans
>cast this spell and all your problems will go away (Christian Science for Wiccans)
>encouraging Wiccan parents to preach to other people's kids (a pagan who proselytizes!)
>encouraging Wiccan youth to lie to their parents as the general rule because you don't understand me mom!
>witch burning negationism claiming over nine million genuine paleopagans died (NINE MILLION!)
>Wicca is science and [quantum woo goes here]
>cast this spell and you will become fabulously wealthy (Prosperity Gospel for Wiccans)
>“Once-borns,” people who don't believe in reincarnation, are easy to trick into giving you money
>>17379994
Needless to say woo laden crap sells (see Choprah) and who this sells best to are naïve people with open hearts and open minds who simply don't know any better and can't know any better because when you are in it alone there is nobody to help you. Part of religion's social and spiritual regulatory capacity comes from believers communicating with each other. It is doubtful that much of this nonsense would have taken hold in the neopagan community if practitioners weren't atomized as solitary practitioners.
And don't think this is just Wicca. Sometimes (but especially in America) historical illiteracy is seen in heathenism because it is a cover for white supremacy, and neo-nazism. The specter haunting mystery religions is puerile self-aggrandizing; the specter haunting ethnic religions is bigotry. I won't get started on that one.
>>17379141
>bigotry
You can't make this shit up
>>17380132
>MS Paint comic
>literally made up
>>17379994
I'd heard more than a few fits thrown over the name. Hadn't bothered to look into any farther because not my bag, but seeing it broken down like that I definitely know the type. Thanks for the post anon.
>>17380132
"WE WUZ WIKANGS AND SHIETS"
>>17380233
>f-fuck you I'm not a cliche
>>17380132
>>17380233
>>17380568
>shitposting
>>17380568
It's "cliché", you cucko.
>>17379034
Those tantrik rites are about breaking rules though, not getting laid. If you regularly think about sex it's hardly taboo.
I'm currently involved in a Wicca group. What's wrong with that? It's the most popular magic to practice in a group around, so it's easiest to find others to get together with to practice compared to other systems of magic which are more obscure. What would people suggest that I do instead?
>>17383946
I for one don't have a problem, but Thelemaboos and WE WUZ WIKANGS N SHEEIT burgerstanies get super mad about wicca for dumb reasons that coil just as easily be applied to them.
>Wicca group
Good. That will hopefully put a buffer between you all and the woo mongers as long as there aren't any in the group already.
Don't make up history, don't appropriate other cultures, avoid the woo, and stay classy.
>>17384279
Could just as easily.
>>17384279
I don't care about the history/culture of pagan religions all that much anyway, so I won't be "appropriating" anything (whatever you mean by that) or making any claims of historical authenticity. Each one is neat in their own ways, but I'm not drawn to any one of them in particular. There's actually a black girl in the group who has been a Wiccan for years, and I thought that was interesting until I realized that Wicca has nothing to do with ancestor reverence like other pagan religions, not that it matters to me.
I'm well aware that Wicca has a very dubious connection to past pagan practices though. The only historical artifact I wish were genuine is its connection to ol' timey witches, like the ones accused of flying broomsticks around Salem, carrying around black cats as familiars, and communing with the Devil. I grew up hearing stuff like that and thought it was the coolest.
I just want to learn a system of magic for the most part. The nature symbolism and "witch" stuff is really appealing to me too and an added bonus.
>>17384797
Then you are fine by me. Have fun.
>>17384797
If you really want to be a witch, you gotta brush up on gardening and herbalism. I can't respect a witch that can't treat a mild fever without pills.
Witches are the original doctors. They treated illness with herbs, they acted as midwives, they went into the spirit world in the first form of "psychology".
You gotta do this or you're just an egotistical consumer of crystals and cheapo ebay corsets.
