Clifford Mayem's blog: "Stuff"

Why Wiccans Suck. Fluffbunnies, Bicca, and Playganism. WHY WICCANS SUCK Copyright 2003 Faelhach. All Rights Reserved. I'd like to start this informative masterpiece by saying that if anyone is offended by this, they can go suck themselves. I would also like to say that if you are here for an in-depth, thoughtful analysis of Wicca, Paganism and any other subject related to the two, you'd best be looking somewhere else. This is a rant. So deal with it. Now then. Let's get down to business. Wiccans suck. Every last one of them. Why, you ask? Because. Now, J. would want me to expand upon my reasons for exactly why Wiccans suck, so I'm going to oblige him. He also says that I should change my blanket statement to only include contemporary Wiccans, but I think that this is more fun. I suppose I should start with a background of my personal experience regarding Wicca. I believe it was during my freshman year of high school that I first was "enlightened" regarding this subject. One of my close friends at the time had purchased a book by the oh-so-fluffy queen of the capitalist Wiccan world, Silver Ravenwolf. That's right, people. I said Silver Ravenwolf. And I even read it, too. I believe this would be the point where you all feel the need to cry out. "Silver Ravenwolf isn't a real witch! She's just out there to make money off of all of us! You haven't truly experienced Wicca if you think that this is all there is!" News flash: Silver Ravenwolf is all there is. She is the epitome of modern Wicca and its stupidity as far as I am concerned. Wicca had mystified me up until now, and I was expecting to come to a higher understanding of what I thought was a purely money-driven cult of extremely overweight people prone to prancing, wailing and lighting things on fire. Most unfortunately (for them), all I received was a reaffirmation of my beliefs regarding the subject. So I returned the book, decided it was all bullshit and left it alone. During my junior year of high school another one of my friends got into it, so I decided to come along for the ride. She made herself an altar, bought herself one of those ceremonial knives, some candles, a pentacle and a cloak. We baked bread during the harvest and chanted over it. We went to Barnes & Noble and devoured the Wiccan/New Age section until my brain was bursting with Redes, love spells and five hundred ways to waste my damn money. It was at this point that I realized (yet again) that the entire subject was bullshit. Now would be the time for me to stop and say that I have a problem with religion in general without having to deal with some vague "tradition" that first reared its green head about fifty years ago. This is not a fucking religion. All these Wiccans run around screaming about persecution and fighting over who has the bigger wand or the taller candle or the more expensive robe and while I'm usually content to just sit back and laugh at them, my rage has intensified. The entire concept seems so completely useless to me. If you want to play dress-up and wave incense around when you're a teenage girl, that's fine. In fact, it's almost expected. But when you're a fifty five year old male "warlock" who has devoted his life to his coven of equally old, scary women and holds a 9 to 5 job at McDonalds on the weekdays, there's a word for you. It's called pathetic. Get a life. Seriously. Paganism is not the same thing as Wicca. Wicca claims to be a religion, while Paganism is most certainly not one. Pagans have been around from the beginning of time, and as much as you Wiccans love to yell at me about your Celtic traditions and hereditary witchery, you need to take your heads out of your perfumed little asses and realize that you were created by people who wanted to make a great deal of money. And they have succeeded. You are no better than the medieval recreation societies that I see in the parks on weekends where we ran our cross country meets in high school. In fact, you are worse, because they actually realize that it's just a game, while you're still under the impression that you've founded a religion. "She's persecuting me!" you all cry. "She doesn't understand where I've come from! I grew up in a low end middle class home! Oh Goddess, how I have suffered in my life!" Yeah, yeah. We've heard it spoken far more convincingly and way more than you would ever know. I'd like to take the time now to say that I believe in magic. No, not magic with that fucking K that everyone and her damn mother insists upon tacking onto the end of a perfectly acceptable word. Magic. I believe that there are other forces at work than humans in the universe, but I do not like to flatter myself and think that I can control them. I don't believe that strewing flowers around my room naked by the light of the moon on the second Thursday of every third month will get that hot boy down the hall to profess his everlasting love to me. I do not believe in voodoo, I do not believe in shamanism and I most certainly do not believe that we can summon spirits from other worlds. If I were an otherworldly creature, I think I would either shit myself laughing or smite someone rather than actually appear when a human started wailing and drawing strange symbols on the ground. Honestly, I don't know if I believe in real witches. I'm not sure that anyone can really be so arrogant as to think that they can harness the powers of Nature. But what I do know is that Wiccans and their little commandments, Blessed Be's and rules of three (they always come in three. Always) make me want to scream and stab myself repeatedly in the head with a sharp object. Or take their staves and stick them up their asses. Either one. And honestly, I'm surprised that anyone would want to put so much damn effort into all of these rituals. I'm a very poor, very lazy college student, so the concept of spending loads of money and hours of my time on meaningless, smelly crap is not very appealing. You are really no better than Goths, punkers or any other "oppressed" minority of fat, angry white kids in this nation. Your religion is less than 50 years old. And it's a load of crap, just like all other religion. So get the hell over yourselves, lose some weight, re-dye your hair to a color found in nature, cover yourself and your scary ass Celtic tattoos and go out there and find a real job instead of dicking around with candles, incense, Silver FUCKING Ravenwolf and your damn Rede all day long. And for Chrissakes, will you go and get laid like NORMAL people for once in your lives?! I do believe that I should wrap this up before I start getting royally pissed off again, so while it's been fun, I shall take my leave of you pathetic saps now. I hope that this pissed someone off. It would give my life some meaning. Really. http://pages.yahoo.com/nhrp?o=astraeaaradia&p=home.html&pos=1&f=all&h=/religion___beliefs/occu I've been asked a lot of questions in the short time I've been maintaining this website. This question, asked by a teenage visitor to the site, was one that gave me a second thought- "Is Wicca really a religion, and is it really an old religion?" Some readers will think it's a stupid question and say, of course it's a religion and why wouldn't it be? That was my initial reaction, and I thought, this person needs to open a book and stop bothering me. But if you look a little deeper, you might realize it's a great question. Most people would describe the definition of "religion" as being, "an organized system of faith and worship as practised or followed by a particular group." So, with that definition in mind, are solitary and eclectic Wiccans really religious? No, I would say not. But, there are other acceptable definitions of religion according to some dictionaries. One is, "a personal set of beliefs and practises." (these definitions are from my Merrian-Webster Dictionary.) If a religion can be a personal set of practises, then can't we label solitary and eclectic Wicca as a religion? To me, it isn't important to label your path or even worry whether it can be considered a true religion. The person who asked me if Wicca is really a religion told me that his "religion" was enduring some scrutiny from his friends and he was unable to defend his beliefs and say that, yes indeed, his beliefs were a religious path. It apparently was important to him to have that validation, and that is fine- though I don't understand his reason for being so worried about it. WICCA- THE OLD RELIGION? After all my research, I will tell you, as I did on my Wicca or Witchcraft? page, that Wicca is NOT an old religion. Some Wiccans and witches will tell you that Wicca and the Craft are the oldest religions in the world. This is completely untrue. Yes, Wicca is called "The Old Religion" but this label doesn't fit modern Wicca. The word "Wicca" is certainly old and may have been used by some people of the past- it originally meant "to bend" and some say it was used as a word for "Witchcraft" in the past. However, the word "Wicca" has an entirely different meaning today- as it was used to label Gerald Gardner's religious creation. It is said that Gardner melded different practises- and created some of his own- and Wicca was his product. If you research, you will find that he used some of Aleister Crowley's spells and rituals as his own, and also was an acquaintance of Crowley's. Crowley, it is said, wrote many of the spells and rituals in Gardner's original Book of Shadows. The late Aleister Crowley wrote, "Do what thou will shall be the whole of the Law, love is the Law, love under will." Remind you of another law? Sounds a lot like the line in the Wiccan Rede, "an' it harm none, do as thou wilt." Both mean, do as you see fit but harm no one. Some think the Wiccan Rede is an ancient text, but it actually is not. I mentioned on my Sabbats page that the Sabbats are not Wiccan in origin. The Wheel of the Year is a festival of celebrations created by the ancient Celts. Wiccans cannot stake a claim to these practises. They have been incorporated into Wiccan practise, but are not Wiccan in origin. This is another reason many are confused about Wicca and say, "The Celts were Wiccans!" Such a stupid comment. For more information about this, just refer to my Wicca or Witchcraft page so I don't keep repeating myself. DOES IT MATTER?? Does it seem as if I'm trying to make Wicca look like a sham of some sort? I'm not at all, I'm simply trying to be honest about it. In it's entirety, Wicca is new. Is that a bad thing? I certainly don't think so. I was searching for my spritual path when I was a kid and felt that Wicca, for the most part, had what I was looking for at the time. I was never truly happy and comfortable with it, but back then, it was the only "religion" I knew that was similar to my own personal beliefs. Even so, I didn't care where the concept came from, I only cared about my connection to it. As you search and research, learn the WHOLE truth- don't just read Wiccan "how-to" books. I, personally, feel that knowing the truth is important. I suppose that it's entirely up to you to decide if the history of Pagan traditions are important to know. More stories about Constitution Why America needs laws against flag burning. Feature: Flags The US Constitution - past its sell-by date ? More stories by jsm The Gay Tax LNUX = FC? Linux Linux Linux -- Part One -- Trying to Be a Hero A Declaration of Independence for the Indebted States of America Kill Yr Idols: Nelson Mandela Open Letter to a Stripper Milosevic Goes Free, Thanks to Godwin's Law! Tax the Childless, Double Votes for Parents Luv Yr Enemies -- Jesus Christ Open Letter to the USA: Please Don't Drown Me The Real Darwin Awards Harnessing the Computational Power of Autism 'English Style Lovers', with jsm Why the Bombings Mean That We Must Support My Politics Kill Yr Idols - Donald Knuth Linux Linux Linux Part Two - Crossing the Linux Fault Threshold Teaching Astrology In Schools Chip Hell -- the AMD story We Licke Icke Slashdot Subscriptions and VA Software -- what's going on? Linux Zealot and Economics 101 A New Kind of Feminist Science Here's the facts, kids. According to dictionary.com, a "religion" is a sincerely held set of beliefs, part of a tradition and a way of life. Wicca fails on all three counts. Sincerely held beliefs: They aren't. Here's the facts. "Wiccans", "Neopagans" and such like, tend to be young, American and university educated. University educated people don't usually believe in things which are, on the face of them, absolutely untrue. The creation myths, cosmogonies and rituals of all pagan religions are all ludicrous. Earth Mothers, naked magick, Crow Spirits -- any attempt to look deeply into the content of the hotchpotch of half-baked fairy stories and horror movie cliches which make up the average pagan's belief system comes up against a flat wall of incredulity pretty quickly. Nobody of even average intelligence could possibly actually believe any of this to be literally true. Therefore, by syllogism, the vast majority of so-called "Wiccans" are not sincere in what they claim to believe. This point is important, so it bears analysis. Not only are the beliefs of Wiccans ridiculous to the point of risibility, they're also provably fabricated and internally inconsistent. The entire religion of Wicca was created out of whole cloth in 1952 by a British Civil Servant called Gerald Gardner. Therefore, for example, the First Church of Jesus Christ, Elvis are on a more solid footing than the Wiccans, given that Elvis is both older and more historically real than anything in Wicca. And, furthermore, every half-educated Wiccan knows that this is the case. It gets better. When Gardner invented neopaganism, he just put it together from all the bits he liked from the Penguin Library of Mythology. So Wicca has bits of Northern Italian folklore, bits of the Magick of Aleister Crowley (mainly Jewish mysticism), bits of Greek elemental symbolism (Thales, 500BC) and the whole thing suffused with a miasma of "Celtic" imagery, referring to a gang of Austrian savages who ended up in Galicia, with no culture, only the most extremely dubious historical provenance and the most tenuous of connections to the people who walk round calling each other "Celts" today. Plus a load of ritual nudity which was very certainly never in the originals. It says something that Scientology and Wicca were invented at roughly the same time; while the American Hubbard came up with a money-making machine that has a proven record of effecting miracle narcotics addiction cures, the best the Brits could come up with was a Carry on Camping version of the Bacchanalia we all learn in third year Latin. Not only that, but the main creed of the "neopagan" movement is "An it hurt none, do as you will", which plagiarises Crowley, smuggles a bit of Chaucerian Middle English into a supposedly pre-Christian tradition and directly contradicts the two things we know for certain about the actually existing pagans; a) that they had many ritual taboos, so they didn't think "do as you will" and b) that they didn't care about hurting people. It is no exaggeration to say that the main works of Celtic literature are almost entirely concerned with the subject of killing other people and stealing their cows. When they don't deal with the equally mystical and spiritual subject of getting drunk and waking up in a ditch. A tradition Put it this way. Nobody was brought up Wiccan. Nobody had their children named at a "blooding ceremony" straight after the "hand-fasting", nobody took their children to campfires instead of Sunday School and nobody sat up night after night teaching their little ones enough Chaucer to give them a hope of understanding what "an you hurt none" means. Or if they did, then the social services intervened pretty quickly and quite right too. Unlike the Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim religions, there is nobody whose neopagan "beliefs" locate them in a long line of believers starting with their parents, and their parents' parents. Of course there isn't. Simply to pose the possibility is to see it as ridiculous. People don't become Wiccans in order to carry on the beliefs of their parents. People become Wiccans in order to offend their parents, to try to extract some revenge on Mum and Dad for the terrible crime of having financially supported them for all of their fourteen years of life. There have never been and will never be any second-generation Wiccans, because there is simply no point in being a Wiccan if it isn't going to wind up Ma and Pa. The pagan "tradition" is the actual antithesis of a tradition. Which is why telling a Wiccan to stop wearing his severed rabbit head or his inverted pentagram is absolutely nothing like removing the cross from a Christian school or depriving a Jew of his Star of David. One of these things is to strip a human being of his identity, to remove the very essence of what is important about his humanity. The other is just to tell a silly little child (of whatever age) not to bare his bottom in public. Way of Life Wiccanism, like the organised simper which goes in the West by the name of "Buddhism", is a religion which, unusually, makes no practical demands whatever on its adherents. A Wiccan doesn't go to hell if they are stopped from making silly hand signs at the customers in McDonalds, in the way that a Muslim can sincerely believe himself to be in danger of if provision is not made for him to make Umrah. Suited to the intellectually flabby, scruffy, lazy slacker teenagers who believe in it, Wicca is not a religion which gives a code by which to live one's life. It has no observances, fasts or obligations to charity. All it is, is a style of dress, a calculated giving of offense to Christians, and the occasional excuse for a booze-up for people too dull or inhibited to be able to open a bottle of whisky without turning it into a piece of amateurish performance art. That's not a religion. It's a pose. And, of course, and not coincidentally, an excuse to ensure that there's no black people invited to your fraternity parties because they're not "Celtic" enough. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So then, are we really, seriously, meant to believe that this half-dignified collection of Santa Claus myths is to be given the same status as the great religions of the world? Wicca isn't important to anybody. Nobody would ever lay down their life for Wicca; very few would sacrifice their Abercrombie & Fitch trenchcoats for the cause of the Goddess. Anyone looking at the site of a Wiccan party the morning after knows that the genuine regard which the neopagans have for the earth doesn't even stretch to picking up their own beer cans and condoms. So when an employer, or a teacher, tells a scruffy teenager to clean up their act, it's an injustice of the scale of telling a punk to wash their hair, not the first step to a pogrom. And the American Civil Liberties Union really ought to find something better to do with their time than to pretend that anything else is the case. >>"YOUR RELIGION IS NOT A REAL RELIGION hence the NEO at the >>beginning of NEO pagen." >Actually neo means new. Age has nothing to do with the >validity of a relgion. "Truth exists, only falsehood has to be invented." - George Braque Naturally, all new ideas are false. Truths are discovered, not invented. Too bad Wicca's claim to fame is its novelty. Reminds me a lot of the cheap souvenir venders on interstate exits, always peddling some new bullshit gimmick (like the 'talking Bass' or some self-decidedly 'cool' bumpersticker.) Truth, like art, does not fade, as a frenzied heyday of drinking winds down into a hangover. Shoddy souvenirs, like Wicca, exploit novelty - paying no tribute to art or truth. Like Wicca, only those with less discriminating taste are apt to buy into the hype. Just as it happens to weak minded men, who, meddling with things to high for them, suddenly fall into distractions. Distractions which not only un-man men, which I perceive yours have done to you, but send them upon desperate venture to obtain they know not what. >Think it's not a relgion? Too bad Melanie Griffith. It's It certainly is a religion. The 'Abridged Dictionary of Ultimate Truth' defines Wicca thusly: Wicca (WIK-uh) A religion designed and fabricated by mediocre hacks. I personally pulled this definition and reference straight out of my ass, in perfect concord with Wiccan tradition. I hope you don't mind. >recognized by several sources in the United States; Sources who were obviously pandering to insecure, petulant sheeple. If >by 'not a real relgion', you mean Wicca teaches false >information then all relgions are fake considering almost >every value or belief in Wicca is the same or simliar to >at least one other religion in the world. No, we can infer that by 'not a real religion' he means 'a bullshit religion,' one based entirely on fraud, deception - in a word, bullshit. As to these 'values' you reckon equal with 'other religions, ' are you implying that the 'Wiccan Rede' rivals the Golden Rule? Hook, line, and sinker, cupcake. Let's compare. "An it harm none, do what thou wilt." "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Observe, pragmatic application of both rules to the following scenario: "A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. By chance a Jewish priest came along; but when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by." Did the Jewish priest harm anyone by passing by the wounded man? No. Would you have wanted the priest to succor you? Yes. Wiccan Litmus: Pass Golden Litmus: Fail The story continues: "A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side." Did this temple assistant harm anyone with his indifferent attitude? No, not really. Would you have this man cast his indifference aside to aid you? Yes, you certainly would. Wiccan Litmus: Pass Golden Litmus: Fail Back to the story... "Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt deep pity. Kneeling beside him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him." Did the Samaritan harm anyone? No. Would you have rejected this man's kindness and compassion? No. Wiccan Litmus: Pass Golden Litmus: Pass Conclusion: The Wiccan Rede is ethically lax. >Just felt like pointing out your stupidity. And you spelled >pagan wrong. Wicca is morally lenient. Why not grammatically lenient, too? >I can agree with you that Wicca is becoming a fad. Nice, shifty use of the future-progressive tense. Try present tense next time: "Wicca is a fad." > A lot of >the "Wiccans" I know seem like a bunch of posers to me. That sounds a lot like marketing 'imitation SPAM.' >They seem to read things off the internet, pick out the >facts that they like, chuck out what they dont and then >call it "Wicca." As opposed to the founder of Wicca, who read fringe-occult-snuff literature, cherry-picked the dubiously grounded 'facts' he liked, chucked out the rest, and called it "Wicca." >A lot call this "individualism" I call it >twisting facts >into what you want to see and then labeling >it Wicca. >But if people can mutilate Christian beliefs so much and >call it Christianity Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. (I bet the number of cults who call themselves Christian far outnumber the ones who call themselves Wiccan) then let the little goth kids call themselves Wiccans. False. Wicca is a cult. Therefore, 100% of those calling themselves 'Wiccans' are cultists, whether 'true to the roots' or 'deviant' from the perverse, deviant cult itself. 4:13 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Tuesday, March 07, 2006 MAD AT YAHOO! Current mood: aggravated My Launchcast station will not appear on my 360 page. I have it set to share music and all but it never appears on my page. I have wrote yahoo about it 10 times and no response. I am a musician and I love music. Everybosy else has their Launchcast on their page. I would like to share my music. Anyway, if you would like to hear my station, go here> http://music.yahoo.com/lc/?rt=0&rp1=0&rp2=1933735249 8:44 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Monday, February 27, 2006 Steve Vai Check out my favorite guitarist> http://www.cbs.com/specials/48grammys/featured2.shtml 4:52 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Colorgenics For you coloregenics profile go here: http://www.paulgoldinresearch.com/cg/index.htm This is what it said about me. You feel as if you have missed out on a great deal that life had to offer and you go about trying to make up for past failures. Naturally at times you get depressed and you try to compensate for your 'missed opportunities' by living your life to the full. This is what, perhaps, may be described as 'living with exaggerated intensity'. In this way you feel you can break the chains of the past and start again - and it could be that you are right. You are a very warm and emotional individual but unfortunately in the past too many people have taken advantage of this sensitive trait. You need aesthetic surroundings, or an equally sensitive and understanding partner with whom to share a warm understanding. You lack confidence and that is a great pity because deep down you are indeed a warm caring person. This lack of confidence is making you wary of being drawn into any open discussion or conflict and so you feel as if you should let matters lie and leave well alone. But there may be a pleasant surprise in store for you. You are beginning to grow and very soon - sooner than you believed possible - this warm loving new you will be available for all to see and to appreciate. You are pretending that the situation around you doesn't matter, but the effort of trying to conceal your emotions and anxieties is resulting in untold stress. The existing situation is disagreeable. You feel unwanted and lonely and you would really like to associate with someone whose ideals are as high as your own. You want to be above the standard of mediocrity and this need to be needed and that need to need has almost become an obsession. You are trying to magnify the need into a compelling urge. You would really like to tell the world how great you are but no, you are holding back because you feel that your peers may treat you with contempt. This is a great pity because you have in fact a unique quality of character, but the continual restraint that you impose on yourself makes you suppress this need for others and you pretend you don't really care. You treat those who criticise you with contempt. However, to be honest, beneath this assumption of indifference you really long for the approval and esteem of others. You really like doing what you do and, more than that, you like yourself. Your attitude to work and to life is that 'If its not fun - then don't do it'. You want to be liked and respected, not for who you are but for what you are - and it seems to be working. 3:54 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Saturday, February 25, 2006 Sick Current mood: sick Man do I feel like crap today. Coughy, sneezy, snuuffly, etc. My muscles are sore. I don't get sick very often but this winter I have been sick a quite a few times. I have enen been taking better care of myself. I hope this doesn't mean that my immune system is getting weaker as the years go by. I remember a time when I went about 7 years without getting sick. Being sick sucks! 12:15 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Friday, February 24, 2006 Colorgenics Category: Life Check out your colorgenics profile.> http://www.paulgoldinresearch.com/cg/index.htm 3:08 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Stuff Current mood: hopeful Well, she and I have talked a little. We still got some things to work out. But I am optimistic. 12:48 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Tuesday, February 21, 2006 She wants to start over. Current mood: giddy OMFG! OMFG, OMFG, OMFG! Here is what she said: I am sorry for all the hurtful things i have done to you. it took me getting hurt again to realize that i still love you. i am not ready to rush back into a relationship. but maybe we could start over as friends. clean slate. not talk about anything that happened in the past. then our friendship will grow into deeper emotions. i understand all the things we left unsaid. but i don't want to concentrate on the past. let's look only to the future. call me. Never lose hope. I just knew it. I have the power! I just hope that I do not get hurt again. If I do, it is my own fault and I think that I can better deal with it. I can't say that you all did not tell me so. I thank you all for the support through all this. Especially you Gotti even though I know you don't agree with my decision. Update later. Woo hoo!