Kooky, Sexy, Cool – The Rise Of The New Witches

News of The World(UK) ^ | September 07, 2009

[Steelfish]

Kooky, Sexy, Cool – The Rise Of The New Witches

[Pics in URL]

Forget Kabbalah – paganism is the hot new religion, and thousands of young British women are embracing it

By Eimear O'Hagan, 06/09/2009

Witches, covens, dancing around bonfires by the light of the moon and making offerings to goddesses - all the stuff of folklore and fairy tale, right? Wrong.

Welcome to the world of paganism. Walk into any high-street bookshop and, alongside the usual chick-lit best-sellers, there's another set of books flying off the shelves, all about how to find your inner witch. Yes, really.

Hot on the heels of best-selling vampire saga Twilight and new US drama Eastwick, it seems all things weird are wonderful.

Pagan culture has arrived in the 21st century - and young women are behind its growing popularity. Intrigued by its mystery and underlying sexuality, 20-somethings are converting in their droves, making paganism the UK's fastest growing religion.

According to the Office of National Statistics, there were 31,000 pagans living in the UK in 2001. Just eight years later, the Pagan Federation estimates there are now around 360,000.

[freebilly]

Any doubt as to why Islam is taking the UK by storm...?

[GeronL]

Its a post-morality nation and its ripe for taking over

[tflabo]

Playing with fire-—spiritually dangerous stuff leading to bondage this allure of witchcraft.

Gonna have to serve somebody....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqxW6E24Jh8

[Othniel]

Big frigging deal. Jesus can still kick Satan's A$$.

"Declare the things that are going to come afterward, that we ay know you are gods; Indeed, do good or evil, that we may anxiously look about us and fear together."

"Behold, you are of no accou8nt, and your work amounts to nothing; he who chooses you is an abomination." Isaiah 41:23.

[Soothesayer9]

Witches and pagans. In other words, more liberals an enviro-nazis.

[tflabo]

Professor Hutton also believes paganism's popularity is partly due to our current obsession with the environment. "People are attracted to the respect paganism gives the earth," he says. "It provides a spiritual dimension to their environmental beliefs."

Worshipping the creation rather than the Creator. Professing themselves wise they become fools!

[rom]

Romans 1:22-31. One of my favorite passages:

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

[llevrok]

Rules. Where are the photos?

[Blind Eye Jones]

Paganism is back... with it comes the breakdown of hierarchical “grand narratives” (e.g.,Christianity); the rise of radical feminism; reliance on whim; impiety; the rise of protean human gods that lie; a new sexual topology; new allegiance (and priestly caste) to the earth as Gaia, new proselytizing like the pagans of old had never done.

[Rodamala]

you forgot lesbians

[dragonblustar]

29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

That describes a few liberals I know.

[fso301]

No different from the increased European paganism in the latter 19th and early part of the 20th century which culminated with Adolf Hitler.

[iowamark]

Sounds like the US Congress, doesn’t it?

[iowamark]

Bristol University's Professor Ronald Hutton, a leading authority on paganism, says it's partly due to the feminist movement.

"As women become more empowered in their relationships and careers, they've begun to look for a set of beliefs that reflects this," he says. "In paganism, women are given an equal role to men - and in some branches, they're actually dominant. Women want a religion that empowers them."...

Professor Hutton also believes women are attracted to the fact that paganism can be practised anywhere and at any time, making it easier to fit around busy modern lives.

He says: "Rather than going to church at a certain time every week, and following a set of rules handed to you, pagans can walk their own path in life and not be restricted by laws and traditions. You can adapt paganism to suit your life, which is appealing."

[Telepathic Intruder]

I wonder how much of this is a result of the Harry Potter books? Yes, I know, it’s a totally innocent book and I’m just being paranoid. But it has popularized the occult, which makes it something to be wary of. Even more so that it’s targeted at people of an impressionable age. So poof, a new fad of witchcraft and the occult. Just a harmless fad.

[jonrick46]

This shows that the UK is showing symptoms of its faltering education system. If it were effectively educating its citizens, few would fall for this ignorant drivel.

[Mach9]

Paraphrasing Chesterton on the death of God, the problem with modern man isn’t that he believes nothing but that he believes everything.

[OriginalChristian]

Ok, now this made me chuckle.
Thanks...

[TheRealDBear]

I thought atheism was the fastest growing. C’mon, if you’re not going to believe in God, go all the way and don’t fall for this new age woo.