Posted on 12/16/2004 11:04:00 AM PST by quidnunc
The sky was already murky at 4 p.m. when I locked my bike outside Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street. Inside, it was even murkier: wood-panelled corridors stretched off into the gloom, men in grey suits were wedged together, smoking Bensons and drinking bitter. No one looked even slightly like an Arch Priest of the Council of British Druid Orders. At 4:10 I found a separate little bar near the back of the pub. As I walked in, a big man with round shoulders and grey hair stared at me and I saw the corner of a magazine poking out from inside his coat. As I watched, the whole cover slowly emerged: a yellowy-purple watercolour of a fairy, and the title: The Witchtower. ‘Steve?’ I said. He nodded.
We bought bitter, found somewhere to sit, and began what turned out to be a three-hour crash course in modern paganism, one of the fastest-growing religions in Britain.
-snip-
So, can a modern pagan just pick any god to worship? I asked. Egyptian? Roman? African? Are there any rules? Steve put his hands self-consciously under the table, ‘No rules,’ he said. ‘Being a pagan is about being free from institutional rules. And the gods? Once you start seeking they choose you, really. Everyone has their own path, but we all celebrate the same festivals: the summer and winter solstices, spring and autumn equinoxes and four other festivals: Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasad.’
Pagans, I discovered during our second pint, are also united by their sense of the injustices done them by Christians. The last 2,000 years of history is a heart-wrenching tale of innocent occult revivals squashed by ignorant Christians …
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.co.uk ...
The wedding ring is a pagan symbol adopted by the Christian Church from the Roman practice, but I don't see you throwing that away...
"Inside, it was even murkier: wood-panelled corridors stretched off into the gloom, men in grey suits were wedged together, smoking Bensons and drinking bitter."
What, you can still smoke in bars in England? I'm envious. The local nico-nazies here in Ontario, Canada (the provincial Liberal govt) want to completely ban smoking in bars and restaurants, not even allowing seperate ventilated smoking rooms. They've even been so bold as to admit that it has nothing to do with second hand smoke to patrons or employees - they just don't think a person should be able to enjoy a smoke with their beer, lest they enjoy it. Now that they've made it clear that it's all about making smokers miserable so as to get them to quit, why don't they have the guts to stand behind their convictions and just ban tobacco altogether.
Sorry, I guess that rant was a little off-topic, but even the Brits haven't done this yet.
Uh, if you look into the historical accounts, all three major Christian groups - Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant - have engaged in witchhunts.
There you go again with your facts, facts, facts, quiddy!
If it wasn't for 'romanticizing and historical blindness' the so-called 'progressive forces' wouldn't have anything to work with at all!
Leave them their horoscopes and crystals - only if socialism triumphs will we have to worry about human sacrifices, cannibalism, etc.
Lawyers and judges are more dangerous to our future than warlocks and witches, imho.
They're working together against Christianity.
Of course, I didn't want to put down catholics specifically. Just saying, since you can't associate modern day christians with the evils of old why do it with "druids"?
Of course, I didn't want to put down catholics specifically. Just saying, since you can't associate modern day christians with the evils of old why do it with "druids"?
LOL. At my house DH was seduced by the god Honda, specifically by one of His aspects known only by the number "919". He had ceased worshipping the older god known as "CB750F", who once spurned got angry and punished him by refusing to start.
Well, that's well and good for him, but I'm a devotee of Honda's lesser female consort, Suzuki. She too, is known by an abbreviation "GS500". I'm assuming that GS means "Great Spirit".
:::laughing::
LQ
Personally, I see all paganism as being evil.
This just reminds me of the King of the Hill episode where Bobby hung out with the "witches" in his town.
BOBBY: This looks like something out of Harry Potter.
WARD RACKLEY: Dude, I just vouched for you.
BOBBY: Uh... if Harry Potter went to hell.
Frosty & rudolph have nothing to do with Christmas.
u some kind of a bible scolur or sumtin
The funny thing about this whole Celtic/Druid phenomenon is there is more than a hint of this in neo-Nazi circles. It just goes to show that Naziism and leftism are the same.
Easy. As a southerner I know many fine judges and lawyers, many are christians. Dont be so general.
AHH! I love KotH. Allow me to hijack this thread and post one of my favorite quotes :P
PEGGY: You're 12 years old and drinking a beer??
BOBBY: But I didnt even like it!
HANK: Now you're just trying to make me mad.
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
Bump for later reading.
When I was looking for the exact quote from that episode I found this site. It's riot. I'm going to steal one of the quotes for my new tag line.
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