Posted on 03/08/2006 10:13:29 AM PST by NYer
Witches have returned to the German forests, dancing naked in groups under the full moon and calling to their gods.
The covens vary in size and in how seriously they take their calling, but the numbers are rising, particularly amongst the young.
Their religious ideas are described as "pagan" rather than Satanist, and many of the older practitioners have a history in the environmental movement, where they learnt a passionate love of nature.
In some cases this has led on to a belief in the natural powers of the forests. The women are convinced they can work magic.
"The witches' scene is experiencing a powerful revival," says Lutheran theologian Hansjoerg Hemminger. He says the covens range from "girlie witches" to the so-called "Wicca" covens. Wicca is an old Anglo-Saxon term for a group of witches.
Christian theologians are inclined to see the latter as a manifestation of a new heathen movement. The women tend to be members of associations like the Pagan Federation or the Stone Circle.
Maddalina, a 44-year-old witch, is high priestess of a witches' coven in Berlin, who became interested in Wicca about 15 years ago.
The former doctor's assistant, who declines to provide her real name, says she began looking around for women with similar interests.
"Today you are just a mouse-click away from making contact," she says, and she estimates that the number of witches has quadrupled in her time as a witch.
Conceding she is uncertain, she guesses there are several hundred Wiccans in Germany.
Maddalina is scornful of the teenagers interested in the witch cults. She gets e-mails daily from 13- and 14-year-olds, almost all of which she rebuffs.
Her own coven numbers just eight and the youngest trainee witch is 25 years old.
Most of the teenagers interested in witchcraft gain their information from the media, the internet or from books. Television series on witchcraft are currently popular in Germany.
These sources offer love potions aimed at curing shyness, or magical formulas spoken in the light of the moon to help with schoolwork.
Hemminger insists that these methods are never solutions to real problems.
But Maddalina is true to her beliefs. "We are heathens and believe in the power of magic," she says.
She and her coven go into the woods around Berlin several times a year to stand naked in a circle and call to Baldur, the god of light.
Their requests are of a banal sort; wishes for a better job, a new flat with a balcony, for good health.
By contrast with the teenage witches, the Wicca covens tend to be older women with a background in the women's movement.
Most commentators do not believe the groups have any links to Satanism and black magic. But Hemminger sounds a note of warning.
"Some of these circles operate in complete secrecy. We really don't know what they are up to," he says.
In general he regards the Wicca covens as a means to overcome personal crises that only cause concern once the cult begins to take over a person's life.
Maddalina insists her coven's activities are harmless. "We are not hurting anyone," she says.
And the Berlin forest authorities are taking a similar view, allowing the witches to dance under the moon.
It depends on who is doing the describing. As far as I am concerned, the two are synonymous.
I've known some of them, and there's a difference. Wiccans are misguided but often well-meaning people.
Satanists are pure evil, and deliberately so. Avoid them.
She and her coven go into the woods around Berlin several times a year to stand naked in a circle and call to Baldur, the god of light.
Lucifer was the "Bringer of Light", hence his name.
You know, it always seems like neo-pagans adopt the "easy" pagan religions that don't really require much out of them.
You don't see neo-pagans picking up Republican Roman paganism, with its emphasis on stoicism, duty and civic virtue, for example.
May want to wish for something not so banal, like, say, pardon from eternal torment? Of course Bladur or Ribald or whatever other demon she prays to can't do that, since it is in the same place this "pagan" will be one second after their last heartbeat. Hopefully, this woman will cry out to Jesus before its too late.
Made me think of Hillary's visit to Iraq, arriving on what the troops informally referred to as Broomstick One.
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"Witches return to German forests (love of nature alert!) "
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Lucifer and Baldur are not synonymous, anymore than Christ and Lucifer are synonymous (isn't Christ also associated with Light?).
In any event, one wonders why Wiccans are following a Norse god.
Lol!
If someone's beliefs are based on satanism, then the person is satanic, whether they understand this is irrelevant.
You said Hillary is returning to her natural habitat?
I am not surprised. But how someone could make up a long-dead god and imagine it is real is beyond me. You can see how nazis took off in that country, nazis just loved being nature lovers, and then there were the Greens.
germans should avoid nature-culting like the plague.
Now, the Wiccans are not really Pagan in the true sense, they are Pagan-revivalists (and not very historically accurate ones at that. C.S. Lewis used to say that it might be worth having real pagans around, if only to see a government minister in a bowler and striped pants attempting to sacrifice a white bull.) But they are in my opinion on a par with the New Agers, in that their beliefs are a misch-masch of relatively harmless stuff. Of course, because their beliefs are such a grab-bag they may shade over into summoning evil spirits, working harmful magic, etc. But the religion, such as it is, is not intentionally evil.
Satanism is intentionally and unrelievedly and unremedially evil in its inception, intent, and practice. It is in effect an obscene parody of Christianity.
There are degrees of error, and I don't believe it serves any useful purpose to lump all these off the wall "religions" into the same category.
Naked German women circling in the woods, and nobody has called yet for pictures?
The forest authorities aren't doing their jobs. In my local parks, there are signs posted, No activity after 10 PM. And the cops enforce it.
> You don't see neo-pagans picking up Republican Roman paganism, with its emphasis on stoicism, duty and civic virtue, for example.
You should expand your definition of "neo-pagan" to include more than the Wiccans. For example, the Nova Roma *do* follow Roman Republic paganism, with all it's trappings; and Asatruar follow the old Norse ways. Both of these groups tend to see Wiccans as pretty fluff-bunny. Asatruar, which I know more about than Nova Roma, *do* attempt to follow a non-easy path of honor and duty. And Asatruar are most assuredly *not* fluff-bunnies in terms of pacifism or reliance upon magickal BS.
A popular yet almost certainly fictional tale:
Seems there was a group of Ku Klux Klansmen in Texas who heard that some Pagans were holding a ritual out in the woods somewhere. Having run out of other minorities to harass, they decided to get back to their roots and practice some religious bigotry in addition to the usual racial intolerance and break up the party with a good ol' cross-burning.
So anyway, these fellows loaded up some lumber and a couple of cans of gasoline and went out hunting for these Pagans they'd heard about, hoping to catch them dancing nekkid around a fire or something. They found the spot where the other vehicles were parked and donned their hoods. Grabbing the lumber and gasoline, they assembled a cross and strode off into the woods, confident that they'd scare any remaining pants off the fluffybunny Pagans.
They were a little disconcerted to find themselves looking at the business end of at least 2 spears, a couple of swords, assorted knives, and more than one firearm. They'd crashed an Asatru blot and didn't realize that not all Pagans are pacifists. From somewhere behind the hardware, a voice called out
"If that cross goes up, you're getting nailed to it. I've got my hammer right here..."
The Klansmen left in a bit of a hurry.
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