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.
You've got to admire modern society, where else can one be just a payday away from homelessness and a mouse-click away from the nuthouse?
90% of the damage down in the past 100 years was at the hands of well-meaning people!
Drank a boatload of Paulaner Hefeweizen.
Saw God.
He was wearing a blue uniform, big shiny star on the left side.
AAAARGH! I've done myself in, down, down, down; and I meant to do good.
LOL
Yes it is from the Vulgate. As to the original Hebrew I can not say. People often forget Jerome also used the Septuagint as well. For those who do not know the Septuagint was written in Greek during the Ptolemy rule over Egypt.
I very much doubt anyone here has the credential and expertise to answer just where he got the name Lucifer, but I doubt he made it up. I do think the Book I refer to was in Hebrew but he did some mixing in Psalms between the Septuagint and the Hebrew versions. At least one of the Psalms was lost in the Hebrew when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. There is additional ver. in every Psalm in the Catholic Bible from the Protestant as a result to this very day.
And if we continue this sidetrack we are completely off track from the subject at hand.
I've heard that the 10 Commandments were taken directly from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Do you know anything about that?
> Lucifer is Biblical.
Errr. Via wikipedia:
"Lucifer is used by Jerome in the Vulgate (4th century) to translate into Latin Isaiah 14:12-14, where the Hebrew text refers to heilel ben-shachar (äéìì áï ùçø in Hebrew). Heilel signifies the planet Venus, and ben-shachar means "the brilliant one, son of the morning", to whose mythical fate that of the King of Babylon is compared in the prophetic vision. ... Jerome, with the Septuagint close at hand and a general familiarity with the pagan poetic traditions, translated Heylel as Lucifer. This may also have been done as a pointed jab at a bishop named Lucifer, a contemporary of Jerome who argued to forgive those condemned of the Arian heresy."
"Lucifer" is Biblical only in that it was an apparent mis-translation from the Hebrew "Heylal". Seems unlikely there'd be a Bishop named "Lucifer" if that was the actual word used, don't you agree?
I've seen pictures of the Wiccans with their clothing on and perfer them that way!!!
No but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
> My intent was to show you your statement would not stand as a fact in the general population here
Perhaps. *LOTS* of people are ill-educated, and could be convinced that any god not their own must be another name for their own devil.
Baldur ain't Lucifer ain't Shiva ain't Xenu ain't Christ ain't Jehovah ain't Azathoth ain't Allah.
And did you dance around the foyer lights in the buff?
what the sam hill are you talking about?
From: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_10cl.htm
A second second trial was that the deceased would have to recite a negative confession "when [she or] he descends to the hall of the Two Truths." In the statement, he or she swore that they had not engaged in specific behaviors while alive. According to Egyptologist Ahmed Osman, one translation of the statement reads:
"Hail to thee, great God, Lord of the Two Truths. I have come unto thee, my Lord, that thou mayest bring me to see thy beauty. I know thee, I know thy name, I know the names of the 42 Gods who are with thee in this broad hall of the Two Truths . . . Behold, I am come unto thee. I have brought thee truth; I have done away with sin for thee. I have not sinned against anyone. I have not mistreated people. I have not done evil instead of righteousness . . .
I have not reviled the God.
I have not laid violent hands on an orphan.
I have not done what the God abominates . . .
I have not killed; I have not turned anyone over to a killer.
I have not caused anyone's suffering . . .
I have not copulated (illicitly); I have not been unchaste.
I have not increased nor diminished the measure, I have not diminished the palm; I have not encroached upon the fields.
I have not added to the balance weights; I have not tempered with the plumb bob of the balance.
I have not taken milk from a child's mouth; I have not driven small cattle from their herbage...
I have not stopped (the flow of) water in its seasons; I have not built a dam against flowing water.
I have not quenched a fire in its time . . .
I have not kept cattle away from the God's property.
I have not blocked the God at his processions. 5
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Not exactly the 10C, but some definite similarities. Odd they had a commandment against building dams, though.
You can not claim the name is not Biblical when it is in the Bible. An argument over Saint Jerome's intentions is pretty useless 1700 years after he wrote it.
And until you produce some "Credible" evidence otherwise it goes into the same bin as your other statements about Saint Paul's marketing strategy.
Well, dancing nekked in the woods was how all this got started.
I don't know how a stay in the Holiday Inn Express has to do with the ten commandments, or what the ten commandments have to do with wiccans dancing nekkid in the woods.
So I thought, with all this religious zeal floating around on this thread, you might have put it all back together by doing a wiccan ritual in the lobby of the Holiday Inn!!
/hoot>
All of which amounts to a statement of faith. Your faith not mine.
You're right, it was worth a shot, sorry to disappoint!
Ich nehme noch ein Hefeweizen bitte!
No problem.
I'm still trying to sign up to be a chigger-checker for the girls in post 62!
You may be right, but it's that ten percent you've got to watch out for, because they are intent on killing you.
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