Sabrina, Harry Potter, and the Web help Paganism grow

reuters ^ | June 19,2003 | Pete Harrison

[Jimmyclyde]

Sabrina, Harry and the Web help Paganism grow

By Pete Harrison LONDON (Reuters) - Paganism and the ancient art of witchcraft are on the rise, experts say, as the summer's most celebrated Pagan festival approaches.

Television, the Internet, environmentalism and even feminism have all played a role in the resurgence.

Soaring Pagan numbers have churches worrying and calling for stricter controls on cult TV programmes and films that celebrate sorcery like "Harry Potter", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch".

Record attendance is expected at dawn on Saturday morning at the mystical megaliths of Stonehenge, where Pagans have celebrated the summer solstice for thousands of years.

The trend has worried some of the Protestant church's more traditional elements.

"The rise of interest in Paganism is damaging because it normalises spiritual evil by presenting it as mere fantasy and fiction," said Reverend Joel Edwards of the Evangelical Alliance, a grouping of some one million UK Christians.

"The Evangelical Alliance calls on government and TV regulatory bodies to monitor programmes which promote or glamorise Pagan issues," he told Reuters.

Thirty thousand are expected to dance in the sunrise on summer's longest day at Stonehenge, says English Heritage, which manages the site -- nearly four times the number in 1990, when it re-opened to the public after many years.

Scholars believe the ring of 20-tonne stones was built between 3,000 and 1,600 BC as a sacred temple. Many of the revellers will be there just to party, but among them will be druids, who believe in spiritual enlightenment through nature, and witches who practice Wicca -- harnessing nature's power as magic.

GOOD CITIZENSHIP

At least 10,000 Pagan witches and 6,000 Pagan druids were practising in Britain at the last estimate in 1996, said history professor Ronald Hutton at Bristol University. He too suggested the number was rising.

"Both the witches and the druids were always heavily outnumbered by what I'd call non-attached Pagans," he told Reuters. "There are perhaps 100,000 to 120,000 in Britain."

Paganism has been rising in the UK since the 1950s, Hutton said. "It's a religion that meets modern needs," he added. "Traditional religions have so many prohibitions: Thou shalt not do this or that. But Paganism has a message of liberation combined with good citizenship."

He pointed to the ancient Pagan motto: "An (if) it harm none, do what you will".

Matt McCabe of the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids (OBOD) said his order had grown from a few hundred in the late 1980s to 7,000 worldwide today. Much of the growth he put down to the appeal of remote learning via the World Wide Web.

"People are very reassured by the structured learning we can offer via the Web," he said.

The 1970s environmental movement also had an impact, said McCabe, with a lot of environmentalists attracted to Paganism because of its veneration of nature.

Hutton said feminism in the 1980s had a similar effect, with women drawn to the female god-figure that is also worshipped. Then in the 1990s came the TV programmes "Buffy" and "Sabrina", about teenagers with supernatural powers.

"Anything that makes teenage girls feel powerful is bound to go down well," joked OBOD's McCabe.

Kevin Carlyon, High Priest of British White Witches said "Harry Potter" in recent years had continued the trend, helping create what he called "the fastest growing belief system in the world". But it was not all good, he added.

Fresh back from a trip to Scotland to lift an old hex from the Loch Ness Monster, he warned teenagers against joining witch covens too young.

"There are some bloody weird people out there," he said.

[Dead Corpse]

And there you have it. Because of that, we should never inact legislation where the underlying principle is a religious belief.

First Amendment. Period.

[FeliciaCat]

Hey, dancing naked under a full moon is my favorite part!
:)

[ThinkDifferent]

I have to put in my vote for Anya. Republican too.

[honeygrl]

You sound more like a member of some strange cult rather than a christian....

And are vampires mentioned in the bible? Was satan a vampire in the bible? (not that i'm defending vampires because I know very little about people who actually call themselves vampires)

[honeygrl]

"In the interest of accuracy, there are "Christian Witches". Those who practice folk medicine and sympathetic magiks while maintaining a Christian theology. They are hardly considered "pagans" though. "

Yeah, i've read a little about people who practice in that way but I think they call themselves christian rather than pagan.

[f.Christian]

Fast ... on the draw --- kerpowie !

[Dead Corpse]

Anyanka? Too skinny. Big boys don't play with breakable toys. ;-)

[honeygrl]

"Gerald Gardner. Father of the modern neo-pagan movement."

That's exactly who I was thinking of but couldn't remember his first name. A friend of mine is wiccan but is of the Alexander(?) variety. A couple taught her for several years before letting her be a member of their coven. Have you ever been here? The guy who wrote it is pagan.. druid maybe? Not sure. It's entertaining. If you are wiccan, it might offend you at first glimpse but if you read what he says, you'll likely see the types he's talking about and agree with some of it. If the page doesn't load the first try, refresh until it does. His server kinda sucks.

[Xenalyte]

Dude, back off of us Libertarians . . . I'm starting to lose my temper at the bashing, and when I do, it will not be pretty.

I ain't kiddin'.

[Dead Corpse]

Some do. Some don't. This was the first site to come up under a Google search. Someone wrote a book about it at one point in time.

Not really my bag of tea leaves though.

[honeygrl]

"Hey, dancing naked under a full moon is my favorite part! "

LOL, that's the only part my friend's hubby had a problem with when she got into it. It was an optional thing for her group though so it wasn't a big deal.

[f.Christian]

Or how about ...

do your thingy ---

don't hurt the flowers !

[Dead Corpse]

I haven't considered myself a wiccan for some time now. My own version of "thou art God", in the Heinleinian sense, wear's Asatru labels on all the parts that we humans don't understand yet.

And yep... I've seen his website before.

[RogueIsland]

Anyanka? Too skinny. Big boys don't play with breakable toys

I wouldn't insult someone who can turn you into a troll.

[Dead Corpse]

Yeah... and look how that turned out. Could be worse, she could turn me into a giant demon worm.

[msdrby]

Yeah... and look how that turned out. Could be worse, she could turn me into a giant demon worm. No, that is Shai Hulud.

[Salman]

Gerald Gardiner was the first one I know of to use the "harm none" in a pagan context. I guess sex crazed old coots wil say anything to get some nookie. ;-)

"Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Rabelais (in translation, c.1500) making fun of the French nobility.

"Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will." Aleister Crowley (c. 1930) beguiling those of whom of whom it is said "There is one born every minute and two to take him". Crowley was following the prophet Barnum.

"An ye harm none, do as thou wilt." Gardiner (c. 1950) on a spiritual quest for the elusive Nookie. Gardiner prefigured the prophet Clinton.

[honeygrl]

"Do only the demon possessed make sense to you ? "

OMY! A coherent sentence!!!! I better look outside, there might be pigs flying.

[redhead]

"Gerald Gardner. Father of the modern neo-pagan movement. He's pretty much credited with most of the fluffy-headed non-sense being passed around by the hippy revivalists. The witchcraft tie in to the Christian Satan goes back to the Malleus Maleficarum. Spranger and Kramers work has killed more people than plague and is an excellent example of why religion and government should never mix."

For a very interesting history of the neopagan movement, read "Goddess Unmasked," by Philip G. Davis. Intriguing.

[L,TOWM]

"Don't you just want to party all night with this guy?"