To: ASA Vet
I'm not really sure how old the real wicca religion lasted, and I would not count the alleged lated medieval and modern survivals as real survival. I've read Murray's The Witch Cult in Western Europe and The God of the Witches, and much later stuff, including Gerald Gardiner's stuff and a fair sampling of the modern wiccan literature, and I think scholarly opinion from folks whose scholarship I know from other areas (e.g. Norman Cohn) has now pretty firmly discredited Murray. I think the best guess is that the "old religion" lasted maybe 2000 years or so, which is reasonably long-lived. One has to question, however, how fully developed it was and how long it was really dominant. I just don't know. Interesting. My scholarly interests have moved into other directions these days. Cheers!
92 posted on
06/20/2003 6:31:29 AM PDT by
CatoRenasci
(Ceterum Censeo [Gallia][Germania][Arabia] Esse Delendam --- Select One or More as needed)
To: CatoRenasci
So it appears the life expectancy of major supernaturalist belief systems is 2000-3500 years?
93 posted on
06/20/2003 6:45:18 AM PDT by
ASA Vet
("Those who know, don't talk. Those who talk, don't know." (I'm in the 2nd group.))
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson