The rise of neo-paganism (No, this one is NOT SATIRE)

America was founded by Christian Puritans, who had a deep aversion to idolatry, popery, and magic. The hardships and dangers of their predicament made them cling to their religion as the one thing that justified the perilous pilgrimage to the New World. And from time to time they would tremble before the thought that paganism lay not only around them, but within, where it was all the more dangerous because hidden from view. So began the trials of suspected witches and the vigilant denunciations of neighbors that tore the New England communities apart.

Constant immigration has diversified the religious inheritance of the United States. Nevertheless the country remained until recently predominantly Christian, with a continuing aversion to pagan cults and superstitions, and a trust in the Bible as the common inheritance of the Judeo-Christian faiths. Indeed the United States has been held together more effectively by its Bible culture than by its Constitution: for the Bible has shaped the language, the morality, and the aspirations of ordinary Americans and provided them with a common frame of reference. American patriotism is scarcely thinkable without the Judeo-Christian God as its Almighty Guardian, and it is hardly surprising to find that the outlying communities in America-many of them suspicious of the Constitution as a weapon used against them by urban liberals-cling to the Bible as their most trusted guide. Debates over school prayer, over creationism and the curriculum, over abortion and sex education, are not, in America, the halfhearted affairs they are in Europe. On the contrary, they are at the center of politics since they affect the deep-down loyalty of many Americans to the settlement under which they live.

Strange things are now happening to this religious inheritance. The Christian churches have clung to their congregations, but often at the cost of dividing and subdividing into ever more marginal sects, each striving to accommodate the eccentricities of some obstinate community of believers. Almost none of the old denominations retains any centralized authority that can control the doctrine, liturgy, or membership of its peripheral congregations, while new cults and new services spring up everywhere, as dormant religious passions ignite like forest fires. In Europe we observe the slow, steady decline in faith, and the gradual disappearance of human hopes behind a cloud of skepticism. In America, however, every loss of faith is met by a gain, as new religious practices rise in the places vacated by the old. That this should be happening now, in the age of scientific inquiry, is testimony to the strength of American society, which finds new sources of hope beneath the never-ending stream of disappointment. Nevertheless, these sources of hope make less and less reference to the Bible and the Judeo-Christian tradition and are more and more pagan in tone. That which the Pilgrim fathers found most horrendous- witchcraft-is the latest, and one of the most successful, among the pagan cults now colonizing America.

Of course the witches-devotees of "Wicca," as they like to say-strenuously argue that their faith has been traduced in the past, that it is older and deeper and more spiritual than Christianity, and that it was branded as evil only because it was seen as a threat to the "patriarchal" culture. And by way of proving the point they have cobbled together a very up-to- date and user-friendly version of goddess-worship, which answers so well to the spiritual hunger of modern Americans as to cast serious doubt on its antiquity. Their basic principle-"Harm none and do what you will"-is the gospel of liberalism dressed up as law, rather than the lack of it; their "covens" are in many cases vamped-up feminist circles, devoted to boosting the confidence of women downtrodden by men, or at any rate by their own image of men; their symbols-the pentagram, the altar, the nine- inch daggers or "athames," the long robes, and the leaping over flames-may have ancient precedents, but they come to the Wiccans from 19th-century charlatans like Eliphas Levi and Aleister Crowley, men who cannily judged the spiritual hunger of the new middle classes and thereby notched up women by the score. Indeed, as Philip G. Davis has shown (Goddess Unmasked: The Rise of Neo-pagan Feminist Spirituality), the Wiccan theology is derived not from the old forms of goddess-worship, but from the writings of 19th-century commentators like Johann Jacob Bachofen, who invented the notion of a lost matriarchal past in a work that is now entirely discredited.

Still, religion will survive any amount of skeptical scholarship, and the Wiccans are no exception. They offer the commodity for which modern Americans are hungry-the conversion experience, the transition from dark to light, lost to found, outsider to insider. In comparison with this redemptive gift, other things are of no account. The covens have been spreading through the suburbs; even the military now recognizes the Wiccans as a "minority religion," with the right to hold rituals and classes for serving personnel. Weak though their doctrines may be from any intellectual or historical perspective, they are a triumph of applied anthropology. Feminism, environmentalism, and liberalism all come together in a religion that recognizes the goddess as the object of worship, the priestess as her representative, and the earth and its seasons as the source of sacred rites.

It is tempting to regard the Wiccans in the same light as the other cults that have recently sprung up in America-the Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, the Moonies, the church of the notorious Rev. Jim Jones. There are, however, two important features that distinguish them. There is no leader or founder of the Wiccan cult; and there is no sacred text. Witchcraft is a religion without any structure of command and without any written law. True, there is an attempt to compensate in the use of antique and fustian language-"yclad," "mote," "hallowmas." But the religion recognizes no objective authority to which the worshipper must submit. On the contrary, it is a religion of "empowerment," to use the feminist word. Spells and brews, chants and talismans are all weapons in the hands of the individual Wiccan, who gains power over self and others through the manipulation of things. True, the Wiccan draws on mysterious cosmic forces; but the purpose of the spell and ritual is to join these forces to yourself-to amplify your own power and so achieve a kind of here-and-now redemption.

In this, at least, the Wiccans are close to the witches as they were once imagined. The witch was anathema to the Christian believer because she had arrogated to herself the powers that belong to the Almighty. Her spells were the antithesis of the sacred text-indeed, it was often thought that they consisted in reciting Biblical or liturgical texts backwards. For they were expressions of the individual will, rather than admonitions and counsels of a higher power. All the discipline of religion-which consists in obedience to the divine command and a day-to-day study of its meaning- was negated in the Puritan image of the witch, which is why witches were so greatly feared. They were the archetype of the liberated human being- the human being who had stepped free from the chains of morality and seized the world and its glories for herself.

For this very reason, however, witchcraft has a singular appeal to modern Americans, increasing numbers of whom are brought up without any knowledge of a sacred text and without the language and the concepts of the Judeo- Christian tradition. The idea that religion might be a matter of obedience and example strikes them as weird; the idea that it is a matter of the self and its empowerment connects immediately with the surrounding secular culture.

But why isn't feminism enough? Why the need for a Wiccan religion? What is added by religion that is absent from the politics of the group?

The answer is enchantment. Science has disenchanted the universe and deprived us of our place at its center. Human beings cannot live with this demoralized world. They need to see their environment as their tribal forebears saw it: as an enchanted place, which mysteriously returns our glance. The spell answers directly to this need, since it enables the witch to reanimate her universe. It gives supernatural power to a human being, and so rescues her from nature.

Rituals, spells, and incantations are deliberate defiances of reason. They place nonsense in the center of people's lives and ask them to unite in believing it. People on their own are nothing-victims of the natural world, and at the mercy of their own skepticism. People in a group, however, have a power that is more than the sum of their individual efforts. And the spell symbolizes this power. Alone you could not possibly believe in it, since alone you have only reason as your guide. Together, however, you can believe anything. In short, the Wiccans have rediscovered the phenomenon observed by the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep-the rite of passage, which purges the individual of his isolation and grants him membership in the tribe. The rite of passage works by summoning occult powers, by standing outside nature and against it, and by reassuring the individual that, absorbed into the community, he cannot be harmed.

And that is what is missing from modern life, and especially from life in the American city. The most important rite of passage in recent Western societies was marriage-the consecration before the community of a lifelong commitment. The collapse of marriage is not the result of feminism, but the cause of it. Without lasting marriages, women have no real guarantee of security, and no reason for trusting men. If men cannot be trusted, then women have to set up on their own. Feminism turns on the masculine realm and deconstructs it, representing it as a realm of lies, manipulation, and the brutal misuse of power. It thereby reassures women that they don't need men in any case. But it relies on rational arguments, sociological theories, and objective policies-so leaving the heart unconsoled. What is needed is a new form of membership, a new rite of passage, and a new lifelong commitment-hence a new form of nonsense. In other words, what is needed is witchcraft. This is surely why the Wiccans are expanding, even though they have neither a leader, nor a doctrine, nor a text.

On the other hand, a cult that spreads so quickly, and that has so little substance when it comes to answering the great metaphysical questions, is ripe for takeover by the real witches. Strong personalities like Aleister Crowley preyed on the vulnerable loners who had lost their religion but not their religious need, and who wanted to throw themselves beneath the juggernaut of some crushing ego. Modern America has seen the emergence of these leaders-Koresh and Jones being symptomatic. And it has discovered that their promise of a new life is also a death threat. For the moment, the Wiccans speak only of peace and love and finding oneself. But without a doctrine or a text to protect them, they may soon find themselves opening the door to the Devil. Those old Puritans were wrong about many things; but they were not entirely wrong about witchcraft.

discostu, your assertions about Christianity(negative) vs. your assertions about Wicca(positive) save for your belief that neither are true make you seem a little disingenious about your athiesm. What I mean to say is you seem less like a true athiest after reading your posts and more like a rejector of one particular religion. After all the Wiccans really believe the same as you(in modern Wicca anyway). The power in oneself to manipulate the environment around them. Is it any wonder given that your "beliefs" are similar that you would be sitting here defending Wicca while chiding the Christian religion?

I have to support Tomalak on this one. While I have known some Wiccans who are pro-life FOR THEMSELVES, thier view is not so cut and dry as "do no harm". In fact, I can think of a few sites where Pagan/Wiccan are justifying abortion as "degrees" of do no harm. They were conflicted over "harm" to the mother or "harm" to the baby and in that regard they could see financial reasons as being "harm" to the mother and her life trumping the baby's. There were many too who believed, like many other "pro-choicers", that there was a difference between terminating at 9 weeks vs 32. Basically, there seems to be NO moral precedence in the Wiccan beliefs to support the idea that they are pro-life as a whole or that they should be.

I'd like you to paint me with your broad brush discostu. I studied Wiccan and pagan rituals in some detail as a young adult. Of course I don't know everything there is to know about them, maybe not even as much as you, but maybe more. What of me? I'm sure you'll find some way to brush me aside as well.

As I said before, I find it very telling of your athiesm with what I read here so far. I'm still waiting for you to paint your broad brush on Wiccan and pagan practices. Of course they do no harm, ever right? Never one sacrifice? NEVER? Pagan covers a wide range of religious beliefs so I would submit that you go back and do a little research before you answer that question. And please be sure to extend your research back through history as you did for the Christian relgion. Thanks

Virginia was NEVER a Catholic colony. Maryland was but Maryland was also religiously tolerant and made no effort to exclude non-Catholics. I don't believe that even Maryland took government money and handed it to the Catholic Church as you suggest was done in the Protestant Anglican colony of Virginia. Maryland was so tolerant that it allowed itself to become a Protestant colony in which Catholics were ultimately disenfranchised and the original capital at St. Mary's razed because of Protestant distaste for the name of the community.

Actually, you are eloquent proof that Chesterton knew exactly what he was talking about. As to numbers, there are one billion Catholics and one billion other Christians in this world. Few of them live in Red China or India which have two billion or more people between them. There are a very substantial number of people, mostly Muslim, who inhabit much of the Middle East and parts of Asia and Africa. There is a substantial atheist and agnostic hangover in the former Soviet Union and its former satellites which also have substantial populations. There are pockets of continuing paganism in the Third World and some phonies and frauds who claim "Wicca" as a religion, as pointed out by this NR article. There are, of course, those poor souls who are so in love with their favorite sins that they choose those sins over the Way, the Truth and the Life, but God anticipated that and allowed them and us the gift of free will to choose Him or perdition. I think that about covers the question of whether and. if so, why many abandon Christianity (as many enter).

Any questions?

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/8383/politics.html

Here is an interesting article on just such a thing from a Wiccan. Seems (s)he was booed off the stage if you will of a Wiccan board when (s)he admitted to being politically conservative. Plus, even this conservative seems to have some very liberal ideas in regard to sexual orientation and such. It's a shame that those who claim such great knowledgable of Wicca even need another Freeper to point out to them the fact that Wicca would be more likely to support liberal causes than conservative. That seems to be a given in thier belief system imo.

Friend, this is the United States and here we have a First Amendment which guarantees your right to be a witch or a warlock or a Wiccan if you so choose. It also guarantees your right to worship yourself, if your imagination allows such hilarity and your mind is so invincibly ignorant. You can be a Daoist or a Maoist. You can be a Nazi or a Stalinist, an atheist or an agnostic, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Roman Catholic. You can despise Bernard Cardinal Law and Fr. Paul Shanley but not as much as most real Catholics do. All this and more is guaranteed by the genius of the First Amendment as actually written.

Not only that but the God Who created you (whether you care to admit ot or not) gave you free will and the right to choose to recognize Him and choose Him or not, as you see fit. No one is drafting anyone here. Ideas, as Richard Weaver wrote, still have consequences, however. What I do not have a right to do is to force you or anyone else to admire me or share my beliefs. That is a disability which we all share. If you do not share my beliefs I will somehow survive. Whether you think so or not, my Redeemer (and yours, if you so choose) liveth. Whatever you may imagine, I and others like me do not wish you ill over your nonbelief or, if you prefer, your particular belief.

Actually, you are eloquent proof that Chesterton knew exactly what he was talking about.

You mean here?

The publisher said of somebody, "That man will get on; he believes in himself." . . . . I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? . . . . The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums." He said mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. "Yes, there are," I retorted, "and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. . . . . If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. . . . Believing utterly in one's self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has 'Hanwell' written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus."

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy.

Is that so? Interesting that some of its basic tenets came from that "senseless" Bible! I agree with another person, you sir are nothing more than a bigot. While we are at it here and for the record, although I do believe my religious belief is true, I would not have nearly so much a disdain for Wicca if it did not support liberal ideals. This disdain extends to Christian churchs as well like some UMC churches and liberal Catholicism. Things like the UU congregations, well you get my drift. Did you ever wonder why these same folks hold disdain for the more conservative legs of Christianity? It's by the same token.

Atheists interest me in their ability to demean those of established religions while vehemently defending those that are on the edges

Boy, I should have read down further and I could have saved myself a post. This is what I was thinking as well as I read discostu's posts. As I said before, it was very enlightening to me.

I hate to tell you, but Wiccans and pagans often times lump themselves together. Go to a PAGAN festival and you will find Wiccans, Asutru-ans(?), Gaia worshippers, etc. I see it is Wiccan being part of the larger pagan movement, much like you find many brands of Christian beliefs being lumped under the header of Christianity although some vary a great deal like JW or Mormon, but they probably would not find event to worship together although they all consider themselves Christians, much like you wouldn't expect to find the Wiccans holding cirle with the Gaia worshippers.

traditional and total disdain for property rights

Interestingly enough many pagans share a disdain for property rights as well believing no one can "land take". coincidence? From a peice about Asutru and Wicca:

"Some highly eco-aware Wiccans, for example, may balk that Norse Pagans, being generally more conservative (more on this later), might be prone to support legislation that is anti-environmental, or that the Ásatrú ritual of "land taking" (i.e., ownership) defies most understandings of land stewardship. To "own" the land, such a person would argue, is inherently "un-Pagan." For their own sake, many Ásatrú reject the label of "earth religion" and while environmentalism is important, veneration of the Earth Goddess is not a dominant feature of Ásatrú; Nerthus being merely another deity among many."

BTW, for the other person who questioned whether Wiccans align themselves with liberalism I submit the above as well.

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