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Wicca, begone! *spinkles some lustral water* Wicca, begone! *chants some words in Ouranian barbaric* Wicca, begone! *dancing the Macarena around the altar* Wicca, begone! There. I've done it. I've finally banished the spectre of Wicca from my life and my website. It's something I've been moving towards for a while now. But tonight I've taken that final step, and am making it public. Yup. Wicca is now a non-issue with me. No more rants. No more going into the chat rooms and arguing with them. No more reading their awful books or websites. I've left all general type Pagan lists that I was on - except for WiccaVent and the Pagan Diversity Campaign. I am so done with this crap. You see, I've let it dominate my life for too long now. It started out as a minor irritant. I had left Wicca on pretty good terms. It wasn't my thing, but hey, it worked for a lot of people, and if it made them happy and more spiritual people - good for them! And then I started witnessing the influx of the Pagan Groupies. These were people who picked up a couple books, and automatically became III° High Priestesses, with their own Covens. These were people who could quote the Rede, but didn't know what an Ardane was. These were people who had a Chinese Combo attitude towards theology. Pick a deity from Column A, and one from Column B, throw in a spring roll and call it good. These were people who had no idea how to properly cast a cirlce, but were always giving out magical advice in the chats. In short, they were McWiccans. At first, I chalked it up to youthful naivete. After all, I had once been a newbie myself. Thank Zeus, I had been nowhere near the Internet at the time, so all my blunders were private ones. Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of. All men come ignorant into the world. But there's no excuse for staying in that wretched condition. To help them, I offered my years of experience and accumulated knowledge. I would reccomend books that had been helpful in my search for knowledge. When I saw them make an error, I politely corrected them. I engaged them in discussion, trying to get them to think outside the box. And, it seemed to be working. Then, a change occurred. The Wiccans started hardening, mutating. Instead of being willing to openly discuss matters of theology or ethics, they insisted that their way was the right way, and fuck anyone who didn't agree with them. In the chat rooms, cliques developed. If you didn't have the right answers to the questions, they jumped all over you. They were particularly cruel to newbies, and curious outsiders, lampooning their honest questions, even as they, themselves, demonstrated complete ignorance on most of the subjects at hand. So, I started writing rants and essays on the subject. I spent more time in the chats and on the lists, fighting a rearguard action against them. I defended Wicca far more zealously than most Wiccans do. Why? I'm not quite sure. I think I still loved Wicca at that point. I had been Wiccan for almost 6 years - and I'm only 24 now. That's a huge chunk of my life right there! Wicca was my first introduction to Paganism. It had given me the framework in which I was able to make my first faltering steps towards the Gods. Although I no longer agreed with many of its ideas, I considered them as valuable insights, pieces of the puzzle that might contribute to some greater and fuller understanding of the world. I remembered the joy I had had in discovering new things. The bits of herb lore I acquired. Mastering the tarot, runes, I Ching, and the pendulum. Learning to use magical scripts. (I covered a whole notebook page with my name in all the different codes!) The thrill I'd felt when my first spell came true. And my second. And my third! (I never lost my sense of awe about magic.) How deeply I had been moved by the few public rituals I'd attended. How my experience of Wicca had been interwoven with books by Fantasy writers such as Mercedes Lackey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Diana Paxson, Charles de Lint, Piers Anthony, Michael Moorcock, Robert Howard, and Gael Baudino, as well as Filk artists like Heather Alexander, Leslie Fish, and Juanita Coulson. There was a lot of positive memories there, and so, like a kindly ex-boyfriend, even if I couldn't have her, I wanted those who could to treat her well. When they didn't, it pissed me off. In time, I began to lose sight of what I had loved about Wicca. I could only see the rabid fluffrabbits, and what they were doing to Wicca. My rants took on a harder edge. I started congregating in chats I knew would attrcact defensive and petulent Wiccans, so that I could tussle with them - Satanic Wicca, Wicca is a Sin, WiccansOnFire4God, REAL witches ONLY, SpellsRus ... you get the picture. I'll be honest. It was a lot of fun in those chats. A group of friends developed. We all had very different backgrounds and attitudes. But we were united in our hatred for Wiccans. We had an incredible base knowledge of the Occult, and wicked senses of humor. The Wiccans had no chance. And for hours on end, we'd torment them. It got so bad that the Wiccans would whine to AOL and get our chat rooms unlisted. We'd just go start another one, and wait for the indignant twits to join us. They always did. Well, this went on for almost a year. Basically, you can only do something so much for so long, before it loses its novelty. I got bored with the Wiccan-baiting, and tried to start serious type chats. Those chats almost never panned out. Just when a semi-serious chat would get going, someone from the group would join us, and start bludgeoning the Wiccans. I also started to recognize that I had lost my tolerance. Little things would set me off. Whereas I used to be open to the newbies, and would answer whatever questions they had - now if I detected the whiff of fluff about them, I would become curt, even cruel. I also noticed that my website was starting to get heavy on the anti-Wiccan side. A few articles are okay, of course. But when every article on my Rants section in some way disses Wicca ... well ... that's a bit much. So, here I am. I'm banishing Wicca from my life, completely. Instead of ranting about it, or spending time in the chats or on lists whining about them, I'm going to devote my time towards promoting Hellenismos. There is much that needs to be done to make my religion strong and vital. We need to make the information accessable to people. Give them an idea of what Hellenic rituals, philosophy, theology, and culture are all about. To do this, we need to keep producing quality essays, websites, art, and publications. We need to stay active on the lists. We need to get out and be seen - actively participating in community events, performing open rituals, giving workshops and classes on subjects related to Hellenismos. There's so much to do. Some day I'd like to see a Hellenic temple, with an active community. But it's not going to happen, unless we step forward and make it happen. And so, that's where my energy is going. Not into tearing
down Wicca - but into building up Hellenismos. |
