Comments on: Yule

By: MaW

MaW — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 10:55:04 +0000

Ouija boards are an interesting one. The vast majority of Pagans I’ve ever talked to about them will tell you to avoid them. Why? Well, as it turns out, what we consider to be conventional wisdom says that they do work, but when used by the inexperienced they can be harmful. How so? People who just randomly decide to play with one, if they get it right and actually start using it, don’t have any barriers to whatever it is that they manage to summon up.

Experience has shown that most of the time it’s just not worth the trouble.

By: WobL

WobL — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 10:45:24 +0000

Yes I think you’re right. I think a default position for many is to take more seriously (whether through personal belief in “a God” of some sort or an atheistic crusade) the claims of Christianity - i.e. they will spend more time analysing it and arguing against it, than the claims of Pagans, at least because people are generally unsure of what Paganism is and claims to be. It’s simple to find support for a challenge to Christianity simply because of the large numbers of people who know or purport to know about it. trj’s comment is a good example of this: it replies on people having some knowledge of Jesus’ claims.

And yes, please write more. It’s all interesting, particularly the magic bit. Weegie Boards, are they used, for example?

By: MaW

MaW — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 08:13:21 +0000

x3ja: It seems there’s a difference there. Pagans often go on about how nobody understands their beliefs and how Christians persecute them and how terrible it all is, but really it’s not much like that at all - at least not in the UK. I don’t hear much of Pagans getting trouble from other religions in this country, which is nice

What it seems to me to be like is that Christians are often challenged to justify their belief in God in the face of events such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami, or whatever the latest war is, as if the general population expect God to step in and solve these things for us. This may be because many people are taught at school about God as the all-powerful creator who knows everything, and they find it hard to reconcile God the all-powerful and loving with the God who allows such things to happen. So Christians get challenged like that a lot (correct me if I’m wrong).

Pagans, on the other hand, often have to explain their mythology almost from scratch. Not many people have an idea of what we do or how we go about it, and when they do it’s usually because they’ve been taught some complete crud about us worshipping Satan, in whom we don’t even believe. So we spend more time defending the very nature of our beliefs and activities, rather than accounting for the actions of our Gods. People seem more accepting of the idea that individual Witches don’t have the power to change the course of nature by themselves; this is probably because most people don’t put any credence in the idea that magic has any power.

Did that make any sense, or was I rambling pointlessly?

And should I write more entries about this sort of thing?

By: x3ja

x3ja — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 07:28:33 +0000

Your understanding and belief in it do seem deeper, yeah.
As I think I’ve said to you before, it’s interesting seeing someone else explain (and sometimes defend) their beliefs… as Christians (I’m thinking me and WobL here) we’re often the ones doing that.

By: MaW

MaW — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:27:44 +0000

Alex: thanks

WobL: Yes, we did. My understanding of it is somewhat deeper now though

By: WobL

WobL — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:21:23 +0000

Yeah it’s cool, I think we’d talked about quite alot of this stuff when we were in 243a but it’s interesting to be reminded of it.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:19:17 +0000

Well, I was educated and interested in everything there, thanks for writing it

By: MaW

MaW — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 11:58:35 +0000

trj: hah

WobL: Yes, I do believe in the Goddess and God as literal addressable entities, but they’re also aspects of a larger single force - just as aspects of the Goddess and God are exposed in the multiple Gods and Goddesses of various mythologies. The stories and personalities are just methods to help us understand them.

x3ja: Just the Goddess and the God this time. And the spirits of the elements.

By: x3ja

x3ja — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 01:53:07 +0000

Heh, interesingly the last bit didn’t catch my interest, but the rest did.

So this magic circle you did for Yule - what other energies / entities were you contacting from other planes?

By: WobL

WobL — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 00:08:36 +0000

Just one question - do you believe in the God and Goddess literally, or are they metaphors for something? I only ask as you used the word “legend” in connection to these ideas.

Rob