Comments on: Which Witch? The Historical Backdrop of Witchcraft and Paganism

By: SororZSD23

SororZSD23 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:01:22 +0000

thank you! Yes. I’m just following my bliss and trying to raise the bar at the same time. Belief is a tool. People make it up as they go along and then ensnare each other in mindtrips. And most info you find on the Internet is cut and paste instead of real authenticated info anyway,

By: seadragon

seadragon — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:46:41 +0000

This article was great. I’ve ran into alot of those “history” aritcle and books by wiccans/pagan, which make the writers seem, to reference the occult, the oposite end of the same polerity of those the claim to be victomized by. In other words, trying to replace a distant divine Father with and eathly mother.

Also good to see actual references. Others seem to claim to be scholars, but just put there opinions and beliefs as historic facts.
Thanks

By: SororZSD23

SororZSD23 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:38:15 +0000

Thank you. I’d be interested in reading the book. From what I’ve read through in my own studies, there may have been clans that kept vestiges of pre-Christian religion and somewhat shamanic practices alive for a time, but they weren’t like Margaret Murray’s vision of witchcraft covens–or that of some pagan celebrities’ who claim trad knowledge. Also, Robert Hutton asserts in his excellent and easy-to-read book chapter (its in my reference list) that people in Europe did keep the Old Gods in mind and worked them around the new Christian paradigm. Pagan and Christian Gnosticism and Hermeticism did thrive for a while and sort of still do (and the persistence of interest in Western occultism is a testament to that :- D ).

By: Freeman

Freeman — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:41:36 +0000

Great article. I’m currently reading Carlo Ginzburg’s _Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath_. I had gotten the impression from some people that this book documented actual survivals of some kind of coven-based folk-religious witchcraft tradition into the period of witch hysteria. It doesn’t do that, but it does provide a fascinating tour of various irruptions of mystical experience of a glaringly Pagan kind, just as if, oh, I don’t know, various Goddesses and Gods were still active and a certain number of people were susceptible to such influences.