From: cthulhu@necronomi.com (Clifford H. Low)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Non-Occult Pagans?
Date: 09 Jan 1995 20:54:38 GMT

> Having seen a fair number of hucksters doing "psychic readings" and
> so forth, much stuff on the Newage circuit and a recent, interesting
> demonstration by a mathematician of how probable the seemingly
> improbable often is, I'm fairly anti-occult.  By this I mean that I
> don't care for astrology, spells, tarot and so forth, except as
> tools for personal/psychological insight and therapy.

In the last two years, I've met a lot of people who proudly classified
themselves as Pagans, yet also proclaimed they didn't do magick. My
first instinct, that perhaps these folks chose any one of a variety of
magick practicing religions because as a fad, has turned out to be
false. After dealing with these people (because this intrigued me so
much) for a months of occasional correspondence and meeting I came to
a very unsettling conclusion.

The concept of magick scared them blind.

With one exception, the seven I asked told me that the farthest into
magick they had progressed was party-game Ouija and perhaps runes.
Their experiences were eerie; and though they liked the concepts
behind Wicca, Asatru, and various ceremonial magick orders- in the
end, not only did they distance themselves from magick entirely, but
began to look upon it as a degenerate and dangerous practice.

Personally, I found them to be well meaning folk. But cowards. Cowards
with no sense of history, and little sense of true spirituality. It is
better off they don't do magick after all, perhaps. You have to have
guts, or you get creamed.

And whatever they say they believe; they are in fact Xian heretics,
not Pagans. Pagans consider Magick to be an aspect of worship. A Witch
who does not do magick, is like a Xian who does not do prayer. If you
are Wiccan, you are of the craft. The craft in question is not weaving
wicker baskets, as some imply humorously. It is Magick.

In olden days, they would build Churches upon the foundation stones of
Pagan temples. They renamed Yule to Christmas. They made gods into
Saints. They took the spirit and vitality of Pagan worship and made it
wear a Xian face; for palatability purposes. Now, the reverse is
beginning. The anemic spirit of the Saints and Angels and Jesus of
Xianity have been renamed to pagan names by those who find Xianity
unpalatable. But beneath the surface, the soul of the thing is the
same. It is loathsome.

In ancient days, to some degree they would be right. Witches were only
a very small, and vaguely fringey leaders of a population that
indulged in a little folk magick. Yet it is without any doubt that
pagan worship involved Magick and Magick-Experts (whom we now call
Witches) at the very core.

I feel that there is an attempt, as Paganism increases it's numbers,
to both eliminate it's more controversial aspects. I still protest the
sanctions against destructive magick that have deprived young Wiccans
of a part of their heritage. 100 years ago, the concept of chastising
a fellow Witch for destructive magick would have seemed absurd; even
chastisement for excessive and inappropriate was probably uncommon.

Now it appears, destructive magick is anathema, and it is part of a
trend.  Could it be that in a few decades, modern Pagan religions will
disapprove of any magick except in dire need?

I sort of doubt it will get to that- but as things are right now, I
refuse upon principle to consider a non-magick practitioner as Pagan
as me. They are as similar to me as practitioners of Santeria; for
though they may say they worship gods with the same names or faces as
mine, they worship them in a radically different way.

-Cliff
/---------------------------------------------------------\
|Clifford Hartleigh Low: Writer, Warlock, Sculptor, Sysop.|
| Cthulhu@Necronomi.com       ][ All hearts beat under    |
| Familiar@intac.com          ][ skin and shadow          |
\=========================================================/
===

From: CERNUNOS@news.delphi.com (CERNUNOS@DELPHI.COM)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Non-Occult Pagans?
Date: 9 Jan 1995 23:49:44 -0500

Silver Ravenwolf, author of _To Ride A Silver Broomstick: New
Generation Witchcraft_ says that she has met lots of Witches (she
prefers the term Witch to Wiccan) who practice the magick of
Witchcraft without any religious content at all, and she has also met
lots of Witches who practice the religion of Witchcraft without any
explicit magick.  The latter people (religion withoutout magick) she
describes as usually being into things like meditation, astral
projection and things like that.

My opinion is that you don't have to use "occult" symbols and
practices to do magick.  Crowley said that "Magick is the art and
science of causing change to occur in conformance with will."  He then
went on to illustrate how the publishing of the book (from which the
quote came) was an act of magick because it was his will that it be
published, and he enlisted a publisher to do it and it happened.  My
point is that magick doesn't have to be "occult".  Any time you bring
about a change in conformance with your Will, you have performed
magick.

Blessed Be.
cernunos@delphi.com