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A Wiccan Speaks Out

The time has come when I can hold my tongue no longer. Every day a few others and myself see "Wiccans" defile the religion of Wicca, just as "Christians" have defiled Christianity.I am becoming very disenchanted with the Wiccans of today. Read, take heed, and honestly ask yourself if you are part of the problem. I've had about enough of the typical little sixteen-year-old claiming to be a high priest/ess. I have news for you little sh*ts. One doesn't read a single book (skipping the boring stuff) and then suddenly progress to being a high priest/ess. I've been researching and learning for nine years. That's right. Nine f*cking long hard years and I still feel I haven't learnt enough to be a priest let alone a high priest. Let's do some basic maths here you +/- 16yrs old. Unless you're a genius (and I doubt that every 16 yr. old I've met is), you started to semi-understand big words (like marmalade) at about 13/14 yr., Lets see that's 16 - 13. Gee how the hell did you learn so much in 3 years, please let me know your secret...hmpf. Now I'm not claiming to be better then you, I'm just trying to understand how you managed to progress so fast.
Here is a list of a few others and mine gripes:

"Look at me, I'm a witch!"
That oh-so-dangerous leap out of the broom closet, which usually occurs within the first week you're exposed to Wicca. You don your little pentacle necklace and wear it in public, just -itching- for someone to walk up to you and call you a devil-worshipper. Then you'll get to explain that your pentacle is pointing up, not down, like those nasty black magicians wear, and correct them about what a peaceful, tolerant religion Wicca is (as opposed, to, say, Christianity).... Oh! Don't you just love the attention you get?

If you don't want to step out of the broom closet, there are still various ways to stick a toe out the door for each of the people you want to impress and/or frighten. (Like wearing your pentacle -under- your shirt, on a short chain, so it'll slide into view if you shift just right. Or you can wear gothed or hippied-out clothing and say "Oh, Goddess!" every five minutes. Calling your cat a "familiar" and your cookbook a "grimoire/book of shadows".

"It's a witch thing. You wouldn't understand."
You get to feel oh-so-self-righteous by knowing all the little nuances of the unseen world in the midst of all these ignorant Christians (who are all secretly out to make your life miserable). I cannot count how many times I've asked other Wiccans a question that ended up in a long string of conversation designed to find out if I'm "worthy to know that. Do you have a surplus of rose petals and red candles? Get a clue. There's a reason you don't have a boy/girlfriend, and it sure isn't the quality of your spells.

The "witchier-than-thou" complex.
Soon after you become a witch, you suddenly realise that your mother was a witch; your grandmother was a witch; your great-grandmother got burned at the stake in the Salem Witch Trials; and your other relatives were all Celtic, so you should probably start wearing those nifty knotwork rings. If you have any dreams about being a witch, it must mean that you were one in a former life, too.

Oh, about your great-grandmother -- there were no witches in Salem, just a single dark-skinned woman practising her native religion.

"We don't worship the devil. Really, we don't."
Two things bother me about this.
You can repeat this until you're blue in the face for all the good it does. Silly Wiccans. You're overlooking the fact that anyone non-Christian, by definition, worships the devil. (and if you can't see the humour in that, then I will clarify: no, I'm not a Christian.] You're not changing any minds here, no matter how many times you repeat the Rede. Some of the most talented adepts I've ever met are left-handers. It's sickeningly arrogant to assume that all witches are, in fact, White Wiccans just like [insert fluffy author here] tells you to be.

"I need some thyme for this and some sage for that...."
Herbs have been used in witchcraft for thousands of years -- but no one seems to realise why. The origins of this were:
a) as offerings burnt to the gods (sometimes with psychedelic side effects), and
b) as mystical medicine (such as using pennyroyal to cause abortions). Not exactly happy-go-lucky rose-petal-love-spell stuff, here.

"I can see auras!"
Funny, every fluffy I've met says they can do this. Do you have to stare at the person beforehand? If so, that's not mystical -- it's called retinal burn. The real thing takes attunement. "The Necronomicon is a load of bull! Lovecraft wrote it to make more money...." Wiccans argue about this quite a bit.

"Welcome to my Wicca for Beginners webpage!"
Hmm. Come to think of it, have you ever seen an "Intermediate" or "Advanced" Wicca web page? Take a moment to consider why not.... And then go read some Baron, Levi, Crowley etc. to widen your perspective a little.

"I can do magick!"
Oh, give me a break. You think that drawing circles on the ground and lighting candles is magick? You think that if you feel happy and fulfilled at the end of your ritual then that is part of the "positive vibes" you have stirred up? You think that you need to "visualise" energy to manipulate it? That's your imagination, not outside forces -- no matter what the books tell you. When vibes start hitting you on a daily basis, when you're not even thinking about magick, that's a start....

"Magick isn't what Hollywood portrays it as. We don't levitate objects or make people do things." Well, why the hell not?
"Because magick is just a subtle force underneath everything that I can bend to my will, a little... okay, not much, really.... ummm... uh.... Sometimes I dream of the future and stuff..." Fluffy fluffy fluffy. Where's the beef? Could it be that you want magick to be something you're automatically capable of? That you don't need years of discipline to attain? In that case, stick with your "positive vibes" and your occasional ESP because that's all the magick you'll ever be able to do.