Whay do praciticioners of witchcraft and magic use the word PAGAN???

Question

Don't they know that it came from christian priests refering to the country farmers, who worshipped harvest gods, as "Hicks"=Pagani?

Answer 1

Maybe because THEY worship Harvest Gods.

Answer 2

That's because the word Pagan was used to refer to their ancestors of the Craft. Pagans were Nature worshippers who hadn't yet been converted to Christianity. We now use the word as an label for the many Nature worshiping, polytheistic and Goddess worshiping faiths.

So, in short, magick practitioners honor those same "harvest gods" that you refer to the Early Pagans as worshiping.

Watch my vid.

Answer 3

I don't mind being called hick, although redneck is preferred. I am a country farmer and I celebrate the harvest festivals so it fits pretty well.

You can see if Priests were calling people hicks that far back then Christians were as judgmental back then as they are now.

Answer 4

All non Christians were refered to as Pagans(hicks). We know it was meant to be derogatory but there is no good way to refer to non witchcraft religions, as a whole. Pagan meant anyone uncultured enough to still not be Christian. Well that's still me. Still lagging behind and not Christian. I don't feel it is an insult and it is better than saying...I still practice the Old religion that was in Europe before Christianity...blah blah. It is quick and people know what it means.

Answer 5

Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "a country dweller" or "civilian") is a term which, from a western perspective, has come to connote a broad set of spiritual or religious beliefs and practices of natural or polytheistic religions. The term can be defined broadly, to encompass many or most of the faith traditions outside the Abrahamic monotheistic group of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Well these would be "nature based religions" and no matter what the word comes from the meanings change, for instance "bible" comes from a greek word biblos, meaning a collection of stories or books, Hmm imagine that.

Anyway dont bash mine and I wont bash yours, I am a happy heathan, pagan, witch, treehugger or whatever else and I am proud of it!

Answer 6

First, because there's no such thing as magic or witchcraft, at least not in the literal sense of those words. The meanings of the words "magic" and "witch" are even more in dispute than that of the word "pagan".

Secondly, because the word pagan is currently used (and has been for quite some time) to identify people who worship more than one god, i.e. polytheists. "Pagan" is a lot easier to say than "polytheist" and sounds less technical. It also carries the connotation of being linked to ancient polytheistic tribes such as the Celts rather than to modern day polytheistic religions such as Hinduism.

Incidentally, the same thing can be said of the word "vilain," but that doesn't keep us from using it in reference to "the bad guy." Word meanings evolve with time. If they didn't, we'd all still be speaking Latin, or Greek, or some other ancient religion, as the case may be.

Answer 7

Yes, we know that.
Originally "pagan" was a derogatory term. However, modern pagans use the word because we do worship the nature dieties such people worshipped. Modern pagans do not consider it an insult, but rather their group identity.

Answer 8

I have no problem being a Pagan. If some Christian priest wants to interpret it as "I'm a hick", that's their problem.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) - Cite This Source
pa·gan /ˈpeɪgən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pey-guhn]

1. one of a people or community observing a polytheistic religion, as the ancient Romans and Greeks.
2. a person who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim.

[Origin: 1325–75; ME < ML, LL pāgānus worshiper of false gods, orig. civilian (i.e., not a soldier of Christ), L: peasant, n. use of pāgānus rural, civilian, deriv. of pāgus village, rural district (akin to pangere to fix, make fast); see -an1]

Answer 9

Pagan has come to mean any religion that is not Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Thus, many who practice witchcraft, earth based religions, shamanic practices, ancient religions , multi-god faiths or other forms of magic refer to themselves as Pagan as it is an umbrella term to cover those belief systems.

Answer 10

And the word "yankee" was somewhat derogatory too, when it was first used. People took it as their own and made it a badge of honor - and now, we even use the term as the name of one of the better baseball teams out there.

Terms - even insulting ones - can be turned around in their use. Pagans got stuck with the label, without so much as a "by your leave" - so we ran with it, and reclaimed it. And that's fine by me.