Why so many non-believers of Wiccan?

Question

The story of Juses was found on a wonderful site.
Internet Book of Shadows: The Jesus Story
The Jesus Story --------------------------------------------------------------- The Lord and the Lady (and the Fool, of course) looked at the Men and Women, ...
www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos555.htm
It has an abundance of information about many religions.
If the Goverment can recognize Wiccan as a religion in 1972 Why can't this site?

http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/index.htm

Answer 1

I got lost trying to figure out what the question is here.

But if it's just the headline, then here's my guess-

First, Wicca doesn't seem to have a central figure or authority. No pope, no Central Council, no Dalai Lama. And without a central figure, there's no way for people to identify the central beliefs, so it comes off as a trend or a style, rather than a religious faith.

Second, Wiccans have a problem with their history. Wicca is supposed to be an ancient religion passed down from before Christianity existed, but at the same time did not exist in the public mind until the beginning of the 20th century. And it's very easy to look down upon a group of people who don't seem to know their own history.

Both those issues take away from Wicca's legitimacy.

Answer 2

There are lots of reasons why Wicca has many detractors.

Most people "know" of Wicca because of television portrayals that are stupid and just plain wrong.

There are thousands of "gothlings" and "fuzzy bunnys" going around proclaiming that they are "3rd DEGREE HIGH PRIESTESSES" after reading one book about Wicca.

What does it matter if the government recognizes Wicca as a religion??? I'm not a Wiccan, but a "government seal of approval" wouldn't interest me if I was.

This site is for discussion and learning, not approval anyway. If you need everyone to "accept" your faith, maybe you're following your path for the wrong reasons.

Do as you will, choose your path, and don't worry about everyone else's opinion!

Answer 3

Another example of the government being backwards.. Ask any Wiccan and they'll tell you that Wiccan is not considered a "religion" but more of a belief.

Answer 4

Excellent question. Wicca is not widely avaliable. As the "new kid on the block" it will take time and energy to become as popular and widely accepted as other religions. Becuse it is not as widely understood as other donominations, it is widely confused with riding brooms, and other non wiccian acts. Perhaps with time, the site will eventualy learn the truth.

Answer 5

It takes a while for religions to become accepted. although it has been around for a while people still have the notion that wiccans are a bunch of crazy teenagers who kill pets for wierd rituals. Wiccanism will eventually be accepted it just takes time, heck, look how long it took christianity

Answer 6

You have some believers in Wicca here (me, for instance), but you know how annoying it is when people try to push thier religion on everyone...

Answer 7

It's a bunch of hoodoo. Wiccans claim supernatural powers, yet not the power to be normal, why is that? Face it, you can't see the future, cast spells, talk to the dead, or any of that other crap that lonely, misunderstood 13 year old girls (Wiccans) claim.

Answer 8

Those who are disinclined to believe in the supernatural will disbelieve in the supernatural whatever form it may take.

Answer 9

Well, since you asked...

I used to be a solitary Wiccan when I was much younger. Eventually I became disapointed when I realized it was a hoax.

In 1897 Godfrey Leland wrote "Aradia Gospel of The Witches". The book was plagiarized from two of his other books, Etruscan Remains and Gypsie Sorcery. Leland claimed he was given an ancient manuscript, which is the same story he used about one of his other books. This is the same era when Joseph Smith Jr., was finding “gold plates”, so maybe it sounded possible. The manuscript was never produced for examination, like Smith’s plates. Even though the book doesn't mention "wicca", it was the inspiration of what was to come. "Aradia" deals with Diana and her brother Lucifer, a being "banished from paradise for his pride" and was obviously the Christian devil. Diana and Lucifer have a daughter named Aradia, who was supposedly a witch avatar who lived in Sicily in the 14th century. No witch cult like Leland's was ever found, and the document is obviously fake.

Next came Margaret Murray. A quack anthropologist, Murray hatched her own witch theory inspired by Leland's hoax. Murray invented the idea that witches of medieval witch-hunts were actual part of a Pagan cult that survived into 1600's or so. Murray wasn't above lying as her writings about Joan of Arc bear out. If she had actually read the trial transcripts from St. Joan's trial as she claimed, there are no way she could have drawn the conclusions she did about the devout Catholic Joan being a witch. Murray tests the limits of the reader's patience with ideas like an poor accused witch being tortured crying "Queen of Heaven help me!" as an incantation to a Pagan goddess, rather than the obvious St. Mary. But Murray's books inspired (and continues to inspire) others.

Wicca was started by Gerald Gardner in New Forrest England circa 1950. He was a nudist & masochist and basically created Wicca as a sex cult. Followers nowadays like to forget that part, and instead fantasize they have magical powers. Many American Wiccans deny Gardner's sexual fetishes, but they're commonly accepted as fact in the U.K. Gardner was a member of Crowley’s O.T.O. and plagiarized his writings for his Book of Shadows.

Adian Kelly wrote a book on the history of Wicca called "Crafting The Art of Magic" in the 1980's. Wiccans had a fit when it was published, and pressured Llewellyn to take it out of print. It was supposed to be the first in a series of books. I think Adian Kelly probably summed it up best when he said this about the Gardnerian "Book of Shadows", the closest thing Wicca has to a sacred book:

" [M]any of the Book of Shadows rituals did not exist in 1954 (when Witchcraft Today was published) but instead were still being written. [T]he major sources from which the rituals had been constructed included: (a) Mather's edition of the Greater Key of Solomon; (b) Aleister Crowley's Magic in Theory and Practice; (c) Leland's Aradia (d) some Masonic rituals akin to those described by Duncan and those of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (aside from those transmitted by Crowley; and (e) Margaret Murray's The Witch Cult in Western Europe. There were also bits and pieces from other works by Leland, Jane E. Harrison, Gilbert Murray, James Frazier, and other great classicists from the 19th century. That accounted for EVERYTHING in the rituals! There was nothing left that differed in any important way from what you can find in those sources- - but that is NOT at all what Gardner had claimed!"

Wicca a religion where anything can be added in, where the followers mistakenly think they have magic powers, and it's not older than rock and roll, even though it's called the "Old Religion". Authors like Gavin and Yvonne Frost, Silver Raven Wolf, Raymond Buckland, Scott Cunningham crank out books about how to get love, money, and above all else "protection". The Frost's Magic Power of White Witchcraft says "Witchcraft Can Make You Rich in a Ghetto" according to the title of chapter 11. However, the Frosts themselves aren't rich. Coincidentally, they claim to have taken a "vow of poverty" according to one of their webpages, to explain why they apparently can't make their spells work either.

Eventually Ronald Hutton wrote his own history of Wicca, called "Triumph of the Moon". Hutton is a history professor at Oxford, so he is not easliy dismissed. Even though some Wiccans have realized their history is a sham, they still want to cling to the "witch" fantasy (like Kelly for one, he calls himself a "Christian Pagan") by calling it a "reconstructionist movement". But you can't reconstruct something which never existed in the first place. Even so, these types still seem to allude to their religion being thousands of years old.

The reason I don't believe in Wicca? I choose not to.

Answer 10

It is a fad. The Devil uses many schemes. Anyone who is not born again is in sin and it is all Satanism.