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My understanding of Karma is that it's concept is more limited than the three-fold law (not to be understood in a negative sense). Karma (in short and as far as I know) is the principle that the current life is a part of a chain of lives (Samsara) of which the characteristics of each is...

I consider myself Wiccan, but I don't practice magick. However, I would think that this would tend to make me not completely Wiccan instead of the other way around. ;) It is surprising that people in a religion which has been so much oriented towards practice would now denigrate it. The...

That reminds me of what my teacher of military hostory told us at the very beginning of the first Gulf war (I obviously paraphrase): "The people who think this war is going to be difficult are wrong. A young American soldier has been playing computer games and accessing the intertet since he was...

WHkeith, just to support one of your points, my ex-girlfriend is from two "famtrad" that date at least to her grandmothers, but she has no idea how old the "tradition" was. The funny thing is that she had never head of Wicca or Neo-Paganism before meeting me, and considered herself as "some sort...

Ben, always asking interesting questions! There is some kind of firmly-rooted idea in the humans' mind that what is old must be good. That was even a basic principle of law in the early middle age: the longest a custom was held, the better it was. The one who could bring the oldest elders to...

To come back to the subject of Strega, which I certainly have not studied with very much attention, is anyone aware of any mention of the goddess Aradia in any writing before the publication of "Aradia, The Gospel of the Witches" by Charles Leland in 1899? If the answer is no, I would find...

Hi and welcome from SW FR. :D Baud

Thanks to WHKeith, Rev. LKKP and Pamela, who posted the answer I had neither the time nor the talent to write myself ! :D I must confess that I'm better at developping arguments realted to politics or law than to religion. Baud

I cannot help but translate the definition of "magic" coming from the "Dictionnary of Law and Practice" by C-J. de Ferrière, 1758 (yes, I confess that I collect old law books): ;) "Magic is a revolting art that teaches how to invoke demons and, pursuant to a pact with them, to bring about...

I, Brian, you're right in some way. It is true that Wicca is very much based on ritual and methods. In my opinion, sometimes too much. There is an important underlying philosoph, though, although it is considerably less developped than for instance Christian and Hebraic philosophy, because much...

Thomas, I think you should not criticize without knowledge. There is an inner content in Wicca (I will go on this subject later when I have time... my working days are currently very long). It is not because it has been construed around non-religious works that it doesn't have a deep spiritual...

Hi, Phyllis, glad to see you here! As Phyllis just said, Wicca was actually created by Gerald Gardner at the end of the 40ies and beginning of the 50ies. However, he presented it as a resurgence of the old religion of the witches. It is generally thought that he based his works on: -...

What I understood from Jung (keeping this at a very basic level, which is appropriate to my limited knowledge of the subject), I understood that what he calls ego is "what we think we are" (and on that subject we could be partly wrong). This is to be contrasted with the persona which is "what we...

Could you point me to some references where that theory is presented and explained? I certainly can see something interesting in this argument, but I have never heard it expressed in that way. Baud

Interesting argument. I will further speak from a Wiccan point of view only such as not to over-generalize to other neo-pagans. The concept of the fall is expressly rejected in Wicca (from what I understand of it). The divine is in everything, and everything is the divine (pantheism). The...

I would tend to agree with Ben. despite whatever Crowley did, what for whatever reason he did it, he did have an important influence of a lot of current movements, including Pagan religions, even if a lot of these would like not to be linked with him. I personally think he was much more like a...

Again, looking at what is known about the gods in the various scriptures, I can't see them being objective. They generally seem to be reacting subjectively, just like human beings, defining what is right or wrong, destroying or punishing the ones they deem unworthy, and lots of other stuff...

This argument would work quite well in English, French, Spanish and the other language that use the Latin base for the word "religion". In Dutch/Flemish, "religion" is "godsdienst" which means "the service of god". I have also read that the etimological root of "religion" comes through French...

I, Brian wrote: Something very interesting is happening here. When I read the sentence above, I asked myself "how could he read that in what I wrote?" and started reading and re-reading my post. What I meant to write is that, even if the gods are omniscient, their perception of the...

Very interresting questions. I would tend to think first of all that anything that humans do or look at is by nature subjective. I don't think anyone can get over his or her personnal bias in doing something or in watching something. It is impossible to understand any conflic on this planet...