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[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

I'm loosely pagan on a spiritual level and I vibe a lot with druidism and many of the things that witches do, but as much as I enjoy the culture, I never fail to cringe over the collective hubris of self-proclaimed witches. It's always the edgiest 30-45 year old women who wear House of 1000 Corpses t-shirts and extreme amounts of eye shadow, who post "Proud Bitch" memes on social media and exude an undeserved air of confidence because they believe so deeply their spells are real.

While I admit that Wicca is quite beautiful and largely misunderstood, the things most witches/hexers are practicing only date back a few decades. They're not speaking the ancient magicks or communing with old gods. I can't speak much on the divine feminine because I'm not informed enough on that subject, but for the other half of their belief system they have taken the rather ambiguous depiction of Cernunnos and turned him into a sexy, big-dicked goat man, and have fabricated their own lore to explain the workings of something that is in reality unfathomably old and lost to man, with no surviving origin story and little to no oral tradition.

We can certainly make some educated guesses, but the bulk of that information died with the druids.

[–] kadaverin0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 hour ago

Wicca and paganism in general has always had those cornball types. Back in the 70s and 80s, every tool who renamed themselves after a cool animal and weather condition/celestial body claimed to have a grandparent who secretly initiated them into an ancient unbroken lineage of witches. In the 90s and 00s, it was appropriation gone wild with white ladies from Iowa claiming they had a lineage in closed religious communities like conjure and Vodou. Now it's fucking deluded 20-somethings on TikTok who "godspouse" or work with Naruto characters.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 12 points 3 hours ago

i don't believe in witchcraft but I'm not bold enough to challenge people to hex me. not because it might work, but because i might just be unlucky enough that something completely irrelevant would happen to me and that would forever convince them they were right and i was wrong and i would never live that down.

it might even happen while I'm uploading the update to say that everything's fine. something would fall on my head or some shit, I can't take that risk.

[–] flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 hours ago

It's just like any other system of belief. You can sit around praying for something, or you can cast more effective hexes, such as "hit this guy with my car," or "actually give him poison."

Lets hope all these internet witches don't learn the power of ~~direct action~~ real magic.

[–] reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 hours ago

I feel like if the supernatural exists as portrayed by popular culture, then societies around the globe must have had a coordinated and lasting effort to snuff it out at every turn and would have to meticulously continue those efforts even today.

We could debate that the crusades, Salem witch trials, burning of the library in Alexandria, etc are all proof of this effort, but how could anyone really prove it? And would knowing it is real and it is just not accessible make things any better?

Honestly, as much as the idea of controlling forces not inherently responsive to my own command is intriguing. Realistically it would add a whole new level of messed up to our already botched attempt at existence as a species.

I prefer to think of magic as simply the science we haven’t yet discovered.

What do you think someone from a few centuries ago would say about the technology we have today?

[–] termaxima@programming.dev 28 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

You spot fake witches because they believe in magic instead of Magick. Being a witch is a spiritual practice, if curses actually worked the world would be very different (and way, way more fucked than it currently is)

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 16 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I like the "headology," or the idea that what people believe is what is real.

“So people see you coming in the hat and the cloak and they know you’re a witch and that’s why your magic works?” said Esk.

“That’s right,” said Granny. “It’s called headology.” She tapped her silver hair, which was drawn into a tight bun that could crack rocks.

“But it’s not real!” Esk protested. “That’s not magic, it’s—it’s—”

“Listen,” said Granny, “If you give someone a bottle of red jollop for their wind it may work, right, but if you want it to work for sure then you let their mind make it work for them. Tell ’em it’s moonbeams bottled in fairy wine or something. Mumble over it a bit. It’s the same with cursing.”

-- Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett

[–] termaxima@programming.dev 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

When I read Mortimer, in which he reveals the afterlife is just what people believe it to be, I tried to convince myself I would be reborn as an eternal goddess just in case that’s actually how it works 😆

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

Hey, you never know!

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 9 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Wicca was invented in 1954. They're all fake witches.

[–] __nobodynowhere@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Wake up babe, new religion just dropped

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I follow discordianism,which is actually newer than Wicca by a decade or two. But I'll be the first one to admit it's fake lol. It was written by a couple of guys while they drank beer and ate hotdogs at a bowling alley. The open and deliberate fakeness is part of what appealed to me.

[–] elevenbones@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Hail Eris!

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 hours ago

fnord

[–] doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (3 children)

That's a linguistics debate. Are all Christians fake christians just because the god they believe in is an imaginary friend? Or are they real christians because they actively believe in their imaginary friend?

Or was your argument that the age of a belief lends creedence to it's legitimacy regardless of its truth value?

[–] BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

Right. It's all fake, regardless of age.

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

I feel like the concept of magic doesn't become any more credible if you use the archiac spelling "magick", and differentiating between "spiritual" vs "supernatural" is splitting hairs. It's close enough to the same exact thing that i don't believe a person can call bullshit on one without calling bullshit on both. If brooms and cauldrens are fake then so is Beltane.

[–] termaxima@programming.dev -1 points 2 hours ago

Magick is demonstrably not bullshit. It works, just like prayer works, just like meditation works. Partly because you believe in it, partly because rituals have inherent effects on human minds and emotions.

Spirituality serves the purpose of using those parts of your brain and mind that are not strictly rational, and/or inaccessible through rational thought alone.

Just thinking real hard about it can’t help you get over a breakup, for example. Or get closure over someone’s death. Spirituality is there for those sorts of times.

[–] kassiopaea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

I think that you don't think that there's any meaningful difference between "spiritual" and "supernatural " then you're missing the point.

I used to be an atheist anti-christian skeptic type that didn't understand my partner's beliefs at all, because why have beliefs if you know they aren't real? sugar_in_your_tea's above quote from Equal Rites actually fits it really well.

Your beliefs have an impact on how you act, and your acts have an impact on the world. Therefore I choose to live by a set of guiding principles and interact with the world in a way that fits what I want it to be like. The whole point is that you can only influence what you interact with, but also you never know what you'll interact with.

That said, I think that people who claim to be able to influence the lives of others without interacting with them directly are on ego trips.

However, I also don't think that anyone can say anything for certain, as we live in a universe driven by probability, where "spooky action at a distance" is an actual scientific phenomenon.

tl;dr: Spiritual describes how people interact with the world but supernatural describes hypothetical (meta)physical phenomena.

[–] termaxima@programming.dev 2 points 2 hours ago

This is why I usually self-describe as “Christian” : I believe (for the most part) in the philosophy of Jesus Christ.

Do I think he was a real guy ? Probably not. Historical evidence seems to suggest he was at least two guys, plus a story about an angel, plus a few other things on top. That’s kinda irrelevant to me, though.

Do I believe in god ? Only in the deistic sense, even then I’m not sure.

Jesus is like Frodo or Heracles to me, a character that we can learn from. I really like the whole “love your neighbor as yourself” “give to the poor and help the needy” which I see as his main message.

I’m a Christian in the same sense that I’m a Pragmatist, but Christianity has the edge in that it has a story and a character to relate to. The guy preaching love and getting trampled by the world for it, is sadly still a relevant image today.

[–] QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

It is a wholly constructed faith based partly on fragments of things that existed previously but with no input from those cultures so there's no "authentic" Wiccan beliefs other than those from the 1950s.

[–] doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Sure, but that could be said about any belief system depending on when you start the clock.

While I don't personally believe in the authenticity of claims from any non-testable belief/faith/spiritual system, I do believe that any person who genuienly says they hold to one can fairly be called a member of that group.

Be it Wiccans, Christians, Scientologists, Saitanists, or Jedi. Hence why I say this is a linguistics conversation. An "authentic Wiccan" dosen't need our approval, nor is the validity of their beliefs relavent to them using the term to describe themselves.

[–] QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Sure, but that could be said about any belief system depending on when you start the clock.

Not really? We don't have distinct points of creation for many faiths. With Wicca it can be set in a specific time and place. You aren't going to find Wiccans from 100 years ago.

Wicca is a blend of multiple different religious ideologies that existed in Europe at some point in the past. If you took someone from modern day Colchester in 200ce they might recognize parts of their ancestral faiths but parts will be from other tribes and peoples. Hence Wicca doesn't have an "authentic" set of beliefs as much as an intentionally created one. That's different from something like Judaism or Christianity whose views weren't created by people with the intent of creating a fait h.

[–] julietOscarEcho@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

"genuinely" herein lies the key. Interesting to pick Jedi as an example because I think we can agree that people who out that on a census or whatever typically have their tongue firmly in cheek. Wicca probably sits somewhere on a spectrum between that and the major religions. You'd be mad naive to assume that everyone holds beliefs exactly as stated. My papi was a priest and we're pretty sure never believed in god. L Ron Hubbard himself was for sure was grifting FFS. Add to that and most religions can't even agree what authentic means for their community and LOL

[–] doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

Thanks for agreeing with and emphasizing my points! I thought using Jedi to elaborate the universality of my statement might be too subtle, so I'm glad you caught it.

But your last point about internal conflicts over authenticity within a religion did make me reconsider the necessity of "genuine" belief. Since spirituality is so personally definable, I guess all that is really necessary is for a person to claim the title. Technically, your papi was a priest despite a lack of a genuine belief.

We could (and people have) argue the requirements and definitions until we are blue in the face, but trying to get a working definition is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.

[–] termaxima@programming.dev 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Your idea of faith seems to be mostly guided by the abrahamic faiths. They claim to be the literal truth, on the other hand most other religions are a lot less categorical.

In the introduction to one of his books, Aleister Crowley says :

“In this book it is spoken of the sephiroth & the paths, of spirits & conjurations, or gods, spheres, planes & many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether they exist or not. By doing certain things certain results follow: students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophical validity to any of them.”

I don’t know the position of Wiccans, but Thelema (where the term “Magick” originates) literally says “we actually don’t give a fuck whether these things are true. Actually, scratch that, if you believe in them you’re an idiot”

I don’t think Wiccans are under any illusion their religion isn’t constructed. I believe it’s even part of their practice to actively construct new things within it, establish their own spells and whatnot.

[–] QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago

Thelema was also intentionally created though they are unrelated as far as I am aware.

Wiccans are not a monolith. Some have claimed to be an ancient faith reborn while others are aware of the hodgepodge nature.

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