January/February 2000

Witches in Our Midst

by Barbara Curtis

A Love Fetish -- Put a live frog in an ant's nest. When the bones are clean, you will find one flat, heart-shaped and one with a hook. Secretly hook this into the garment of your beloved, and keep the heart-shaped one. If you should lose the heart-shaped bone, he will hate you as much as he loved you before."

Does this sound like something you'd find in your local science museum? This year I found it in mine.

Over Easter vacation, I packed my van with an assortment of kids and headed for the San Francisco Exploratorium, perhaps the most child-friendly, hands-on science museum in the world. Planted inside we found, like a lily pad in the center of a pond, a specially-created miniworld offering a superb frog exhibit. The kids and I crossed a drawbridge with raindrops rattling on a copper roof, then plopping onto stones below. On the other side we found frogs from all over the world, replete with everything we wanted to know about frogs and more. Including the recipe given above describing how to use a frog to cast a spell.

Merely an innocent historical image, for amusement purposes only? Surely the exhibit designers would be amused to receive a complaint about this frog-related bit of ritualism. Yet they hadn't chosen to include biblical references to frogs.

Ask any practitioner of the ancient art of Wicca, or witchcraft -- she will see this as allmall but significant victory. Just as diverse ingredients are swirled together in a witch's cauldron, the elements of witchcraft -- and other branches of neo-paganism -- are being swirled into our cultural mainstream stew.

Postmodern society has stripped away the luxury we once enjoyed of assuming cultural icons would be based on a moral or even neutral worldview. As Christian influence has eroded, many distinctly anti-Christian forces have risen to fill the resulting spiritual vacuum.

Neo-paganism, particularly Wicca, has found great favor among those positioned to most influence our culture -- filmmakers, music producers, school administrators and textbook publishers.

· In the past year at least six films celebrating witchcraft (including the successful romantic comedy Practical Magic) have been released.

· Some public schools, where Christian prayer has been outlawed, now teach children how to seek their inner guides, to dream visions and to cast spells.

· Already in its third printing, Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation offers 250 pages in which 10 to 17-year-old girls can learn everything they need to become "a pentacle-wearing, spell-casting, completely authentic witch!"

When we talk about witches nowadays, we're no longer talking Grimm's Fairy Tales. We're talking about the girl next door, the school bus driver, your tax preparer, the veterinarian -- not "bad" people, just people looking for answers who've asked the wrong questions only to be seduced by the current glamorization of neo-paganism.

My own research leads me to this conclusion: Every Christian needs to understand the roots and beliefs of neo-paganism, to take it seriously and to remain alert to its contaminating influence in media, literature, schools and even some of our own churches.

Although in a postmodern society we may well have to accept that we live in the midst of corruption, we must constantly "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1) and work diligently to teach our children what is from God and what is not.

What Is Neo-paganism?

The word paganism comes from the Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller." Anthropologists use the word pagan to refer to any folk religion -- Native American, Polynesian or African, for example. But it also points to the deep connection pagans feel with the earth.

The Columbia Encyclopedia (Edition 5, 1993) defines neo-paganism thus: "polytheistic religious movement, practiced in small groups by partisans of pre-Christian religious traditions such as Egyptian, Greek, Norse, and Celtic. Neo-pagans fall into two broad categories, nature-oriented and magical groups, and often incorporate arcane and elaborate rituals."

This is not far from the definition of the neo-paganists themselves, as I found on several Internet sites. The Internet is a good place to learn about neo-paganism. Because their rituals are practiced in small groups rather than large, the Internet has become an important hub of information and communication. The Church of All Worlds offers this definition:

"Neo-paganism is a revival of ancient Nature religion adapted for the modern world. It is a religion of the living earth -- a religious motif especially appropriate for the Aquarian Age, as Christianity was the dominant motif of the Piscean age. Neo-paganism is a natural religion, viewing humanity as a functional organ within the greater organism of all life, rather than as something special created special and 'above' the rest of the natural world. Neo-pagans seek not to conquer nature but to harmonize and integrate with Her. Neo-paganism should be regarded as 'Green Religion,' just as we have 'Green Politics' and 'Green Economics.' [Note the natural connection between neo-paganism and extreme environmentalism, in which some believe humanity to be a cancer on the face of the earth, and will lay down their lives for the sake of a tree.]

"Neo-paganism includes:

  • Asatru (Scandinavian and Teutonic pre-Christian religions)
  • Celtic traditions (immigrants from Europe to the British Isles before the Romans)
  • Druids (priests of the Celtic people who emphasized the sun and public rituals)
  • The Church of All Worlds (based on the novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein and now a legally accepted church in the United States)
  • Mediterranean traditions (Egyptian)
  • Native Americans
  • Shamanism (Northeast Asia, Eskimos and Native Americans)
  • Wicca (witchcraft)."

What is Wicca?

Of all the neo-pagan religions, Wicca, or witchcraft, is currently the one to be reckoned with. A search on www.amazon.com (Internet bookseller) netted 1,176 titles on witchcraft, including:

  • Circle Round: Raising Children in the Goddess Traditions
  • 21st Century Wicca: A Young Witch's Guide to Living the Magical Life
  • Curse Tablets and Binding Spells Under the Ancient World
  • The Family Wicca Book: The Craft for Parents and Children

In the Utne Reader (Nov-Dec 1998), Andy Steiner writes, "Witchcraft or Wicca is claimed by its advocates to be the fastest-growing religion in the U.S. with some 400,000 supporters. Neo-paganists are striving for acceptance in the mainstream and removal of the stereotype which characterizes them as devil worshipers."

This is an important distinction for Christians who may naively lump many nonChristian religions together. Neo-paganists are not Satanists. "Christians are the ones who believe in Satan, not us," they insist. Some even accuse us of hypocrisy in claiming to worship one God, since Christians attribute so much power to Satan.

Neither are neo-paganists New Age believers. New Age seekers, although eclectic in forming their individual belief systems -- and though they may pay lip service to pantheism (God in everything) -- all share the belief that the individual needs to recognize the divinity within him or her and that each individual creates his or her own reality.

The New Age emphasis on the transcendence of the individual is not at all shared by today's Wiccans. In "A Witch's Manifesto" (Whole Earth Review, Spring 1992), Z. Budapest disavows the New Age as "male-dominated and male-identified self-help." Witches are much more concerned with connectedness -- with Mother Earth (or "The Goddess") and with a small group of others of like mind. In a coven, the individual makes a binding commitment (they compare it to marriage), then gathers with coven mates for rituals based on the passing of seasons or cycles of the moon. Note the contrast with our Christian rituals and celebrations, which are based on events in Christ's life.

Rejecting the Father

The current tidal wave of popular witchcraft actually began in the early 70s when radical feminists -- intent on rejecting all gender-based cultural landmarks -- began searching for their own roots.

I was a radical feminist then myself. And I vividly recall my excitement on finding a booklet, as serious as any religious tract, purporting to tell the story of the extermination of women's spirituality. There I first encountered the proposition that woman-based religion was the real thing, that all else was counterfeit. Assuming matriarchy to have once been the norm, the authors asserted that the rise of patriarchy had worked hand-in-hand with a false male-dominated religion to seek the destruction of women who practiced the Sacred Arts of Old -- witches. Thus, these feminists claimed, women had suffered a gender-based holocaust, purposely expunged by "his"tory (a feminist term pointing to the contrast they see with "her"story) in which millions of spiritual foremothers were exterminated.

What a surprise some 30 years later to see how this radical-fringe idea has become part of popular feminist culture as well as part of the folklore of modern witchcraft.

In researching this article, I pulled from my files a local newspaper story (Marin Independent Journal, October 30, 1995) headlined, "Will the 'Burning Time' Return?" graced by a full-color picture of Cerridwen Fallingstar of Woodacre, California, hands hovering about the crystal ball she uses for divination, surrounded by candles and deer antlers "for honoring animal life and nature."

The text bemoans the plight of modern witches who fear that the witch-hunters of centuries past, once thought shackled by enlightened attitudes, may hide in the encroaching tide of conservatism.

"'There's definitely a backlash,' says Fallingstar, 42, 'The Christian right is very threatened in the same way the church was feeling repressed in the Renaissance.'

"'The result during the Renaissance was the Inquisition, or the "burning times."'"

I saved this article particularly because it illustrates the sympathetic portrayal of neo-paganism and the prejudice against Christianity we are facing in the media today.

How could this possibly have come about? With the rise of the legitimate feminist agenda items of equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work, came also the promulgation of every radical fringe idea of early 70s feminism: test-tube babies, women in the military, God as an oppressor of women and witchcraft as women's spirituality.

The most vocal feminist analysts always understood the value of pushing a radical agenda. Z. Budapest, in "A Witch's Manifesto" (Whole Earth Review, Spring 1992), asserts:

"Feminism needs a cosmology. No powerful movement can hold the minds of millions without stories, theologies, lore, ritual, and blessings."

Thus, Francine Prose, an outside observer, writes in Harper's Bazaar ("Goddess Worship,"August 1995):

"The women I meet describe Goddess worship as a reminder of their deep connection with nature, a way of being in harmony with the earth's rhythms and the cycles of female biology. 'The Goddess is about beauty, sensuality, and pleasure,' says [High Priestess Amy Sophia] Marashinsky, 'not suffering and flagellation' -- a sentiment echoed more bluntly by feminist theologian Delores Williams at the controversial conference Re-imagining, a Global Theological Colloquium for Women. 'I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff.'

For some, the objection is not to the imagery of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but to its insistence on surrendering to a higher power. Goddess religion offers an alternative, aiming to help women find spiritual strength in themselves."

But those on the inside of Wicca say it is more than that. Starhawk, a highly respected and celebrated witch whose only detractors seem to be those Wiccans objecting to her blend of eco-feminist-spirituality, insists in her book The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess: "The symbolism of the Goddess is not a parallel structure to the symbolism of God the Father. The Goddess does not rule the world; she is the world."

During my research, I read over and over that witches were motivated by a deep desire to return to their ancient roots. Yet I couldn't help feeling that the ladies "doth protest too much." For what stood out as the dominant, most vehement feeling was the bitterness toward and rejection of "a patriarchal religion" -- the Father and His Savior Son.

Listen to what these two feminist theorists say on the subject:

· "The feminist movement in Western culture is engaged in the slow execution of Christ and Yahweh. It is likely that as we watch Christ and Yahweh tumble to the ground, we will completely outgrow the need for an external God" (Naomi Goldenberg, Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions, 1979).

· "To put it bluntly, I propose that Christianity itself should be castrated. The idea of salvation uniquely by a male savior perpetuates the problem of patriarchal oppression" (Mary Daly, Theology After the Demise of God the Father, 1974).

Note these writings are twentysome years old. Both women are still writing on the same issues and from the same perspective today.

A Christian Response

We can't even count on shelter from the tide of neo-paganism within the church. Consider: Mary Daly, the castration proponent quoted above, bills herself as a Christian feminist. She probably has her share of speaking engagements in churches.

Increasingly, discernment is being brushed aside in many mainstream churches in favor of the new cultural commandments of "tolerance" and "acceptance." Some denominations have adopted a "big tent" policy, shaping their theology to fit the trends and the times.

This means that we can blend elements of Christianity with elements of Buddhism, New Age or even neo-paganism and witchcraft to produce something more conducive to unity and brotherly love. Those who shine the light on the growing momentum of neo-paganism within the culture and its trickle-down into the church are too often regarded as alarmists.

And yet, aren't we right to sound the alarm? Weren't we warned that our world would come to this?

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths" (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Despite the Exploratorium exhibit's nod of the head to witchcraft, I found much to remind me why I worship the Creator rather than the creation. The many frog varieties and their reverberating calls were a vivid reminder of the limitless expanse of God's creativity, the infinite variety of forms -- living and non-living, plant and animal life -- with which he chose to cover this never-boring world.

I always tell my children, "You know, he didn't have to make so many colors. He could have made everything flat. He could have made it all one temperature. He could have made one kind of bird, one kind of tree." In the incredible detail of his created world, I see his immense love for us.

This touches me and makes me feel responsible for my actions here on earth. And it also strikes me that I would never dream of putting a frog in an anthill to be eaten alive. 

Award-winning author Barbara Curtis pens from California.

 

Witches Stir Up New Brew In U.S. Military

Consider it a portent of more to come. The U.S. Army has now officially recognized Wicca, or witchcraft, as a religion equal to Christianity, Judaism, Islam and other major faiths. Three years ago, in Fort Hood Texas, Wiccans were given the green light to practice rituals (including dagger-wielding but excluding nudity), host study groups and advertise coven meetings on base.

Since the first one was sanctioned, covens have sprung up at bases worldwide. Wiccans now claim 10,000 members in the U.S. armed forces -- with more each day. They are now pressing for recognition of High Priestesses to serve as military chaplains, side-by-side with pastors, priests and rabbis. Wiccans claim years of discrimination in which they were denied leave for pagan holidays and humiliated publicly for their beliefs.

Wiccans are supported in overcoming the few remaining barriers in the military by a watchdog/advocacy/resource group founded in 1992 -- the Military Pagan Network (www.milpagan.org). In addition to providing educational material to military chaplains, MPN also seeks to provide a support network near each military base around the world.

Morgan Beard, soldier in the U.S. Army, claims to have performed the first-ever army-sanctioned Wiccan/Pagan ritual at Fort Ben Harrison, Indiana, on October 10, 1992, and the second a few weeks later on Samhain (Wiccan for Halloween). Her recounting of how this came to be is not the story of a dramatic battle, but more a measured path she paved -- meeting little resistance from the base chaplain or her drill sergeant.

The military supports the witches' claim to a constitutional right to hold ceremonies. Defense regulations allow any religion as long as it meets minimum health and safety standards and maintains good order and discipline. A Pentagon spokesman said, "We are obliged by the Constitution to respect and make provisions for the religious needs of members of the military and not to pass judgment on their beliefs."

Tolerance is, of course, the byword today. The most outrageous culture-crushers cruise like stealth missiles under the radar screen, unreported by the media until some brave soul becomes willing to risk taking a shot, and absorbing much more in return.

In this case, the brave soul was U.S. Representative Bob Barr (R-Georgia). In May, as more than 50 male and female witches stationed at Fort Hood were celebrating a "rite of spring" by the light of a full moon, Barr had fired off a letter to the commanding officer demanding that the army post "stop this nonsense now."

In his letter, Barr went on to say that while liberals may praise the army's position, "Its effect on the combat readiness of your troops may be far less spectacular, to say nothing of its detrimental effects on our society more broadly speaking, which has heretofore looked to our military as epitomizing the American spirit of 'for God and country.'

"What's next? Will armored divisions be forced to travel with sacrificial animals for satanic rituals? Will Rastafarians demand the inclusion of ritualistic marijuana in the rations?"

Representative Barr attempted to amend The National Defense Authorization Act to outlaw the practice of Wicca on military bases, but the amendment died in committee.

"Until the Army withdraws all official support and approval from witchcraft, no Christian should enlist or re-enlist in the Army, and Christian parents should not allow their children to join the Army," said Paul M. Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Association.

Many are also calling for a change in the Army chaplain handbook, which includes the Church of Satan among sanctioned religions.

Weyrich called this inclusion, "a direct assault on the Christian faith that generations of American soldiers have fought and died for."

Indeed. For all the Army's tolerance of these offbeat and marginal "religions," there are indications that it is growing less tolerant of Christianity.

The Washington Post carried an interview with a nearby church member removed from the list of Sunday preachers at Fort Hood because he refused to take the name of Jesus out of his sermons.

These events do not bode well for the future of our country and our culture. The military is often the trial ground where social innovations are introduced and able to gain a foothold before stepping out into the larger society.

Now witches are shoulder-to-shoulder with those who worship the Creator rather than the creation. This is a boon for Wicca, increasing its level of acceptance within the culture-at-large, even as it provides a fertile field for planting more seeds of bad faith.

But here's the most worrisome and disturbing thought of all: Witches today may be our defenders tomorrow.

-- Barbara Curtis

 

Eastern Religions Captivate American West

In a flowing saffron robe, Hindu monk Srimad Shuddhananda Brahmachari cut a striking figure as he walked with perfect posture to meet a handful of seekers waiting for him in a picnic shelter at Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon.

The guru from India gently wrapped his soft hands around the outstretched palm of a man, unblinkingly stared into his eyes for several seconds, then closed his own in meditation as he tried to feel a flow of energy.

It may seem that there's not much religious energy in the American West. It rates low in the percentage of people regularly attending churches, synagogues or mosques.

But this guru and others put no importance on sitting in a pew. Where others see religious depravity, they see spiritual opportunity.

According to Shuddhananda, the West is the most spiritual of places in the United States, open to Eastern religious practices as no other region in the country.

Perhaps that's why a growing number of gurus are making regular visits to the West, with Portland becoming a hot spot along with Seattle, San Francisco and Boulder, Colorado.

The gurus guide people eager to walk their own spiritual paths where there are no dogmas or duties; where individual seekers, not institutions, make the rules; where people can accept or reject as they please.

This pick-and-choose, smorgasbord spirituality contrasts with the approach of established denominations, which have traditionally set the table and served the spiritual meals, take them or leave them.

No one knows how many self-styled seekers have rejected the old menu to find their own way. They don't show up on surveys and can't be counted in a church.

J. Gordon Melton, an expert on religious groups and author of the Encyclopedia of American Religion, says U.S. followers of Eastern practices are hardly a blip on the screen when tracking religious groups that count thousands and even millions of adherents.

"But they weren't even here a generation ago," Melton says. "So, it's spectacular growth when you think there was no base to start from. Now there are 200 or 300 gurus who either make regular stops here or live here. I liken it to establishing a beachhead."

Jerry Jones of Portland is the co-author of From Here to Nirvana: The Yoga Journal Guide to Spiritual India. He conducted a nationwide book tour and says turnouts were twice as large on the West Coast as the East Coast and three times larger than in the South.

Many seekers are introduced to Eastern ways through yoga, meditation or a variety of healing practices. Others may have been exposed through retreats. This loosely connected movement used to be called New Age, but that term has become passe.

Hinduism does have beliefs, such as reincarnation and dharma, the sustaining power of the universe. But Hindus also maintain all paths go up the same mountain. At the top it will be discovered that everyone is looking at the same moon.

"Interpretations are many, but the truth is one," Shuddhananda said.

Some speculate that an emphasis on nature by Eastern teachers is what attracts those in Western states. Others say their individualistic mentality, shaped by a frontier history, complements Eastern theologies of tolerance and blazing your own spiritual trail. Or perhaps the West is simply a progressive place where trends, even spiritual ones, tend to begin.

According to an often-quoted survey early this decade, less than a third of Oregonians regularly attend church, a figure that tied the state with Alaska in the next-to-last spot. Nevada ranked 50th.

Another survey showed 17 percent of Oregonians, the highest in the nation, claimed they have no religion, well above 14 percent in Washington, which puts that state in second place.

Ann Shannon of Portland wouldn't pop up on such a survey as a regular churchgoer, even though she sees herself as quite spiritual.

Raised Roman Catholic, she left the church as a teen-ager. She's now a devotee of Shuddhananda and thinks she was a nun and a priest in previous lives.

Two years ago, Shuddhananda had an intuition Shannon would reunite with her ex-husband. Last week he married them during an outdoor ceremony. A day later, all three sat cross-legged in a meadow of daisies with 17 other seekers.

The guru from India taught them a meditative technique: Take a deep breath, and exhale with a noise that should sound like a gong, beginning assertively and slowly fading.

The seekers sat in a circle around their teacher, adding a melodic "AHHHhh-OHHhhh-MMMmmmmm" to the air as the birds continued to sing.

-- by Mark O'Keefe

©1999 Religion News Service

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