Out Of The Shadows, An Exploration of Dark Paganism & Magick Options

I was emailed reguarding a post on The Orical (found @ www.onewitch.com) about this book. It seems to cover an aspect of Paganism that many consider taboo. I hope to aquire this book soon. You can find more info on it at http://www.waningmoon.com/book/ (IMG:style_emoticons/default/yes.gif)

The Taboos were set by the so called Romano Christians who had the understanding of a peanut. I find the title Pagan rather pathetic (not to mention somewhat high and mighty), after all who came first and who worships the graven images, including the mother goddess, carried out systematic torture, genocide. Truth is we 'pagans' have been outdone by the Christians. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/butcher.gif)

I am a follower of the old Celtic ways and when you begin the path of study many choices are there to be made. This book only says what I and many like me have known for a long time, for me it was not so much of a revelation as a confirmation. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/diablo.gif)

to known the light you must first accept the dark, to have one without the other is to have nothing. Light is the power of nature and dark is the power of spirit. Starting to go off on a rant - time to shut up (IMG:style_emoticons/default/8.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/5.gif)

"The Taboos were set by the so called Romano Christians who had the understanding of a peanut. "

As opposed to the forest dwelling savages you appear to favor.

"including the mother goddess, carried out systematic torture, genocide."

I am not certain whether I understood your post correctly due to a rather hazy use of english language in it, but I will suppose that it indicates that

1.There was a mother goddess cult in Europe at the time of the Roman empire

and

2.The spreading christianity carried out genocide and systematic torture to secure its position.

Now, from a purely historical point of view, neither claim has much available support. The only confirmed fertility cult involving a mother goddess was in the somewhat shorter east european populace of the paleolithic and mesolithic period (as opposed to the western cro-magnon variety, which was taller and more civilised), where several (read:several, not severeal thousand) idols of fat ladies were found. This ethnic group was actually crushed by later arrivals millenia before the Romans ever came that way. Mind you, one of the arrivals were the Celts from the middle east. You don't often go worshipping the deities of savages you just killed out (imagine the british coming into india and instead of spreading christianity, adopting hinduism) There was also some emphasis on female deities in ireland. We'll get there later.
Conclusion: a pan-european female fertility cult is a myth. The fertility figures dissapeared with the advent of the neolithic period.

Violent expansion of christianity. Not for what you might call general use. The areas where you (read:neopagans) would expect the most feverish resistance, being the hardcore celts of the british isles and the vikings of scandinavia and iceland, both adopted christianity quite peacefully. In fact ireland is the best example, where local deities were gradually unified with christian saints. If you are thinking of stakes and fires now, that was 1000 years later in Europe, and particularly in ireland, never. The more usual way was to convince a monarch to get baptised, or demonstrate a miracle (Iceland I think was a monk grabbing a red-hot iron bar in his hand and not getting burnt, but it might have been somewhere else). So, I would avoid black and white categorisations here. The transition was in the vast majority of cases smooth and not against the will of the populace. Also note that local myths and pantheons often survived only thanks to christian monks who recorded them. Also try reading Snori Snurlessons (spelling?) Edda, the only authentic source of norse mythology...he speaks of God, Adam and Eve before going into Odin, and not in a "those fuckers came and burned out priests at the stake" way. That's just the modern persecution-seeking mentality of bored people.

"I am a follower of the old Celtic ways"
Bold statement. You're probably the only one who actually knows what they were then. Now "follower of somebody's well-meant, yet somewhat naive and historically inacurrate attempts to reconstruct celtic faith, omiting all the embarassing parts", that would be believable (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

This post has been edited by Rakesh: Mar 27 2005, 05:33 PM

Romano Christians are those that took over after Constantine told the rest to get with the flow or get banished (in those times the equivalent of a death sentence). I can see that you have not bothered to study the earliest hiostory of the christian faith.

Neither I or my forebears dwelt in forests (not very good Agricultural land), again read some history about the Celtic peoples. As to mother goddess, sorry wrong again. Not part of my history, look at my nick, it will give you a clue to the correct historical timeframe.

Christianity by the way (and I never said it was), was not spread by torture and genocide. Torture and persucution came around 400 years after the death of the man Jesus, perfected under the auspisces of the Roman church, again well documented for those willing to read

As to the old ways, the knowledge is passed down from generation to generation, in the old tongue, through the female line.

A pity that you could not present your arguments without a seasoning of profanity, or for that matter by presenting more fact than mere conjecture. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/uglyhammer.gif)

Grim Fandango, we have a few forum bug we're trying to fix, and until then please change your avatar to a smaller one that do not exceed the template. Goes to everyone else with oversized avatars. We'd like to keep things neat and tidy here (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

"Christianity by the way (and I never said it was), was not spread by torture and genocide. Torture and persucution came around 400 years after the death of the man Jesus, perfected under the auspisces of the Roman church, again well documented for those willing to read"

So basically what you are saying is that 400 years after the death of Jesus, it was not christianity...Extrapolate?
Also torture and genocide is not as much historically inaccurate, as a lie. Care to give any examples? Christianity was not spread by military force, and small groups of monks (often individuals) could hardly apply "genocide" to a nation of big rugged guys with even bigger swords. What you mean is the crusades and inquisition, which was however in the first case about 500 years after the definitive demise of pagan cults, and in the case of inquisition, close to a millenium. Sorry, that is not "spreading", that is called "petty politics" and "settling old debts among neighbors", if you think the inquisition was targetted at the remnants of pagan cults, you have swallowed a misinformation of certain fluffy wiccan sources which has no shred of evidence behind it.

Interesting historical fact: it was common in scandinavia for blacksmiths to manufacture both thor's hammers and christian crosses simultaneously, based on the customer's preference. That doesn't sound like a violent ussurpance of religious power.

"As to the old ways, the knowledge is passed down from generation to generation, in the old tongue, through the female line. "

Beyond doubt.
AFAIK, there is supposedly a couple of witch families in ireland (no more than ten). I have already heard from them, and on each occasion, they displayed two characteristic: 1)a very open and relaxed relationship towards christianity, absent of the typically neo-pseudo-pagan persecution seeking, christianity demonising attitude you display 2)not shoving their witchery in everybody's face

What this implies about your connection to family witchcraft is obvious.

" or for that matter by presenting more fact than mere conjecture"

Sounds like Kunta Kinte is calling me black;)

Christianity by the way (and I never said it was), was not spread by torture and genocide. Torture and persucution came around 400 years after the death of the man Jesus, perfected under the auspisces of the Roman church, again well documented for those willing to read

I'd like to see which documents you speak of. For many a college professor claim any "documents" from that period are inaccurate due to being written and re-written from various perspectives over hunders of years and that about 90% of those existing documents are replicas made by people who wrote down their interpritation of another replica document and the other 10% is incomplete due to ware and tare that 2000 years can bring on paper. Plus the celts didn't write things down so what was written about the celts was not done so by celtic sources. See when the Roman empire fell this lead to a period of unrest called the dark ages. In this period of time there were few libraries and most records were kept by secular christians trying to apply god to the past 10000 years of human history.

As to the old ways, the knowledge is passed down from generation to generation, in the old tongue, through the female line.

Uh huh. You mean they weren't burned at the stake and survived the inquisitions and crusades and all that? Most "celtic" culture has been lost to time and what exists today does under the interpritations of people like Gardner, who really just made educated guesses as to how the celts PROBABLY lived and had little actual evidence to support their claims about celtic culture. A prime example is stonehindge. There is little evidence the celts even touched these monoliths, made before the bronze age, long before any clets were in Europe! Yet I saw a show on PBS about a group of modern "druids" who regularly carry out their "celtic" religion (mostly sabbats and esbats) dispite the fact no celts even used stonehindge. This is just an example of how people misidentify with celtic peoples and form their own ideas that may or may not be accurate. This leads me to believe that while you may believe you are following a celtic tradition I highly doubt it actually how the ancient celts lived. Especially since most knowledge we have is based on christian and roman documentation, not celtic sources.

or for that matter by presenting more fact than mere conjecture

So now that we can see the forest full of trees (and the savages running naked), have you anything to offer that isn't conjecture?

I should probably say this now, seeing as how you might not be too happy at the moment, but I mean no disrespect to your beliefs. You can believe anything you like and that is a good thing. My stance is that I don't believe in a true celtic culture existing today and that if what you are saying is that you are a part of a true celtic culture I would like to see the evidence in support of this.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/offtopic.gif) sorry just had to post....

My stance is that I don't believe in a true celtic culture existing today and that if what you are saying is that you are a part of a true celtic culture I would like to see the evidence in support of this.

While it is true that much ancient information about the Celts relies on obviously biased Roman works, in recent times, much more has been discovered about these astounding peoples who dominated the pre Roman world from Ireland and possibly Iceland/North America in the West to Asia Minor in the East, possibly as far as Turjistan, South through to Italy, and even into Africa as Mercenaries to the Pharaohs, archeology has revealed so much in the last few years, and the place names still in existence have helped historians to reach a much deeper understanding of the organizational abilities of the many tribes and confederations that made up the Celtic Empire. Forest dwelling they were in some places, but the agricultural developement of Europe owes much to them, and who was not savage in those times,?

Though there are few Celtic writings in existence, they commonly used latin or the language of the countries they dominated to record ordinary every day affairs, and more of those revealing documents are coming to light.

Much of their pre- Christian past was strangely mis-laid, and the Celtic renaissance of the 19th century only did them a disservice by romanticizing the ancient Celts, but that misinformation is no reason to reject the part they played across the known world in Pre-Roman and Roman times. When for instance in reading of the feats of Hannibel did you read he was a Celt.

Many peoples who had not been recognized as part of the Celtish races are now thought to be so. Today the inheritors of nearly 3000 years of unbroken cultural tradition are the Irish, Scots, Manx, Welsh, Bretons, and Cornish though they struggle to maintain their individuality and soon may disappear amongst the increasing political and cultural uniformities of Europe, as did the Etruscan civilization, now also considered by some to be Celts. Only 2 million or so Europeans now speak the Celtic language.

No they were not saints, they had some nasty beliefs, and fighting habits, (who did not even up to recent times possess what is today considered savage, shall I make mention of Prisons in Iraq, (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tomato.gif) possibly not).

But to reject the evidence of their existence is to display only ignorance of updated information coming to light all the time, and to say that they adopted Christianity or Roman rule quite peacefully, is clearly not borne out by the evidence, some hoped to survive by doing so but generally they fought viciously and long in resisting any such control. Allowing for the fact that the Romans may have exaggerated their figures to enhance their own victories, many hundreds of thousands of Celts obviously died
defending their culture and way of life.

Their pantheons included both male and female deities, but without doubt the Great Triple Goddess led the field, and women were held as equels in battle and politics, some being elected leaders of their tribes.

May I suggest one could do well to start to catch up by reading `The Celtic Empire, 1000BC - 51AD', by Peter Berresford Ellis.

But to reject the evidence of their existence is to display only ignorance of updated information coming to light all the time, and to say that they adopted Christianity or Roman rule quite peacefully, is clearly not borne out by the evidence, some hoped to survive by doing so but generally they fought viciously and long in resisting any such control. Allowing for the fact that the Romans may have exaggerated their figures to enhance their own victories, many hundreds of thousands of Celts obviously died
defending their culture and way of life.

First what I was rejecting was that a person in this thread was claiming to have been tought "the old ways". I'm not being ignorant I'm being skeptical about the validity that this person really knows the "old ways" and not just what they were told either from a book or relative who makes strong claims but that the extent of the truth of their beliefs.

I have plenty of sources, even a 3 video set that starts from the earlist "celtic" findings in Spain and how they were the first bronze age, people's in Europe. Or was it Iron? Point is the video discusses the Celts technological advantage over other peoples to a certain period of time. It also talks about their indo-european Ancestors and the possibilites about what made them migrate. It goes into detail about various archeological sites that examine celtic remains and clears up the myths about stoneheinge. The next video is about the celts and druids in the times of the greeks and romans. It goes through various texts that describe the celtic peoples and even points out the things the celts influenced in Roman/Greek societies as well as the extent of Celtic dominion. The final video talks about how their culture was effectivly wipped out and modern restoration efforts. From the desctruction left by the Romans, Persians (eastern tribes), Christains, Anglo/Saxons and Vikings there isn't a lot left that really gives us a good, accurate and thorough, picture about the celts. One thing that is for sure is the term "celt" isn't in refference to simply a race of peoples its a linguistic reference to describe a people who shared common linguistic characteristics. The variations from one tribe to another in mythos and tradition, while sharing many things, are also pretty unique from one tribe to the next. I haven't this video set infront of me but if you or somebody else is interested I call find them and give you their titles.

I also have a book about the druids. "Celtic magick", quoted because its an author's interpritation of celtic festivals and rituals. An encyclopedia of mythology that has a large section dedicated to celtic pentheons and myths that survived the test of time. And I have a welsh dictionairy. I'm not sketical about somebody claiming to know the "old ways" because I'm ignorant. I'm skeptical because I know such claims are usually false and unfounded. I'm not saying its impossible. I'd just like to see the evidence or any sources at all.

.......and yet everyone leaves out the Picts...*sigh* or evidence of the 'redpaint people' whose presence is seen on BOTH sides of the Atlantic...
BTW, in case anyone cares.... the word "pagan' is a Latin word for 'farmer'....that's a label I can live with! Fraser's "Golden Bough" is a pretty nice research book on multi-cultural traditions. Check it out! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

This post has been edited by bym: May 12 2005, 09:49 PM

I too am a follower of the ancient and olden Celtic ways ....

I am half scot ...

I tend to hate tags and pigeon holes ... magic basically is and always has done .... I find by giving a name to anything at all it becomes limited to the vibrational restraints of the name it is given ...

Pagan for example ... has become tagged to a wrongful archetype created by christianity ... and followers are technically limited in their pursuits by the vibrational restraints of that archetype in the collective consciousness (my theory anyway) ...

I stray away from names as much as I can ... hence "I am what I am" ...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/offtopic.gif)

I stray away from names as much as I can ... hence "I am what I am" ...

You are what you are, well what are you then? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

This post has been edited by al_zaine: Feb 3 2009, 07:03 PM