# Dear Wiccans: get over yourselves **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 16, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968 "2009-06-16T17:55:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/221 "2009-06-19T17:44:22Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > **Kimmy\_Gibbler** , I’ll agree that that interpretation is ironic… but I don’t think that’s what the song was going for. Giving ol’ Morissette too much credit, if ya kna’mean. Please do not piss on my life dream of editing _Morrissette: The Collected Works_, a Norton Critical Edition. ---
**Author:** ![Marienee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@Marienee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marienee)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/222 "2009-06-19T17:49:54Z")
> [@Leiko](#): > > As far as Terry Pratchett goes I agree 100%. Headology is an often overlooked part of what makes witchcraft work half-or-more of the time and I do not say that as a joke. No, I think she means the witchcraft, not the headology. Headology is as I recall presented in Pratchett as not-witchcraft. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/223 "2009-06-19T17:59:18Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Please do not piss on my life dream of editing _Morrissette: The Collected Works_, a Norton Critical Edition. I reserve the right to piss on anything remotely related to anyone who dreams of producing anything Norton. With the purchase of many of their anthologies required as I went about earning my B.A. in English Lit, I am reasonably sure that I put \*at least \*one of the Norton children through college themself. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/224 "2009-06-19T18:38:46Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > No, that’s not ironic, either. 😛 > > What \*would \*be ironic would be buying a lottery ticket, winning, locking yourself in a panic room until a security service can come escort you to cash it in, and dying of asphyxiation because you never tested the room and forgot to put in any kind of ventilation. > > ETA: For a really good discussion of what irony is, try to get your hands on a copy of \*The Compass of Irony \*by D. C. Muecke. You’ll probably have to try the library, 'cause it’s out of print. I was responding to **Kimmy\_Gibbler** ’s comment about the man waiting for life to happen to him. My point was just that buying a lottery ticket doesn’t mean you are passive in life. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/225 "2009-06-19T19:02:19Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Does that make any sense? [/quote] Oh sure. Like those cliques of poets who praise eachother’s works, but don’t let anybody else see it because nobody else would ‘get it’ – but there’s a catch-22 where they can’t explain it unless you already ‘get it’ and the fact that you suspect ‘it’ isn’t all ‘it’ is cracked up to be is taken as prima facie evidence of your lack of qualification to judge, so they have a perfectly hermetically sealed dome of smugness free of contamination from outside, but somehow the smugness is leeching into the groundwater and making everything smell like pee, which is nasty one the one hand, but really the objection is that it forces us to realized that deep down inside each of us there is, let’s face it, always at least a little bit of pee we can never quite be free of. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/226 "2009-06-19T19:03:31Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > Oh sure. Like those cliques of poets who praise eachother’s works, but don’t let anybody else see it because nobody else would ‘get it’ – but there’s a catch-22 where they can’t explain it unless you already ‘get it’ and the fact that you suspect ‘it’ isn’t all ‘it’ is cracked up to be is taken as prima facie evidence of your lack of qualification to judge, so they have a perfectly hermetically sealed dome of smugness free of contamination from outside, but somehow the smugness is leeching into the groundwater and making everything smell like pee, which is nasty one the one hand, but really the objection is that it forces us to realized that deep down inside each of us there is, let’s face it, always at least a little bit of pee we can never quite be free of. I bow to your superior wisdom. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/227 "2009-06-19T19:12:12Z")
You’re in good company. ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/228 "2009-06-19T20:18:57Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > You mean the tradition started in 1954? Yes. But only capital-W Wicca, not little-w wicca. ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/229 "2009-06-19T20:31:08Z")
> [@Marienee](#): > > No, I think she means the witchcraft, not the headology. Headology is as I recall presented in Pratchett as not-witchcraft. Hmm… you have a point there. I still think real-world headology, even if you’re calling it cold reading, is a very useful skill within magical practice. I’m sure some Tarot readers would knock me over the head for it, but I say that if cold reading gives you client useful information it’s just as good as memorizing every little card meaning and interpreting it according to the layout. (I feel like I’m occasionally trying to sound authoritative. Considering that the priest in the tradition I’ve worked most closely with is the author of such works as “Goth Craft” I sort of feel like I should be walking around with a disclaimer. WARNING! New tradition! Warning! Anything goes approach with the occasional really serious turn in the opposite direction! Warning! Occasional weird misinformation!) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/230 "2009-06-19T23:38:07Z")
**Leiko** Any Tarot card reader who doesn’t use cold reading is doing it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/231 "2009-06-20T00:26:42Z")
(Apologies for all the hijacking.) **mswas** , that’s where I realize I’ve got a bit of contradiction going in my own viewpoint: I think a full-on reading needs at least a bit of cold reading to make it work, but at the same time at lot of friends who play rummy with Tarot cards (higher scores each round if you’re winning, and a great way to use the novelty decks that have little other use) like to do interpretative divination on their cards. Doing it for themselves sort of contradicts cold reading, doesn’t it? Frightful thought: With Tarot cards now being checkout-line impulse buys at bookstores, there’s probably a lot of “readings” that consist primarily of flipping through the books checking out the meaning and then trying to piece together “The Future” out of context-free information. I don’t know if I’ve ever hijacked a thread this much before. My middle school self is mortified. (The Harry Potter discussion board I belonged to at the time was draconian in its enforcements of the rules “Stay on Topic” and “No one-liners.”) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/232 "2009-06-20T01:21:41Z")
I have never read a book on Tarot cards that hasn’t stipulated in the beginning that it’s about intuition. Knowing what the cards mean is important but reading the person is as much a part of it as reading the card. In a way it’s an amateur psychoanalysis. The way I see Tarot cards is as a tool to get people to see the things they aren’t looking at properly in themselves, and the telling the future aspect of that only matters in as much as their future stems from their present. I wouldn’t worry about hijacking the thread, it’s pretty well hijacked at this point. Otherwise we’d still be talking about banging hot redheads. ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/233 "2009-06-20T01:45:36Z")
Can we go back to talking about banging **[hot](http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2008/6/21/633496345923873040-hot-redheads.jpg)** **[redheads](http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h245/atlantacyclist8/DagmarMidcap1.jpg)**? I’d like to offer **[Exhibit 1](http://oh-snap.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/alyson-hannigan.jpg)**, **[Exhibit 2](http://lios.apana.org.au/~mkaree/kari_byron_shark_bikini.jpg)**, and **[Exhibit 3](http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g316/PurpleLava/06-kari_byron_shark_bikini_radio_sm.jpg)** as to why we should go back to talking about them. All opposed? ---
**Author:** ![ashman165](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@ashman165](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ashman165)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/234 "2009-06-20T02:01:58Z")
> [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](#): > > It’s pretty fucking stupid to be uneducated about the beginnings of your faith. I was one of the few who wasn’t. But lots of people aren’t, and lots of people are just doing it 'cause it “feels right,” and aren’t particularly concerned with the history on it. While people making spurious claims are pretty dang stupid, the inherent faith really isn’t any sillier than Christianity. It’s exactly no sillier than Christianity, which is itself a dash of this, pinch of that religion – something OP seems to dislike. Christianity is no less a mash of arbitrary shit people decided would be wise to put in than is any other religion. The only difference is that the Wiccans, unlike the Christians, didn’t do it to get people converted lest they have to kill them. > [@](#): > > And, **Johnny Angel** the idea that a faith isn’t valid until someone has died for it is kind of crappy. Indeed, it isn’t valid until someone _kills_ for it. =P > [@](#): > > I mean, jeez. I know that there are a shit-ton of idiot pagans out there, but I still don’t think that justifies such broad-stroking. Especially as the whole faith doesn’t have a specific doctrine; you can’t definitively say that any one pagan believes X or Y. Nor can you say that about even Christians for they too have many cults. Or do they prefer sects? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/235 "2009-06-20T07:01:50Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I have never read a book on Tarot cards that hasn’t stipulated in the beginning that it’s about intuition. Knowing what the cards mean is important but reading the person is as much a part of it as reading the card. In a way it’s an amateur psychoanalysis. … Well, yes and no. The underlying premise is that intuition can be trained to a set of symbols that, when properly used, can enhance intuition ( or “psychic ability”, there are no real definitions, so terminology becomes oblique…). This capacity varies as do all talents. Some people are as psychic as a sump pump, others seem to have an inner “ear”. Of these, some find the symbolism of Tarot cards the ideal medium (ha!) for expression, and can thus discipline their natural talent to some remarkable insights. But, how is it that the cards are shuffled and arranged in a pattern that reflects the situation, how can an intuitive _gestalt_ affect a physical reality so that the cards fall “into place”? I am always pleased when I can answer a question at once, without hesitation. I have no idea. Nor do I have any confidence that I ever will. But there it is. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/236 "2009-06-20T15:56:30Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > [Rant about cute but pretentious girls] > > This is perhaps very unfortunate… for you. You are not the first people to be called witches, and have nothing to do with actual, historical witchcraft, either. Your religion, and I use the term in its most perjorative sense and loosest sense, got started by some bored English chits who wanted to play around and pretend they were important. It was popularized by some British dude who didn’t believe a word of it so he could sell some books. Your entire theology is a mash of arbitrarily picked beliefs from random celtic groups, along with a healthy dose of stuff you claim they believed when they had nothing of the kind,m and would probably have killed you for fun. > > Second, you annoying people who claim you’re “witches” and talk about earth magic and Gaia and insist on spelling “magic” with a “k” are full of it. I really doubt you believe it either, since you (the cute but psychotic with daddy issues redhead and all) seem to have a huge chip on your shoulder because your daddy (who is paying for your college education and apartment if not food) was a fairly strict Baptist. Yeah, you’re a real rebel there. :rolleyes: > > Finally, stop being so hot. It’s not fair that I have to listen to your insipid fails-to-even-be-Leftist drivel while wanting to date you. 😃 > > [/Rant about cute but prentious girls] With that attitude you are SO not getting laid. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/237 "2009-06-20T17:23:02Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, yes and no. The underlying premise is that intuition can be trained to a set of symbols that, when properly used, can enhance intuition ( or “psychic ability”, there are no real definitions, so terminology becomes oblique…). Yes, but if you wanted to have as much control over that as possible you would have the person leave the room. Its interactivity by its very nature makes the person’s reactions to questions relevant to the reading. > [@](#): > > This capacity varies as do all talents. Some people are as psychic as a sump pump, others seem to have an inner “ear”. Of these, some find the symbolism of Tarot cards the ideal medium (ha!) for expression, and can thus discipline their natural talent to some remarkable insights. Right, I agree, but the idea that psychic ability needs to be separate from tangible explanations seems a bit too ad hoc to me. It seems reactionary as though one is trying to intentionally separate themselves from Empirical explanations. Now I am not saying that the intuitive nature of Tarot is Empirical, I am just saying that you take the totality of the story in, it is the whole narrative that you are trying to read. The reaction of the individual to a particular archetype tells you a great deal about that archetypes presentation in their lives. > [@](#): > > But, how is it that the cards are shuffled and arranged in a pattern that reflects the situation, how can an intuitive _gestalt_ affect a physical reality so that the cards fall “into place”? I am always pleased when I can answer a question at once, without hesitation. Well, I don’t think it actually matters as much as people think it does. Essentially it’s totally random. All of the archetypes are universal. The hierophant is always in our lives as is death. That is why the cold reading is important because the reaction to seeing the hierophant close to death tells us something about what the person is thinking. In otherwords it’s about gauging a trajectory. When I watch someone pitch, I can be fairly certain where the ball is going to go by watching it leave their hand. > [@](#): > > I have no idea. Nor do I have any confidence that I ever will. But there it is. Well there are obviously mysterious aspects at play, and that’s part of what makes Tarot cards so satisfying. It is the idea of playing with that mystery, the color and magnificence of the cards gives your life a romantic feel for the moment and allows the psyche to loosen its grip on what it perceives as its state of normalcy, allows us to open a window we would normally keep closed because that’s the purpose of the ritual, to open that which we normally close. People for the most part know where they are going. Allowing them to fill in the blanks helps. But then again, I’ve never tried to predict the future with accuracy using Tarot cards. I have accurately guessed many events when I had a dirth of information, like stock picks, superbowl winners when I didn’t even know the rules of football, and other such things. I used to be able to predict who was calling on the phone at my parents house with about 90% accuracy, but that doesn’t preclude all sorts of markers guiding me from the outside, perfectly natural ideas that influenced my thought process. I picked stocks because I understood tech stocks to some degree, I picked superbowl winners because I could see which team had the greater gravitas by watching them on screen and by hearing the intonations of people’s voices when they talked about those teams, I knew who was calling because I knew the pool of potential callers and who was likely to be calling at any given time. Generally I bristle at two notions, that psychic phenomena have no validity, and that they cannot be at least partially rationally explained. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/238 "2009-06-20T17:24:23Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > With that attitude you are SO not getting laid. Yeah, that was well established on like the first page I think. No hot redhead pagan pussy. I don’t think his bandit will be smiling for that girl. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/239 "2009-06-22T23:24:47Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Yes, but if you wanted to have as much control over that as possible you would have the person leave the room. Its interactivity by its very nature makes the person’s reactions to questions relevant to the reading. > > Right, I agree, but the idea that psychic ability needs to be separate from tangible explanations seems a bit too ad hoc to me. It seems reactionary as though one is trying to intentionally separate themselves from Empirical explanations. Now I am not saying that the intuitive nature of Tarot is Empirical, I am just saying that you take the totality of the story in, it is the whole narrative that you are trying to read. The reaction of the individual to a particular archetype tells you a great deal about that archetypes presentation in their lives. > > Well, I don’t think it actually matters as much as people think it does. Essentially it’s totally random. All of the archetypes are universal. The hierophant is always in our lives as is death. That is why the cold reading is important because the reaction to seeing the hierophant close to death tells us something about what the person is thinking. In otherwords it’s about gauging a trajectory. When I watch someone pitch, I can be fairly certain where the ball is going to go by watching it leave their hand. > > Well there are obviously mysterious aspects at play, and that’s part of what makes Tarot cards so satisfying. It is the idea of playing with that mystery, the color and magnificence of the cards gives your life a romantic feel for the moment and allows the psyche to loosen its grip on what it perceives as its state of normalcy, allows us to open a window we would normally keep closed because that’s the purpose of the ritual, to open that which we normally close. People for the most part know where they are going. Allowing them to fill in the blanks helps. > > But then again, I’ve never tried to predict the future with accuracy using Tarot cards. I have accurately guessed many events when I had a dirth of information, like stock picks, superbowl winners when I didn’t even know the rules of football, and other such things. I used to be able to predict who was calling on the phone at my parents house with about 90% accuracy, but that doesn’t preclude all sorts of markers guiding me from the outside, perfectly natural ideas that influenced my thought process. I picked stocks because I understood tech stocks to some degree, I picked superbowl winners because I could see which team had the greater gravitas by watching them on screen and by hearing the intonations of people’s voices when they talked about those teams, I knew who was calling because I knew the pool of potential callers and who was likely to be calling at any given time. > > **Generally I bristle at two notions, that psychic phenomena have no validity, and that they cannot be at least partially rationally explained.** Then perhaps the I-Ching divination, which is at least partially similar to Tarot reading, would appeal to you. I tend to think of these card and I-Ching arrangements as quantum, subjective, snapshots. Little static and metric measurements of wide quantum events… the stylus to the paper of the mind and the universe that we are inseperable from. It’s no different than gauging radioactivity with a geiger counter or seismic activity with a seismograph, it’s just that the medium are different, and the measurements a bit more subjective. Or hell, just as subjective… what’s a roentgen without human lethality to scale, or the Richter without serious misfortune? The scale here just happens to be archetypical, which is uncomfortable to some because it uncovers the subconscious and the universal structure of all things. I tend to think of the I-Ching (and to some extent, Tarot) as an ancient camera, or perhaps more accurately a videocamera. Taking little digital quanta of wide swaths of information and formating it for a specific individual in time and place. But alas, just read Dr. C.G. Jung’s [Foreword to the I-Ching,](http://www.iging.com/intro/foreword.htm) as he can clarify it much better than I. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968/240 "2009-06-22T23:34:24Z")
> [@Leiko](#): > > Kindly point out what you consider horseshit. I’ll admit readily to being glib in my description of generic Neo-Paganism (though it is wibbly-wobbly, just like space-time), so don’t spend too much time on that. The bit about how REAL Wiccans are all secret-like and “oathbound.” Suuuuure. Do you have ID cards or an international registry? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-wiccans-get-over-yourselves/499968.md?page=13)