Explination of Witches and Broomsticks (And Devil Horns)

Great Debates
1

Sorry, Cecil, but I have to tell you something. The answers to the two posts “What’s with witches and broomsticks” and “Why is the devil freqently shown with horns” are complicated questions with simple answers. Or whatever. I know the easy, uncomplicated, correct answers to each questions - I study wicca. Yeah, I’m a witch.

First of all, in the broomstick question, you mentioned Paganism as people believing they have witchy abilities - because they were on drugs or otherwise. Not so. Paganism and Wicca are… GET THIS… EARTH-WORSHIPING-RELIGIONS! We don’t believe to have magical powers. The goal is to be in tune with the earth, be one with the cycles, and worship God and Goddess. There’s a WHOLE LOT of femininepower in Wicca. Yeah right, you say. Then why do they “worship the devil” and cast spells?

I’ll debunk these myths in a minute. but first, the answer to witches and broomsticks. Yes, it is a symbol of fertility, and yes, the broomstick symbolizes what you think it does, but the WITCHES don’t use it! They run around on them "fertilizing the earth’s womb) on Oestara, or, rather translated, EASTER! Yes, that’s right, you already know Easter is pagan - the bunnies and eggs are symbol’s of Earth’s fertility.

As for the second one about the devil - the devil has horns because of something that happened a long time ago in Europe, around the creation of the Christian religion. And it’s really interesting.

In those days, when a conquering people took over a culture, they demeaned it by turning the culture’s god into their devil. So… you can guess what happened. One pagan god is PAN, the god of fertility and spring and all that. Anyways… HE LOOKED LIKE A GOAT. Get it yet? Tail, horns, all that. Well the Christians turned Pan into their devil. Fast forward a few hundred years, and well… back in America, the Christians go, “OH MY GOD! THEY ARE WORSHIPING OUR DEVIL!” Ah-hah.

A few more interesting tidbits about Wicca. (You could make an entire column out of this.) The halo on Jesus’s crown? It’s the wiccan sun - which we worship. Jesus’s birthay was on a SATURDAY, but we worship him on Sunday because the Wiccans worshiped the sun on this day. Don’t believe me? It all happeed when some Wiccan leader said, “If you can’t beat 'em, join em” and so he turned all these Wiccan symbols into Christian ones and joined the religion. And YES, Jesus and Mary Magdeline were married, they had a daughter - Sarah, and her lineage can be traced to today.

BEFORE YOU CLOSE THIS MESSAGE AND CALL ME CRAZY, it’s all documented. I’m not kidding you. Pick up a copy of THE DA VINCI CODE. It’s a true documentation of all these things - centered around a man discovering them.

Leonardo Da Vinci belonged to a cult of sorts, and I won’t get into it. But listen to this - The Little Mermaid is really modeled after Mary Magdeline. You know all those pictures of her in her underground room? They were done by - duh duh duh - Leonardo Da Vinci!

I know you think I’m crazy. I’m not. I love Wicca and Paganism, and the entire Catholic scandal - the supression of women in that religion and the fight to turn Mary Magdeline’s image into a prostitute. Jesus even wanted her to run the church after he died. I absoultely know you think I’m crazy.

I’m. Not. Go look online for the crazy thougts about these things. And I challange you to read THE DA VINCI CODE. It’s not fiction.

Edited to provide links to Cecil’s columns cited. – CKDH

2

And the code to these things are locked forever inside Leonardo’s works. For example, the Mona Lisa. Her left side is bigger than he right, you can see. This happens along the ROSE LINE - the line down the middle. Wiccans believe that all beings have a right side and a left side - Left for Feminine, Right for Masculine. Hmmmm

3

Dear sir or lady,

you are wrong.

For one thing, modern wicca only dates back about 80 years.

Not that it necessarily has much bearing on its efficacy or veracity, but lets be honest with ourselves here.

4

This isn’t modern Wicca we’re talking about. Wicca, UNLIKE SOME RELIGIONS, is constantly being changed and revised. Wicca originated ages before the Catholic church. It’s really paganism we’re talking about, which originated from Celtic and Norse gods.

5

Why would anyone think you were crazy? Lots of people read odd-ball books by whacked out authors preying on the uneducated. Their readers/victims are not necessarily crazy, simply ill-informed and susceptible to invented history.

There are a few points you’ve made that have some historical significance, but most of your post is a jumble of speculation, wishful thinking, and outright dishonesty (on the part of your sources, not you).

Now, posting this in the wrong Forum (rather than in Comments on Cecil’s Columns where it belongs), that is crazy.

6

Another thing.

Nice. And why would you say something so blatant? Where in the world do you think this came from? Do you think I made it up? I didn’t. Go online and search for these topics.

7

If you think this information is only found in that one book, YOU are the one who’s crazy. Online alone thousands of sites can be found proving this true. Hold on please. My next post is gonna be loaded with them.

8

goodness me

9

Sun and Sea should summon him/herself a dictionary, and lookup ‘Pagan’.

10

huh? It’s a novel. Says so right on the cover. Novels are fiction.

11

http://www.erobillard.com/Content/Doc-MagiDaVinci.asp
http://realmagick.com/articles/51/1551.html
http://www.smp.org/voices/Activities.cfm
http://www.weiserantiquarian.com/cgi-bin/wab455/1731.html
http://www.geocities.com/scimah/symbolism.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06083a.htm

To name a few. They are everywhere, and I didn’t make this up.

12

OK, now you are getting into the realm of the silly.

Pagan is simply the Mediterranean word used by Christians to indicate non-Christian beliefs other than Judaism, just as heathen is the equivalent word used in Northern Europe. (It does tend to be limited to polytheistic beliefs, so Islam is not necessarily considered pagan). From that perspective, all the other religions that preceded (and followed) Christianity are pagan. However, Wicca is a specific neo-pagan belief that was created in the early 20th century from the speculations of Aleister Crowley and some others. It is not a continuation (or even a modified transformation) of any earlier religion. This does not make it wrong, of course. However, people who put a lot of stock in some ancient knowledge that they have received as a legacy of the “ancient” Wicca are simply deluding themselves.

bolding mine

You misspelled claiming. I’m afraid that if you actually spend the effort to post a great many links to ahistorical claims, you are simply setting youirself up to be shredded. However, you do what you have to do.

13

YES, it is a novel. YES, the STORYLINE is fiction, and the character who discovers this. The plot, all that… fiction. However, the circumstances which the character reveals are not.

14

Pagan is a very broad term. It’s got brances like wicca, neo-pagan, blah blah blah blah blah. I’m talking about witches, and the line of pagan that traces to wicca. Bear with me if I’m not perfect with that confusing topic.

15

Come on, I want replies people! And I admit, I explained the book quite wrong - but I fix mysef the post before last.

16

You are just so damn cute!

I mean if you’re around 16 like you sound, if you’re 45, you’re just sad.

What’s cute is you think people on this site will be just amazed by your revelations, and astounded that there might be online web sites to back you up (:eek: ).

If your oversimplification of human life and history didn’t remind me so much of christian’s oversimplification of human life and history, I’d pick ya up and give ya a big kiss :slight_smile:

17

Okay, so I’m 12. I admit it. But that’s no reason not to believe - forget it. I’m not trying to be mystical and all that. I’m just trying to tell you some cool, TRUE, stuff. But whatever.

18

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sun and Sea *
**
In those days, when a conquering people took over a culture, they demeaned it by turning the culture’s god into their devil. So… you can guess what happened. One pagan god is PAN, the god of fertility and spring and all that.

[quote]
**

Pan was the Greek god of pastures and woodlands. When the Romans defeated the Greeks they adopted much of their pantheon and called Pan by the name of Faunus or Silvanus. Sure, he was lustful and cavorted with nymphs but he wasn’t the god of fertility. Demeter was the Greek goddess of fertility.

Pan wasn’t a “pagan” god as you think of it. Ever hear of Daghdha, Oenghus, or Brighid?

**

Wicca is a modern religion and can’t trace any meaningful roots to the ancient world.

**

How do you know it was on a Saturday? I don’t recall hearing that he was born on the Sabbath but I admit things slip by me from time to time.

**

Neat trick since there weren’t any Wiccan leaders 200 years ago let alone 2000.

**

I know some people believe this and that the holy grail is actually the bloodline of Christ. Never mind that the grail didn’t actually appear until the 12th century or so and there’s no evidence to suggest Christ ever married.

**

You can find this in the Fiction section. That means the stories are fake.

Marc

19

The Christian celebration on Sunday dates to the earliest days of the church when the new Christians celebrated the day of the Resurrection. (No one claims to even know the day that Jesus was born, so why would you invent Saturday as the birthday?) This happened a couple of hundred years before Christianity would have been large enough or powerful enough to induce some pagan leader (there were no Wiccans, then) to change religions.

The story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene marrying and passing the bloodline down to the present in the “San Graal” is a hoax perpeatrated by a loon who is conning money out of some minor cousin of European royalty by pretending that he is descended from Jesus.

The use of pagan mythology and pagan symbolism by the Christian church is well known and accepted by all scholars. The nonsense begins when someone attempts to claim that every aspect of Christianity is simply a borrowing–like the silly notion of the selection of Sunday worship you posted.

20

Sun and Sea,

Welcome to the SDMB.
Relax.
You’ve got as long as it takes to expound on your topic.

There are 30,000+ members. Many of them are iconoclasts of various sorts.
I assure you that you are not the only Wiccan, not the only student of religion, not the only student of mythology, not the only student of history, not even the only one of these all rolled into one that posts here.
ThanX for deciding to share your research efforts.
Try to pick one item at a time rather than try to support a whole bevy of contentions at once.

Try to explain broomstick/thursus bit first, maybe.