To: DEMIPAGAN
Date: 11/27/1999 9:51 AM
Subject: Wicca, Nov. 12
Column Reference: None
Read: 11/28/1999 7:57 AM
Private: Yes
Dear Mr.Adams:
I read your column on Wicca, Nov. 12, with a mixture of amusement and amazement. Is this really what you consider to be the "straight dope"? Before you continue to spoon-feed your readers more distortions and historical inaccuracies, I'd like to throw my two-cents into your one-sided brew.
You state that, ""...there's lots of evidence that Wicca is a modern invention."" Gee, I wish we could go back to the Christian Council of NIcea, circa 400-625 CE. That's how long they took to "invent" the Christian religion. Taking the pagan mythos of the Persian savior-god Mithras, their theologians crafted the beginnings of what is now the Catholic religion. Think I'm "wack"? A noted scholar, Barbara Walker, has chronicled in her historical work, "The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets", the "similarities" between the worship of Mithras and Christ: both had a priesthood of celibate males, baptized by anointing, had twelve disciples at his sacrificial dinner, consecrated the last meal with a cross, were born on Dec 25, whose births were witnessed by Magi, performed miracles of healing, and arose to live again. The only difference was that the sect of Mithras pre-dated Christianity by a few hundred years!
Every religious tradition has begun from the compilation of myth, a desire to connect with a divine source, and to live by a sacred code of ethics. By adding liturgy, schools of divinity, and erecting sacred space in the form of temples humankind has been able to celebrate the divine in all its aspects. This is commonly called "religion". Our religious tradition, regardless of its beginnings, has long ago been recognized by the World Parliament of Religions. The people that spend 24/7 attacking Wicca are those who come from Christian roots. It threatens their idea of what is "right', and since the history of the Christian tradition has been one of battle and blood for the glory of "right", your column was simply more of the same 411 (right down to the jokes and snide comments).
What makes people from mainstream religions nervous about Wicca and Paganism is that we worship the Goddess and the God, that many of our clergy are female, and that ours is the fastest-growing religion today (Buddhism - another "alternative" religion is #2). This nervousness is reflected in the obsessive desire to "prove" that our religion is somehow not real, not valid, and not "right". If you really wanted to present an informed view, you would have contacted Wiccan or Pagan clergy from a near-by Wiccan or Pagan temple. After all, that's what most columnist's do when researching a story - they go to the source. If this had been a letter about the Catholic or Baptist or Jewish faiths, your readers would expect nothing less.
Since you failed to contact one of our clergy, concerning our faith, religious beginnings, and practices, I have no doubt this will find its way into your "files" - the garbage can. After all, it's so much more "readable" to print fable, rather than fact.