PaganCentric

This is an interesting take on the Inquisition and the role of the Malleus Maleficarum at a blog titled “Diary of an Alien Life Form“. Whether or not you agree with it, the ideas presented make for some interesting conversation. It’s easy to forget that during the time of the Malleus Maleficarum and the Inquisition, so-called “learned people” were as convinced of their beliefs as modern day scientists are of theirs.
~ Claire

Between the 14th and 18th centuries, somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 people on the European continent were tried and executed for witchcraft. Most of these people were burned alive in the public square of the nearest town, and most were also tortured before burning. Between 70% and 80% of all “witches” executed were women, but many men, children, and even animals were executed as well.

What is most strange about the witchcraft trials of medieval Europe is that, despite being studied in great detail by historians and scholars of many stripes and biases, no single persuasive explanation has emerged for why they took place.

What is also interesting is that medieval “witches” had much in common with today’s “abductees”, and the witch hunters also resemble some of today’s abduction “researchers” in surprisingly consistent ways.

Something fairly powerful has to be going on either inside the public imagination or out in the real world or both, in order to sustain nearly four centuries of torture, carnage, and religious persecution. The Church did not simply try and burn witches: It aggressively sought them out to try and burn them.

The infamous Malleus Maleficarum (compiled in 1486) is a detailed instructional Church manual on how to identify a witch and what to do when you find one. Professional witch hunters, employed by the Church, roamed the European countryside searching out witches and delivering them into the hands of Church inquisitors who usually ended up torturing and killing them to save their souls.

Although the Malleus isn’t a word-for-word precursor to Intruders or Missing Time, many elements are similar enough to warrant a closer look.

Read Full Article >>

[I wanted to share this nice article about a lady which many of us in the Pagan community here in Asheville have been aware of for some time. While many of the comments on the article were the usual redneck Christian variety (not surprising), the article itself is definitely a keeper. I encourage visitors to this site to get acquainted with one of Asheville's treasures.
~ Claire]

Over the years, Byron Ballard has been a bookseller, writer, actor, PTA mom, pastry cook, theater manager, winemaker, community volunteer, administrative assistant, scenery painter and maker of jellies and jams to give as Christmas gifts.

She’s also a witch. And not just an ordinary witch, but a Wiccan high priestess.

You’ll find no warts on her nose, and the only use she has for a broom is to sweep the sidewalk of her home in the West End/Clingman Avenue neighborhood, where she’s a community leader and the neighborhood historian.

Ballard says her Pagan beliefs are not at war with her role as civic volunteer, and that she is enriched by her friendships with leaders of Catholic, Jewish, Episcopal, Baptist and other mainline protestant faiths.

But she has learned to cheerfully endure the suspicious glances, spoken and unspoken disapproval of those who learn of her Wiccan belief system. She prefers to smile and offer to educate rather than dismiss her detractors. To turn the other cheek, as it were.

“There’s the Satan thing,” she said matter-of-factly. “We don’t worship Satan, and it is the rare Pagan who even has Satan as part of their pantheon of deities.

Read Full Article @ Citizen-Times.com >>

I’ve wanted to post this for some time, but had lost it somewhere along the way. I’m often asked general questions about what it’s like to be Pagan, and I never know how to answer it. That’s like asking what it’s like to be human. There is no simple reply. I’ve always thought that this piece sums it up fairly well, at least in regard to making a general impression, and I’ve long wanted to post it here, if for no other reason than that I think it needs to be preserved. Hopefully you’ll agree. ~ Claire

Pagans acknowledge that there is so much we could learn about the world and ourselves if we would just sit down and shut up occasionally.

Walk out into a forest alone, find a rock or a stump, and sit down. Clear your mind. Sit and listen. Don’t think. Don’t let your normal ingrained patterns of analysis and calculation run amok. Be silent. Sit. Listen. The wind blows softly through the trees, caressing quietly rustling leaves. Somewhere, far in the distance, a hawk calls out.

But this is only the surface. Be still. You’re still thinking. Stop it. Don’t analyze. Just be. Just sit there. And exist. You’re not a person anymore. You are a camera. You are a microphone. You observe and record. You do not analyze. The world is alive. You hear the soft rustle of leaves as a squirrel scurries across the forest floor. Crickets chirp near you. You didn’t hear them before. A lizard bolts silently from a nearby leaf and races up a tree. Your eyes follow it. Recording. And you see, stretched between two limbs, the fragile web of a spider. She busily repairs her damaged web. Near her, a captured moth struggles in its silk cocoon. Your eyes wander farther up the tree. The branches sway ever so softly in the gentle breeze. The leaves dance upon it. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. The forest canopy is alive with movement. The wind reaches down and caresses you, tickles your hair. It brings to your nose the earthy scent of pine. And musk. The sweet hint of new leaves. Life. All around you are minute sounds. Movement; the frenzied life of hundreds of thousands of insects.

This is what the world is like when you are not there. This is what the real world is like. The real world, without human beings, without human intervention, without human precepts and will, without human prejudice and arrogance. The world simply is. Just as you now simply are. And the magick of this life is all around you. It’s in you. You feel it. Breathe it. Your blood pumps it. You are it. It’s a tangible thing almost. Something you could just about reach out and touch. And if you open up, listen, breathe, feel… if you can be quiet… for just a moment… the wind seems to whisper. Something deep within you belongs here. Just like this. And when you leave here, you will never be the same again. Wherever you go, the frenzied living peace of the forest will remain within your soul.

The Earth has given you something that can never be taken away. And in return, you leave a part of yourself behind. The exchange can never be reversed. You are linked. On some subconscious and spiritual level, you have become the Earth. And the Earth has become you. And perhaps for the first time in your life, you belong.

Be quiet. And just be. Be yourself. Be alive. Within your heart the wind is blowing through the trees. And this is all you ever really wanted. Now you have begun to understand what they mean by “Earth-based” religions. Once you have communicated directly with the Divine, you understand that there is no need for churches or priests or organized religions. The Divine is waiting to reach out to you if you can only be still enough for a moment to listen.

~ Wicasta Lovelace