-Caveat Lector-
>Furthermore, scholars generally agree that there is no indication,
either archaeological or in the written record, that any ancient people
ever worshipped a single, archetypal goddess
>Some scholars agree. Others do not. Read Raphael Patai, Merlin Stone or Marija
>Gimbutas.
There are some scholars who claim that AIDs is caused by Paraffin on apples, and
others who believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago by a big man living in the
clouds.
=20
>invented by Gardner
>Most of the historical and folkloric arguments for the existence of an
ancient Goddess religion tried to show that European witchcraft was a
descendant of a prehistoric religion. Two people are credited for first
hypothesizing that
witchcraft had been an organized religion prior to Christianity. In
1749, Girolamo Tartarotti claimed that witchcraft was a descendant of
the Dianic cults of Roman times (Valiente 1973: 224). In the early
Nineteenth century, the
French historian, Jules Michelet made a similar claim. Michelet argued
that witchcraft was a survival of a pre-Christian northern European
fertility cult (Jordan 1996: 106). Michelet's idea had a profound impact
on the work
of Charles Leland. Leland was a poet, an occultist, and the first
President of the Gypsy-Lore Society (Guiley 1989: 200). He was educated
at the Sorbonne (Jordan 1996: 98), where he encountered Michelet's
theory that witchcraft
was a survival of a pagan cult. In Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
(1899), Leland claimed that the history of contemporary Italian witches
shows that they were descendants of a cult which worshipped the Roman
goddess Diana (Jordan 1996: 98). Although many questioned his use of
anecdotal evidence, some neopagans still use his book to show that
witchcraft is an ancient religion.=20
It's a fine theory, but there is no evidence. No archaeologists have dug up a 'witch
temple' dating from then to now. No latin or greek books on the subject. Nil. Like all
religions, the adherents have blind faith, and this is one aspect of it.
>Margaret Murray, an amateur folklorist and professional Egyptologist, advanced
>similar claims. In The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) and The God of the Witches
>(1931), she argued that witchcraft was an ancient
religion by comparing Paleolithic rock art from Ariege and Dordogne depicting masked
and horned dancers (Murray 1970 [1931]: 16-7) with Roman, Greek, and Celtic art,
Christian depictions of the Witches' Sabbath as well as the folk dances and costumes
of rural people in England and Europe. Murray concluded that witchcraft is an old
religion dedicated to the worship of a nature deity
known as the Horned God (1970 [1931]: 160-1). With the advance of Christianity and the
witch hunts, the witches went underground and formed disparate covens. While these
covens largely disappeared before the end of the Nineteenth century, Murray suggested
that some had
survived and had left a group of cultural artifacts that permeated European culture.
For instance, she argued in The Divine King in England (1954) that the principles of
kingship in Britain were inextricably bound up with the murder of the sacred king
demanded by the old religion
of witchcraft (Valiente 1973: 249).
Murray's work draws mainly on testimony given to inquisitors by accused witches who
were tortured. She postulated that because testimony from so many different
individuals in different parts of Europe shared common themes, there must be something
to it. More likely is that the inquisitors had a script of accusations which the
tortured individuals were all too ready to agree with.
Horns and masks are common themes in primitive art, to assume that pre-historic cave
drawings and middle ages rituals are linked becuae of the presence of horns and masks
is drawing a very long bow.
>After the last of the English Witchcraft laws had been repealed in 1951 and Murray's
>research had been published, Gerald Gardner also began to write popular treatments of
>witchcraft.
-- from: http://sacredsource.com/all/page.pl?item=3DFSP
The thing that gets me is that most wiccans (and I have known a few) are just as
ignorant and deluded as most fundamentalist Xtians. They come up with all sorts of
incredible stuff and seem genuinely surprised when other people are sceptical. One
Wiccan I know has assured me that
A) She regularly sees ghosts and dead people walking around;
B) Her flat is full of 'portals' to other worlds, but they don't work when someone
negative like me is around;
C) She can communicate psychically with her cat.
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