Ask a Pagan

Dennis Moore said:

I suppose I'll ask it ... for those interested in a cultural/social history of paganism and Wicca, is Triumph of the Moon a good book? How about Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon? Are there any other books you'd recommend for a person not at all interested in joining the faith, but curious about its history, origins, and modern practices?

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If you are a Pagan, this book will show you how to defend yourself from discrimination and harassment. It will give you the information you need to educate your friends, family and co-workers. If you are not a Pagan, this book will tell you what Wicca is and what it is not. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Estimates vary widely as to how many Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans there are in North America, the UK and Australia yet one thing is certain: Wicca and other Neo-Pagan faiths are rapidly growing in size in popularity.

Many of the followers of these Neo-Pagan religions would like to tell their family, friends, co-workers or partners about their spirituality. Due to the vast amount of misinformation about the occult in circulation, many are fearful of attempting this. Many are solitaries who have no support network or Pagan friends that they can rely on to help them out if they become the targets of discrimination or harassment. They’d like to "come out of the broom closet", but really don’t know how to go about it. In the two decades that I’ve been involved in anti-defamation work for the Pagan community the most common question that I get from Pagans is: How do I go public? I wrote this book to answer that question in detail.

This book is meant to help you avoid the problems that I encountered when I went public about my Wiccan beliefs. I discovered very quickly that I was the first Wiccan cop to do so. I found out very quickly how little support there was for people like me in the 70s. I learned many lessons about anti-defamation the hard way. I learned of fellow Pagans wrongly accused, their lives ruined, living in fear. I experienced bigotry and harassment of minority religions first hand. I traced the development and use of various urban legends in a modern Witch hunt. I spent the next two decades researching and debunking this collection of urban legends which, gathered together, form a greater myth which I shall call the Satanic Conspiracy myth. These urban legends created an atmosphere of hysteria and rumour, fanaticism and fraud. The misinformation contained in these urban legends resulted in countless fruitless hours of investigation by law enforcement officers. Countless tax dollars have been spent financing unproductive and unnecessary investigations and the training courses offered by self proclaimed "experts" hoping to keep these investigations and the resulting discrimination active. I documented the power of information deliberately misused. This book will summarize the lessons that I learned.

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Please explain your religion.

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who is your GOD?

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Crispie said:

morning star, are you admitting that "the divine" leads us to often believe lies, even if they be of our origins or paths of salvation?

(if 2 different religions state that their way is the only way to salvation, and both are right, though both contradict, then there is a paradox, its impossible to happen)

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Crispie said:

morningstar, it seems as though you only believe in gods and godesses that win the popularity contest, not the truth contest. If I were to make up a god right now and it gained world wide recognition, would you believe mine too?

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