Oddly enough, it was my wife who asked me that question.
I've been a pagan - a Wiccan, specifically - for more than a decade now. And while I've accepted the idea that I am a witch, I've never really embraced it as a title for what I am. Not until recently, anyway.
So what happened? What made me start using the "witch" word more frequently?
There's a lot of answers I could give to that. I could explain how Wicca is one variety of what we now know as British Traditional Witchcraft. I could discuss how "Wicca" and "witch" come from the same Old English word, and how that word is a proud one that should be used.
But really, neither of those are the reason. No, the reason I started using it more is because I got pissed off. Let me explain.
I am, oddly enough, a member of a church - Heritage Universalist Unitarian Church, to be specific. Not because I'm a Unitarian or a Universalist, but because I really like the people and the programs there, and because that's where I do all of my public rituals. For the most part I don't attend the Sunday service, and there are a number of people there who have joined the church after I did that don't realize I'm a member, but I am.
Early on this year, the children's Religious Education was doing a series of classes on various world religions: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and so forth, and they were looking for people knowledgeable about those religions to teach that particular class to the children. One of the religions they wanted to touch on was "Paganism/Earth-Centered Spirituality"[1].
Well, being both a pagan and a member of HUUC's Pagan Steering Committee, I felt I should sign up. Besides, I like teaching and I like working with children.
Before my big day, I had an orientation meeting. This was to go over the UU expectations for people who work with children, discuss the format of the class, things of that nature. Standard stuff. But something nonstandard, and something I completely had not expected, happened as well.
During the orientation meeting, I was asked not to call myself a "witch". The rationale? It might frighten the children. It caught me off guard, and I agreed.
Later on, though, I got me angry. The UUs claim to be open and accepting, and here they are demanding that I not use one of the names for my religious path because it might "frighten children". How dare they? And how dare I agree? How dare I roll over and hide my religious beliefs because it might make someone uncomfortable to know that I have them?
So now? Now I call myself a witch. And if someone doesn't like that, if someone is uncomfortable or frightened by that?
That's their problem.
[1] Yeah, I know. That's something more than "one" religion. I didn't make the category up.
I think the most important thing kids must learn is the fact that 'witches' are not negative people or 'devil worshippers'. That is an idea created by a medieval monk named Heimrich Kramer who wrote the Witches Hammer (Malleus Maleficarum). The man was a severe gynophobe (afraid of women) and had idea's the church didn't even agree with. But since he falsified all the Munich University professors "agreeing" autographs in it, ánd also falsified the papal bul there was no stopping the printing of it. That's where all the shit started hitting the fan, so to say. And thousands of innocent people were murdered all over the world as a result of it.
ReplyDeleteI knew you were Pagan, but I never knew you were Wiccan? To be honest I have to say I am slightly disappoint, what made you go form Wiccanism instead of any of the other Pagan branches?
I used to call myself a Witch, but these days I feel more comfortable calling myself a Seer (even though I do often still tell people I'm a Witch, because it takes ages to explain what a Seer is..). I believe I don't practice enough actual witchcraft to call myself a proper Witch, save for the occasional cleansing with sage I don't really do anything else. Whether I don't see the need, or am too lazy I'm not sure. I just have a very specific way to approaching Paganism, and often have felt kind of uncomfortable to some parts of rituals because I felt like an idiot standing there and singing "Merry Meet". It might be because I'm from a family of physicians, and thus I have a slight better understanding when something is just nature's laws and not paranormal activity.
It's a good thing kids are educated in *all* religions. They're so impressionable at that age that you should really be careful with religion around them, they shouldn't become sheep of a herd just because their parents said so. They're more likely to turn away from it at a later age then.