A LITTLE LESS MISUNDERSTANDING
          (What Christians Don't Understand about Neopaganism)
                            by J. Brad Hicks


Q: Are you a witch?
A: That's actually a tricky question to answer, so let me go about it
   in a round-about way.  What I am is a Neopagan.  Neopaganism is a
   beautiful, complex religion that is not in opposition to
   Christianity in any way - just different.  However, some of the
   people that the Catholic church burned as "witches" were people who
   practiced the same things that I do.  In identification with them
   and the suffering that they went through, some of us (Neopagans)
   call ourselves witches.  One expert, P.E.I.  Bonewits, says that
   there are actually several kinds of groups who call themselves
   "witches." Some are people whose ancestors were the village
   healers, herbalists, midwives, and such, many of whom had (or were
   ascribed to have) mental, psychic, or magical powers, which were
   passed down through the family in the form of oral tradition, and
   Bonewits calls them "Traditional Witches." Some are people who have
   deliberately used the term to oppose themselves to Christianity,
   are practicing "Satanists," and practice (deliberately) most of the
   practices invented by the Inquisitors.  Bonewits calls them
   "Gothic" or "Neo-Gothic Witches."  Of a different kind are some
   radical feminist groups, who call themselves witches because they
   believe that the original Inquisition was primarily anti-female;
   some of these also practice magic, many of them do not - Bonewits
   calls them "Feminist Witches." But the vast majority of modern
   witches are harmless people who worship God in many forms,
   including the Lord of the Dance, the Lady, and the Mother Earth.
   These are the people that Bonewits (and I) call"Neopagan Witches" -
   and this is what I am.  I hope that this helps more than it
   confuses.

Q: Are you a devil worshipper?
A: I'm tempted to just say, "No!" and leave it at that, but that
   probably isn't enough.  Devil worship (including Satanism) is
   really a Christian heresy.  (If you don't believe me, ask an expert
   - say, any well- read pastor or theology professor.) In order to
   worship Satan, you have to believe in him - and there are no
   references to Satan outside of the Christian Bible.  So to be a
   Satanist or a devil worshipper, you have to believe in the accuracy
   of the Christian Bible, then identify yourself with God's Enemy,
   proclaim that you are "evil," and then try to "fight against Jesus"
   or similar nonsense.  Neopagans do not accept the Christian Bible
   as a source of truth.  As a source of some beautiful poetry,
   sometimes, or as a source of myth, but not as a source of truth.
   Emphatically, we do not believe that God has an Opposite, an evil
   being trying to destroy God, the world, man, or whatever.  So it is
   non-sensical to say that Neopagans worship Satan.  Of course, many
   people insist that any god other than JHVH/Jesus (and his other
   Biblical names) is a demon or an illusion created by Satan.  Well,
   you're welcome to believe that if you like - but over half of the
   world's population is going to be unhappy at you.  Jews and
   followers of Islam are just as confident that they worship the True
   God as you are, and resent being called devil worshippers.  So do
   I.

Q: What do Neopagans believe about God?
A: Neopaganism is a new religion with very, very old roots.  It harks
   back to the first religions that man ever practiced (based on the
   physical evidence).  Neopagans worship a variety of symbols from
   the Old Religions - the practices of the ancient Celts, the Greeks,
   the Egyptians, the Romans - and differ with each other over what
   those symbols really represent.  What I (and many others) believe
   is that they are all aspects of God (or maybe, the Gods) - some
   kind of beautiful, powerful, and loving being or force that ties
   all of life together and is the origin of all miracles - including
   miracles such as written language, poetry, music, art ...

Q: Do Neopagans have a Bible?
A: Not most of us.  The closest analogue would be a witch's Book of
   Shadows, which is a sort of notebook of legends, poetry, history,
   and magic ritual which is copied by every newly-initiated witch,
   then added to.  But on the whole, even a Book of Shadows isn't what
   Christians think of as a Bible.  It's not infallible (couldn't be,
   they've been brought to us via hastily-coppied texts under trying
   circumstances), it doesn't prescribe a specific code of morality
   (except for a few general guidelines), and it doesn't claim to be
   dictated by God - except for a few, debatable parts.  Those of us
   who aren't witches don't even have that much.  Neopaganism is a
   religious system that relies more on the individual than on the
   Book or the Priest.  One of the principal beliefs of Neopaganism is
   that no one, not Pope nor Priest nor Elder, has the right to
   interfere with your relationship to God.  Learn from whomever you
   want, and pray to whatever name means the most to you.

Q: Did you say magic?  Do Neopagans believe in the occult?
A: Cringe.  What a badly worded question - but I hear it all the time.
   Neopagans as a rule don't "believe in the occult" - we practice
   magic.  Magic is simply a way to focus the mental abilities that
   you were born with, and use them to change the world in positive
   ways.  Magic can also be mixed with worship; in which case it
   differs very little from Christian prayer.

Q: But I thought that you said that you weren't a demon-worshipper?
A: That's right.  Magic and demonology are two different things.
   Magic you also know as "psychic powers" or "mentallics" or even as
   "the power of positive thinking" - in essense, the magical world
   view holds that "reality" is mostly a construct of the human mind,
   and as such, can be altered by the human mind.  That's all there is
   to it.

Q: How do you become a Neopagan?
A: In a very real sense, nobody every "becomes" a Neopagan.  There are
   no converts, as no conversion is necessary.  Neopaganism is an
   attitude towards worship, and either you have it or you don't.  My
   case is not atypical.  All of my life, I have been fascinated by
   the old mythologies.  I have always found descriptions of the Greek
   Gods fascinating.  If I had any religious beliefs as a child, is
   wat that somewhere, there was a God, and many people worship Him,
   but I had no idea what His name was.  I set out to find Him, and
   through an odd combination of circumstances, I because convinced
   that his Name was Jesus.  But seven years later, I had to admit to
   myself that Whoever God is, he answers non-Christians' prayers as
   well as those in the name of Jesus.  In either case, true miracles
   are rare.  In both cases, the one praying has a devout experience
   with God.  After searching my soul, I admitted that I could not
   tell that I was better off than when I believed in the Old Gods.
   And in the mean time, I had found out that other people also loved
   the Old Gods - and that they call themselves Neopagans.  When I
   realized that what I believed was little or no different that what
   they believed, I called myself a Neopagan, too.  The common element
   for nearly all of us is that nearly all of us already believed
   these things, before we found out that anyone else did.  "Becoming"
   a pagan is never a conversion.  It's usually a home-coming.  No one
   ever "brainwashed" me.  I finally relaxed, and stopped struggling
   against my own self.

Q: I've heard about witches holding orgies and such.  Do you?
A: No, that sort of thing doesn't appeal to me.  Most of the crap that
   you've heard about "witch orgies" is nonsense made up by the
   National Enquirer to sell magazines.  But I shouldn't be flippant
   about this, because it underlies a serious question - what kind of
   morality do Neopagans hold to?
                 "Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill:
                  An it harm none, do what thou will!"
                              from an old Book of Shadows
   That about sums it all up.  Neopaganism teaches that it is harmful
   to yourself (and dangerous) to harm others.  It also teaches that
   trying to impose your moral standards on somebody else's behaviour
   is (at least) foolish - and probably dangerous, as you run some
   serious chance of hurting that person.  Perhaps in a sense
   Neopagans don't have morality, for as R.  A.  Wilson said, "There
   are no commandments because there is no Commander anywhere," but
   Neopagans do have ethics - standards for behaviour based on honor
   and mutual benefit.

Q: I saw on the news that Neopagans use a star in a circle as their
   emblem.  Isn't that a Satanic symbol?
A: A pentacle (that's what it's called) is a Satanic symbol in
   precisely same sense that the cross is a Nazi symbol.  The German
   National Socialist Party used an equal-armed cross with four flags
   attached to it as their emblem.  (Yes, I know - that's a swastika.
   Well, before the Nazis made the word common knowledge, people just
   called it a "bent cross" - it's an old heraldic symbol, and it
   means the same thing that a normal cross does).  That doesn't make
   the Nazis good Christians, and it doesn't make Christians into
   Nazis.  In the same sense, Satanists (and some rock groups) use a
   type of pentacle as their emblem.  That doesn't make them
   Neopagans, nor does it mean that Neopagans are Satanists (or even
   rock-and-rollers).

Q: Are Neopagans opposed to Christianity?
A: Some Neopagans are ex-Christians, and I'm not going to deny that
   some of them have a grudge against the Church because of what they
   perceived as attempts to control their minds.  Further, many
   Neopagans are suspicious of the Church, because it was in the name
   of Jesus Christ that nine million of our kind were murdered.
   Neopagans are opposed to anyone who uses force to control the minds
   of others.  Does that include you?  If not, then it means that
   Neopagans as such are not opposed to you.  Do you work for the
   benefit of mankind, are you respectful to the Earth?  Then it makes
   us allies, whether or not either of us wants to admit it.

                          - - - - - - - - - -

     There are many other misconceptions in the popular mind about the
Neopagan religion.  Unless you've studied it, read about it from
sympathetic sources, then you really don't know anything about
Neopagan history, beliefs, practices, customs, art, science, culture,
or magic.  But it would take several entire books to teach you, and I
already fear that I will be accused of trying to win converts (despite
what I've said above).  If you are curious and willing to learn, try
some of the following books:

                  Margot Adler, _Drawing Down the Moon_
                       Starhawk, _The Spiral Dance_
                      P.E.I. Bonewits, _Real Magic_
                    Stewart Farrar, _What Witches Do_