Man, this’s gonna be fun. I wonder, though, WiccanWade, if we shouldn’t move this over to the Alternative Spirituality board. Having a couple of Wiccans debate and discuss their religion on the Christian board isn’t exactly kosher. Ah . . . my mistake. This is Religion Central. I guess that’s okay, then. We’ll let the moderator decide where this best goes.
To answer your question about what I’ve written—I’ve got sixty-some novels published so far, about half-and-half science fiction and military technothrillers. The technothrillers are most recently written under the penname “H. Jay Riker,” and include one series about the Navy SEALs, and another on modern submarine combat. The SF comes out under my own name—William H. Keith—and under the name Ian Douglas for a series about the U.S. Marines in the future.
Currently, I’m about halfway done with my first NON-fiction book. It will be published by Citadel Press, and is tentatively titled “The Science of the Craft.” It looks at magic and witchcraft in relation to quantum physics . . . how the quantum metaverse could explain certain magical operations through manifestations of such delightful notions as nonlocality, parallel universes, and what I call “the Believer Effect.”
In general, I agree with your assessment of Llewellyn Books. They’ll print ANYTHING, and I gather they’re not especially kind to their authors, though I have no direct experience of that. I’ve been especially dismayed by the D.J. Conway Effect: some of her early books were excellent, but it seemed after a time that she was just turning out one title after another by taking the same material and dressing it in different clothing—Celtic magic, dragon magic, faery magic—simply for commercial viability.
I’d not heard about the pagan community’s persecution of those using Llewellyn source material. I’ll need to take a closer look at that.
I urge you not to throw the baby out with the acid bath, however. DiZerega’s book is scholarly in an accessible way, and fulfills a genuine need within the spiritual community. His basic thesis is that both Christian and pagan spirituality are valid expressions of the personal spiritual path, that each has much to learn from the other, and that tolerance and open-mindedness are more useful than their opposites. He takes care not to attack Christianity in general; however, he does make an excellent case against the more rabid forms of Biblical fundamentalism, showing how they tend to shoot themselves in the foot over such doctrines as . . . well, now that you mention it, as belief in the Devil.
On the etymology of the word “devil,” my dictionary shows it coming through the Old English “deofol” from the Latin “diabolos,” meaning “slanderer,” which certainly matches the old Hebrew notion of “the Accuser” or “the Adversary.” Can’t see that it makes more than a hair’s split of difference. We’re obviously on the same page there.
I respectfully disagree that ideas about the devil were the result of Medieval mistranslations or editorial rewriting. There WERE many such, yes. Two well-known examples are the mistaken translation of the Hebrew word for “shining” as the word “horned” in one early version of Exodus, with the result that many Medieval representations of Moses—including the famous one by Michelangelo—show the poor fellow with horns on his head; and the apparently deliberate substitution of the word “witch” for the related word “poisoner” in Exodus 22:18, a bit of propaganda perpetrated by King James’ translators in 1611. However, exhaustive scholarship by both Jewish and Christian researchers—backed by confirmations of the validity of our understanding of the ancient languages uncovered by archeology and paleolinguistics—appear to wholly vindicate both the literal translation and our current numinal understanding of the Biblical text as we know them today. Such scholarship helps us know today that, for example, the rather ill-fitting ending to the Book of Mark was a later editorial addition to the original document, possibly in order to bring it into line with other documents concerning the teachings of Jesus. Polycarp? Are you reading this? Help me out, here.
I, for one, am deeply suspicious of wholesale rewritings of history or of historical documents in order to support claims that what we have today is the result of some sort of vast and hidden conspiracy. A good example is the current revival of the old Gnostic idea that Jesus survived the crucifixion, married Mary Magdalene, and moved off to the south of France to have kids—the Merovingian Bloodline conspiracy popularized by several less-than-scholarly books.
On the topic of the Devil’s existence—this touches on a point I’ve been debating with fellow Wiccans for years. Because Wiccans have for so long been accused of “Satan-worship,” they have evolved a cute saying along the lines of “We don’t believe in Satan; he’s a CHRISTIAN god. . . .” which, of course, leaves bigoted accusers sputtering in their bile.
While useful as a disarming tactic in a religious debate, it doesn’t address a key question of (some) Wiccan belief: to what degree are the gods and goddesses literally creations of the human psyche, thought-forms given life and power through the belief, veneration, and focus of their worshippers?
Ask seven different Wiccans what they believe about Deity and you’ll likely get thirteen different answers, at least. The majority tend to believe—in my experience—in both immanent and transcendent deity, meaning the Divine is both a part of us and simultaneously independent of human belief. A large but cogently vocal minority, however, see the deities as at LEAST as dependent upon our belief in them as we are upon them, and possibly more so. In the extreme form of this belief, the gods become metaphors, psychological “handles” by which we can grasp and manipulate aspects of our own subconscious. This is the basis for much of chaos magic, among other systems.
It’s not my intent to argue one belief system over another here. They’re all valid, and, in true quantum-physical fashion, may well all be objectively true (whatever the hell THAT means!) pending the wave-form collapse of the observer! However, as Wiccans we’ve both had experience, I’m sure, with manifested thought forms, artificial elementals, wraiths (or “raiths,” as Starhawk calls them), and what the ceremonial magicians call ergovores. The essence of magic is to build a desired outcome OR ENTITY on the astral, then give it sufficient energy to allow it to manifest on this plane.
Any sensitive person is aware of the feeling of reverence, awe, and holiness one feels upon walking into an old and long-used church, no matter what their personal belief system—a feeling that seems quite independent of such externals as awe-inspiring architecture. The Wiccan explanation, of course, is that that building has become the focus of a GREAT deal of mental energy—the thoughts, hopes, pains, prayers, belief, and passion of generations of worshippers. Over time, worship within a church of ANY denomination can build up one hell of a powerful wraith!
All of which leaves me wondering. How many people, throughout the course of the past 2000 years, have believed—sometimes passionately—in the Christian devil? Has that belief given life and energy to such a creature, either as a reflected facet of the human psyche, or as an externalized and manifested thought form? Since the universe can be seen as a kind of shared and consensual illusion, this thought form wouldn’t be the all-consuming bogie man Christian mythology says it is save for those folks who believed in it, but it COULD be seen as having an objective reality. I daresay—given the nature of religious demographics and the global population explosion—far more people have believed in the devil, and put more energy into his existence, in just the past 500 years than ever have believed in Pan.
Just stuff to ponder . . .
Yes, I’ve heard Christmas linked to the Saturnalia as well, though that festival took place over the course of a week or more, I believe. Mithra’s birthday was given as the 25th of December in connection with the winter solstice—which came a bit later a few thousand years ago than it does now. Of course, the Saturnalia ALSO was connected with the solstice, originally. My comment about spill-over from other religions was a generalized comment about the nature of the Christianization of Europe during the first few centuries C.E. The authorities had a lot of trouble making the local country-dwellers [i.e. “paganos”] give up their beloved festivals and mythologies which they’d been enjoying for thousands of years. The clever thing to do was to assimilate local beliefs and customs, giving them a Christian veneer. My favorites: St. Bridget, a transparently obvious reworking of the goddess Brigid; and the folklore surrounding the central-European fertility goddess Eostre, whence comes the word “Easter” and the various blatantly pagan emblems like rabbits, colored eggs, and new suits of clothing. There appears to be a lot of cross-pollination between the Mithraic cult and early Christianity—hardly surprising since Constantine was a Mithraist before he switched to worshipping the Christ. Historically, there seems to be a re-creation of an older, dying Mithraic religion along Platonic lines occurring as late as 100 C.E., and so it’s problematical to say which faith spawned which article of doctrine. Likeliest is that the parallels—including a virgin birth, a temptation by evil, baptism, a substitute sacrifice, redemption by blood, an ascension into heaven, the initiate’s symbolic death and resurrection, freeing the soul from earthly bonds, and Mithra’s role as mediator between Man and God all were in fact drawn from yet earlier belief systems, including Greek-Egyptian mystery religions. Baptism, certainly, was widespread throughout the ancient world long before the Essenes, and both Christianity and Roman Mithraism rely heavily on Plato for such notions as the soul and the nastier aspects of matter.
Leastwise, that’s the way I heard it.
Oops. As usual, I’ve rambled on way too long. Time to see about getting some work done.
Thanks for the discussion!
) However, this is not my philosophy, because it lends itself to such a lonely existence.