From: pwilson@mac.cc.macalstr.edu (Ophelia)
Subject: Old Witch, New Witch...
Date: 3 Aug 93 01:16:36 -0600

Random musings on the antiquity of witchcraft:

I think modern Wicca is different from the "Old Religion," whatever
that was, but then again...

I'm a Latin major, and in translating Virgil's 8th Eclogue, I
discovered an interesting thing: the witch in the Eclogue called the
Guardians and burned incenses to them that we still use today, she
used cords with colors corresponding to what she was hoping to
perform, she had an altar with cancles and flowers and a
representation of Hecate...she bound the altar with three loops of
cord made from three twisted cords to call the three aspects of the
Goddess, etc--very familiar stuff.  (She was casting a spell to make
her stolen lover come back to her, but I'll leave that part alone,
it's the techniques that interest me in their familiarity).  

So we *do* at least follow what ancient _literature_ says that witches
did...sure, some modern witch may have read ancient works and said,
"Ok, this is witchcraft, we'll do it," but does it matter?  If it
works, believing in ritual to get the mental energy working and
focused enough to do something, who cares?  

So many people yell that what modern Wiccans do is totally separate
from any ancient religion, but I'd prefer to think (after reading
Virgil and Lucan, among others) that we do things *rooted* in old
religions, and *influenced* by them, and if our modern workings are
sparked by antiquity, that may make them all the more powerful for
some.  Who cares if we are a "new" religion?  I was worshipping
Artemis and Athena and considering them different faces of one deity
way back when I was seven, before I knew that witches and pagans
existed...I thought I was paying homage to the forgotten ones.  

If we remember them, let us do for them what we can, and allow them to
help us as well, if that is what we need.  I didn't subscribe to a
"new" religion, I just was a pagan from the start, and the things I
did instinctively for them were the things that the were written about
thousands of years ago and the things that modern books tell people to
do.  It's wierd how that happens.  It's all wierd, and I love it.

Blessed be,
-Ophelia