New corset!!

This is a picture of the corset I made for a friend of mine. She’s skinny and she sucks. But she’s paying, so I can’t complain.

 

 

 More to come. I’ve got a corset I need to finish before the faire next weekend.

The Audacity of Christian Moral Equality

Considering the fact that I used to be Christian, I think I’m fairly kind in my assessment of how fucked up it’s practices and ideals are.  I try to overlook some things that really puzzle and aggrivate me, but there are still things that crop up in discussions about Christianity that really get me angry. Things that, had I known them when I was Christian, would have turned me to Athiesm in half a heartbeat. One of which is something I call ”Moral Equality.”

Moral equality is the belief that every sin commited is the same on a moral level. Example: A  hungry, homeless child who steals an apple from a street fruit stand is on the same moral level as a man who rapes and murders prepubescent children. That’s dispicable. The idea that a victimized, starving child is in any way the same as a sexual deviant and murder is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard.

My grandfather was a wife-beater and a pedophile. I actually find myself hoping that Hell exists just so he can be sent there. That being said, I once stole some candy from my parents room. The concept that because I ate my parents’ candy without asking somehow makes me the same morally as my psychotic pedophile grandfather is reprehensible on a level that is stunning.

Fuck… This is one of the things that really make me want to start swearing for a solid hour.

 

(To be followed shortly by a blog on indiscriminate forgiveness.)

The Gardasil Lie

Anyone who owns a T.V. has probably seen advertisements for a pharmecutical vaccine called Gardasil, a quadrivalent vaccine that is said to prevent against the infection of four types of HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) and prevent cervical cancer and genital warts in many cases. Now, if this were true, Gardasil would be a wonderful product. But it’s not.

Fact one: Gardasil claims that it vaccinates women against four types of HPV. The ad boasts that the vaccine will protect against two types of HPV (strains 16 and 18)  that cause seventy percent of all cervical cancer, and two other types (strains 10 and 11 ) that are responsible for ninety percent of genital warts. However, there are over one hundred known strains of the virus, with new strains being discovered on a regular basis. Each strain has some chance of becoming active during one’s lifetime and influencing several deseases, and are usually triggered by prolonged diet inconsistencies or bad dieting, weight gain or loss, lifestyle, stress, or coming into contact with bacteria or other microbiological organisms that trigger the malignant mechanisms contained in the virus strain. There are more than two dozen ”high-risk” strains of HPV that influence genital cancers, and even more that play a part in the development of warts and herpes.

Fact two: not only is HPV contagious, it’s also hereditary. Almost everyone that is born either has or contracts at least one strain of HPV from or during birth. The whole point of a vaccine is to prevent infection and desease. If you already have the HPV strain(s) Gardasil is intended to prevent, the vaccine will do absolutely nothing to protect you. As any doctor will tell you, once you contract a virus, you will never get rid of it; you can only adapt to it.

Fact three: Gardasil did not work in almost half of the people to which it was administered, and can actually be a factor in causing cervical cancer. In fact, studies have shown that not only did the vaccine fail prevented the infection in almost forty five percent of patients who had completed the Gardasil treatments, but had increased the risk of cervical cancer in many of the patients. The patients, many of whom had had the vaccine before becoming sexually active, had contracted the viruses or developed cervical cancer during a five year period in which they had engaged in sexual activity.

Fact four: While it is true that the two strains (16 and 18) are responsible for more than seventy percent of all cervical cancer, what people don’t take into consideration is the fact that, in many cases, the HPV virus never becomes active. Many people (over seventy percent) who have these two particular strains live and die without the HPV ever developing into a desease. HPV alone does not cause cervical cancer or other diseases. There are many things that must happen in the system, chemical changes that occur in the body, that must all happen at the same time or in a particular sequence to trigger diseased cells to grow and multiply. HPV on it’s own is not a threat to the health of an individual.

Fact five: The most common way to determine if a woman has HPV is with a procedure called a pap smear, in which the doctor inserts a long cotton swab into a woman’s vagina which would enter the cervix, scrapes a sample of the fluids from the vaginal or uterine wall, and tests it for HPV. However, the tests are not always accurate. For one, the test does not encompass all of the different strains. In most cases, you have to test the sample for HPV one strain at a time. Also, the virus can collect in one area, much like cancer, and is often missed during testing. The second way is through a blood test, but the only ones that could be detected through this method are HPV stains that interact with or contaminate blood. The four listed that Gardasil prevents do not associate with blood very often, if at all.

Fact six: Gardasil is an injection treatment that must be administered at least three times over a period of months before it will take effect in a person’s immune system. In fact, many doctors suggest that Gardasil should be administered more than that, but three is a safe number. The injections can cost up to three hundred and fifty dollars per injection or higher. So you’re basically spending a thousand dollars or more on a vaccine that has less than a ten percent chance of working.

Not only is Gardasil largely ineffective and potentially dangerous for the patients to which it’s administered, but the corporation that makes it is profitting on half-truths, misleading advertisements, and basic pathological fears every human being has of dying. If you want to get vaccinated, do it, but do it for the right reasons after you have done the appropriate amount of research on the subject. You life and body is not something you should leave to chance, but it’s also not something to be used as an experiment for a pharmecutical franchise that cares nothing about your health, and everything about your money. Gardasil is not as it advertised, and it’s important that people realize that before they make the choice to get vaccinated. I support the advancement of medicine and medical sciences, but not when it’s profits are taken from the pockets of poor, innocent people who are scared to death of a desease they’ll probably never get.

“Ghost” Photos, real and fake. (Warning, some images disturbing.)

Warning: Some of these images may be more disturbing than you are used to. View at your own discretion.)

 

 

Most of these pictures are well known in the Paranormal circles, but many of them have been faked. Many professional paranormal investigators have attempted to recreate them, and succeeded. There are a few originals there that we have not been, as of yet, successful in recreating. I’ll run through a list of the photos and tell you which is still considered by investigators as real authentic ghost photography, and which have been proven fake. I also have training with film development and can spot defects in film and super-imposed images, which has been helpful to the research.

0:13: Fast moving polaroid still of a Salem Re-enactor.
0:18: Authentic, but possible double exposure.
0:22: Double Exposure.
0:27: Video of Priest in Raincoat.
0:31: Double Exposure.
0:36: Naturally Occuring random formation on the tree.
0:40: Authentic
0:45: Authentic
0:49: Authentic
0:53: Possible Double Exposure
0:56: (Music Video Ghost) – Someone from a neighboring town confessed to sneaking on set to watch the filming.
1:01: Reflections
1:09: Faked; If you’ll noticed, she casts a shadow.
1:13: Faked; The “ghost” was super-imposed into the shot.
1:18: Authentic
1:22: Trick of the light that makes him look see-through.
1:26: Authentic
1:31: Authentic
1:36: Reflection
1:40: Shadows of two security guards who never walk in frame.
1:48: Authentic
1:52: Authentic
1:56: Toy doll suspended on a string in front of the camera.
2:05: Authentic
2:10: Authentic
2:15: Film Defect
2:22: I find it hard to believe that the camera picked up an object that the investigators, who were right behind it, never saw.
2:30: That’s an investigator holding a camera in the distance.
2:33: Authentic
2:36: Authentic
2:40: Authentic, suspected super-imposed image.
2:45: Trick of the light.
2:50: Drawn there on purpose.
2:55: Authentic
2:58: Authentic
3:01: Super-impose image.
3:08: A Reflection effect.
3:12: Photo-manipulation. The eyes were whited out using chemicals.

*Video credited to Donner1701 at Youtube.com

Mercy or Cruelty?

Out of all the many facets that make up my personality, there are two that often take the forefront; those being my accident and my atheism, but they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. I was in a housefire when I was two. I was in a coma for several weeks and lived in a hospital for two years. I have also had at least 65 multi-procedural surgeries with more planned in the future. I am now 24 years old, 22 years older than doctors expected I would live.

Now, dispite being in a horrific accident, I never blamed God (when I was a christian, that is). It didn’t even occur to me at the time that God could have that significant a role in human events. I knew that God saw and heard all, but that when bad things happened, it was not the fault of God. My accident did not make me an atheist, either. I came to the conclusion that God did not exist without using my own unique set of circumstances as evidence of either his existence or nonexistence. I came to it the proper way, through reason and ration and the endless search for proof, the way conclusions should come about.

Talking about my accident has never bothered me. People are curious, and I’d rather people ask me directly that to gossip about it behind my back. The one thing that does bother me, though, is that when I finish my story, the most common thing people say is, “It’s a miracle you’re still here. God must have a plan for you, because he was looking out for you that day.” I try very hard not to make a face when people say this, because they mean well, but it bothers me that when people take in accounts of people who have lived through horrible circumstances, folks say that people like us are “testaments to God’s mercy”. I have a problem with that.

Again, as I say, God’s inaction in my case is not what led me to become an atheist. But if I look at it from the context of religion, was it really mercy? Think about mercy for a moment; really think. Not in the context of socially or religiously accepted definitions of mercy, but what it means to you personally. Which is more merciful? For a child who was severely burned and in an extraordinary amount of pain to be kept alive, and be forced to live a life of agony and humiliation, or for that child to die quickly and go to heaven, where pain and sorrow do not exist, to be with her family and watch over the people who loved her? Wouldn’t option A, if you thought of it outside the context of religion and God, be considered cruelty?

Problem is, religious people can’t answer that question. They want the child to go to heaven, but they don’t want the child to suffer or die. Non-religious people have trouble with it too, simply because it is a horrible choice to make. But what if that person could make the decision for themself? Wouldn’t their choice obsolve you of responsibility? See, if you have a pet, and that pet contracts a desease that will cause them to suffer, the owner has the choice to keep the pet alive for as long as possible, or to euthanize the animal. Is the choice easier or harder because you know that the animal won’t go to heaven? Or would not believing in heaven make it easier?

As humans, we recognize the suffering of others, but while we have no problem ending the lives of animals for their own good, who can’t make that decision themselves, we are perfectly willing to disallow human beings the right to decide if they would rather die that suffer through an illness that will eventually kill them, slowly and painfully. The only time we, as humans, intervene and help someone die is when that person is comatose and brain-dead. And because they are brain-dead they cannot feel pain, and again, cannot make the choice to end their lives for themselves. Many people have wills in case of this, but the majority of people don’t, because they never expect something like that to happen to them. Suicide is a capitol offence for which you can receive up to fifteen years in prison, but it’s perfectly okay for doctors and family members to decide to pull the plug on a patient they feel will never wake up.

I don’t think suicide should be illegal, in some cases. People who are terminal and have no control over the fact that they are just going to get sicker and die should, at least, have control over their own death. They should be allowed to go to their end on their own terms, because it certainly wasn’t up to them that they developed a desease that would kill them. It seems the only creatures that are allowed to die so they won’t suffer are creatures who are unable to make the choice for themselves, and the people who are allowed to make that choice are the people who end those lives. Someone ending the life of someone else without their consent or knowledge. Is that mercy? If we weren’t talking about terminal ill creatures, this would be the definition of murder.

To be perfectly honest, I died the day of the fire. The girl I would have been if the fire had not happened no longer exists. After the fire, I suffered full amnesia. I could not do anything for myself. I had to be retaught everything I had learned to that point, including walking and talking. I did not recognize my parents, or my siblings. It was as if I was a newborn. The girl I was the day before the fire was not the girl I was the day after. She no longer exists. She died on October 15, 1986.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I don’t like who I am. I do. I’m a very gifted, bright individual. I can do just about everything the doctors said I would never be able to, including speak. But, the bulk of my personality was developed because of the fire. I am who I am today because of all the things I endured as a child.

The point I’m trying to make, in a roundabout way, is that I don’t want people to look at me and see either proof or disproof of God. I actually meant to do another blog on suicide, but hell, I killed two birds with one stone here. I don’t want my circumstances to either draw people to or push people away from God. I don’t want people to say either, “If there was a God, why would he allow that to happen?” or “Only God could have saved her from something like that.” The choice to either believe or not believe in God should not be seen in people or events. Random acts of negligence and human error should not be seen as evidence of God’s existence, or lack thereof.

Things that are strange coincidences.

I’ve finally found a medicine that will help me sleep. I have pretty severe insomnia, so I don’t get much sleep. I can’t take perscriptions, because they are too strong.  I have apnea, too, which means I stop breathing when I sleep. Normally, my body recognized that I’m being deprived of oxygen and I wake myself up. If I’m on medication that keeps me asleep, I could suffocate.

Well, I recently gone through a break-up, and the stress has really messed with my sleep. Both my mom and I feel that I’m developing an ulcer because of stress. Desperate, I went to wal-mart to see if they had in low-grade sleep aids, without extra stuff like pain reliever or fever reducer. I found one called Dyphenhydramine. Big long word. I surprised myself by pronouncing it correctly when I read it the first time.

Well, I had been taking one or two a night for a month, and I started sleeping a little better. The medicine doesn’t make me sleep, though, that’s the amazing thing. It helps me relax so that I can fall asleep. Biggest problem I have when it comes to trying to fall asleep is my body always feels tense. I think the reason is because when I speak, I exert so much effort, that my diaphram muscles have locked up by the end of the day.

Well, I was concerned that it might have side effects or become a habit, so I looked it up on the internet to find information. And I learned something very interesting. Dyphenhydramine is the chemical name for the drug. It has a brand-name that everyone is familiar with.

Benadryl.

Oh,yes. I had been taking straight benadryl for the last month. But, I read the information. It says that benadryl is non-narcotic, not habit forming, has no serious side effects, and can’t be use by itself as a recreational drug. It’s probably the safest sleep aid on the market today, especially for me, and it works. I don’t remember a time when I’ve ever slept better.

I continue to take it. And, in the entire time I’ve been taking it (three months so far) I have not gotten sick once. No colds, no flus, no sinus pressure or alergy problems. And the off-brand only costs four dollars.

Sweet relief.

Tales of Corsetry.

I’m making a new corset. I wanted to see if I could do a Victorian Sweetheart pattern, which is more hourglass shaped than the Elizabethan classic, which is conical. I was taught to make the Elizabethan one, but I figure once you’ve got the basics down, making modifications should be too hard.

This is an Elizabethan corset. It stops just before you reach your hips, at the lowest part of your natural waist and sits right in the middle of the bust, across the top of the nipples. It’s conical, meaning that it makes the torso look cone-shaped. There is no other style or variation; this is it. You could add tabs and straps, but all Elizabethan corsets look like this, or similar.

 

 

Victorian corsets, on the other hand, had lots of different styles.

 

 

 

 There was the traditional underbust,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the pointed underbust,

 

 

 

 

 

 

the traditional victorian (which was the most popular),

 

 

 

 

 

and the Sweetheart victorian, which is the one I’m attempting.

 

 

 

 

Victorian corsets come right down over the hips and over the middle section of the bust for better coverage and more support. It’s not really too much harder to make that the others.

First thing you do, just like with any other article of clothing is take you’re measurements. Measure around the bust, around the underbust, around your natural waist (then deduct two to three inches from the waist measurement), and around your hips. The measure the distance from the top of your bust (say, two to three inches above the nipples) to the waist, and from the waist to the base of the pelvus (just above the point at which your legs intersect). Then measure from under your arm to your waist and from the waist to just underneath your hipbones.

Using the measurements, you can create your own pattern:

This is the pattern for the front two panels (left) and the two back panels (right). Notice that they are shaped different. The back panel is completely rounded at the top and bottom to give the back adequate support. The front panel is pointed on the bottom and curves at the top to accomodate the bust. Then cut out the panel shapes in both my muslin and corset fabric, and pinned them together at the front and both sides. (The corset I’m making will only open from the back.)

 

(You’ll notice a small triangle of fabric in the center of the front panels. I realized after cutting the material that I had not made enough allowances for my bust, so I had to fix it without wasting the fabric. I think it might actually be a neat design when I finished it.) One must always make sure that they label the panels so they do not confuse them upon sewing. There is nothing more frustrating that realizing you’ve sewn the wrong panels together.

I’m going tomorrow to pick up thread, more muslin, pellon for the insides, some grommets, a hardware press for the grommets, and I’ll be ordering the bones online soon. Hopefully I should have this thing finished in a few weeks! I’m so excited!! I’ll post more pictures as the process goes on.

A Conversation about Wicca and it’s beliefs.

I belong to website called “Vampirefreaks.com” It’s a forum website, and I belong to many of the forums on different topics. I am a member of a Wiccan forum, a corset forum, a survivalist forum, and an atheist forum. I’m also staff in most of them. The topics inside the forums are often circular, but eventually we get things that either make us laugh, or we get very annoyed. The later happened in my Wicca forum. I thought I’d share. (I’m AmarisGrey, by the way.)

BloodyKittens:
but I’ve never thought of an athetist wiccan

AmarisGrey:
Wiccans can’t be atheists, dear.

JonothanLowe:
Actually, there’s no law stating a Wiccan *has* to believe in a deity.I’ve met a woman who practiced the wiccan ways of life, however she was Jewish.  As a matter of fact, she’s one of the most powerful psychics i’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Just because she’s Jewish doesn’t mean she’s not Wiccan. She practices the wiccan ways of life more closely than most spiritually devout wiccans that I know. She’s just as much Wiccan inside as I am, she just worships the “one true god”…though as far as practicing her craft, she follows the teachings of Bast.

I know it’s a bit confusing, however people like her exist. Society doesn’t know how to grasp the concept of believing in different parts of religions, because not all religions are actually religious. Wicca for example does practice (depending on your path) worshipping other Gods and Goddesses….however you don’t necessarily have to have that part of Wicca in order to be Wiccan. There’s also the lifestyle teachings and laws….”An ye harm none do what ye will”, being close to nature, loving everyone and everything even if at times not everyone deserves it. Believeing in the good in people despite how many times you may have been hurt by others…believing that nobody is ever born inherantly evil

AmarisGrey:
“Actually, there’s no law stating a Wiccan *has* to believe in a deity.“

Yes, there is. In most books about the founding and practice of Wicca, including the one written by the father of Wicca, Gerald Gardner (The Gardnerian Book of Shadows), it states very clearly that the mother Goddess and father God must be acknowledged to some extent as a part of the religion. This belief, as well as the “harm none” guideline and the three-fold-law, is really the core of Wicca; the basic essence of the religion. Wicca is a duotheistic and/or pantheistic religion. There is no such thing as atheistic Wicca.

“I’ve met a woman who practiced the wiccan ways of life, however she was Jewish. As a matter of fact, she’s one of the most powerful psychics i’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.“

If the woman you met was Jewish, that would mean that she followed the one Jewish god, observed Jewish holy days, and went to temple for celebrations. If she recognized a female deity in addition to her one God (namely Bast) or observed the Wiccan holidays, then she is not Jewish. You can’t be Jewish if you believe in more than one God; there is no exception to this rule. The Torah is pretty firm about that. She may hold some pagan philosophies, but it still doesn’t change the fact that she is Jewish. Also, the fact that she was psychic means exactly that and nothing more. Every religion has people that are psychics or “prophets”, including Judiasm and Christianity. Being psychic doesn’t automatically make a person a Wiccan.

“Just because she’s Jewish doesn’t mean she’s not Wiccan. She practices the wiccan ways of life more closely than most spiritually devout wiccans that I know. She’s just as much Wiccan inside as I am, she just worships the “one true god”…though as far as practicing her craft, she follows the teachings of Bast.“

These things are pretty clear cut. There can be Jews or Christians that practice magic, but that ultimately means that they are Jewish witches or Christian witches. You can’t superimpose two religions over each other. There are only two laws in Wicca that must be followed by every Wiccan: harm none, and honor the Goddess and God. If you don’t follow these two guidelines, you are not Wiccan. Pure and simple. A person of the Jewish faith that practices magic is a Jewish witch, not a Jewish Wiccan.

“I know it’s a bit confusing, however people like her exist. Society doesn’t know how to grasp the concept of believing in different parts of religions, because not all religions are actually religious.“

Taking things from different religions and mashing them together doesn’t make it a religion, nor does it even remotely relate to the several religions you pulled from in order to create these collection of beliefs. It becomes a new belief system, completely seperate from the ones from which you took.

“Wicca for example does practice (depending on your path) worshipping other Gods and Goddesses….however you don’t necessarily have to have that part of Wicca in order to be Wiccan. There’s also the lifestyle teachings and laws….”An ye harm none do what ye will”, being close to nature, loving everyone and everything even if at times not everyone deserves it. Believeing in the good in people despite how many times you may have been hurt by others…believing that nobody is ever born inherantly evil“

It’s true that Wiccans can believe in many Gods or Goddesses, but they either believe that the deities are all facets of the two deities, or they worship their own patron deity in addition to the Mother Goddess and Father God. But there are alway at least two deities involved.

I do want to make the fact clear that I’m not a militant atheist. I don’t look down on people that believe in gods or are religious. People should be allowed to worship who or what they want and believe whatever comforts them most as long as it’s not hurting anyone. But you can’t pick and choose what you want to believe and give it a label that is both incorrect or nonaplicable. If you are actively studying and following bits and pieces of several religions at once and put them into action, it ultimately means that, while you may be happy with the combination of aspects of different religious practices, you really don’t belong to any of them, and can’t claim that you do.

BloodyKittens:
I don’t think not practicing a religion the same way as the majority means you can’t proclaim yourself as apart of it.

AmarisGrey:
Yeah, it kinda does, dear. Religions have very clear cut rules that have to be followed in order to claim that as your personal religion. Saying that you are an atheist Wiccan is the same as claiming you’re a Christian that doesn’t believe in the existance of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing. Rules and outlines exist in religions in order to define the religion and the beliefs thereof. If what you believe falls outside of these lines, then you do not belong to that religion. It’s just that simple. You can’t take pieces of two religions, mash them together, and call it a mixture of both, because what you’ve created no longer resembles either faith. It’s a completely new belief system, unlike anything in the previous two religions you picked from.

I think the conclusion people get from this arguement is that you can’t believe everything you want to believe; that’s not true and not what I’m saying. You can believe in the “One true God”, dress in traditional Quaker garb, follow the Wiccan Holy days, and practice magic. But you can’t give that belief a label that belongs to something else and doesn’t suit it. You’re not a “Quaker Wiccan.” You are a person who is follows both pagan and loosely-based Quaker philosophies. That’s all.

BloodyKittens:
What I’m saying is religion is personal and if that’s how a person feels they can belong to more than one religion.It may not work for you but you can’t say that it can’t be that way for someone else.

AmarisGrey:
Religion isn’t personal; belief is. The difference is that belief has no rules or limitations, but religion does. And, yes I can say that it can’t be, because thats what the rules of the religion are. No one can change the rules of a religion to suit their own desires without turning it into something else. If that were true, Catholicism would be the only branch of Christianity, but it’s not. I will say it again: You cannot say you are Wiccan if you are an atheist. That’s not just according to me, be clear on that. That’s according to the law of Wicca. You also can’t belong to a monotheistic religion if you believe in more than one god. That’s not going to change.

ShadowBlade:
the downside is the stricter and more numerous the rules the harder it is for anyone in it to follow all the rules without breaking one of them, however picking and choosing the rules you follow does not change the religion that is giving the rules, you can’t try and take one set of rules and mix them with another religions set and say your both it just does not work, at most you can be one religion with a small influence of another, but in many cases it just makes you bad at being a part of your chosen religion.

AmarisGrey:
Well, that’s the thing, too: Wicca doesn’t have strict rules. Just Honor the Goddess and God and harm none. You don’t have observe the holy days or follow any of the traditions. You just have to believe in a Mother Goddess and a Father God. It’s not Wicca that restricts the usage of other beliefs, it the other beliefs themselves that are the limitations. Christianity, Judaism, and Muslims all believe in scriptures that say there is only one God. Taoists, Confucionists, and Buddhists are atheists, and do not believe in any gods. Hindus have thousands upon thousands of deities, but their karmetic principles clash with the three-fold law and the rule of “Harm None”, and, more often than not, most Hindus are against the practice of magic. Religions put up barriers like this for that reason, because they do not want people to intersect religions.

Belief and religion are not the same thing. You can believe whatever you want, but you can’t put it under the same roof as religion.

ShadowBlade:
exactly that was the point I was going for I know that Wicca has only two rules and that all other religions have rules which prevent them from mixing with any other religion, a persons beliefs can be what they want but that it is not the same as religion, but mixing certain beliefs that are strongly related to certain religions, i.e. magic, may not mix well with religions such as Christianity or Catholicism which quite often make their views on magic or anything related to witchcraft rather clear

AmarisGrey:
Exactly.

Religious Study: Wicca – Overview

In a previous post, I wrote a blog about my studies of the new age, neo-pagan religion Wicca, as I plan to do on various religions (including Christianity), and certain customs within it. Now that the basics have been covered, I feel the need to address some of the things that inspire, puzzle, and down-right aggravate me about the belief system and it’s practices. I’d like to point out before I begin that this is my own personal opinion based on vigorous research I have conducted for the past several years and will continue to conduct in the future. If you believe my information is incorrect, have a constructive but opposing opinion, or would like me to elaborate on a particular passage, please do not hesitate to message me. If you are offended by anything that is said here, I only have this to say: Freedom of speech is a sumbitch, innit?

First, I’d like to address the origins of the faith. Wicca was created in the early nineteen fifties, though the exact year is often speculated about, and even though Gerald Gardner is credited as the father of Wicca, Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente, and Aleister Crowley all had equal roles in it’s development. They each took several bits of information, ritual, and symbolism from many different sources, but there is no getting around the fact that is it based in large part on ancient Celtic Druidry. The holidays, the dieties, and the bulk of the rituals were adapted from, what Gardner and the others believed, was ancient druidic practices.

The problems with this concept is: A) Druids did not keep records. Other than the Tree Ogham, Druids purposefully did not have a sophisticated method of writing. Many druids even took vows of silence. There are no completely acurrate books about their workings, nor are there any oral accounts that were taken down, as non-druids were never present for their rituals. The only thing we know for sure about the Druids is that they did much of their practice in secret and a lot of it is still undiscovered. Druid Reconstructionists (which is an entirely different belief system from Wicca altogether, though outwardly seem similar) do the best they can to recreate the religion with the available material, but there isn’t very much at all, and any materials about druidic practices were written from an outsiders point of view.

Which leads me to point b): Gerald Gardner was never a Druid Reconstructionist. Neither was Aleister Crowley or Doreen Valiente, nor were the authors of any of the sparse materials available for public perusal. While it’s true that the people of the Druidic era in Ireland (though they were not Druids, as “Druid” was the name of the priesthood) followed much the same belief system, the rituals, magical practices, and codes were not available for public access. In addition, Druidry was a lineage oral tradition, meaning the rituals were handed down inside the Druidic order to ensure the secrets did not become availabe to the public. It was believed that the secrecy is what made the rituals sacred. So the problem here is that Gardner created a religion based on very little information, meaning he had to guess at much of it. Comforting, eh?

Now that we have covered history, we move on to the core principles of Wicca. First and foremost is the creed “Harm None”. Which, obviously, is a version of pacifism and a watered-down form of Buddhist karma. The unfortunate problem with this is there is no such thing as absolute pacifism. The definition of pacifism is to reject violence in all its forms from thoughts, actions, and emotions. Anyone with siblings or annoying in-laws knows that rejecting violent thoughts and emotions is nearly impossible. Also, you’re not going to stand idly by if some random idiot starts hitting you, your spouse, or your child in the middle of the street. The only way to totally embrace pacifism is to completely seperate oneself from humanity and live a completely holistic vegan existence, which is difficult to do. And there is no way to prove that a person is completely passive because you cannot read their thoughts.

   The three-fold law states that any action you do, whether positive or negative, will come back to you times three. Meaning, if you are generous, life will be three times as generous to you in return. If you are mean or greedy, life will be three times as mean and greedy towards you. Basically, is Buddhist karma watered way down. There are two forms of karma: buddhist karma and hindu karma. Say, one day, you’re walking down the street and you see a man about to be run over by a bus, and you push him out of the way at the last second. Now, say that man whose life you saved goes on to intentionally kill six people. Acccording to buddhist karma, you did a great thing by saving that man’s life and will be rewarded for it. Your responsibility ended when his life was spared, and the six people he murdered are none of your concern. In hindu karma, the lives of those six people are on your conscience, because if you had not saved the man in the street, those six people would not have been killed, or at least not by him. Their deaths are your fault and you will be punished for it as though you commited the murders yourself.

The problem I have with karma is that it doesn’t seem to exist. Rich greedy yuppies continue to get richer, while poor families across America, who would give the shirt off their backs to a complete stranger who needs it, continue to get poorer. Say a person is on the police force for forty years, saving people and putting criminals behind bars, making the streets safer for children, a model police officer that people look up to, and just before he can collect his retirement and pension, is fired for some bogus minor offense. It happens all across America, to all types of people. Good people who do good things who get screwed by the upper-one-percent. Certainly doesn’t look like karma to me. If karma existed, it wouldn’t exist for only one type of person or religion; it would exist for everyone. But it doesn’t.

Last but not least, Wicca’s main practice for most of it’s members is the practice of magic and witchcraft. I have nothing against the practice of witchcraft in and of itself. I’ve performed my share of rituals over the course of my adult life. The problem I have is that Wicca has the unfortunate position of being the number one magic-practicing religion in most english-speaking countries, which means it attracts a lot of people who are only looking at the magic part of it, and not the religious part of it. Most often, people who “join” Wicca are angry teenagers who want to be “different” to rebel against their parents, and they want to cast spells on people who annoy them. The biggest draw is the concept people get about magic by looking at the media. In the media, people who practice magic solve every single problem they come into contact with by doing a spell. That image is highly seductive to an impressionable mind.  The reality, however, as most rational and seasoned magical-practitioner will tell you, is that magic is to be used as a means of last resort. It’s never something your mind should jump right to, because it takes a lot of responsibility. Something you do could effect you and the people around you negatively, and I’m talking physically, not karmetically.  Magic is responsibility.

Some things just have to happen, and no amount of magic will fix that. People have to get sick so their immune systems can get stronger. People have to die. It has to rain. Sometimes break-ups happen. Sometimes people need jobs more than you. You can’t mess with peoples emotions or free will. You can’t alter physics to suit your own personal desires. Right is still right, and wrong is still wrong. Magic doesn’t change that. People need to think about magic before trying it. If they are willing to compromise morality, responsibility, intellegence and common sense to use it, maybe they shouldn’t be practicing it in the first place.

Wicca has some good points, but it’s got downsides too. As always, I would encourage people to do research before making a judgement. Don’t assume I or anyone else knows everything about the subject, take it all in and make your own conclusions.

Hello, my fans and friend.

Hello, everyone.

I know that I have been horribly neglectful. I’ve not posted in a very long time. I haven’t been on the internet very much in the last eight or nine months. I’ve also not done anything of worth in that time. I was relatively happy for the first five of the nine, and bitterly sad and mopey for the last four. Life isn’t back to normal completely, but it’s getting there. I’m finally at a point that getting out of bed isn’t a physical and psychological challenge. 

Don’t worry, I’ll be better soon. And I plan to post some very interesting stuff in the next few weeks. I’m not in a good place yet, but I’m getting there. Just a little longer now…