How can someone be a Christian Witch?

[Lord_of_Nightmares]

The religious segment of Zeitgeist was not debunked. It was the comments about 9-11. In the course of training at Langley we get a double dose of religion because of it's negative impact on history. I have personally studied documents secreted from the Vatican library that prove the mythological origin and political purpose of Christianity. All I shall comment on those who think themselves Christian Witches is that they have a very long road yet to travel. Religion is a self serving behemoth. Christian institutions in America have a net worth of 1.6 trillion dollars and they pay no taxes and do very little to walk their talk other then build edifices to themselves, weasel into affairs of State and stifle scientific research.

Then by all means cite your sources, because it has been debunked in Part I with academic citations:
http://skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/

That isn't to say Christianity has no pagan element, but it's a complete straw man fallacy to purposefully misrepresent the other's arguments. Specifically, on Christianity and Christian witchcraft.

History has shown for awhile Jesus was actually considered to be a mage with a wand. The pentagram was used as the five wound of Christ, and having personally known someone who practices powwow, witchcraft/magic has existed in Christianity for centuries and is not all that different from modern pagan usages. I won't get into the harmonic system Hermeticism came up with when it sought to bring together Christianity and paganism, it has influenced the entire Western occult system. Then there is Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. Rosicrucians who seek to use magick to get closer to God, and people such as John Dee who did magick to talk to angels. This has been going on for centuries. It is by no means an isolated thing.

Here is a fresco of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead with a wand, which is how they thought he performed miracles:


Going back to Spirit's points about how common folk were targeted for witchcraft and such, is correct. Nobles engaged in the occult throughout the entirety of Christian Europe, sometimes in secret, because of the church.

[SpiritTalker]

shekinah asked..."How is it there is no archeological evidence of anything. Not even the existence of Jesus can be traced to records of domicile, tax records, etc. His name is scribed on nothing not even a tomb whereas many other notables of that time and place are recorded. Where is just one Holy relic?"

Hmm. According to the story his name wouldn't be on a tomb, would it? Easy suppression by the Powers That Be comes to mind. it works both ways. S4 Area 51 doesn't exist either, according to taxes...like no one in ancient history ever thought of fudging the rolls. If there were relics it wouldn't prove a thing, one way or another, any more than "Washington slept here" does today. You mention Langley. Ever wonder why the PTB provide certain reading materials? What's behind it? What's the credibility of the source and intent of the provider? Y'know, just saying.

I can see the eventual political uses in the power structure that evolved, like after 500-1000 years. But what master mind would conceive the success of that church structure having evolved? My history is too weak to grasp that.

[planewalker]

Roman Catholicisum was the creation of Constestine and the Bishop's council of Niacium in the early mid 300's. 353 AD strikes my mind but, there were enough councils about enough different things that I'm not sure. It's been 25+yrs since I taught it and needed the dates to quick recall. The theory I remember. Constintine was having trouble with the factions he had ridden to power. The cross story before the Milvean Bridge was most likely a ploy to unite his army. Christians previously had used the fish as their sign. Little known religion of a foreign God was useful. You could say "God X sent me a sign to ...." and who was going to say your wrong. The Catholics were just as religiously pure as what would later be the Eastern and Coptic churches. Constestine was worried about an Egyptian mystery religion - Mithrundisum. Christmas is on Dec 25 because that was Mithros's birthday. JC was a historic figure - Joesephus mentions him as a worker of wonders executed by the Romans. It's a couple sentences in one of his books on the Jewish War. His tax records, which would have been in Copernium, would have gone up in flames in that same Jewish war. Tax exemption and army exemption for Priests were originally granted at this time. If you think Roman rule can't reach that far just find out how we got the RR track gage we have. It's the wheel base of a Roman chariot. The months are Roman. Sabbath was changed from the last day of the week to the first day - the Suns day. RC's got an Earth Mother and gods, godesses with Mary and the veneration of saints. It also changed other parts of the service. Watch a Coptic service with a translator, you'll be amazed. Secular leaders have claimed infallibility from Gods favor since this time. The Pope didn't claim infallibility until 1853. There must have been something in the air that year because the Episcable Rev. Darbey gave us the rapture that same year.
As to killing of witch's of the lower classes, it comes down to fiscal and security reasons. You don't want people who have only the power of their hate to have a silent, invisable weapon. You end up getting more from a bunch of people who are basically defenseless, cheaper, then you do by attacking a few people, with soldiers and relatives with soldiers. The "educated" class also fully believed in witch craft,but they had worrying soldiers and financial power. Distrust was also sown in their ranks. If you get more then4 or 5 nobles together, one will most likely sell you out. You can get a much bigger group of disaffected people, who are used to relieing on each other, who with try to burn your butt down with magic and not say a word to anybody else about it.

[Darkest Auldearn]

I think the issue with this comes around when you start to think of witchcraft as a religion. It isn't.

That's the problem. Witchcraft in and of itself is not a religion. Most magical practices and religion are two separate things in ancient and modern world.

This seems to be a common misunderstanding amongst modern witches, something that I'm not entirely sympathetic to. In Witchcraft Today, Gardner was very clear about the religion being "Witchcraft", something that the key people at the time (Gardner himself, Doreen Valiente, Ray Buckland et al) all agreed with. You're interchanging the terms "Witchcraft" and "Magic".

This approach to the subject is modern in the sense that it's convenient, but it's not accurate.

Any argument to the contrary is contradicted by the source material.

However, this it merely linquistic pedantry. Your point, I believe, is this:

"Witchraft/Magic (as an art) can be practiced without religion, and can therefore fit into any".

It's an argument that I see a lot of but, unfortunately, it's no more valid than any of the others. Magic (the term I'm using for Witchcraft in your personal nomenclature) does need a religious construct to house it; it cannot be practiced non-religiously. The reason for this is because magic needs to be housed in a coherent worldview in which it's supposed to work, a worldview that needs to be based on self-transformation or, to the occultists amongst us, the practice of alchemy.

If it's not, and if it's merely something people do to 'get stuff', then it's a hobby - and a laughably inefficient one. Being blindly devoted to useless routines that lead nowhere... Leads you nowhere. And because Christianity is both fundamentally and ideologically opposed to the idea of magic (due to the agent taking control of affairs, rather than the power of the divine through subjugation to Christ), the two are resolutely at odds with one another.

My trio of criticisms remain completely unscathed.

[Shekinah]

Wicca to my mind might be considered a form of religion (Pantheon worship) but I see nothing in Witchcraft that has anything to do with religion. That we commune with other worldly Watchers (ntelligences) and seek to establish a presence in other dimensions does not constitute religion any more then does space exploration. Witchcraft can stand alone as a Noetic exploration. I believe eventually scientific facts will cause the demise of religious foolishness and the evolution of Quantum physics will validate many paranormal phenomenon. Things that we Witches do (remote viewing, telepathy, bi-location, etc.) will become the new science.

[Shireside]

Citing sources such as Gardner and Valiente, who purposefully fused witchcraft and religion into one through Wicca, will of course support the notion that witchcraft is a religion. I am not confusing witchcraft for magic as a whole, and if you'd take a walk over to more traditional craft-oriented communities, they'd gleefully scathe your seemingly iron-clad criticisms just the same..
If not far more articulately than me, as those folks have generations more experience in the craft than I.

Religion requires worship of a higher power. Witches of the non-Wiccan and nonreligious slant generally believe in the Unseen world, and work with it's power, without stepping into a relationship of worship. You can perform divination at your ancestral altar, petition genius locii to assist with your necromancy, and whip up a honey jar to flip your employer's opinion of you all without making a religion of it.

[SpiritTalker]

I've never read a modern text, in book form or on Internet, pertaining to Witchcraft as a religion that wasn't someone's historic interpretation or a shamanistic reconstruction. My reading is not all inclusive by any stretch in either of the religions we're discussing. I'd have to put me in the secular practice camp because i can only get my head around deities being Nature, and my limited experiences with a conscious-aware Nature, as well as being stuck in a mind-set that it's all "one" anyway. So I don't have a theological conflict. I guess I could structure that into a religious base, but I don't want to. Call me stubborn. Been there. Done that. New egg. (ref. film Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn in cooking class.) Just doing my own jig here and not dancing.

Note to self: I can't pin point when my thinking changed from god-in-nature to god-is-nature.

[Lord_of_Nightmares]

I think the issue with this comes around when you start to think of witchcraft as a religion. It isn't.

That's the problem. Witchcraft in and of itself is not a religion. Most magical practices and religion are two separate things in ancient and modern world.

This seems to be a common misunderstanding amongst modern witches, something that I'm not entirely sympathetic to. In Witchcraft Today, Gardner was very clear about the religion being "Witchcraft", something that the key people at the time (Gardner himself, Doreen Valiente, Ray Buckland et al) all agreed with. You're interchanging the terms "Witchcraft" and "Magic".

This approach to the subject is modern in the sense that it's convenient, but it's not accurate.

Any argument to the contrary is contradicted by the source material.

That's not 'source' material, that is a mistake early Wiccans did and that modern Wiccans do not make. Academia, with the original definition of witchcraft as "harmful magical practices" supports that witches were beyond any religion. Gardner, Valiente, etc are not the end all be all of witchcraft and witches, nor are they "authorities" just because they popularized it. They're authorities on Wicca and Wiccan witchcraft, but not witchcraft itself since the term is insanely broad.

However, this it merely linquistic pedantry. Your point, I believe, is this:

"Witchraft/Magic (as an art) can be practiced without religion, and can therefore fit into any".

It's an argument that I see a lot of but, unfortunately, it's no more valid than any of the others. Magic (the term I'm using for Witchcraft in your personal nomenclature) does need a religious construct to house it; it cannot be practiced non-religiously. The reason for this is because magic needs to be housed in a coherent worldview in which it's supposed to work, a worldview that needs to be based on self-transformation or, to the occultists amongst us, the practice of alchemy.

This is incorrect on your part. Secular witchcraft has existed through the ages and now there is specific secular witches. It does not need a 'worldview'. Secular witchcraft does not even need ghosts, spooks, or much supernatural to work. Witchcraft and magic is based on symbols, and using those symbols. This is all it requires. Anthropology is really good at show casing this. Chaos magick is also a good indicator of how to use magick without gods or anything else, or even a real worldview since it is anything goes, practically. Magick/witchcraft are tools, and that is it.

If it's not, and if it's merely something people do to 'get stuff', then it's a hobby - and a laughably inefficient one. Being blindly devoted to useless routines that lead nowhere... Leads you nowhere. And because Christianity is both fundamentally and ideologically opposed to the idea of magic (due to the agent taking control of affairs, rather than the power of the divine through subjugation to Christ), the two are resolutely at odds with one another.

My trio of criticisms remain completely unscathed.

Well, as stated before, this has been going on before pagan revivals. Hermeticism and Rosicrucians disagree with you. Hermeticism directly sought to fuse paganism and Christianity, also it is about magick. You can disagree all day long, but that is not going to make Christian magick using go away and all the documented evidence we have it being practiced for centuries. All modern Western occult stems from Hermeticism, anyway, even Wicca.

Your criticism only works if you ignore Kabbalah, Rosicrucians, Jesus being thought to use a magic wand in ancient Christianity, folk Catholicism, brujeria in Mexico, Nehushtan, Pennsylvania Dutch powwow, and so forth.

Christianity started without a church and Jesus was probably trying to reform Judaism, not start another religion. So, Christianity also works with/without a church who is not the end all be all of it. It's early history says something else entirely.

[Corbin]

Of course you can be a Christian Witch. They are called "Heretics" aren't they?

Christianity has a fine tradition of Heresy and seemed remarkably tolerant toward (among populace if not clergy) it until it was powerful enough not to have to be? Take magic out of the hands of people and into that of the priests, church and "god"?

Put a cap on the magical spigot.

If you have ever looked at the kind of techniques that were employed by Christians (at least recorded since the middle ages) to protect against "evil" stuff (usually witches) it suspiciously bears many hallmarks of those employed by witches themselves. So, have faith in god ... hmm ... but keep a relic, icon and incantation handy? - its a miracle; God did it, I didn't (!) despite all the trappings and props, rituals, icons, incantations and rituals - move along .. nothing to see here.

[SpiritTalker]

OK, I can be an equal opportunity heretic & annoy both sides without favoritism. When i'd started as Wiccan in my mid-30s, I'd soon realized the pantheon approach was not a fluid mindset for me. My progression of experiences as a psychic medium, then as an RC nun & now in my mid-60s as an evolving Witch, are all parts of me and one facet need not be cut away to favor one over another. There is growth in union. I am not just one religion or another. It just has never been that simple. At times ive wished it were, but that ain't the way it is. It think it's fine to ask questions about the path another person walks, just to understand & learn, but not to criticize or challenge because someone's ways are different and for reasons of their own that we don't get. Criticism just shows we don't have the capacity to see outside our own box.

[Corbin]

Observation is not critisism. Christians historically didn't agree with their own dogma and doctrine - why else would there be so many differing branches and schisms. Heresy was a charge levelled many of them but faith isn't doctrine.

Someone is a Christian Witch? More power to them; that they can't be one is incorrect - they can simply branch away from Christian Dogma and ... err ... do it ... Witchcraft doesn't ban it, neither does the broad umbrella of "paganism".

Palagius is personally my favourite historical heretic.

[SpiritTalker]

Hmm. I wasn't trying to imply that inquiring was criticism, not at all however DA has referred to their own comments as a "trio of criticisms" which is a different intent from the OP's inquiry and other quite reasonable historical observations made in the discussion.


Edit: the free-will or fate themes continue on and on. That would be a whole new topic. Oye!

[Darkest Auldearn]

That's not 'source' material, that is a mistake early Wiccans did and that modern Wiccans do not make. Academia, with the original definition of witchcraft as "harmful magical practices" supports that witches were beyond any religion. Gardner, Valiente, etc are not the end all be all of witchcraft and witches, nor are they "authorities" just because they popularized it. They're authorities on Wicca and Wiccan witchcraft, but not witchcraft itself since the term is insanely broad.

It is source material, I'm afraid. Gerald Gardner didn't popularize modern Witchcraft; he was the first person to codify it into an applicable religion, similar to how Anton Szandor LaVey codified Satanism almost a decade after Gardner.

There is no basis in evidence that there was any codified religion dedicated to Witchcraft prior to High Magic's Aid, and then officially, Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft. When people argue the opposite, they usually get mired in things like early Heathan/Pagan concepts, "cunning folk" and sympathetic magic practices. None of these were "religions" per se, and were little more than localised sets of superstitions that were applied to individual communities that had need of magical (for want of a better term) services.

Secondly, and more importantly, you're dismissing academic study because... Why? Academics don't simply identify Witchcraft as what you presumably term "maleficia", and an argument to the contrary only highlights that you're hopelessly out of touch with the breadth of modern research.

If you want to argue this point, I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on evidence.

This is incorrect on your part. Secular witchcraft has existed through the ages and now there is specific secular witches. It does not need a 'worldview'. Secular witchcraft does not even need ghosts, spooks, or much supernatural to work. Witchcraft and magic is based on symbols, and using those symbols. This is all it requires. Anthropology is really good at show casing this. Chaos magick is also a good indicator of how to use magick without gods or anything else, or even a real worldview since it is anything goes, practically. Magick/witchcraft are tools, and that is it.

The error is not on my part, you've just failed to misunderstand my point.

Witchcraft (or magic, borrowing your nomenclature again) can only logically work in a religious housing of some kind because, otherwise, it has no point and is merely an identity prop. I've already explained this, but you've chosen to completely ignore it. I'm not especially interested in an online hobby that millennial kids grow out of; and your examples are hopelessly contrived, because each one you've listed does have a religious framework (at least a concept of divine power).

You're taking the term "religion" a bit too literally, but I take some of the responsibility for that. I could have been clearer.

Funnily enough, you actually make my point for me in your last quoted sentence:

"Magick/Witchcraft are tools, and that's it".

Tools to do what, exactly?

Hermeticism directly sought to fuse paganism and Christianity, also it is about magick. You can disagree all day long, but that is not going to make Christian magick using go away and all the documented evidence we have it being practiced for centuries. All modern Western occult stems from Hermeticism, anyway, even Wicca.

Hermeticism isn't Christianity, either. An assertion to the contrary is illogical gibberish.

Your criticism only works if you ignore Kabbalah, Rosicrucians, Jesus being thought to use a magic wand in ancient Christianity, folk Catholicism, brujeria in Mexico, Nehushtan, Pennsylvania Dutch powwow, and so forth.

Christianity started without a church and Jesus was probably trying to reform Judaism, not start another religion. So, Christianity also works with/without a church who is not the end all be all of it. It's early history says something else entirely.

Trying to argue that Christianity and Witchcraft are compatible, by adding in Jewish mysticism, is about as poor an argument as you could possibly make. I know very well what Qabbalah and Rosicrucianism is, and I have personal experience with a Brujo. At this point, you're just throwing out obscure religious notions and hoping that I don't know anything about them. This passage of yours isn't even making a point... It's just random sentences.

I'm sorry, but every response you've posted so far smacks of millennial thinking; facts are secondary to feelings.

That's just not how information works, I'm afraid.

[Shireside]

I guess I just don't get it. The above point, I mean. The question of this thread is "How can someone be a Christian witch?" Not, say, "How can someone be a Christian while also being a witch in a religious sense?" One person's definition of witchcraft (in this case, what I'm reading yours as inherently religious/involving deity) isn't universal. Folk beliefs all over will infer that there is a difference in understanding between religion/devotion to deity and the belief of spirits as a whole.
Syncretic spiritual practices (hoodoo and Santeria come first to mind) have historically have no qualms with involving Christianity in alongside the culturally independent practices and beliefs, and many a rootworker wholeheartedly identify as Christian. If conjure ain't witchcraft, I guess I just don't know what is.

[Firebird]

only highlights that you're hopelessly out of touch

speaking to another in terms such as this is abusive. Refrain from being rude or this thread is going to be locked.
Everyone please remain civil...use "I" statements. ..."You" this or "you" that puts everyone on the defensive.