I love the Internet. It represents my library, and my super market and my social life. When I first moved to Springfield, I was devastated because the library here was for kids, I could not find any like minded witches, and shopping was awful.

The Internet has everything. Shopping, information, friends, communities, games, news, ... I Love it!

If I were to worship an Idol, it would be the Internet.

Thank God and the Universal mind for the Internet.

Amen!

Living Wicca, if memory serves me correctly, is about building the religion into your daily life. Don't quote me on this as I leant out my copy a year ago and haven't seen it since. Check Amazon for a good description. I would definitely recommend the Shaman book Scott recommended. A lot of people enjoy the author Christopher Penczak. I know I have found his books very useful. He has a lot of exercises you can do and meditation cd's as well.

Yes, I have a friend who has used legal herbs for the purpose of trance states. I'll ask her what she used.

Well, if you mean a widespread religion then, yes, Wicca is the fastest growing religion today. I am not Wiccan as I don't practice any organized religion. I named this thread Wicca as it is the most easily recognizable term for most people.

Why did you think people who practiced witchcraft were lowlifes?

Oh, and what is a wicker?

A person who puts wicks in candles.

SONG OF THE GOD
by Abracadabra

You are the Great Father Spirit
Omniscient in all of Nature
You are the masculine
You are the yang

You are the giver of energy
The Father of passion
The ethereal strength of the winds
Your power radiates as fervor from the fire
Your love shines as sunlight

You light up the day
and show me the wonders of nature
Your solar globe guides my life
From solstice to solstice you fill me with purpose

You are the provider of nourishment
and the great grower of grains
Your infinite power is only eclipsed
by your eternal flowing love

I cherish the gift of life
that you sustain for me
I extol your sacred presence
now and forevermore

Namaste

~~~

I wrote this up patterned after the one I wrote for the Goddess. Since both of these will become mainstay chants in many of my rituals and will also need to be memorized I think they do well being similarly worded. These will be my songs for the Gods, for 2009. If they evolve over that time the newly evolved songs will become the new songs in my 2010 Book of Shadows. I personally feel that a Book of Shadows should be started anew each year. Any form of stagnation is not good and that would include a Book of Shadows. Stagnated doctrine becomes dogma.

I think this is the very lesson of a God that dies and is reborn each year. The whole point of this parable is to not become stagnated.

I've tried to leave these songs open to pure animism. So these will go in as permanent additions to my 2009 Book of Shadows and will become ritual chants for the year. They are born with the God and will be presented to the Gods in the Yule ritual. These songs are gifts of praise to God.

I think someone was probably growing a little bit of herb in their backyard and those Witch Hunters came and got em. It wasn't just a misdemeanor for having a certain number of plants but more like a "sin" and then they could seize your property and torture you to death because Witches dont float with rocks tied to them. Most dont anyway so then they know they are doing god's will or what not.

Well, this is definitely what I've already been doing.

Although I'm not sure if I'm doing it in the way that Scott suggests. And I'm not even sure if I want to do it in the way that Scott suggests. I guess I can't know that until I read the book. That's why I was hoping to find it at the library before I actually buy it.

I've been turning EVERYTHING into a ritual. I mean just about everything I do. From cooking meals to chopping wood, to playing musical instruments, and even writing.

I've turned mundane tasks like brushing my teeth into a ritual. And taking baths. In fact, I love the ritual baths. I've never taken such good care of myself before. It's almost like my body belongs to God now and I'm just its caretaker.

So now I'm taking care of my body for God's sake.

That was a literal sentence by the way.

I've been needing 'religiousity' in my life lately. Not so much spirituality. I've always had spirituality. But now I need 'religiousity' (structure and purpose) and Wicca has given me this thus far, and will continue to do so because I'm going to continue to develop it on my own path.

I may need to call it something other than "Wicca" when I'm done. But I'm definitely on the right track. There's no question about that. I've never felt closer to God. This religion is precisely what I needed. It is sorely ashame that I hadn't been introduced to Wicca (in this way) when I was a child. I would have had a much more creative and productive life to be sure.

So yes, incorporating it into my life every minute of every day is my intent.

Absolutely.

But I'm still not sure whether I necessarily want to do it how Scott suggests.

Although if that book is as abstract as the one I just read it will probably serve me well merely as food for thought.

I'm definitely not about to get into following someone else's dogma verbatim. But food for thought is always welcome.

There are a lot of medicinal but also narcotic herbs. Powerful ones. I know you really need to be cautious with things like that and reference some kind of a "safe use" chart. The problem is you dont always know how a herb might effect your own body and it depends on your weight, any other illnesses you might have and chronic conditions or other medications you might be using. Women have been using medicinal herbs since we were cave people. They figured out how to induce abortion if they became pregnant at a bad time or they were going to be carrying in Winter. Not good.

Ok, I'm looking at these now. These do look very good and the reviews are extremely positive.

I'm looking at the following titles.


The Inner Temple of Witchcraft:
Magick, Meditation and Psychic Development

The Outer Temple of Witchcraft:
Circles, Spells and Rituals

The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft:
Shadows, Spirits and the Healing Journey

These come to $40 which isn't bad for what they appeat to contain.

Then another $60 for all the accompanying CDs.

That's big ticket right there.

But considering that it all focuses on precisely what I'd like to learn it seems like a good investment.

That's less than $10 a month if you think about the fact that owl most likely be using these materials for the whole year of 2009.

I think owl just go for it, and let this be my introduction to witchcraft for 2009.

I read the reviews on Scott's "Living Wicca", and a lot of them said that it doesn't really offer all that much more than the original book. Same stuff just in greater detail (more dogmatic).

I can create my own dogma.

I may have already gotten what I needed from Scott.

This other fellow with the CDs seems to have practical exercises for practicing specific things like visualization techniques, psyche development, circle casting rituals, shamanism, and healing.

So he seems to be covering the major topics I'm looking to focus on with practical exercises.

Because most people who do the christian baptist methodist catholic social club thing are all into trying to use and control others, Wicca seemed like another vodo hype up ritual thing people did because thay didnt have a life. Lowlifes loosers social terrorist, I like to catagorize people.
Its individual spirituality that counts. And that is not allowed in organized religion.

Amen to that!

I'm looking into witchcraft and shamanism purely for personal development.

I'm not even interested in any covens or organized religions.

Having said that, I can see the potential for postive gain by people adding their spiritual powers together.

However, it's been my experience that most organized religions fail. They either end up being a few strongly charismatic people controlling a mass of blind sheep followers, or they end up with large masses of people supporting dogma that they truly don't even understand much less follow.

I truly believe that anyone who has found genuine spirituality isn't going to be going around trying to convert people.

They might be enthusiastic about 'sharing' what they've experienced.

But there's a huge difference between sharing what a person knows with other people who are truly interested, and attempting to convinced disinterested people that they need the religion.

The first is admirable.

The second is proselytation and/or oppression via coercion.

I personally have no need to join any organized religions, nor organize one myself.

But I would always be willing to share what I know with anyone who is genuinely interested.

And if anyone wants to tell me I'm nuts and my religion is stupid. More power to them. As long as they don't get brutal about it, it's not a problem.

Ive never met a Pagan who proselytizes. They just dont. I dont even think there is a hard and fast rule that says they cant yet its not done. In fact, they expect you to hunt them down. They are generally very low key and private people. They prefer to be amongst other Pagans. That makes sense. If someone has questions, they will answer but what I have heard said on many occasions is that you cant just jump into something like this. Go get some books and read and understand what it is. Take a year or more to see if it sits well with you. Its not a matter of buying some cool pentagram jewelry and suddenly you are a High Priestess.

Tonight im watching a documovie zeiteist.

I have come across a few pagan/wiccan types who do sometimes judge others for not "taking care of mother earth" or for "eating the flesh of animals" and other things.

I have a friend who is a Vegan and don't tell me that's not a religion. Boy do they preach and fuss about people who do not have the same values as they do.

Hey I think if you want to be a Vegan that's fine with me, but I don't think you should make a religion out of it and judge people who eat meat as horrible monsters who kill god's creatures.

End of rant.

Oh I totally agree with that JB> I once had a Vegan Nazi come after me about eating meat and he had Doc Martin boots on. I asked him what the hell he thought those boots were made out of and he just argued. They can be really silly.

Let's face it. It's a dog-eat-dog world. Animals eat each other all the time. Live! And it's often quite cruel.

Moreover it's totally impractical not to kill animals at all. We'd be totally overrun by them if we hadn't already killed off the bulk of the dangerous ones to keep them down in population.

People may be considerate about not eating an alligator. But alligators don't have any problem eating people.

Same goes with lions, etc.

I don't really have a problem with killing animals for food. But I do have a problem with farms that raise food animals in inhumane conditions. That's totally uncalled for.

So I can have issues with commercial food sources. But I really don't have a problem with killing animals for food.

Although, in truth, just on a personal note I'd rather be a vegan. Or at least a vegetarian. I really have no problem eating dairy products, or even eggs for that matter.

But I think vegan is ultimately more healthy actually. I don't do it yet, but I may start heading in that direction. My sister is a vegan. She was a vegetarian for most of her life, but now she has become a complete vegan, she won't even eat cheese, dairy products, or eggs. Of course she gave up the eggs a long time ago. But giving up cheese was hard for her.

I know it is probably much more healthy physically to not eat meat. It's certainly less destructive for the environment. I admit that I can go for long periods of time not eating meat. I have done it before but generally something will set me off and I smell steak or I just want something bloody. Its almost primordial. Now I have the rabbit and maybe some fish on the rare occasion. Thats it. The rabbit is raised myself in spacious enclosures that I move outside weather permitting. No hormones. Thats also a concern with store bought chain meats is I just dont know what they are introducing into that feed for the cattle.