"The burden of truth lies with you and Harmon to prove authentic pagans exist."
Well I don't know if I cared enough to call it a 'burden'! You may be correct wrt European pagan "traditions".
But certainly Santeria and the assoicated Cajun varieties are a different matter, no? Of course, these religions come to North American from Africa by way of nominally catholic peoples which diguised pagan dieties as Catholic saints. But I have always assumed that that these were basically NOT synthetic in the way Wiccans seem to be.
And while I assume there's no controversy on these facts, I believe it may be possible to "prove" (to the extent that anything can be proven) some distinctly non Indo-European roots to Santeria (right now I'm thinking of the musical instruments that only Santarians are taught to play...some of them have no Euro-equivalent, but plenty of African).
As for Blake & Co, you may be right, but I had thought that there was some supposed connection to very hidden Druidic roots.
-TD
From: Steve Mynott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Tyler Durden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Silly wiccan, tricks are for kids! Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 20:17:53 +0100
Tyler Durden wrote:
Well, I think there's an obvious disconnect on this issue. Clearly, pre-Christian religious practices survived Christian persecution throughout the ages. From the little I know, some of the practicing Druids actually have received a nearly unbroken chain of tradition.
The modern druid traditions, as followed by Willian Blake, only date back to the eighteenth century.
There is no unbroken chain of tradition.
Very little is known about the real pre-Roman druids, since they left no written traces. The little that is known (mistletoe and oaks) has come from Roman reports. The Romans also claim the druids burnt livestock and humans alive in huge wickermen.
I doubt these practices would survive unnoticed in most modern European societies.
But the fact that "Wicca" (as the movement is known today) does not necessarily represent anything authentic doesn't mean that authentic practicing pagans don't exist today (which was Harmon's main point, I believe).
The burden of truth lies with you and Harmon to prove authentic pagans exist.
Given that, again, virtually nothing is known about pagan practices your proof would be quite impossible.
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