On the Pagan "Community"

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I love being a Pagan. Anyone who knows me, knows this is a fact. I've been practicing for about 12 years now on an eclectic path. I'm also a solitary witch. The other day I realized why I tend to back away from covens and groves. I have enough drama in my life, I don't need it in my religion.

      What happened? I'm a member of an on-line forum group. You can join communities there and what not, and I am a member of several on various topics. I'm a member of a few Pagan groups, as you can guess. Well, with these groups you can send out a private email to the members of the group, in case they don't check the board too often. Sort of like an email list, but we use the site boards more than email.

      I logged in the other day to find a whole series of emails from several members of a certain community. One young lady had decided that she was going to leave the site and boycott them for religious intolerance based on a graphic she had had deleted by the site owner. The site has out a list of rules on the images you were allowed to post there, and I believe they are rather liberal for a site of this nature, as I am a member of far less liberal sites.

      The graphic was a background. It was one of those sidebar backgrounds and the side image was a pentacle. She had been using as the background on the info page for the forum. It didn't carry over to the private forum, but was publicly viewable. For those not in the know of what a pentacle is, it is also referred to as a pentagram, which is a star inside a circle. With the top point down, it is considered a Satanic symbol. With the top point up, it is a Pagan symbol that represents the elements at each point; fire, air, water, earth, and spirit. It is far from being evil.

      To someone in the know.

      To someone who doesn't know much if anything about the Pagan religions, either way it is a Satanic symbol to them. (Symbols are distorted all the time. Take the Swastika for instance. Upright, it's actually a symbol for peace in many cultures. On it's axis, it is a Nazi symbol. Also take the Confederate flag of the US south. In actuality, it was a battle flag. Now, it is a racist symbol.)

      I have always had a strong sense of people's faith. I believe your faith is yours. You can't be forced to believe something that in your heart you don't really feel is true. After all, what is faith if you don't really believe in it? Therefore, I believe all religions are valid, and this includes agnostics and atheists. If it's what you believe, what is inside your heart, and it doesn't go out to hurt anyone, than it is a valid belief system. Hell, make it all up yourself! It's still valid, and I believe God is receptive either way.

      Having said this, I believe that it is each person's duty to teach others about their faith...if they want to know. If they don't want to know about your faith, then leave it be. Don't force it down the throats of others, and certainly don't preach or assume everyone is your religion or should be.

      However, I consider the deleting of this background to be a misunderstanding. Why boycott the site and label them religious bigots if they don't, in fact, realize the difference between the pentacles? Why not tell them the difference? If they choose to decide your explanation is wrong and that the symbol is evil, then maybe it's time to go somewhere else. But there isn't much need to blow so much smoke about it.

      But this seems to be widespread. There is a big difference between intolerance and not understanding. Sometimes the two fit together, but more times than not it's one or the other. Those who just plane don't understand are 70% of the time willing to at least hear you out and try to understand.

      This can't be accomplished if every time something as silly as a background chases all the Pagans in to hiding or away from the community at least. Without trying to make people understand at the very least, you aren't helping to get Paganism accepted in the general view. You're just tainting people's views further.

      It's a background. They deleted it. They didn't ban you from the site or make an example out of you. They just deleted the image because they saw it as something unfit for the site. Yet they turned around and compared it to deleting a Star of David from someone's site. No, it isn't the same thing. The Star of David is not a symbol that has been adopted and altered to fit the needs of a religion that is viewed as evil (or downright evil in the wrong hands). The Pentacle has been. 99% of people know what the Star of David is, or at least what religion it belongs to. 80% of people don't know the difference between the inverted Pentagram and the Pagan Pentacle.

      It stays inside the community as well, though, which is just as damaging, if not more so, since you can't claim unity when you are claiming bigots are in your own religion, and they happen to be against the religion they claim to be. Several years ago I met a young man on-line who was nick named in real life as Burn. I don't know why, this was just his nick name. Well, we were buddies on-line and wandered around to the same message boards and chat rooms on occasion. We both joined one chat room on a site that is now defunct. He had signed up using a screen name that was a play on his nick name. We all thought it was cute and funny, because the explanation made it so if you listened. Since he was also a witch, he chose the screen name BurnTheWitch.

      We went in to several Pagan chats, and most people got it. He was quick to explain so as not to offend others. But one room was not as open to this. They took it as a sign of "the burning times" and that he was obviously there to torment them and remind them of a horrible past. Many refrances were made to the Salem Witch Trials and the "witch" burnings that took place.

      And it continued, no matter how much he tried to explain, no one bothered to listen to him at all. He finally just left the room when they started to call him a Nazi. I, on the other hand, hung out and gave them a history lesson.

      1. the Salem Witch Trials did not involve Wiccans or any other Pagans (Wicca didn't even exist then, and most of these people were Wiccans). If you did your history homework, you know the trials were started by several Puritan girls who were pretty much bored and didn't like a certain woman in the village. They accused her of being a witch and tormenting them. As human nature goes, other "witches" began to pop up and copy cat accusing took place.

      2. the "witches" were not actually burned. Most were hanged. Drowning was also popular. It was said that if the person floated they were a witch. If they drowned they were not. A man was accused of being a witch at one point and his fate was being crushed to death by a panel on his chest on which large rocks were placed.

      3. the girls who started the hysteria later confessed that they lied. The witch hunts soon stopped.

      4. how many of these people can actually claim to be related to someone who died during the Trials? Or, to listen to them, they themselves must have lived through it. No one claimed to have done so, but the reactions of these people were one of being forced to relive a horrible past trauma (it was a voice chat, which really helped the drama along).

      So the Salem Witch Trials, in reality, had nothing to do with Pagans. It's actually rather similar to the terrorist hunts we have now. Back in Puritan days, if you were different in any way, danced, etc., you were a witch. Now, if you are of Middle Eastern blood or practice Islam, you're a terrorist. And let's not forget the Communist hunt, as well. History repeats itself, eh?

      Here we have a chat room full of Pagans and a young Pagan with a screen name of BurnTheWitch. And because they slept through history class, they were "intolerant" towards him and his good natured play on words.

      And here we have a site with a few Pagans who are turning the deletion of a background into another Salem Witch Hunt.

      It's true. Not many people tolerate the Pagan religions. I've been accused of being a member of a cult to having my religion lie to me about it's real nature. I smile and nod. I explain where people listen, and walk away where people don't. I'm secure in my faith. I know my history, I know about my Celtic roots and who the Druids really were (as much as we know). And I know what I believe deep down inside my heart.

      Deleting a web page background isn't going to change that. And I'm not going to leave the site, either.

      After all, all of these Pagan communities haven't been deleted. Actually, the site owner has helped fix issues in them. So obviously this raging intolerance is being blown a little out of wack. Maybe someone needs to tell the owner about the Pentacle and what it means.

      Oops! I already did. And look at that...my Pentacle is still there.I hope no one takes offense to some things said in this column. It is not meant to be offensive. One of the hopes I have always had for my religion and faith is that the community could come together a little better. It would be a lot more helpful in making the faith more widely accepted.