Views and opinions on witchcraft

[JBee 10]

Originally posted by Dragon

Hot air I may be full of JBee, but I was quoting and answering a question so tralalah! The rest of your post is about as interesting as something not very interesting, and with about as much effect.

 

Great comeback. And so eloquent. I'll assume from that tongue-tied response that I made my point.

 

But let me get something straight here... You don't approve of people who think they know about witchcraft by 'reading a few books' or 'dabbling a little', but you run some sort of occult shop where people can buy the tools to do just that?

 

Nice.

[Phanerothyme 12]

Originally posted by Ant

That sounds more up my street. I'd very much appreciate a link as well.

 

Well, I suspect it's an urban myth to be honest. Trawled the web for a bit, came up with nothing other than references to it, but no details.

 

And, thinking about it - if it was a statistically significant deviation, then all the airlines would have ESP warnings triggered to go off when a certain configuration of cancellations were registered for a flight. Which would rather render the "premonition" invalid, and subsequently the whole premise of premonition.

 

Dragon's points are pretty valid when he notes that any misfortune is not the result of a curse, but simply an occurrence in a vast sea of individual occurences. And there is nothing that precludes the existence of mutually exclusive occurences either, if you accept 'bifurcation' as the solution to the problem of uncertainty (and Schrödinger's Cat).

 

The package of "cause & effect" is not as rock solid as it used to be, and fully disappears in extreme close up...

 

To me there is something 'fishy' about the apparent forward flow of time and the binding of this to the second law of thermodynamics (or vice versa), and that it may merely require a different mode of perception or paradigm in order to 'see' in 'all directions'.

 

However any progress like this is still likely to be limited to the sub-atomic scale for now.

[Eleri 10]

A slight aside from the main topic, just ignore me....

 

Originally posted by deadgobby

whicthcraft ,druidism, christ and the goddess......................long ago in britain and ireland the druids had an ecological religion .there in the white secret islands ,they worshippid the goddess diana in ireland her children were the tuath de danann

 

Um, no, not really, the Celts weren't particularly any more ecological than any other civilisation.

 

And it's Danu, dear, mother goddess, a big girl according to most accounts. Not Diana, she was a skinny Roman deity, closely allied with the Greek deity Artemis amongst others, and associated with hunting and the moon.

 

Yes, I'm aware that if you try really hard, you can associate any Celtic deity with the ones from Graeco-Roman mythology, it all comes from those years the Celts spent messing around on the European mainland.*takes tongue out of cheek* But please...leave Danu alone in this case.

 

 

.. the brutal roman male dominated colonialists destroyed the druids in britain,

 

It was political, rather than religious, the druids had a firm control over society and weren't playing ball with the Romans. As a sidenote, the Romans, as a people, had not embraced Christianity at this point.

 

they never got to ireland until the quisling st patrick did thier dirty work. ]

 

AFAIK, St. Patrick was in Ireland towards the end of the Roman period in Britain. If you try Googling St. Patrick, you may find quite a few sites name his parents as being Roman or Romano-British (I'm not getting into that argument, there's no way of proving it either way, any more than you could prove that Arthur existed), but in that case, he's hardly a quisling to the 'original' people of Britain. BTW, the Celts were not the original people

 

celtic druid learning lived on in its occult schools ,[/b[

 

Have you any evidence for these 'Celtic Druid Occult' schools?

 

then after the romans left,came the saxon invasions and along with them saxon witchcraft.those two joined together in britain

 

Firstly, there's distinct evidence that the Saxons did not invade, per se, they settled. Big difference, a lot less violence for a start.

 

Saxon witchcraft???? You're upsetting a lot of Heathens there, dear. That aside, yes, some folklore and suchlike did get amalgamated over time. I'll repeat that, over time.

 

*Skips rest of rant*

 

For $deities sake, at least get your facts right and stop playing the martyr card. It does paganism no good at all.

 

*goes off in search of more caffeine to let the others get on with their discussion*

[Guest Ant]

DRAGON:

If I cast a spell to make you break your leg then something must make your leg break that cannot be explained away which is pretty damned difficult if your mind is set on not believing[...]

 

If you get a common cold this weekend then you are just like thousands of other people who get colds. Just recently got rid of a cold myself. Was not magik either in me catching a cold or in the cure --- at least I don't think so. I could be wrong.

 

You know where my shop is. Pop in and we'll see what misfortune can be arranged to follow you. Simple as that.

 

Try again...

 

I don't claim supernatural abilities. I have no idea of the location of your shop. Walking into your shop only to have both legs broken in a mysterious hit and run on the street outside wouldn't prove anything to me. I don't want to waste my time visiting your shop, surely you can act just as well at a distance? I must by now be winding you up to such an extent that inflicting a dose of heavy phlegm on me this weekend would be a pleasure and a joy?

 

I fully accept what you say about the inevitibility of a closed mind dismissing a request for a common cold after they had requested it as "coincidence", but I personally would be mightily impressed if you could do it. If you could make me pregnant I would be 100% convinced of your mysterious powers.

 

My mind is not set on believing, but I consider that as a positive as opposed to a negative attitude. I get accused of having a closed mind all the time, and it's tripe. I'm sat here waiting for you make me a believer - glad of a conversion. Do it. Give me a cold and I'll tell all the forum at the weekend that I have the sniffles. I feel on top of the world - coming down with a cold in 24 hours would impress me and many other forumers I'm sure. Don't waffle, Dragon, just do it.

 

edit: If you have herbs to pluck and simmer, I'll happily postpone buying my Night Nurse until next weekend.

 

second edit:

PHANEROTHYME:

Dragon's points are pretty valid when he notes that any misfortune is not the result of a curse, but simply an occurrence in a vast sea of individual occurences. And there is nothing that precludes the existence of mutually exclusive occurences either, if you accept 'bifurcation' as the solution to the problem of uncertainty (and Schrödinger's Cat).

But depending on either the nature or the number of repetitions of the coincidence, it's significance, for me, would be acceptable as evidence.

[deadgobby 10]

AFAIK, St. Patrick was in Ireland towards the end of the Roman period in Britain. If you try Googling St. Patrick, you may find quite a few sites name his parents as being Roman or Romano-British (I'm not getting into that argument, there's no way of proving it either way, any more than you could prove that Arthur existed), but in that case, he's hardly a quisling to the 'original' people of Britain. BTW, the Celts were not the original people

*goes off in search of more caffeine to let the others get on with their discussion* [/b]

ah i like you eleri an" expert" who like all good experts know's nothing at all about what he's expert about ,before we go on about st patrick and proof..what do you know of martia proba,the brehon laws,the sechus mor and st patrick????as for googling, people like you make two mistakes .....they think everythings on the internet...and every thing they read on the internets true...

[Eleri 10]

Originally posted by deadgobby

ah i like you eleri an" expert" who like all good experts know's nothing at all about what he's expert about ,before we go on about st patrick and proof..what do you know of martia proba,the brehon laws,the sechus mor and st patrick????as for googling, people like you make two mistakes .....they think everythings on the internet...and every thing they read on the internets true...

 

*coughs* Actually, love, a degree in archaeology and years spent researching does give me some knowledge, but I don't claim to be an expert in anything. And nope, I don't believe for a second that everything is on the internet, nor that what is is all true.

 

What I do believe in is that people who give out misinformation in an effort to sway others to their cause need sussing out on occasion.

[DragonofAna 10]

JBee - no not really. I found your post boring and empty - that is my personal perception of it. Others may find it interesting. Good for them. Frankly my dear - I don't give a damn! So keep on going. Sure you are having a bit of fun. Yes - I do run a shop that I hope will eventually cater for what witches require, but getting the decent stock is not easy. I have nothing against people dabbling, and if they want to call themselves witches then that is their business. If they want to call themselves zulu warriors then that is fine as well, and if they really want to be called tomatoes - that does not make them tomatoes does it?

 

Ant - round and round in circles. I hear this so often from people and really it bears no relevance to what people want to believe. If someone wants to have strong faith in magik then that is surely their business. I neither wish to prove nor disprove my faith to you. I am not in the business of converting people, or trying to. I will leave that to the jehovas or christians.

 

Eleri - your research and archaological hunting must be pretty special as there are many many others in the same field as you who counter your claims. They are all based upon supposition and guesswork anyhow. If you dig up a few celtic trinkets at a particular site then there must have been celts living there?

 

You may find it interesting to read "Mysteries of Britain" for a start - a book that relies on many forms of information and not just archaology.

 

This debate is getting nowhere aside from the obvious - there are those who believe and will continue to do so, and there are those who do not, and will continue not to do so.

 

Dragon

[Phanerothyme 12]

Originally posted by deadgobby

what do you know of martia proba

it wasn't her real name surely?

[Eleri 10]

Originally posted by Dragon

Eleri - your research and archaological hunting must be pretty special as there are many many others in the same field as you who counter your claims. They are all based upon supposition and guesswork anyhow. If you dig up a few celtic trinkets at a particular site then there must have been celts living there?

 

You may find it interesting to read "Mysteries of Britain" for a start - a book that relies on many forms of information and not just archaology.

 

This debate is getting nowhere aside from the obvious - there are those who believe and will continue to do so, and there are those who do not, and will continue not to do so.

 

Dragon

 

Erm...yeah.... Where did that first paragraph come from, Dragon? AFAIK, I said nothing about Celtic artefacts indicating a Celtic site, indeed, I said nothing about the Celts calling themselves Celts, or being a homogeneous people.

 

I don't deny that archaeologists are probably only second to pagans in never being able to agree on anything.

 

And I never said that my research was purely archaeological.