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Esra Free - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
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- Escaping Wiccan Escapism
[Self-Improvement:Spirituality] Many of the Wiccans I have known or observed over the years appear to find in Wicca a unique brand of escapism from the travails of our modern world, a safe haven from the uniquely complex moral, environmental, social and political issues that define our era. They appear to seek to turn back the clock, to retreat into a pagan agrarian culture that no longer exists, or to "resurrect" a Medieval, "thatched-cottage-on-the-edge-of-the-woods" society that is far more a product of Renaissance festivals and paperback fantasy novels than of anything to be found in real, recorded history. This nostalgic (from the Greek nostos algos, or literally, "To look homeward with longing") brand of Wicca generally embodies an abdication of responsibility for the ills of modern society, rather than the conscious creation of resolutions to those ills and a brighter future for everybody.
But I understand those nostalgic feelings, I really do...
- Eclecticism In Wicca
[Self-Improvement:Spirituality] All Wicca must be eclectic because it is a religion that is by nature both Gnostic and scientific – it is never enough for a Wiccan to accept statements about the nature of reality "on faith," and stop there, as is the rule in many non-Wiccan religions. The Wiccan practitioner, before accepting any belief, practice, code of conduct etc., must personally experience those concepts to hold true or be of value in reality. What does not work, what does not prove to be true in experience, must rightly be jettisoned, and a new theory taken on to replace the one disproved, itself to be put to the same rigorous test. This style of eclecticism – which bears a striking resemblence to the scientific method, and is, in fact, western physical science's true spiritual counterpart – and the constant personal change and growth it engenders, is indicative of Wicca and any other truly living religious tradition...
- Nature Vs Supernature In Wicca
[Self-Improvement:Spirituality] I believe that Wicca is the one religion on Earth most uniquely equipped to face this challenge of modernity, for, in spite of even well-intentioned misrepresentations, Wicca is not now, nor has it ever been, solely an "Earth Religion." Wicca is a religion that is centered in and reveres Nature – whether that Nature be expressed in the teeming life and wind and water of our planet's biosphere, in the nuclear processes that energize our sun, or in the swirling push and pull of gravity that spins our (and every other) galaxy into being....
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