by Ellen (UCLA CS Dept.)

In November 1984, a net.religion correspondent named Mike Huybensz criticized contemporary Witchcraft as "systematic fraud" — a fabrication of fake lineages and invented history, designed to benefit claimants. Ellen, a UCLA computer scientist and Pagan practitioner who had already posted an essay and book list defending her path, responded. Her reply draws on medieval history (Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror), anthropology (Margaret Murray's The Witch-cult in Europe), and first-hand knowledge of her own community. She concedes some points — yes, some practitioners invent genealogies, yes, there is historical revisionism — while defending the core: that contemporary Paganism is a sincere revival of pre-Christian goddess-worship, and that Starhawk is not a fraud.

Ellen's voice — lowercase, direct, feminist, occasionally sharp — is preserved exactly as she wrote it. The ASCII cat face at the end is hers.

In response to Mike Huybensz's criticism of contemporary witchcraft:

On several points he is correct. However, i feel, naturally, that his cynicism is overstated.

It is true that there are contemporary witches with made-up genealogies, claiming to be hereditary witches. It is unfortunate that people feel the need to justify their beliefs this way, that they think they must be validated by historical data. But it is also a distinct possibility that some witches today DO come from families of witches which go back for generations.

It is also true that there is a certain amount of historical revisionism going on. One must remember, however, that the past records of witches were written from a rather biased point of view, that of the church. In the middle ages, the Catholic church (the only church at the time, or at least it wanted to be that way), having wiped out most "heretics," Christians who did not feel that the Pope was the only guy with a Hot-Line to God (obviously not the only or even chief difference, but that's another subject altogether, and not quite in my field), was still feeling insecure. The plague had run through Europe, wiping out the population, from 1/3 to 1/2 in most towns. The populace was blaming whatever they could. In many cases, of course, the Jews got it. The situation was worse in the Western areas, and Jews (at least the ones who weren't burned in their houses and synagogues) fled to Eastern Europe, where they were safer, at least temporarily. Up to this time it was heresy to believe in the existence of witches. After this time, it was heresy NOT to believe in witches. There has been some documentation (after the fact, naturally, since there were hardly any objective reporters at the time, and most practitioners were not literate) of witchcraft as remnants of earlier pre-Christian practices, which would vary from region to region, depending on local culture.

Instead of seeing that the country folk were worshipping nature deities and practicing fertility rites; instead of admitting that women could be healers, using herbs and common sense, better than "surgeons," who were all men with university degrees; and since the populace in general was debilitated by pestilence, war, and natural catastrophes, it was not unusual for hatred and fear to be turned on people, in this case, at least 90% women (who better to hate women than celibate men), who did not follow a dictated and dogmatic norm. Europe as a whole was undergoing a radical change in social, political, and economic structures. The church felt the need to consolidate its power. And then came the Reformation. So the murder continued. Salem, Mass., was the last large execution. By then, perhaps some people actually WERE worshipping the Devil. But with the types of torture used, people would confess to anything, just to end the pain. The estimates range from 500,000 to 9 million burned, drowned, hung, and tortured to death, within 150 years of the plague, and over 90% of them women. I find it impossible to see how only women were worshipping the Devil. And, of course, probably most of those executed were not even witches in any sense of the word (other than as a snipe at a woman of unattractive demeanor, physical or social).

[Documentation: see Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror for historical background of the Middle Ages; Margaret Murray, The Witch-cult in Europe, Oxford University Press — she was an anthropologist and her books were published in the '40's, well before the current "fad"]

In many cases, what is termed "witchcraft" today IS a revival and revision of pagan goddess-worship, since in most cases, females were worshipped long before humankind conceived of one male god. Therefore, its roots are far-ranging, both in time and space (meaning, on this planet, by looking in many cultures for inspiration). Many groups, maybe even most groups worship both male and female principles, practice healing on both spiritual and material levels, and take an interest in ecology. (Harassment is a very real problem — with the current political and religious climate, many people who follow non-mainstream paths are being harassed, but especially those who follow Pagan paths or are atheists or agnostics. Personal friends of mine have received hate mail from "Christian" organizations, fundamentalists. Not everyone who posts a smiley face is joking.)

As this is the case, then Mike's cynical remarks about "systematic fraud designed to increase the wealth, stature, security, or importance of the claimant" are blatantly false. There are certainly folks out there trying to make a buck off of any fool who'll fall for any advertising ploy. That's true in just about every area of human endeavour. i am certainly not making any money off of this. it is a SPIRITUAL path, and does not feed anything but my psyche/soul/spirit/whatever-you-choose-to-call-it. The people with whom i associate are sincere, but not dewy-eyed; they include university professors, a hospital administrator, a political activist, an office manager of a large modern business, a physicist, etc.

Sure, there are phoney occultists all over the place, have been for centuries. (And quack doctors, and criminal politicians, and teachers only in it to pass the time until they can find something else to do, and religious leaders/priests/ministers/monks having illicit relations with their followers, etc.) But don't throw everybody into the same circus side-show or materialistic, inconsiderate, greedy, selfish sub-group. The author of the book which Mike "re-quoted" is sincere, genuine, honest, caring, etc. Starhawk is definitely NOT an "individual fraud." Neither am i.

Then, again, i agree with Mike when he says "the substance of enlightenment lies in the process of looking, rather than in the mumbo-jumbo...". For in the search it is to be presumed, or at least hoped, that we learn about ourselves and how we perceive our place in life, in the world, in the cosmos, in whatever you feel is the larger, over-riding motivator of being, whether it is the Goddess, God, a pantheon, humankind, or Chaos.

I hope to be posting some more details soon, so that the reasons for the current revival/revision of Paganism become clear.

Merry Part.

Colophon

Written by Ellen (UCLA CS Department, [address removed]), posted to net.religion on November 7, 1984. Message-ID: [email protected]. A response to a net.religion post by Mike Huybensz criticizing contemporary Witchcraft as fraudulent. This is Ellen's third major post defending modern Paganism — a companion to "Other Spiritual Paths — Paganism and the Case for Religious Diversity" and "Pagan and Wiccan Books — An Annotated Reading List." Together, they form one of the earliest extended defenses of contemporary Paganism on the internet.

Preserved from the UTZOO Usenet archive (University of Toronto) for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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