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Aleister Crowley

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earthmuffin:
Can anyone here tell me how he influenced Wicca, if at all? (GW? :whistle:)
Thanks in advance.

Ghost Wolf:
Here ya' go, Muffin: http://www.lashtal.com/nuke/module-subjects-viewpage-pageid-91.phtml

earthmuffin:
Somehow I missed you had answered. Thanks, GW!

I've been doing a little research (more along the lines of why Wiccans think Wicca is a shamanic religion to expand my essay) and I find myself confused about another point. Aren't most of the elements of Wiccan ritual (circle-casting, watchtowers, tools, symbols) from ceremonial magic? I have a hard time locating any books in which the authors admit this or discuss the history of these elements (though a large number of best-selling authors [except for Bonewits] discuss 'shamanic' Wicca)... and some even say Wicca isn't related to ceremonial magic (I think that might have been Buckland but now I can't remember). :confused: Apparently I need to read more but my library is very limited and there is only so much reading online I can do before my eyes want to drop out of my head.

Ghost Wolf:
Reading online hurts my eyes too. Yes, the ceremonial elements in Wicca come from ceremonial magic. No doubt, having done both. Also, the three degree structure and such things as "So mote  it be" and the word "cowan" come from Freemasonry. Gardner was a Mason. The thing is that gardner, when he was initiated into the New Forest coven, was only a First Degree, and so did not have the whole of their teachings. He seems to have filled in the gaps in his knowledge with elements from the Westen mystery Tradition, i.e., Hermeticism and ceremonial magic. It doesn't invalidate the religion, because it works well.

earthmuffin:
That's what I thought. I found the Buckland quote from Wicca for Life. He says under Types and Forms of Magic "Ceremonial magic is quite different [from sympathetic magic] (and not really a part of Wicca, though some forms do dabble in it.)" I think this statement is misleading given the more than subtle influence of ceremonial magic on Wiccan ritual.

I'm beginning to understand the whole "fluffy" problem much better. Do you think the bulk of Wiccan authors today even understand the history of Wicca accurately? It seems like so much slanted information gets repeated over and over in one Wicca 101 book after another that the whole of the religion, Wicca, has probably become an amorphous blob of gibberish. I don't mean to be offensive to anyone, and perhaps I am naive and this is how most religions are, but it drives me crazy to find one person's opinion stated as fact and then copied and incorporated over and over and over on the internet and in books. This certainly seems to be what has happened with Wiccans identifying Wicca with shamanism. Cunningham even says to make a point that Wiccan's have a direct relationship with deity, that Wiccans do not need intermediaries like shamans. "We [Wiccans] are the shamans." I understand his point, but I don't think calling Wiccans shamans is accurate in terms of what shamans specifically believe and do, and people take a statement like that out of context and run with it.

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