As the Awakenings are the time of the birth and death of religions and cultures, a new religion was born revolving about the birth of a demi-God known as Jesus Christ. Note: a demi God is the product of an unwanted sexual union between a human female and an ethereal entity, in short, a rape.
The original teachings of this being were the same as that of the Elder Gods, one of perfect peace, perfect love, and perfect harmony with nature. But slowly the teachings of this being were changed and altered to fit the needs of certain individuals andgroups. And a new God was being created, one of vengeance and jealousy.
The basic precept of this new religion being Patriarchal, or male oriented, had spread into the entire Mediterranean basin where male dominance had been popular due to the influenceof the leaders known as the Caesars.
The next six centuries passed with the world in relatively co-existing harmony. Most of all of the ancient cultures had vanished, the new religion was creating themselves together with their new God, the Buddahs teachings were gaining popularity in the far east, and the Wicca were content within themselves with only an occasional raid and conquest by the Normans from France. But as peace is a fleeting thing, so was this peace to be broken. In the late 7th century, 683 c.e., the Catholics held a meeting of their religious hierarchy and representatives of the physicians of the time, the meeting was known as the ‘Council of Nicea. It was determined that the members of the matriarchal religions of the world, and any others who didn’t believe in their God, must be controlled and converted for their own good. And that the only ones who were qualified to be physicians were men. An interesting fact because their healing at the time was done with leaches and blood letting! And that the men were the only ones with the intelligence to know what was right for the world and that a woman’s place was to be subservient to the males.
A plan of conversion was quickly instituted and was fueled to furor by the simple changing of one of the lines of their Bible from “Thou shall not allow a poisoner to practice her art” to “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live”! This is Exodus 22:18!
In the meantime, the conversion plan had begun on a world wide basis, the entire Incan civilization, over 3 million people men, women, and children were murdered at the advice of the Catholic priests by Cortez. Two Catholic priests in Germanywrote the Mallus Mallificarum, or Witch Hammer; a book detailing the methods for discovering a ‘witch’, for forcing herconfession, and torturing her until she confessed and converted. Just before she was burned to death! The Holy Crusades left a path of death and destruction across Europeand the Mid-East killing anyone who would not convert immediately. Actually, the ‘Christian Soldiers’ were really hired mercenaries.
In Britton and Ireland, the conversion had to be handled in a different way than in the rest of the world. The reason for this was that the people couldn’t understand why they should give up a religion and way of life that had worked for thousands of years with obvious results for one that had no basis in fact and that they were told that they could only believe, not see. Needless to say, they didn’t convert.
So the Catholic Church began a campaign directedin two ways, first they concentrated on the ‘royalty’, the wealthy leaders of the towns and villages, as well as the kings and queens. As the new religion was popular now with the royalty of Europe, to convert them was easy. Now with this kind of influence, the Catholic Church was able to force the people to convert by order of their rulers and the pain of death. But even still, there were more who refused to convert to the new religion. To convert them, the church began to adopt many of the pagan holidaysfor their own, changing them a little, so conversion would be easy. Besides, if they didn’t convert they were executed as a ‘witch’. With this, began the systematic destruction of temples where the churches of the new religion were built so that some of the old energy could be recognized, the groves and other sacred sites were also destroyed, nearly destroying the Wicca.
But it was when the killings by fire, hanging, drowning, and mutilation that the core of the Wicca went underground. All written recordswere buried or destroyed. All items that could be identified with the Wicca were destroyed, and tools of the craft were made into simple items that were easily disguised and hidden. Very few of the bravest Wiccans continued to practice as healers, for ifthey were caught healing with herbs they were certain to be murdered for being a witch and having sex with Satan, an entity that even today we do not recognize as to exist. So, nearly extinct, a few strong families remained. They became secretive, passingon the ancient knowledge only among themselves, keeping it alive for generations to come when it would be safe again. No longer were they the leaders, healers, or counselors. They were merely very devout families living in mortal fear.
For nearly 1,300 years the persecution and prosecution continued. The murders officially stopped by the beginning of the 18th century, but still continued sporadically after that until 1951 when the last of the Anti-Witchcraft laws were repealed. Finally, we could practice our faith without the fear of prosecution; unfortunately, the reality and threat of persecution remained. But still there began an attempt to resurrect the Craft of the Wise, but far too much time had passed. The Ancient Knowledge, for all intents and purposes, had disappeared. Most of the old families had died off or had been converted by marriage.
This was until scholars such as Gardner, Crowley, and Linder began to search throughout the world for references to the old religion. Through their searching, they found old family grimoires that contained some rituals, recipes, and spells, but never enough to piece together the whole truth. But the search continued. Seekers began to search for the few hereditary families that still remained. But when they foundthem, they were turned away because the old fears still remained. I recall when I was little, my grandmother chasing off one of these seekers. She told me that even though he may have deserved it, she couldn’t give him the knowledge that he wanted. I didn’t agree. But my mother told me that I had to be careful not to speak too openly about my beliefs because as my grandmother said, “the smell of burning flesh is still strong in the nose of the churches”! And she was right. To this day, there are those of the Wicca who are shot at during their rituals, fired from their jobs, and even losing their homes because of religious persecution. I know because I lost a home due to the goodness of a ‘good Christian’. But, how can we expect those of the ‘common religion’ not to be confused and fearful of us, when we are confused about our own beliefs?
And in retrospect to the ‘Burning Times’, we cannot use the past as a weapon for the present. The Jewish use the Holocaust and the genocide of their people for public opinion and to try to erase hate in the world. The African Americans use the 200 year old issue of slavery for public outrage, why I don’t know because it only creates the hatred and the prejudice that they are trying to eliminate.
In the same vane, we cannotuse our past to affect our future. Nothing can be changed, and only further resentment and division can be the result. Crying fire will not bring back my ancestor, Ann Fremont who was burned; and it will not bring back 3,000,000 Incans. The past is the past. It is your future that concerns me.