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It seems that an often overlooked aspect of witchcraft today is the variety of paths available and the way culture could enhance that path. We seem to think often in very Eurocentric terms when we look to what is defined as witchcraft today and it has helped to blur the line that exists between witchcraft in general and religions such as Wicca. This is probably due to the term "witch" being a European word but the definition if I'm not mistaken is the practice of magic, spellcasting or healing.

But there exists a huge number of cultural beliefs and therefore as many different forms of witchcraft. Shamanic traditions go back thousands of years on almost every continent and are often a combination of ancestor worship, spiritism, and animism. They usually incorporate ritual magic and the use of visions as well as spells and healing. This would seem to qualify them in the definition for witchcraft. I wonder how many people have researched their ancestory and adopted into their witchcraft some of these very ancient shamanic traditions or learned a complete tradition in it's original form (or near thereabouts).

very interesting i must say... yes there are indeed a lot of tradtions, wicca in itself has a lot of tradtions (the gradenina, alexearin, dianinc to name just a few), also wicca has some sabbaths which have celtic origins....

its surely for me very important to search the root of the path chosen, how this has evolved and what connections it has t oother paths as well, as i feel that in order to understand what is your real path, you need to know the roots as well

(its surely for me very important to search the root of the path chosen, how this has evolved and what connections it has t oother paths as well, as i feel that in order to understand what is your real path, you need to know the roots)

Yeah knowing the root of YOUR path and how it connects to others helps you advance down the path that you choose.

I know there are a lot of different forms of witchcraft and what not. I just am starting out and am really taken aback at how much there is to learn about. It is quite intimidating to tell you the truth...kinda hard to know where to start.

yes i feel that it is important to know the roots of YOUR path

I've also heard of Scandinavian or Norse Wicca based on Norse Shamanism or Saedr.

When you refer to the root of your path, are you talking about the root of the magic that you practice or the root of your own lineage. It seems that since focus and manifestation is a large part of witchcraft, that knowing your history or lineage to a tradition could help in that focus.

Someone from South American native descent may have a better focus with an Amazon shaman tradition than with a European Wicca tradition since they could develop a sense of greater connection to their path.

in my case i think its more about the magickal path im following, as my heritage is maltese and here in malta the mosst predominat religion is the roman catholic one....

Enlightened Darkness - Do you consider your lineage when you choose or are you more interested in the feel of a path or are you more interested in the focus (healing vs. visions vs. spell craft)

Rowiel - I'm afraid I'm not totally up on the history of Malta. Was it always Roman Catholic or was there a pagan presence first?

it was pagan actually.. till of course st paul came along and made us all devoted roman catholics....

we have a lot of pagan temples, dating even as far as about 13, 000 years ago.. we have the statues of the fertility goddess, the sacred feminine, and the hagar qim temple is build perefectly in algmnet for the summer solstice.....

so Malta of old was pagan actually.... most poeple here would have a heart ache to learn this tough now a days ;)

So then do you incorporate those aspects of your history into your Wiccan tradition? Or do the two not mesh?

It sounds like Malta has a pretty rich pagan history.

What about others? Is anyone here a practicing shaman?

yes indeed i do incorporate this aspect of my heritage in my practice of the craft... in fact as a statue of the goddess i have a small replica of the fertility goddess that was found in the temples, becuase i belive that these roots have guided me into the path that i have chosen now.... because i became my interest in wicca after i have studied the heritage we have of the temples when i was a teenager...

yes we have a rich pagan histroy.. its a ptiy that we actually deny it!

Right now I haven't specifically chosen anything. I want to learn a lot of what there is to know about all of it before I choose. Right now its more research than anything, then I will go from what I learn. I am really the only one out of the people who I know that am interested in it so I'm starting at the bottom as far as knowledge and choices.

What ever you want to call it, and where ever you think it's roots may be...It's still all forms of energy manipulation...Naming it and sub-categorizing it, only complicates and limits your abilties...Less thought and more action...Clarity of mind and just doing...

If you cannot name, there is no way you can control it. That is basic engineering. Without a name you got no magic.

very interesting i say.

I disagree about the naming miz, that entirely is but one system of belief...
to the shamanic ideal a things name matters not to what it is....and suing magic is a principle of exercised force of will and energy expenditure towards a goal....naming a thing isn't of much inport in that

I know there is alot of books and article about witchcraft, but where can I get good books atou Shaman and how to become one...

Thank you for your info, I appreciate.

The classic book on the history of sympathetic magic is the The Golden Bough.

To follow your own roots into the magical path is like a geneology. Even though my roots lead me back to European backgrounds, I have found that meditation and study is best to use to find the path you are supposed to be on.

Look deep within your self to find the Answers...Naming and reseaching things through taited historical data, will only cloud your Truth...You hold your Answers within...Go beyond human and physical limitations...You will find a infinit amount of possibilities..

yes i agree, it is within you, and through meditation you can truly find your own way... this is what i have done, as the society i live in does not accept other forms of religons....

Golden bough...though a very good reference text on it's own is actually more druidic than shamanic....tho the two hold many of the same idea structures...
a few good ones I have found are:
By oak ash and thorn ( again more druidic)
and Advanced celtic shamanism, both by D.J.Conway
and a book called shamanic principles, I don't recall the authors name tho

This is a very interesting topic, and though some people might follow their lineage through their practices, it doesn't always mean that it was the religous attributes that made them a witch or shaman. In my family, the natural abilities can be traced back to almost every side even though I'm German, English, Irish, Dutch and Native american.

I think it is important to follow the ways the draw you to them, weather your heritage, background,colour or creed is the same or not, i am not Native American but in my heart, and the way I live my life I am...

very true....heritage is just one road to these teachings.....you need not be a viking to follow aesatru, you need not be a celt to be a druid, and you need not be a native to research shamanism

I am an ancestral witch. I was raised with knowledge that I cannot explain to people who are just awakening to this side of themselves.

I was fortunate to meet one of the descendants of the last Shaman of the free Eastern Shoshone tribe and have a daughter who has gifts in both Wicca and shamanism and is a very gifted healer.

My life has been blessed by my knowledge and by my ancestral family and its legacy - but it is unexplainable and mysterious and I dislike discussing myself in this fashion.

But I love to hear all about others understanding of these beliefs...I enjoy the debate about "describing evil" and how these peoples were anything but evil but were all literally almost decimated.

If our world suffers as it does now it is a direct reflection upon the decimation of our "wise ones" either through the inquisition and witch "trials" or the destruction of the Native Americans culture and society.

We are reaping what we sowed as a race now...

Interesting... its true... many people have this kind of believes such as wicca and shamanism..... but unfortunately because of the mith many societies have that witchcraft = to demon.... it had not be freely released..... to the public... My parents had told me stories about many rituals they had seen.... as many stories of friends of them which were affected by witchcraft.... specially woodoo.....(think its written like that).....

Malta was perhaps an accessible mountain during the ice ages. The Mediterranen was but a large lake with one mouth. There have been people there for millions of years for sure as it is in between Italy and Africa, and I think closer to Africa. The genetic mix of whites and blacks probably arise in Roweils beauty. I did not know she was from there.

I think the infusion of witches on a vampire site is an unexpected bonus that keeps me intriguied, beguiled or bewitched.

They may be considered dark arts for others do not understand because of lack of light on the subject, but I was not aware that they were hunted down! That disturbs me, when knowledge from the millions of years ago gets erased, it make the Library of Alexandria buring down look like nothing.

There are other forces that hide this knowledge, personally I know all that I know would be considered magic to some, and things that appear to be magic are just things that are unexpailned. There is perhaps a simple science not yet understood in understanding healing, spell casting and the other powers mentioned. Again it is censorship by oppressive forces and the nature of magic needing to be hidden for improper use by evil which do not allow the light of day to master and fuse all the "dark" arts.

There is much power in what Felix searches for, I do not thinlk that merely by meditation in one life he will be able to plug into the communal collective of the erased lost arts of the Shamans whom ruled the hundreds of thousands of years of clans, and all the things they learned by accident only through the passing of many many generations.

However, I do believe, the search is worth it, as long as what he intends to do with the powers is rigfteous. Yet, I do believe, a book is a book in certain hands, just as a sword is more powerful in arms that wield it well, I do believe these girls and the few warlock on this site actually have ingrained natural powers handed down genetically through brain chemistry, by marriages of like minds to further enhance powers of witchcraft.

I do not have their power, and no book on spells would do anything for me, even if I had Felix's interest, the supernatural soul is most rare.

There are many types of witchcraft, i would have to agree. Which is why when one goes into witchcraft not knowing what type they want they find themselves very confused.

I myself had not researched the roots much of my relion until recently because I decided i wanted to know the traditional way of things considering Pegan is one of the oldest religions there is. It is quite interesting to look back on the roots of things and i think everyone needs to do it to truely understand witchcraft.
-MixedBlood-

I'm am first and formost a Scot of the clan MacArthur rich name that I know of others parts of my heritage as well I have some french, spanish, english, welsh...On and on but my mother made sure I was proud of the Scotish part of my history..I have studied with native americans because I relate well with tribal systems and oral tradtions..I am a witch I always knew this my mother was a witch she taught me to call ti the wise craft as her mother taught her..I have studied many different kinds of Wicca although I no longer claim being wiccan I follow my own path I have no idea where this leads me other then a better understanding of myself

there are many for whom an ancestral memory has played a part.....however small or large...but the picture is larger than this....
I feel that no religion or path has it quite right...and yet they all do at the same time
they all have a peice of one great puzzle.....they all look at their peice and say this is a great picture....and they all seem to miss that they only have one small peice....
so look into them all...and maybe you might begin to see a larger picture

Here. Here. Daermon I tend to agree i take from what i find feels right to me and leave the rest for the masses

very interesting indeed... good read

well, isn't pagan no god worship?

And if these magic arts talked about are pagan, then maybe it is in a way, the inheritence of knowledge from the time we plugged into ourselves as if we were gods. This is where these powers arose, in thinking for ourselves, and taking great pains to ensure our survival with knowledge.

I can see why the Salem trials happened, it is going against god to obtain these powers, sacrilage of sorts and blasphemy, to think we have any powers at all...

I think the Church would have reconsidered burning witches at Salem if they recognized that the entymology of the word Salem is just a shortened abstraction of Jerusalem.

I don't think the lesson from Jesus is for us not to be godly, and yet this is what has happened over time. We should be empowered to make our selves fit for survival, and filling our minds with power leads to long life.

I agree with philosophical fusion, I must have been a Samurai in my past life.

There is no one way, all the spokes of the wheel come together at the hub and make the wheel go round. Mysticism is one of these hubs, and we have a wobblely wheel because peeps in the past have always tried to disturb one of the foundations of Civilization, before there even was civilizations...

vampireinthesun - thanks for the compliment hehe...

well.. it is well known that malta was part of a bigger countrt before the ice age about 13,000 years ago... as we have underwater temples that are similar to the ones we have on land... this expands till greece actually... and some say that malta is the fragmanet of lost atlantis... i dont know for sure if malta was atalnits or not... all i know is that our civilazation is surely one of the oldest and it was pagan before st paul came around....

Daermon, I also agree with your statement.

I was just discussing this topic last evening and said that I believe that the Western European Wiccans were powerful for the discovery of directing their will power and the creations they manifested while the Native Americans and other more "primitive" tribes had harnessed more of a primal "earth" power and lived in complete harmony with nature.

Both groups seemed to utilize differing abstract forces of nature to create their "magick" which in turn created their reality.

So we've actually got two things a brewing here.

Firstly, I agree that one should not be held down to their lineage as their sole form of metaphysical study, but in many religions, esoteric traditions and mystical study, we find the use of a 'fetish'. This isn't a fetish like bdsm or a shoe fetish but the traditional definition:
An object or word that would give added power to the art of worship, or spell casting or healing, etc.

My thought was that one's lineage could act as a fetish to enhance the connection one feels to their art.

The second path I see is that of personal interest. Not everyone is connected to their family history and for those especially, it may be more useful to simply focus on something that sparks interest and focus.

Daermon - I agree that it would seem most metaphysical manipulation is based on energy and could simply be force of will regardless of tradition or religion...but a name and a tradition gives things focus and it would seem, power. I also can't help but chime in and agree with VampSun on the idea that meditation would likely not bring about the sheer volume of knowledge and experience passed down through generations and millenia.

this is one good thread ...i keep havin to check back in to see ...

There are multudes of paths magickall yone may follow to enhance thier abilities. Every religion including christianity has thier own form of magick, weather they call it such or not, one just has to find it.

True but it often seems like the really ancient paths of the shaman are overlooked or at least not discussed as much. There have been a couple of folks who are influenced by the native american paths. I've always been fascinated with that one as it works so closely with animals (who are near and dear to me). In fact it often seems that in most shaman traditions, there is primarily that link between man and his 'brothers and sisters' in the animal kingdom. I know that the South American ones focus on that a lot as well.

Ya the south americans have that conection.But anyone can be close to animals and even comunicate to then.
it's all in the mind

I've been learning to connect with animal spirits through meditation, and I've been learning a bit about celtic shamanism as well. Very interesting material...

interesting

there is a reason the ancient paths of shamanism are rarely spoken of.....all the info is conjecture at very best
they were wiped out very effectively by their enemies.....the few who got away were mostly mere initiates.....so the greater lessons were lost
Vampinthesun: you say you can see why the burning times occurred...but the problem with this is that most of those tortured and killed in those times were not occult at all....but innocent victims of a religion gone mad for a time assisted by a greedy and corrupt judicial system.
felix: yes definately a persons heritage itself could act as their focussing point.....

uh huh, yeah, they weren't witches, I never saw the Scarlet Letter, it was just that these men were throwing themselves at these girls, and so they thought they must have put a spell on them. They must be witches, they thought and burned them.

What of the inquisition? Is that related to witchcraft or just religion spazing out again. Hugenots?

Felix the lucky slave coming up with the fetish angle. Well, flattery will get you nowheres, saying I am right about meditaqtion being useless in tapping into the history of magic. Meditation can focus your mind like prayer to see what thought keeps popping up to break the mind silence so you can focus on which direction to study. I can't meditate, but it acts as prayer I assume. When people pray they ask for things. Meditation is asking yourself things, is it about clearing the mind? or finding out what you are obsessed about?

It is the mind which makes mole hills into mountains, and mountains back into mole hills.

Come to think of it, Malta is rather round like Atlantis has been described. I didn't know about the underwater temples. Malta definately predates Crete, and Crete was the first Civilization in the Mediterranean, way before Greece. BUt I am off topic sooo.....

VampSun99 - Heheh I think you're mincing my 'fetish' definitions. But I should have expected it at some point I guess eh?

Vlad3 - closeness true. I've always maintained a better relationship with my four legged friends then I have with those who walk upright. Maybe I agree too much with Orwell's Animal Farm (Four legs good - Two legs bad). But shamanism and animism deals with more than communication with animals...it's a form of tapping into the spirit or power of animals and in some cases, becoming the animals.

LaMuerte - are you learning via book or force of will or a teacher?

Daermon - In Europe and a good part of North America, I agree with you, but Africa, Austrailia and South America all have pretty solid histories of surviving shamans that have passed that knowledge down. I don't know how many have published and I'm guessing few to none but the traditions are still there. There's a fair amount of Native American shamans who might argue their extinction as well.

There are alot of good post and answers here Myself was raised that even to study or learn all the different rites out there is good you( I ) must find it in myself as to the true path to walk down and to be strongest in it is within one's self the correct path to follow or practice and until you are true within yourself there will always be confusion to you and how you practice or how you believe in you own powers and strenghts.~~~ I come from a long line of American Indians and this just has always been our teaching..... once you find your inner self and strenght then and only then will one know the true path to follow~~ Just how my people believe is all ~~ of course everyone has opinons so~~ Hope It did help some one out there though~~

*bump

very interesting nice info

i want to know more about wicca

very interesting

many tradtions used to be passed over by the word of mouth, onlt high magick was actually written down.. this aould explain also why certain knoweldge was lost over time

Felix:
yes the south american tribes have held far more of their elder teachings intact...as have the native tribes up north...the the natives have lost agreat deal of the teaching due to european re-education, and a large disinterest in the past from their youths...

and V.I.T.S.:
once again you utterly astonish me with your capacity for misunderstanding a concept....you mention the spansih inquisition.....yet what do you really know of this time in history mr."I used to be a teacher"?, how many thousands were tortured into confessions, how much torture does it take to get someone to admit to being a witch, how many turns of the thumbscrews, how many broken digits?how many tiny cuts with red hot blades to cauterize the wounds......simple and recorded fact is that all the people who were jailed as witches, had all their worldly goods seized by the inquisitors and the local magistrates to divide amongst them...nothjing more than simple human greed was required for this....in some cases there were not even trials....in others all it took was having a jewish ancestor somewhere in your family line.....as someone who keeps pointing out how he used to teach...try doing a little homework on a subject before stepping into the ring to spar.
for I am getting tired of having to educate you

I am glad someone understands that aspect. I have Native American blood in me. Sometimes I get visions, and when I do, I think of my ancestors. So yea, I do not really see it as being a witch or worlock.

Daermon I was absent that day. I actually did a google search right after posting that. I indicated that I knew little of the Inquisiton, and I was just throwing it out there maybe there could be some significance with the topic.

The inquisiton according to that quick search came up with that heretics were the ones being attacked, but it didn't go into great detail about what defined a heritic.

I mean there is alot I don't know, I mean what is a Barbary pirate? History is an amazing thing, but I was a Physical Education teacher, teaching health, Physics, Math among other things, but they never put me to sub in a history class. So I am sorry for posting something invalid to the topic. Unless of course heretics are witches? In that case alluding to the inquisition was valid to the topic tangent that is indicating the full and complete total erasure of witchcraft. I am sure all the best spells have been lost. Normally the most powerful things get buried by time for the minds that contain such knowledge get eradicated.

Rowiel - I've read where in many ancient cultures, the writing of sacred knowledge was actually taboo. The unfortunate result of this is that much of that knowledge was lost when persecution hampered the free flow of teaching directly from adept to initiate.

The one I am most familiar with deals with the druids. The Ogham Tree Letters or Ogham alphabet was a sacred alphabet strictly for divination and ritual. Druid 'books' would be single leaves bearing it's name (corresponding to the 'alphabet') and strung together with other leaves in long houses or 'library halls'. This allowed them to 'write' without using the 'hand of man'. Obviously because we're talking about real leaves, the idea that these 'books' survived or were even meant to survive is really impossible.

Most of what we know of the druid writings stems from either initiates writing what they knew (and thus breaking their own code) or from 'exchange students'. Exchanges of students between the great druid learning centers and places like Greece and Alexandria were evidently common. I've read work by a historian (Douglas Monroe) where he goes further into those exchanges and the admiration by the ancient world of those druidic learning centers or colleges with quotes from notables like Posidonius, Mela and even the mighty Caesar (who is quoted as having said: "They discuss and impart to their youth many things respecting the stars and their motions, respecting the great extent of the universe and of our Earth")

Still because the druids did not write books or scrolls of their work as a matter of culture, so much of what they knew is probably lost to the world.

Shamans in general have that same problem. So much of the work and knowledge is based on verbal teaching and handing down knowledge from master to student, that a catastrophe like illness or war or being conquered can destroy an entire string of generations of knowledge.

very many of the healing ceremonies of the southwestern native tribes have been lost due to an oral only tradition, and the fact that it takes years of apprenticeship before they will teach them to an initiate...and many healers have died before passing on their knowledge...
and thus the candle in the dark grows weaker

AS to the inquisition only burning heretics, in that time period anyone who disagreed in any way with the inquisitors was branded a "heretic" without legal defense in many cases, and people were encouraged to inform on heretics, even paid a small pittance for the deed, and you must also realise....the spanish inquisition was but one of MANY inquisitions worldwide, it just happened to be very prolific in a time and area in which it was well recorded and documanted....
many of those killed in other areas had little record kept of the deeds

im a green witch there are many paths but the one truth of all is magic comes from the witchs heart good bad or in between

The great Monty python line: "It is the Spanish Inquisition" and these robed guys walk in with like the tall cross in the hands on a set about 1960's England. It was a motiff they went to many times, a fall back skit. That was one of the reasons why I posted that. But there was two inquisitions about 200 years apart. I am sure the second one was more brutal and arbitrary in it's damnation.

The only thing that I knew previously about the Spanish Inquisition was that there was no way to defend yourself. When I heard that I closed my mind to the topic. I don't like things that are unfair. Just because you aren't one of the town people clique, and you are an individual, it doesn't mean that you are a heritic. The throng, mob rules, takes over, they know they are weak and have to live in packs, and in the gang they see the one man gang, or woman that is the eye of every man in the village, the women scream witch, and then the Monty Python skit begins.

In the back of my mind Felix, I knew I was tempted to write about the Druids, as others had mentioned the group that followed out of the British Isles, but, there just wasn't much known about them besides TREES, right, and they didn't have a written language. They were from a time even previous to stone henge, as stone henge was a sacred site for centuries before they rolled those 40 ton blocks over there somehow. Ancient burial molunds in the British Isles have only just begun to be excavated. They are tombs, but some of them are fakes, just to fool grave robbers. We will find out more ABOUT Druids once all these burial mounds are excavated, but I suspect, they had not a written language as stone henge was from thousands of years before Christ, and written language was perhaps not even discovered there yet or invented.

On the topic of Ireland, um, it was actually the ecclesiastical orders of the Irish that kept the accounts of prehistory, and early civilization alive. I have seen documentraies of the castles leaning over the Atlantic or North Sea, and I imagined in my mind these manuscript illuminators who wrote in whatever Celtic language they did.

I will say, going to the NY Public Library main branch, they have some ancient texts from like the Rennaissance, and they are still in Latin. When I do a search on the Forebearer of Leonardo Da Vinci, Leon Battiste Alberti, I am surprized not one Latin student has bothered to translate his Philodoxeos into any modern living tongue.

With these aspects of burial mounds of people who had no living tongue or written language, and the fact of the transcriptions of the old manuscripts from the Irish in the Dark and Middle Ages still not being translated, I feel, the future we will understand more about the past. The same goes for witch craft. It is out there, somewhere, maybe in a Druid burial mound littering the landscape amonst many phony burial mounds, never exhumed for people stopped looking, and learning from out of the past.

Dark Greeting's, very interesting topic. I was born a witch,I come from a long line I'm Roma yes a Gypsy and proud to be one.I studied many different paths,I mix then into my own.I have been called Shaman.I follow Anupu and through study there was Egyptian shamanism.I know some of you may be mad at what I'm gonna say Sorry.One of my teacher's who also mixed path's told me this.It all started with shamanism and even the highest levels of Ritual magic are Shaman every thing in the middle get's you back to the beginning Shamanism.
Dark Blessing's,KA

Shaman is associated with the particular set of beliefs and rituals of the Siberian people whose term this is. Where did this discussion go so off the rails?

Siberia connects the Old World to the New World. The guy that said, everything is connected from the middle and the beginning, well in this case the middle is the beginning...

Miz - Whether or not the word shaman has an etymological history that stems from Siberia, the word "shaman" has come to mean:

sha·man Pronunciation Key (shämn, sh-)n.
A member of certain tribal societies who acts as a medium between the visible world and an invisible spirit world and who practices magic or sorcery for purposes of healing, divination, and control over natural events.

not that it bears any relevancy on what this thread is about...but try this
*taken from this site*http://sped2work.tripod.com/shaman.html

The word shaman, used internationally, has its origin in manchú-tangu and has reached the ethnologic vocabulary through Russian. The word originated from saman (xaman), derived from the verb scha-, "to know", so shaman means someone who knows, is wise, a sage. Further ethnologic investigations shows that the true origin for the word Shaman can be tracked from the Sanskrit initially, then through Chinese-Buddhist mediation to the manchú-tangu, indicating a much deeper but now overlooked connection between early Buddhism and Shamanism generally. In Pali it is schamana, in Sanskrit Sramana translated to something like "buddhist monk, ascetic". The intermediate Chinese term is scha-men. The Siberian and Central Asian peoples also had local terms for the Shaman. In alataic Turkish it was kam, in Yacuto, ojon (and the female shaman was the udujan), in the Butirates, böo, and in Central Asia, bakshi, for the Samoans, tadibe, Lapps, moita, Finnish, tieöjö and Hungarians, táltos

Thanks Daermon...it would appear that we can now get back to the question at hand...or most recently at hand...can one still find true shaman knowledge given the lack of written teaching in most shaman traditions and the persecution that removed many of the most learned teachers in the traditions.

While I've mentioned South America...one could argue that even there, the time for learning from real adepts is rapidly waning as man and technology moves more quickly into the rain forests and tribes where the few adepts remain.(McDonalds is destroying the Shamanic tradition...how's that for a headline).

Well, I know I am learning from a native american shaman here in this state.....I dont know if you'd want to call it an appreticeship or what have you. But I can definately tell you that although that is her title in her tribe.....the views are very similar to Enigma's as far as classifying things...there are no titles or assignments to that which lies within. Limits in words create limits in the mind and spirit. I get yelled at constantly for trying to find a name for things. Unlearning is the hardest thing I've had to do in my life..heh

I would consider the source of any google search topic

it seems anyone can post anything on the internet and be an authority. Wilkepedia and Even Encyclopedie Brittanice on line are text written by amateurs.

We seem to be getting further and further away from the truth with all this communicative technology,

the next thing I am going to hear is Shaman comes from cuneiform, which is untranslated and undeciphered.

Red - How did you come about learning from a Native American shaman? I agree that a major roadblock for spiritual or metaphysical growth is all the things we've learned about what can and can't happen in reality. Those of us raised on the teet of science don't find comfort in religion or 'faith' and yet quite often, those are the requirements to find what you're looking for in the metaphysical.

Still, while looking inward can help some find their path, it seems an awful waste to not use the written word and have generations of lessons and or paths destroyed or hidden again for centuries.

As far as lineage being part of my personal belief structure...my mother's mother was full Cherokee indian, her father as well as my father's entire family tree was Irish...full blooded. So I have a mixture of Celtic beliefs, Catholic dogma, and Native maerican beliefs born into me thru my parents. I fancy myself a Wiccan, simply because as a general term it best descirbes my chosen belief structure.
I do not adhere to any one set of beliefs or doctrine per se' but a hodge podge of my own beliefs. In my opinion, no demonination or "religion" has nailed it yet but as humans we all believe that we are given free will so I have enacted mine in creating what I feel is the right path for me personally.
From the Celtic/Catholic side, I believe strongly in family ties, a greater power beyond myself, and I believe strongly in the supernatural. From my Cherokee side, I believe strongly in past lives, dream therapy, transmigration...
It IS possible to build your own belief structure out of your lineage, OR experience...it doesn't really matter WHAT you believe just so long as you believe in SOMETHING. We as humans need to believe in soemthing bigger than ourselves or we will forever feel small and lost in the universe.

All: How much of Wicca still involves god/goddess worship vs Shamanism which seems more nature based and doesn't seem to usually have deities?

he says "I would consider the source of any google search topic
it seems anyone can post anything on the internet and be an authority. Wilkepedia and Even Encyclopedie Brittanice on line are text written by amateurs."

well in this case I am considering the source of what was written....and it's text most crertainly was written by an amateur...more to the point who gives a rats fat ass about where the term originates....it's the ideas the term currently represents being discussed...get with the program

Daermon go wave a flag upside down on the 4th and celebrate your independence. I am through saving you. You are incorregable. Be independent. Do not learn from state of the art scientists because I am the vanguard you do not understand. You refute yourself saying get with the porgram with new defs, well, I am trying to coin new terminology also, that is what science is about, the search for truth, but science is not at hand here, we are talking about ancient knowledge, long before there was science, and so in order to understand history we must consider the history of the word to tie it to the future understanding I am unveiling here.

ignore ignore me some one stole my R I am a fiend

very nice post

"You are incorregable. Be independent. Do not learn from state of the art scientists because I am the vanguard you do not understand."

well your right I am incorrigable, and I am independent, but in not one way yet shown are you a state of the art scientist, you claim you have some great cure, so apply for the nobel, you say you have some great secret...well either tell it...or keep it to yourself...continually hinting at it without some release makes you boring....but more and more on here you are just showing that for all your thesaurus knowledge...you have little to no concept of reality.
and again....where the origin of the word shaman came from has little bearing on what a shaman or witch of today is....
which is actually the discussion at hand..

Excellent point. I've been studying many of the different paths for six years though I am happily set in my own Pagan beliefs.
There is no reason that all Pagans/Wiccans/exc. should be stuck reading from the same book.

not at all...you should read from all of them in my opinion...and find that in them which feels right

One small request: can anyone define Pagan? What is Pagan and what is true religion? Being a witch or a shaman is something that goes back deeply in human history... but until now I haven`t actually seen it work...there are just beliefs, ways of life and mistakes made by people who felt different from the others... I do not say that it isn`t true...but can anyone show some proof?

I believe that witches, shamans...are thinkers, people smarter than average, people with high sensitivity which can feel better the energy that flows around us and somehow redirect it to a better use...something like discussed in Reiki thread... spells are a different story...chemical spells I believe... the others...just asking...

Ahriman - Not sure if I completely got the gist of your posts...but here goes:

I believe a pagan is someone whose religion is usually based on polytheism and older more localized worship. Depending on where you look, the definition is going to be synonymous with heathen. Here, I think it's most widely used to mean worship of the 'old gods'...so as to whether it's 'true', well we're talking about religious belief at that point and I'd say "who knows?"

Shamans as defined earlier, don't necessarily have theism or deities...some might but the main point of shamanism appears to be the use of nature, visions and a connection to the spirit world or dream world. It appears to be less about spells and more about forming a connection to a realm or inhabitants therein. That way, the realm in question or inhabitants of that realm can help the shaman give advice, portent events, heal, or defend his people. I don't believe that anyone has yet offered the world irrefutable proof of the effects of shamanism any more than proof has been offered on the effects of spell magic or the historical accuracy of Jesus Christ...these are all things that people have taken on faith and proving themselves right is a rather unimportant part of that belief.

I think you'd also find that many witches and shamans are less concerned about HOW somethings works (energy manipulation or pleasing gods or talking to spirits, etc) than knowing that it DOES work. I'm stretching a bit here as I'm not practicing in either, but from my own searches, I've found that those who take something on faith, are simply not concerned with the dissection of a practice so much as the results that practices bring to them.

agreed...the result matters more than how it worked
but most magic is little things....
it's really faith
you want rain...you do the magic..maybe it rains...maybe you just gave nature that nudge it was needing....
you do a spell to help get a god job..maybe you would have gotten it anyways...but does it hurt to self actualize it?
Doing a spell to gain an effect is little different than a chrisyian praying to god for a given effect, in essence you are focussing will and energy into a desired result..

god this is so much better than television. Sorry I didn't know how to spell incorrigable, just haven't met some one as obstinate as you dermon. If there were more of you around I could spell it better, but you are just stone headed, and you like it. How can you know so much if you resist change. Do you think the answer is in a book you read because someone published it? Is that your religion? The written word. You wonder why I am not published? Because I know the written word is a lie, and I do not cow tow to the money sytem of lies in books. I will be published I can play nice too, but I prefer to be creative in here entertain as I blow the 3 percent I have always reached in life, not everyone gets it, if someone believes in you, anything one does is golden, that is just the way it is man.

But some are asking for proof on magic, or the histories of the way order of knowledge was carved in stone in the minds of great spiritualists, passed on to the apprentice, well, the proof is science, we use science to determine how and why of it all. I may be a knowledge thesaurus but I am making new connections, coining new phrazes new defintions, acoording to rules of wordsmithing, you see, the only way to shed light on old concepts is to create new words, almost a new language, that shadow new understanding enlightened by an age of information. Don't be a road block in the internet highway, we are all trying to get somewhere, connecting the past with the future. You just don't even see the big picture, the whole process of why I go about doing things...

even Dicken he had to write plots that would entertain just to keep the attention of the reader to cause them to do something about poverty or social injustice, well I am trying to do something about ignorance with my enlightenment. I did not receive enlightenment for me Daermon, I received it because I am a teacher, I am supposed to know what I know. I am a modern day shaman who combines the past and the present. I take it one thread at a time. I have never even cracked open a book on maguic because I mean man yo just can't get that stuff at Kmart you know, so either it is in your family or it is not, do you have the book of spells? NO, so, but I am here, a very physical reality who can take the pseudo off the science to maje the metaphysical physical, we need a phusion of filosophy, the old magic and the science to explain it. That is what I am here for and shoot, I almost deleted my profile before coming on her and I received your letter that I don't know how to write or about the cockamamie story about my vampire cure. It freaken brought a guy back from the brain deadedness, the doctors didn't even listen to me, do you know how many people died from the time I brought it up to the doctors 8 years before "they" finally introduced it. So don't tell me my science is off, just because I have lapped your 2,000 posts and I am on 200 don't get envious on me, insecurity is the thing I hate most about humans, that is why I became a vampire. I want to die all the time, because the power of life is in me strong. Any shaman from 10,000 years ago would tell you the same. hkan nature never change sbecause we are incorrigable, all of us even me, just to different degrees. Shamans may be thought of as mad, they don;t get the best girl in the clan, but if they was to disappear, then the whole clan would be lost because they are the bawls the backbone and the brains of the whole operation.

With Witchcraft and Wicca there is so many different traditions that it can be overwelming. I have been practicing for 9 years and studying for 11 years. I haven`t even been able to learn every thing i need to know. I usually try something and if it works for me I use it in my practice. Everyone has things that will work for them but the same spell or potion will not work for another. I always try and learn everything can. I love learning new things about Wicca, and Shamanism. I think learning something about everything will help you some time in your life.

I am sure the trick of magic is to match the spell or potion with the idiosyncracies of the target, as a magical spell would be more powerful if it was combined with one or more of the 7 deadly sins.

No one will ever know it all. Ideas have a tendency to feed off each other and grow into new concepts, take cooking fer instance, there is a fusion in recipies, that are infinite. I am sure the same goes for potions, for should inter stellar space travel be actualized, I am sure colonies on those planbet are going to come across alien mushrooms or some root of some plant that could have new purpose on this earth in every field of endeavor, including magic.

Felix- Sorry so long in posting back....kinda been on a vacation of sorts. How I came to learn from a shaman?.....actually she kinda found me. Right now I'm on a journey....once I get where I need to be, either she will come back to me or someone else from the tribe so that I may continue to learn and grow. I have to say....it's been really cool =)

This has been one of the best threads I've read on the forum
I'm Wiccan, with Irish & Native American lineage, just gravitated toward the celtic wicca as it fit my style best. I still like reading and learning of other belief systems but will let my heart lead me on my path.

don't listen to them damn Marplots !

just joking Lil The Red

yes felix many old traditions where considreed as taboo espcially with the rise of the roman ctaholic religion around here.. so thus we have indeed lost a lot of important knowelgede :(

Marplot? who me? damn I better watch it before someone can kidnap me...

Rowiel, I'm new to the practice but avid in the seeking of the secrets. Your knowledge is inspirational. I have found the variety of paths interesting.

I tend to be an eclectic blend of a lot of different styles like an earlier post mentioned I find what works for me and use it, give it my own style (so to speak). I studied for 12 years before I even attempted to spellcast. I also found out in the course of my studies that I come from a long line of witches on my father's side, nothing unusual on my mother's. So, was a hereditary witch, but did not know until my sixth year of study, when my grandmother found out she had me talk to my great-grandmother, her help was invaluable, but I had know idea; I chose my own path. Luckily for me their is a store that caters to witches here in St.Louis, the only one of it's kind that I've found so far, but that is where I get all my books.

sounds like the women in your family live forever

must be magic?

i'm not sure if this is the right place to put this so forgive me. i'm very interested in finding someone that could educate me about wicca. my husband has been asking me questions for years now that i can't answer. so if someone has the time, please let me know.

when ever I share my "magical" and supernatural knowledge with someone, I always ask their life circumstance why they need to know, and what they wish to do with it. Be prepared to answer these questions if someone decides to take you under their wing. No one with knowledge of anything is going to give it to someone who doesn't have the right reasons.

Good question. something I would be interested into doing in my own family. Maybe somewhere there was a person like me.

Thanks LB for the comment :) yes seeking of knowledge is very important and through the internet i have found some useful knowledge, even tough some of the very important was lost forever....

Another good thread, and worthy starting a new one.

RIP

Mistress Moreish