Warning: the following will be a totally unfair rant that over-generalises. You may be offended, so read at your own risk. I accept no responsibility for hurt feelings or offended sensibilities.

Please know that I am aware most representatives of the groups mentioned are wonderful, thoughtful people. The following rant contains references to small numbers of people within these groups that I have unfortunately been over-exposed to of late. I just really need to vent.

The Things that Fuck Me Off Lately

1) People who use the words "witchcraft" and "Wicca" as synonymous. I know this is a minority of people, but browsing Amazon.com, all I come across is books on Wicca. So, SO few are about witchcraft. All I'm reading is how witchcraft is a religion, which is utter BS. A book about witchcraft will go on and on about ethical guidelines that are Wicca-specific, it will talk about Sabbats and so on.... many witches aren't even Pagan! I know a book on all witchcraft would be exceedingly difficult but even if you're talking about witchcraft in a Pagan framework, can you make it about witchcraft, please?! Wicca is NOT witchcraft. Wicca and Neo-Wicca are religions that CONTAIN the practice of witchcraft. As a witch who is not a Wiccan, I'm getting more and more fucked off by people who think I follow the Rede or something. Generalisations about witchcraft are as idiotic as generalisations about Paganism. You can never say "all Pagans..." because there will always be someone who totally disagrees. Likewise you can't expect any two witches to necessarily follow similar guidelines.

2) People who confuse Wicca with Neo-Wicca. Both are beautiful and wonderful paths, but they're not the same thing. There are secrets and Mysteries within Wicca that are essential to the practice. If you aren't initiated into a lineaged coven, you won't know them. If these are essential to the practice of Wicca, can one call themselves Wiccan? I do not know them, and so I refuse to say that those who believe that they practice Wicca, and are not initiated into a Garnerian, Alexandrian or Blue Star coven, do not practice a form of Wicca. I do not feel that I can do that. Therefore I compromise. I will refer to "Wicca" as a whole. However, I will often distinguish between Wicca and Neo-Wicca, being that which is based upon Wicca (or Trad Wicca, if you like) but is not privy to those secrets. I don't want to be anal and pedantic about it, of course. I just think that it's important to note the distinction. There are enough misunderstandings as it is.

3) People who think Neo-Wicca is "anything you want it to be". Obviously this applies even more so to Wicca proper. But Neo-Wicca is a distinct religion. It has particular deities. It is duotheistic (sometimes it is soft-polytheistic or even polytheistic). Rituals are conducted a certain way (Cunningham provides a good general outline). The eight Sabbats are celebrated, and sometimes the phases of the moon. Magick is used in ritual to cast a circle etc. There is a belief in the return of your deeds to you, good or bad, in the Western interpretation of karma. (The threefold idea is optional.) There is a belief in reincarnation. There is the ethical guideline of "an it harm none, do what thou wilt" which differs depending on one's personal interpretation. (Note: this one rule is something that definitely demonstrates the difference between Neo-Wicca and Wicca, which has over one hundred rules.)

The Christian god is NOT the one worshipped. If you want to reinterpret Christianity by overlaying it with a vague Wiccan framework, fine, but it is not Neo-Wicca, it's not a form of Neo-Wicca, and it is certainly not Wicca. If anything it would be Christo-Paganism. Which is FINE, I'm not bagging on your religious choice here. It's what you call it that matters.

And people will say "don't get so hung up on labels!" Well, okay. If the labels are so unimportant, then stop calling it Wicca. Labels are not important, true. So if your chosen path does not meet a definition, don't use that label. Wicca means something. If we keep diluting the definition, it will mean nothing. Look at me. I don't have a name for my chosen path. All I go by is "Pagan". And this does hurt me sometimes, because "Pagan" is so broad that I occasionally feel a little... undefined. It would be nice to have a name. But I do not and that is okay.

4) People who utterly divorce things from their origins... like people who worship Egyptian deities as separately from the Greek influence as they can, and yet still call Aset "Isis". I know she probably doesn't have a problem with it, I mean, names are simply another form of a kenning. Many of us as Pagans have more than one name. But even so, I just can't fathom it.

I came across that horrible book on runes by Ralph Blum the other day on Amazon, and some of the people who had rated it 5 were absolutely confused by those people who hated the book. To separate it from its gods and its culture seems utterly awful to me. Odin sacrificed himself to himself for those runes. He hung on the bloody tree for nine bloody nights! To overlay and reinterpret the runes from an eastern and Christianised perspective is offensive to me.

New agers (she generalises) are very guilty of this. They have misinterpreted karma, they have abused the runes by ignoring their source (one Asatru called it cultural theft, I'm not sure I'd go that far but still). There are soft polytheists (again, refering to a minority) that will take deities and discard large aspects of their personality, use them like an ingredient in their spell or ritual, use them interchangably. There are people who think Hekate is a crone, people who match two gods from different pantheons based on their specialities and then act as if they were the same deity. Which is fine if you really do believe that these deities are just ideas. But even if they are just ideas, they are specific ideas. Hera is not Frigga. Not by any stretch. A little respect for the cultures and those who do - and did, centuries ago - worship these deities would not go amiss. What I don't get is that, if you believe all goddesses are one Goddess, why don't they just worship the one Goddess? Why complicate things with "aspects"? If it's your thing, then okay, but please respect the origins and cultures.

While my view of New Agers in general isn't exactly favourable (Doreen Virtue, anybody? she disgusts me), one really does expect more of Neo-Wiccans, who incorporate these things into their faith. It does upset me that some people choose not to make the effort, even with the gods they worship. I know long and involved study is not for everyone. If this is the case, perhaps a mystery religion is not for you. My standards are probably a bit high, but I hold myself to these standards and am not one to lower them for others. *sigh*

Alright, rant over. I'm feeling much better now that's all off my chest. I did not mean to offend anyone with this, so if you were offended, well, I'm not going to apologise, but there we are.