burn them all

You hear the word ‘witch’ you automatically think evil1 sacrilege! Demons and devils!
The dictionary will tell you we are ‘females’ who practice (black) magic, ugly and wicked women that is.
The church will tell you that we are heathens. That we consort with the devil, have big orgies in your children’s playground and sacrifice Muffy when your not looking.
Is it any wonder that Irelands attitude towards the pagan community is so dismal?
Well what ever the phrase ‘witch’ suggests to you it should certainly not be one of fear!
Everything you thing you think you know about witches? Chuck it! We don’t fly on brooms, wear pointed hats, talk to Satan on the phone ( so I don’t know the factor sun block they use down in hell sorry). We don’t hover over stone cauldrons or eat children. No real witch will hex your carrots or curse you because rex just dug a hole in their garden! Its just not our belief.
So now you know what we are not, lets start to rebuild that image taking an open minded approach to it.
Lets start with defining what is magic? The answer is you already know! You see it every day of your life, whether you know it or not when you touch wood, make a wish on a birthday candle, cross your fingers for luck or ‘kiss it better’ you are creating magic.
So what’s the difference between what a witch does and that? Simple! We do it with focus, intent, and visualization. What’s so evil about that?
Many people turn to the craft because of its stories rather than its religious support, and magic is seen as secondary.
We do not ascribe to a dogma. That is the beauty of the craft. Its up to the individual to decide what they wish to believe. As long as they understand what they are trying to achieve, that its for self improvement and not messing with free will.
It is a science. Like a scientific formula everything has a particular format to it. You don’t have to give up your religious beliefs to practice and I will tell you be warry of anyone who will tell you to do that. Most likely they have an ego the size of Europe.
Having said that witchcraft can be a faith yes, quite frankly when we hear the term ‘witch’ we have minor heart failure and all over what? The idea that we can create our own individual realities?
Everyone seeks control in their lives, we want to make changes to better our selves and find answers to the questions existentialism raises to us.
Its human nature, we have evolved to become smarter with each generation striving to improve ourselves. Yet have we?
Modern day witches don’t try to convert other to their religion, when we express our beliefs it is not to suck you into disillusion y you or turn you against the church, no! the opposite. No true witch would ever suggest that their belief is the ‘one’ and the only right one.. it is in our belief that every divine whatever form they may take in others eyes are all one of the same.
So then why is the Catholic Church so hell-bent on casting us out, and turning people against us? I am catholic myself. Granted not all pagans would deem themselves witches as such, so lets go back to the beginning to find the root of this hate.
To do it we would have to travel back to ancient Ireland. That’s right! Ours was originally a pagan community. Hence forth it was only when Christianity touched our shores did other religions begin to form. Such as druids, Kells, Catholics and so forth to make up the mix of cultures in present day Ireland.
Contrary to what is popular belief witchcraft is based on a moral ode. The three laws which real any present day witch honours in their practice of the craft. To ‘harm none do as thou wilt’, the ‘three fold return’ which states that any negative energy sent out will return upon the dispatcher three times harsher, and ‘love and kinship with nature, the natural world and the divine’.
When Christianity took over it turned people on witches. People throughout western Europe were massacred in there thousands because it was suspected we courted the devil?
Rubbish! To take over the church had to devise the ideal that we were evil! Witches don’t even believe in the devil which is what makes it so ridiculous a concept.
The catholic church is based on the principle that there’s is the only true true religion and the rest of us with our courting ways will all burn in a mass of flames for eternity?
“Hm? Do you suppose it ever gets cold up on hat high horse”?
this is a bullying tactic by a religion that all though may be still hugely popular in Ireland is struggling to adapt to a modernized world that is a mixture of open beliefs and the church is clinging on by its finger tips.
I am not here to put the church down. But it is my personal opinion that the mass majority of hate towards the pagan community of Ireland has come from the roman catholic church.
I am not saying that every ‘witch’ in Ireland Is a white witch either. As is the belief it is up to the individual what they practice but when they start to impose this upon others they loose the right to own tat title anymore.
There are officially legalized pagan groups set up here in Ireland that promote the three laws of witchcraft and seek to help those who practice it in what ever way they can. But because of the roman catholic churches smear campaign against us they do not aim at a young population. So to give guidance to those under the age a group known as the minor arcane was set up, which is police checked and only available with parental consent. This I will agree is wise, not because I fear it will corrupt Irelands youth but because it is my belief also that children under eighteen are too easily influenced and that is not the aim of the pagan community but at the same time those who seek guidance get it.
Perhaps if the same methods had been applied to the church in Ireland, those cases of sexual abuse on youngsters might never have commenced? But as was and still is widely known is in the period leading up to present day the church ruled by fear.
Now its not like pagan federations advertise on t. they do not post it on your church door to rub it in your face, and they do not try to put yours down, all they ask is that you adopt a non racial attitude to them. Don’t grab your bricks and throw them through their windows at night, don’t deny them a basic earning as is a civil right because of their beliefs.
People have a natural fear bred into them that if someone has power they will automatically use it to harm them, and it is my belief that that the church played on this.
It is written in the bible (john13:34-35) that at the last super Jesus gave the commandment to ‘love one another, as I have loved you’.
So ask yourself this then? Why is the Catholic Church so compelled to judge and persecute people?
Instead of loving them?
Witches don’t ask that the world has to love us, or even accept us (though this would be a welcome change), we just ask that before you cast a stone at us, stop and just let us be on our way. That we don’t have to lie about who we are to get employed, that we aren’t isolated from society because of it.