From: JSINGLE@MUSIC.LIB.MATC.EDU (Raven) Newsgroups: alt.pagan,alt.religion.wicca Subject: The Closet Pagan [was: The Pentagram] Date: 29 Mar 1995 09:25:49 -0600 Roberta S. Payne wrote: |> Reading your note reminded me of a few years back when I began |> reading books about Wicca, and other white and folk magicks... |> my family is generally prostestant, but I like the philosophies |> and values about Wicca, but my parents (I'm a freshman in |> college) have always prevented me from fullfilling any personal |> wishes. I haven't stopped reading, I've just had to hide my |> books, hide my meditation candles, and my notes, and whatever |> else (tools, etc) that they wouldn't be happy about... |> So, I've just hidden those things from my parents, which is |> really starting to get to me, because I hate lying to them, |> but I really don't have a choice... Don't get me wrong, |> I couldn't have asked for better, more kinder parents, they're |> great, I just can't tell them about my interest in Wicca... |> |> [does anyone have comments?] Cheryl E. wrote in reply: |Hi Roberta, |You have to do whatever it is that you feel best, but I have a different |viewpoint that you might want to consider. |The Closet Pagan: |It is a dangerous world and we must do what we can to protect ourselves |and our loved ones, but why hide something which is not dirty or evil? [start of Raven's comments:] Tell it to Anne Frank. Tell it to the "heretics" and "witches" of every great witch-hunt, including the Protestants of Catholic nations (like French Hugenots) and the Catholics of Protestant nations (as in post- Reformation England, or 19th-early-20th-century America -- No Irish Need Apply, Cross of Gold, Anti-Papist KKK days). Tell it to political dissidents in Russia... or Joe McCarthy's America. Tell it to blacks who passed for white, to Irish who passed for English, to gays who passed for straight -- against a risk of being fired, beaten, or killed. Being open, honest, and forthright is a Good Thing, usually. Er, often. Well, sometimes. But when it is punishable by death, you face a choice between truth and safety... and corpses tell neither truth nor lies. You may choose to accept that risk. My grandmother did, and was shot by a Soviet firing squad for it, leaving her youngest daughter (my mother) motherless at the age of two. Plus for courage, minus for strategy. I think that accepting the risk is a Good Thing, IF: (1) you are doing so for your OWN reasons and values, not on the urging of someone else who isn't affected if you're hurt by the decision; (2) you've thought the matter through and accepted ALL the consequences -- because once you commit to the decision by going public, second thoughts and regrets will be futile, "too little, too late"; (3) you're the only one affected by the risk, or anyone else affected has equally accepted it -- because it is really shabby to make other people pay for your own lost bets if they had no say in the matter; (4) you have determined some reasonable chance and means of success or survival, be it a back door or a Continental Army at your command (the American colonists would have been idiots to rebel in 1776 without an effective armed force to hold off the British reprisals). I will add the strategic concern that going public should be chosen when that is the *most effective* means to achieving your goals -- e.g. when you need to draw support from outside your own circle of friends, or to fight for or against a political initiative. In cases where there is no support to be drawn and no chance of making a political point (let alone winning the issue) -- which is often the case in Deep Fundyland -- then my question is, what *strategic* *advantage* does going public gain... compared to the advantage it forfeits? Note that "civil disobedience" techniques -- accepting unjust punishment in order to draw public protest against unjust laws -- works only in societies that are halfway civilized already: Gandhi in British India, King in America. Had Gandhi done the same in Nazi Germany, or King in Stalinist Russia, they might have quietly disappeared without a trace. The French Resistance, on the other hand, survived by staying hidden. Yes, bringing up these examples when discussing Deep Fundyland sounds rather cynical, doesn't it. Shame on me for being so paranoid as to take the "kill unbelievers, Constitution is irrelevant" rant seriously, but I think YOU have to judge whether that is in fact YOUR environment, since YOU are the one who will suffer for it if you judge wrongly. [end of Raven's comments; resuming Cheryl's comments:] |When we enter the closet to practice rituals, worshipping, etc. does this |not place a message to others that what we are doing is wrong? Strength |is built by facing the fear directed at us by others, and what I do is |not wrong and who I face are many in power; but they have not the power |which I do. [Raven's comment: The rebuttal to Christians on this point would be to point out that Christ literally told his followers to do their prayers "in the closet", and NOT to worship in public. Matthew 6:1-6.] |They may ridicule me, remove my rights and priviledges, they may torture |me and they may hate me; but I have nothing to loose... unless I hide in |fear because then I have me to loose. If I don't stand up to what I |believe and what I know, then I am not worthy of knowing; and if I don't |stand up to what I believe and what I know, then my children will be the |ones. But my goals are to make a better world for my children and all |the children, and not have them come to my aid or do what I should have done. | |The things I do and the things I know would help make the world a better |place, and if I hide in fear then I only make my world a better place. I |will not lie and say it is not scary (at times), but there are many more |times which I find it satisfactory and worthwhile. | |But then this is how I feel and this is what I know, so although I think |you have a right to make your own decisions, I did feel that unless I |spoke out then I have only made my little world a better place. [Raven's comment: Sometimes this may be all you can reasonably expect.] -- Raven (JSingle@Music.Lib.MATC.Edu). [All standard disclaimers apply]