Is Wicca a bunch of crap?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Truth Hurts, May 29, 2003.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Hate to be intrusive, but it seems to be going around

    Why ever would you ask her that?
    If that's what's important to you. However, if you choose to not learn about what you criticize, I can't see how the rest of us should give a damn about your opinion other than the fact that such behavior can cause friction between people, thus inviting bad things into the world.

    Such an approach as you seem to take detracts from quality of life.
    Nah, some other blowhard critic would pop up to be the buzzkill. You would have gotten a more positive response, but understand that statistically, positive responses to Wicca are more plentiful among those who have encountered it. I've always wondered, for all the actual difficulties of various of the neopaganisms (including Wicca), why the critics still sound like two-bit hack comedians playing to a burly audience that gets off on hippie-bashing?

    I mean, I can criticize Wicca plenty based on experience, but I've found that my criticisms of Wicca and Wiccans are quite human regardless of labels, and that Wiccans generally don't create the need to examine Wicca critically by their actions. The same cannot be said of larger religions longer-established than modern Wicca or Gardenerian Craft.

    But it's kind of hard to defend anything against the silly, broad, blind-swinging nature of the topic post. And the longer people let you keep swinging blindly, the more anger they will show.

    Consider that Wiccans are not yet an effective social force; firstly, there aren't enough of them. Secondly, the entirety of the pagan revival is plagued with a certain selfishness. In Seattle a couple of years ago, there was an article in a local alternative rag wondering about the lack of organized pagan community service. It's a fair question. Maybe writing a check to the Red Cross is enough for many pagans.

    But where I understand that questions about, say, Christianity, can get somewhat convoluted because of their relevant vitality, it continues to surprise me--even though it shouldn't--when someone comes out on the negative side of Wicca and doesn't really have a point. It's almost like other problems have gotten boring, and somebody's out looking for something to get pissed at.

    :m:,
    Tiassa

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  3. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    Re: Hate to be intrusive, but it seems to be going around

    I always found it very odd that wiccans like to refer to themselves as "pagans". And what is this "Pagan revival" you speak of? The term pagan was a derogatory term used by Christians to label any number of minor religions that they encountered, and didn't want to learn enough about to really come up with a more specific term for, as they didn't even want to bother dealing with them individually, but only together as Non Judeo-Christian religions.

    I find it rather odd that people, who wish to claim that they are of another religion would chose to use this word for themselves, as it clearly shows their ties to Christianity, and doesn't at all help the image of wiccans as a bunch of Goth teenagers hiding in their parents basement and feeling really cool for rebelling against their parents religion. I myself was even tempted to write up a rather elaborate paper about Wicca being nothing more than a branch of Christianity (in a psychological sense) for without Christianity there really wouldn't be any force which drives people to Wicca.

    Also, to call Wicca or any other new age spiritualities or faiths a "Pagan revival" would be quite an overstatement, as Wicca and other minor faiths based on it, are simply idealized versions of what some people imagine that some of these pagan religions were like, and are really in no way other than this romantic image, related to those actual faiths.
     
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  5. sargentlard Save the whales motherfucker Valued Senior Member

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    Yes they do...completely. Who the hell were they calling barbarians when they themselves acted like class A jackasses.
    Many still do.

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  7. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Mystech ... hopefully this is helpful ....

    Well, what's funny about that is that I've always found it very odd that Christians like to refer to themselves as "decent". (Nudge-nudge, wink wink, &c.)

    Wicca is part of paganism as the Southern Baptist Convention is part of Monotheism (although Christianity as monotheism almost doesn't make any sense at all).
    Um ...

    And?

    (I hate to put it that way, but ....)
    Wicca, for instance, and other Celtic-derived (-asserted) religions are seen by some as having tremendous influence on what would become the Western World.° While modern Wicca (the whole of the Pagan Revival, really) is a modern innovation, it is a modern innovation on old ideas. There is literally an effort to understand the strange beauty of a barbaric culture that so enchanted its destroyers. And from that understanding there is an effort to assemble everything that was good and beautiful about it while understanding the uglier side of it. Typically, I insert here a barb about how I understand that such a process confuses Christians, and while it's true, it's beside the point.
    It's a mark of pride in a way. After being derided as pagans, people simply decided to be "proud to be a pagan" and show the world that pagans aren't problematic. The word comes from a word describing minor religious cults in the region around Rome. The Christians chose to vilify the pagans, just like they chose to vilify everything else. Christmas and Easter are pagan holidays co-opted by Christians. (Count back to the first Christmas, and apply the principle of precession in the lunar calendar. At the time of the first Christmas celebrations, Christmas fell on the Winter Solstice.)

    Easter was a fertility celebration that went by many names. "Ostara" is the tackiest I know of, and one I've seen throughout the Pagan Revival in the sense that it makes its point phonetically.
    Ever read the Nine Statements of Satan? The Ninth reads something like, [i}Satan is the best friend the Church ever had, for without him, the Church would not be in business.[/i] Is Christianity Satanism or is Satanism Christianity?

    Also of note, though I'm not sure what it equals yet, is the notion that had Christianity not made a point of trying to exterminate or assimilate every culture it encountered, there would be no need for a revival; people could choose the religion or not based on its long and living history.
    Well, it's an ongoing process. Without jest, sarcasm, or anything directly aimed at you, I'm puzzled by a general trend I observe in my time by which people don't seem to think much of ongoing processes. What I mean by that is that the opposition to any number of ideas aiming for progress or human betterment or however you want to say it always concerns the here and now. And while I admit that immediate practical considerations are of high priority, an immediate practical consideration oft unconsidered is that tomorrow is the future, too. At some point the future becomes the present, and that's why I and any number of people from across a broad spectrum of paradigms look to the "hopeful tomorrow", the brighter dawn, something better than today. It's not necessarily that the present isn't good enough (though, for me, I must admit, that's a huge part of it) but that the idea of a better tomorrow is merely a human emotional manifestation of evolution itself. But it's not like species are programmed to extinct themselves. Sure they can fail to adapt and thus go the way of the dodo, but all of the species that would be inherently programmed by genetic conditions to be extinct would have done so in the first couple of generations. The desire for betterment among humans is inherent, evolutionary, and fundamental.

    All of that to make the simple point that I note a general trend objecting to all of that because it's inconvenient to the human will in the present.

    And that point simply to provide a counterpoint to the notion that the Pagan Revival is an ongoing process. The actual faiths and cultures will never return, though I've heard it asserted that there are established contiguous generations of Goddess-religion that have come along with us into the modern day; in other words, from the time of those now-extinct cultures until today perhaps one or two or three people can be found who can reasonably assert that they learned from their mother who learned from her mother, and perhaps can establish by genealogy the idea that the tradition, though evolved, never broke. And these, apparently, are considered valuable sources of information by the truly serious Wiccans. I've never met one of these few, I have no idea who they are, though I'm told there's a couple in Ireland, a few in France, UK, and even Appalachian US via Scots-Irish, where, in a twist resembling the contemporary "New Age" movement, it would have melded with indigenous tribal customs. In some cases, written slivers of the tradition passed down allegedly exist, and though the Edwardian and Victorian manifestations of the traditions seem downright laughable to us today, one must admit that there is a reason the "Faery Tradition" of witchcraft evolved; it was resilient compared to Christianity under Victorianism; the Christians fled, incidentally, to faery folklore° in many cases. And there we have a melding of imagery with priorities from two separate traditions. There is actually an incredible amount of history associated with the traditions that contemporary pagans, and especially (comparatively-) formalized ideas like Wicca°. And so from whispered secrets to scraps of diaries or letters, proper Grimoires, though I stress that there are periods that should, for sanity's sake, be examined only in an academic interest (Victorian-era, for instance) ...

    Modern values are one reason the old cultures and "actual" faiths will not be resurrected. I can't say all Goddess worship in history has been about motherly love and kindness, but nothing's perfect.

    And we must draw a necessary distinction, as we do between Wicca and Pagan, between Pagan and New Age. The New Age movement also involves attempts to revive Central and South American religions, and also the more ridiculous (imho) "Ramtha" and other channeling movements. The New Age includes classic European astrology as well as a growing body of philosophy concerning a growing body of knowledge about preColumbian American astrology, as well as the possible cultural links between the two (cf. Fell, America B.C., see also Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers).

    So I can't speak for the whole of the New Age, and while I'm not prepared to draw lines of legitimacy around some parts of paganism and not others, the general idea of the Pagan Revival is to "rediscover" as much as possible about the cultures that led to our present; barbaric as some might seem (e.g. Teutones, Cimbri), they also had their beautiful and progressive sides, and compared to modern values, as such, this is what the Revival seeks.

    And if, in the end, it's only about people wanting to feel good about life, so be it. There are, I assure you, worse goals in life.


    Notes

    ° Celtic influence - cf Markale, Jean. The Celts.
    ° fled to faery folklore - Sometimes I swear that the modern Faery Tradition practitioners I come across read Victorian-era diaries for fun. It's about the only thing that explains the cake-frosting aspect of it.
    ° comparatively-formalized - Of all the pagans I've met, Wiccans take the faith most seriously, postmodern Druidism the ritualism, and the rest of us mangy solitaries the attitude. To the other, when I was finally in a formal OTO ceremony (not generally considered pagan), I couldn't stand it. Being really drunk might have had something to do with it, but hey ....

    :m:,
    Tiassa

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  8. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    I don't know, all you've just told me basically amounts to the fact that it really shouldn't be taken seriously, which I for one am all for.

    Wicca' is kind of like a world where, what if all black people were suddenly to die, and then who knows how many hundreds of years later, say all darker skinned Mediterranean people started wanted to have a black revival, run around eating fried chicken, eating watermellon and demand that they all be called Niggers. It's kind of a mockery of the original idea, and when you demand to be associated with them, and feel that you deserve some sort of credibility because of it, you end up just looking really silly.
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Well, if that's the way you're gonna be ....

    Actually, I just don't get it. Why let Christians take a word away from anyone? After all, given what the word meant (see etymology) before the Christians borrowed it, I see no problem.

    Your black revival analogy suffers a couple of problems. If two hundred years after the extinction of the African races people sought to revive real jazz, real reggae, and real African music while adapting old myths to new times, I see no problem.

    A "Nigger Revival"? What, a bunch of people hanging out on the streetcorner smoking crack and demanding that, regardless of their skin tone, they be addressed according to an annexed definition of a word (see etymology) ... yeah, I agree.

    Comparatively, if people wanted to have old-school Roman orgies and demanded to be called by a word that people found distasteful ... oh, wait ... that does happen, and no, they don't get respect.

    But even if it's just drinking and roasted pig and dancing around in a kilt that someone is after, if they wish to be called a word in its derogatory context, sure, that's a little strange.

    I would say that your prejudices concerning paganism are the primary flaw in your analogy. I admit that large numbers of pagans gathered together seems customarily odd, but I'm much more at home in that oddness than I am in others. I mean, really ... remember that some people who don't live in New York insist on being called Yankee fans; I don't know why anyone would want to degrade themselves like that, but ... whatever. I mean, it's not like the pagans are asking to be called Heathens, and it's not like the odd indigenous-American shamanistic revival (which I strictly do not understand) is asking to be called Savages.

    What really puzzles me is the amount of attention Wicca and paganism get from the outside. Some people seriously worry about people who are determined to be harmoniously happy. Ooh, scary scary. They want to get along with everyone else and be happy ... for shame! For f--king shame!

    For a largely nonevangelical group of religions, for their striving to do no harm, for their identification with compassionate imagery, and for their determination to find harmony ... what, people worry about them?

    As to what to take seriously, I'm of the opinion that not much in the world warrants the serious attention people give it. Well, comparatively. But whether or not you take it seriously is merely a matter of how much respect you're willing to give people when you come across them.

    One of the things I found interesting about the simplicity of the parts of the Craft that I dwelt in was that the simplicity made the imagery that much more accessible and, to a degree, interactive. The first time I did mushrooms, I encountered a state of mind I'd found elsewhere before and had identified as an interactive maternal presence evoked in my consciousness in the presence of goddess-religion. The second time I did mushrooms I gloried in the sensation. All I need to reproduce it artificially is psilocybin and Christmas lights. But the natural encounter ... it's different because the nature of focus is different. Like any religion, it's all in the mind. It's just a matter of what you do with it. I never generated such powerful sensations with other imagery ... well, save one, but I don't expect anyone to understand that particular aspect of things.

    The primary drawback to most of the Pagan Revival is that they are Earth religions. Theoretically speaking, a whole new set of "magick symbols" would apply should humanity ever colonize another world. So you'd have to build up a whole new tradition.

    In that sense, I can say that I give much credit to the various forms of witchcraft I encountered during my time; though my study of, say, Voudoun was nearly nonexistent, I can say that the traditions I did delve into carried no principle that should be offended when I outgrew the paradigm. To cast a mythical image, it's the difference between the angry father and the proud mother.

    What's really weird is hearing a goddess-pagan curse. Instead of "goddamnit", it's a sarcastic, "Mother, may I?"

    Like anything else, you'll find there only as much as you allow yourself to find. Don't set your sights so low.

    :m:,
    Tiassa

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  10. Blue_UK Drifting Mind Valued Senior Member

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    Re: Well, if that's the way you're gonna be ....

    Do you see 'shrooms as enlightening?

    Be wary of caner-logic.
     
  11. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    while tiassa's explination is why I got into Wicca back in the day, this is exactly why I'm not in it now. Wicca as a religion is based on the ideas and practices which have a very thin history (as the Xians burned most of it). To say that it is the same group as the Celts seems foolish to me.

    There is something out there, and I haven't found it yet. If you talk to the Goddess, the I am happy for you. But AFAIK, she is just the interpretation that a few anti-social brits came up with from a couple scattered songs and stories during the 1800's.

    And most of my friends who are wiccan do alot of stuff which they can't really explain why they do it ("It says to in the book"), so in my mind, they are as bad as my X-ian friends.

    At Least Tiassa has aknoweledge of what she's into. I bet if anyone has a handle on what the religion is, and not just what Crowely wrote in his books, it's her. Cheers to quiet consideration, something I lack in spades.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2003
  12. Truth Hurts Registered Senior Member

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    The history books you quote, were all written by the winners through out time. ( the losers slinked off into obscurity, died and "their side of the story" was never to be heard again.)
    consider that source before you claim something is fact.
    you are becoming a victim of revisionist history.

    tiassa what religion are you?
     
  13. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Officially I have none

    When atheism failed I didn't return to any one religious paradigm but rather tried working with the value I found in any of them I came into contact with.

    Sufism holds my interest, but I'll never be a Sufi. Various aspects of the Craft composed my last official religion; I was a mutt solitary witch. Crowley can verge on brilliance, but I won't make a religion out of it. I'm a departed Lutheran who graduated from a Catholic high school and carries a quiet appreciation for the Society of Friends (Quakers). I've tried to study Qabalism, and I find some merit in the post-Hindu gurus who influenced Americans. But my holy books are by Ranier Maria Rilke, Aldous Huxley, Shel Silverstein, and also (Crowley) Perdurabo's Book of Lies.

    I have no official religion; I have no official godhead. I recognize God as an idea shared by people, believe that people invent Gods, and, as such, can only award to God what the people can imagine for themselves; this last idea is a mutation of Lysander Spooner (see Vices Are Not Crimes: A vindication of moral liberty, ch. XII).

    I actually think that, in general, religions have become a bad idea. Their prior anthropological functions, including reinforcement of community, &c., are being replaced by myths of state and cause that need no gods to justify them.

    And I might as well note that, while Bradbury is also a part of my sacred canon, I'm getting ready to do another reading of Dandelion Wine as a deliberate ritual to elevate the book to its proper place in the canon (Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Martian Chronicles have earned such places, as have some of the short stories.) I would include Steven Brust (To Reign in Hell, the Khaavren Romances, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar & Grille if I didn't get the feeling he would disapprove of anyone taking his books that seriously.

    I don't know what to tell you; I intentionally keep the borders of that part of me sublimated so that everything can bleed together like that. Robert McCammon's Boy's Life, for instance ... for me it was more than simply the end of the 1980's horror-fiction movement; McCammon stepped up and included some bold declarations in character.

    I think people are somehow my religion. But if I could go through the list of books (strangely, very little music has been so elevated, and only a couple of movies; oh, and one television show and as soon as The Simpsons ends I get to consider a second) and explain to you or anyone else what exactly it is about being human that I get from those things, well, I would be rather a famous and paid author on this planet.

    Something about the ineffable, too. Perhaps there's a challenge there that my conscience won't ignore.

    And as long as we're sitting here communicating on the internet, the one example I can give you is that I'll elevate Dandelion Wine just as soon as the force of the blow stops resonating so loudly. But Leo Auffman's Happiness Machine: it sounds just like the internet. I hadn't read the book in ten years when I finally got back and did so. The whole thing just smacked me like I hadn't been smacked in a while. As soon as it stops resonating (after nearly a year) I'll be able to sit back and assess how major a point it really is, and decide whether it merely verges on prophetic or actually pulls it off.

    I think of the words I write here; often 5,000 - 10,000 a day. If I could take the ineffable essences I prize so highly and coax them into a coherent whole, you'd see a new religion emerging in large scale by this time next year. But communication's the trick. I can't explain to most people the idea of a religion that turns itself off, so what chance do I have?

    :m:,
    Tiassa

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  14. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Can be

    They have that potential. It depends on the user and the occasion; state of mind is a major factor--some would say everything--when it comes to using hallucinogenic substances.

    If you just want to get goofy ... they'll do that aplenty.

    I remember playing chess once while coming up. Forty-five minutes and twelve moves seemd like forever. But something about trying to play chess was incredibly metaphorical. But then my buddy got into a little spat over a lighter with my girlfriend and we ended up laughing our asses off for fifteen minutes that seemed like a day.

    I tend to think you have to work at harvesting any enlightened fruits the experience offers.

    I recommend Huxley's Doors of Perception as a nifty little testament to hallucinogens; he took ... mescaline, I think, in a vaguely experimental atmosphere. Interesting little book, and a quick read if you let it be.

    :m:,
    Tiassa

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  16. Blue_UK Drifting Mind Valued Senior Member

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    My self and a housemate had never had mushrooms before, it was just us in the house and we helped our selves to a mate's stash of powdered liberty caps. We had 1 heaped teaspoon each in a mug of tea.

    About half an hour later he suggested having another cup, seeing as we hadn't felt anything. I suggest we had better do it quick - before we changed our minds. Oh how we laughed, it wasn't even that funny, but we laughed and laughed. One of the funniest nights of my life!

    I pretty much look down on caning nowadays, as I found (and it may not be so for you) that one generally speaks/thinks BS when high.

    Another thought I'm sure you caners out there can relate to:

    "Hmm... have I come up yet? (Looks around room) No, I'm not tripping. Wait.......except that bit of wall!" - ignore if you don't get this!
     
  17. Truth Hurts Registered Senior Member

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    You clearly crave experiences, and are well read, with a passion to try to believe.

    How would “you” define love?
     
  18. venomx Registered Senior Member

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    Wicca is actually a fairly modern 'bunch of crap'. yes it is derived from old celtic beliefs. but its a bunch of crap cooked up by people who want to get away from christianity and have their own beliefs just to spite everyone.

    it seems christianity itself has split up 57 official sub eligoins to be exact, and countless more unofficial groups. it seems even christians themselves will go to great means to get away from core christianity.

    like stupid people who worship satan.... yet also claim to reject the christian bible, we learn about satan from the christian bible so satanism requires accepting the bible as the divine word of god..... hmmm


    people are stupid... and people we are
     
  19. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    As already mentioned here...
    Wicca is NOT Celtic.
    Wicca has nothing to do with the Druids.
    Wicca is NOT ancient.

    Most Wiccans can't even tell you what Wicca IS.

    Most of the "Wiccans" I have met did not choose Wicca because of what it is, rather what it is NOT or what image it holds.

    They chose it because it is NOT mommy and Daddy's religion.
    They chose it because it IS "cool".

    How can it even be called a religion if there ARE no set rules, Gods, practices or even concepts that are common among all practitioners?

    Wiccan: "I believe in nature, Gods and Goddesses. I believe that the ancients had it right and people were swayed away from their beliefs by Christians who persecuted them."

    Me: "Why? Which Gods/Goddesses? What did they do? Where did you gain this knowledge from? What did the Ancients believe? How do you know this? Where are your ancient texts? (by ancient, I mean AT LEAST older than your father) When did Christians persecute "your people"? Can you back this up?"

    Wiccan: *scoffs* "You need to open your mind."

    Me: "OK. Thanks. Bye."


    This person said it much better than I ever could:
    Why Wiccans Suck

    Check it out.

    It is a great site.
     
  20. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    I was looking at it tonight, and it does seem to be a very good site, but for some reason it's going wonky on me and the pages keep giving out, won't load right and the like unless I try a zillion times. You wouldn't happen to have a mirror of the site handy, would you?
     
  21. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Which only goes to prove the point

    I seriously can't believe people worry about Wicca. It's almost diversionary, as if people are afraid to give their attention to things that are actually problems.

    :m:,
    Tiassa

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  22. Truth Hurts Registered Senior Member

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    tiassa, I ask again, I really want to know what you think on this open ended topic in any sense of its wording.

    You clearly crave experiences, and are well read, with a passion to try to believe.

    How would “you” define love?
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    (Coming Soon)

    Coming Soon!


    Tiassa's World of Wonders!

    Making the ineffable effable!

    Tell the children! Get the neighbors! Haul Gran'mama out of the mausoleum!
    Come one!
    Come all!
    Come as you are, now come on, whoo-whoo! Come as you are, and we'll have a ball!
    (Bring me the Bubble Boy ... and the head of John the Baptist on a platter!)

    ... er ... the Bubble Boy. The Bubble Boy can be alive. I don't want ... er ... nevermind.


    I will get back to you soon, Mystech. Some questions should not be answered immediately, and this I can do something about. Some questions cannot be answered in a lifetime, and there's not much I can do about that. I'm shooting for somewhere in between. In the meantime, for that tasty preview, I offer this blurb from Gibran:
    :m:,
    Tiassa

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    Last edited: Jun 2, 2003

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