WITCHCRAFT
"The impact of New Age spirituality on the goddess community has also been incalculable. Emerging approximately at the same time, the two movements have now become so intertwined as to appear indistinguishable. It's impossible to attend any goddess festival that does not include workshops on crystals, yoga, channeling, tarot, astrology, past life regression, visualization, dream work, and alternative healing." from Gnosis, Carol LeMasters.
"Alienated from a Judaism and Christianity for their male biases, feminists of the late 1960's and early 1970's were searching for an alternative. They drew from a variety of sources, the most influential of which was Wicca. Women took from the Craft not only its worship of a goddess but its respect for nature, magical practices, and ritual structure. Celebrations of moons and Sabbaths, casting circles, raising energy, chants and dances, candles and incense--all came from neopagan and Wiccan groups flourishing at the time." Carol Le Masters

Coven, Sabbat , Goddess, Harry Potter, Gnosis, Casting Circles, Channeling, Alternative Healing, Gardner, Occult, Wicca, Chants, Witches

We Got it all.

Excerpt from, "Spellbinding a Culture, The Emergence of Modern Witchcraft" by Tal Brooke

The Coven

According to bestselling Wiccan leader and author Starhawk, "the coven is a witch's support group, consiousness-raising group, psychic study center, clergy training program, college of mysteries, surrogate clan, and religious congregation all rolled into one."

In the Circle of Light coven that Berger joined in her research, the members were enjoined not to share the details of rituals or magical workings outside of the group. Needless to say, a we/they group cohesion can cause a cult-like dynamic as well as cliquish nests with those not fitting in the closed group, who are often encouraged to leave. Many try to give this group pressure a positive spin by likening it to a close-knit family. Almost as an outgrowth of an idealized 1960's communalism, the Wiccan movement embraces the idea of community. Community is protection. Witches, appropriating the concept from the homosexual community, often speak of "coming out of the broom closet." Both the neopagan and homosexual communities have permeable boundries.

Festivals remain the most visible way that neopagans network and build community. About 60 festivals involving up to several thousand people are held throughout the United States each year, usually in rural areas over an extended weekend. Some of the larger mixed festivals, like the Burning Man festival, draw mixed affiliations from various movements: the neopagan, New Age, Wiccan, anarchist, heavy metal, and so on.

Wiccans contend that the magical atmosphere of some festivals is produced by the large numbers of rituals, magical invocations, and other events that create a sense of the gathering of the tribes. There is drumming, ritual dance, song, crystal magic, ritual fires, and communal meals creating a sense of togetherness. It is a time of general networking and self-identificaton among the pagan community, emblodening their sense of purpose to spread the fires of change in the greater society.

On one level, these festivals are seen as a consciousness-raising exercise; on another level, they are considered previews of a future model of society without the old constraints (this is what the New Age is all about). As heirs to the counterculture, the neopagan community is open to nontraditional family forms, such as group marriages and open marriages. Children growing upin this millieu undergo a kind of sexual liberation of their own. And this makes a lot of people nervous on the outside. Open sexuality within Wicca has been seen as liberating to women while at the same time raising the inevitable issue of exploitaion and unwanted seual aggression in the greater group. Neopagans keep attempting to define "a healthy sexual atmosphere for children."

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