The May 2010 Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Newsletter can now be found at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/Newsletters/Newsletter108(May2010)(RGB).pdf Bill C-384 was soundly defeated by a vote of 228 to 59. Check how the Members of Parliament voted at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/HowTheyVoted.pdf On June 5, 2010, we are co-hosting the US/Canda Push-Back Seminar at the Radisson Gateway Hotel at the Seattle/Tacoma Airport. The overwhelming defeat of Bill C-384 proved that we can Push-Back the euthanasia lobby in the US and Canada and convince people that euthanasia and assisted suicide are a dangerous public policy. Register for the Seminar at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/2010SeminarFlyer(RGB)(LetterFormat).pdf The Schindler family are being attacked by a Florida television station and Michael Schiavo. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is standing in solidarity with the Schindler family. My blog comments: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/05/att
LOL! Ah, Tim...we're both not busy enough, right? You want me to wade through this comedy of errors and parse it? Okay...I'll skim the surface a little...
ReplyDeleteAddressing the author (and is that really his name??? Damian? How evocative... ;D): First up is spelling. Capitalization counts. If you're gonna talk about something about which you know nothing, and you want to make people think you know at least a little bit, you cannot equate Witches with witches any more than you can equate Catholics with catholics. Journalists really ought to know that.
Aliester Crowley's only "connection" with modern Wicca was through some of his ideas expressed in some of his writings, which were co-opted and plagiarized by Uncle Gerald -- our wryly affectionate name for Gerald Gardner, who was only one of the forebears of what is know today as modern Wicca. But most of us tend to regard Uncle Gerald the same way that modern Scientologists regard L. Ron Hubbard -- more than a bit of a crackpot who put his fantasies in writing, and upon which we have expounded, expanded, and improved. We saved what we liked and we ignore the rest. Rather like what happened at the Council of Nicea.
Terminology: Wiccan is not the same as Witch. They mean completely different things. Some of us are one, some the other, some are neither, and some are both. And Pagan (again with the capitaliation when you are speaking of a practitioner) is different, still. "Magic" is prestidigitation -- stage entertainment, sleight-of-hand. "Magick" is what we do, and there is more than one way to practice Magick. Even members of the same coven do not all practise in the same way. We do what works for us as individuals. There is no hive mentality. And finally under this particular category -- and this is very, very important -- Magick has no color! There is no such thing as "white" Magick or "black" Magick. I don't know where those terms originated, but as soon as I see or hear someone using them in a modern context, I know for sure they don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Wiccans, Witches, and other Pagans do not "summon spirits." That's for Ceremonial (or High) Magickians, who are the modern-day equivalent of alchemists like Isaac Newton and Nicolas Flamel. There is no spiritual side to Ceremonial Magick. None. Not to say that High Magickians have no spiritual side, but it is separate from their practise of High Magick, which is different from Magick.
That's merely surface stuff -- glaring errors that leap off the page and smack you on the nose. I saw other stuff that I have little time to address right now, but I'm open to questions if anyone has them.
BTW...I took a look at some of the comments -- and I am NOT going anywhere near that mare's nest of wilful ignorance! Swim in that particular cesspool at your own risk, folks.