Celtic Wicca, now come on

Ok, this is the thread to see the most creative justification
for using the term "Celtic Wicca"

come on, lets here em.

 

Hi heron Well, never used the term myself, but how about Wiccans who worship Celtic gods and godesses?

 

Yeah that's about all I can think of.
Considering the free for all wicca has become then to claim a distinct title you'd have to worship only them exclusivley, and try to keep your practises in line with what the original Celts did.
No wait hang on, that would be Celtic recon.
Perhaps it's like the love child of true Celtic recon and Wicca*. Or maybe the fuzzy bunny version of recon.

Oh fuck, I don't know, lol.

I'm sitting here trying to come up with a good response, but the more I think about the less is coming to me. Honestly cannot think of any possible justification. So I suppose therein lies it's absurdity.

There is a celtic wicca community is livejournal, am tempted to go and ask them. Which would probably technically count as trolling, ergo would make me a bad bad person; but hey I'll be nice to them, and otherwise this could potentially bug the hell out of me forever.

Thought of the day ... "Celtic Wicca makes baby Taliesin cry."

*in it's more general and/or fuzzy sense.

 

I have a book somewhere about "Celtic shamanism," supposedly describing the ways in which the ancient Celts practised a kind of shamanism; and shamanism is a Pagan practise...and isn't Wicca based on Paganism? Maybe there's a vague connection in there somehow...

 

Wicca claims to be derived from traditional English witchcraft, supposedly the religion of the pre-christian Britons. Mainly these were Celtic peoples. So a connection seems obvious. Also, there were presumably witches in Scotland - a proudly Celtic nation. And the Welsh too.

 

The "Celts" as a whole didnt practic a shamanism. Most were under the
aristocratic druidic system, who were not shamans in the traditional sense of the word. There were the deep forest dwellers who definatly had
the "shamanistic" ways, but they had no influence on the culture as a whole.

There was, however, a branch in the Germanic beliefs that was quite shamanistic, and very much in common with the practices of the indigenous siberians.

Wait! The germans were an old branch of the Celtic tribes, they had shamanism, the Anglo-Saxons were germans, Wicca is an ancient ancient
Old English word, therefore, WICCA MUST BE CELTIC!!! (hahahahahaha)

 

First, Witches and Wicca are not synonimous. Witchcraft, in some way or another has been done forever, Wicca was mishmashed together in the 50's out of 16th century Enochian ritual, Egyptian reconstruction (via the Golden Dawn) and High ritual magic (via Crowley), and later Kabbalahism, not so much direct English witchcraft decent.

"English witchcraft" is based largely on myth of the Middle Ages, and isnt really a lineage, but the Wicca link comes from Murrianism, which was very very discredited and actually shamed as a theory.

and if for the sake of argument, lets say it was the Britons religion, which it wasnt, why would it have an Old English word for the title? Why not a word of the Cymraeg language?

The Celts, none of them, ever subscribed to the "lord and lady" all gods are the same arguement that Wicca seems to subscribe to, and would have been quite offended by the thought, much like I am when someone calls on Bael and Zeus and Buddha in the same "circle".

Casting a circle isnt Celtic, pentagrams arent Celtic, wearing all black isnt Celtic, Dualism isnt definatly not Celtic (my god is better than your god was more the thought), nothing of the Wiccan ways seem to reflect anything Celtic except their overly trendly love of all things Celtic, and thinking that Celtic names for the "Lord and Lady, makes them sound cooler.

 

I agree that Wicca ia a modern construct.
I'm only stating that Wiccans claim a connection with something they refer to as witchcraft.

On the Celts and their practices though, I think really very little is known of what they did or didn't do or believe. Modern 'Celts' are following something just as re-constructed as Wicca.

 

Celtic Wicca is an oxymoron. Gardner incorporated everything from Lovecraft's fiction to Eastern philosophy into Wicca. It's like taking a dog, putting antlers on it's head, and calling it a reindeer. That's why Wicca isn't even Witchcraft. Witchcraft is an Anglo-saxon term used to describe strictly Anglo-saxon practices.

 

The vast majority of Celts rejected 'Paganism' in whatever its forms and chose instead to accept The Holy Trinity and Jesus Teachings on the whole thing.

It really is a lark that so many are trying to get some construct going that Celt = Wiccan or there is some lineage or whatnot.
All nonsensical anyways.

Celts did not exactly disappear you know.
You can still spot some of them running about the hills at nights lol!

 

The Celtic Recons are building their beliefs through just that, reconstruction of the old legends and lore and what can be found of the old ways.

Wicca wasnt reconstructed, just constructed, of everything.

To reconstruct what can be found, and flat out make something up
are different. Wicca is a new religion, Celtic Recon is a new version
of an old religion, which Wicca wishes it could be.

As to myself, I dont claim to practice the same as my ancestors, but
instead do what they did, and that is to take the ways of the ancestors
and apply it to my time, rather than to apply it to theirs.

If that were the case, the Gauls would have been practicing the
exact same religion as the Ukrainian Indo-Europeans, rather than
their own reconstruction of the Paleolithic ancestors ways.

 

THere wasnt exactly a rejection, only the incorporation of a new
religion into the older ones. the Celtic Christians were not like
the Chritians today, and still even have left a substantial mark
on modern Christianity.

And no, the Celts didnt disappear, in fact the have nations today,
Ireland, Scotland, Cymru, Brittany, and large parts of Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and good old USofA.

Nova Scotia is home to more Gaelidgh speakers than Scotland, so
no, the Celts did not disappear by any means.

 

Oh really?

 

Either that or masses of ginger coloured bushes moving about.. its hard to tell sometimes

 

I don't get wot the problem is....Celtic is a description of a culture...not a religion (and as a culture the Celts have never had a formal all-encompassing religion throughout).......so if there are modern Celts practising Wicca (or their own interpretation of wicca) then of course there is such a thing as Celtic Wicca

True, wicca is a very modern religion and was hardly practiced by the ancient celts.......but since when did any religion need it's words scratched in granite using ogham characters to earn it any respect?

Y'all want to worry less about what others believe if yer ask me.......or at least learn to respect their beliefs without being insulting....

 

Yet there were witch trials in Ireland, Scotland and Wales - Wierd that.

 

Yeah.. I was taking the piss out of that but I think only a few here caught on to that hehe?

You would have the impression that somehow there was a religious clan and they were gone now or something.
They never went anywhere and I know this because I see lots of them ginger-haired shovelheaded bastards running around the Highlands.
Sometimes they get into battles with rival Celts over various ball-related divisions lol!

But seriously, Celtic 'religions' were all bullshit anyways.. the TRUE 'religion' is Pictish.
Yes, they were the original pagans until those Celts came along and 'forced them to convert' and then burned them all.
Ok, not so much 'burned' but 'married' them all.

 

burned, married, same difference

Anyways, I don't know what the big deal is here, why is following an exact lineage so important? Why is it offensive to invoke Zeus and Buddha at the same time? Why all the exclusivity? Exclusivity breeds contempt. (at least, that's how my uncaffinated mind remembers that phrase).

I say, any help, any method one can find useful, spiritually, it should all be used. It's the connection that's important, not the exact images you connect with.

 

Would it be offensive to call on Jesus, Yahweh and Zeus? To christians and Jews I mean?

Yes it would, because that is their gods, and has no reason to be called with Zeus.

Why would you call these gods of two different worlds to come together in the same "circle" when they may not like each other?

These are real gods, and if you dont believe that, then at least respect the fact the their followers do, that is why it is offensive.

The gods (defending mine too) aren't some craft box of scrap paper you can pull from to make your collage have more color.

As to the Picts (who were arguably an older Celtic branch anyway) being the
true "pagans", you could have at least included all of the Old Europeans, but
I find it hard to believe that you didn't include the Indo-Europeans in your
"pagan" category. Shit, up until Moses, Elijah and the Yahwehist priests, the
Hebrews were pagan as well.

And yes, "Celtic" is used in anthropology to describe a specific culture, and should never be used to describe any religion, except when speaking of a religion specific to that culture. "Celtic Recons" are reconstructing Celtic myths and legends, and are doing so through study of culture. SO for them to use the word is understandable. But Celtic is also used to describe the cultures, people, art and music that is around today, and sadly it is used to describe a plethra of new age trends.

 

In a strictly etymological sense maybe, but that would also mean
nothing outside native tungus practices could be called shamanism.

They are both umbrella terms now.