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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in reincarnation

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

What do you say when a witch dies?

Not My condolences.

Not Rest in Peace.

Not (vacuity of vacuities) I'm sorry for your loss.

Reborn to the People.

 

In his ground-breaking 1954 book Witchcraft Today, Gerald Gardner presents himself—rather disingenuously, be it admitted—as an anthropologist investigating, and eventually being initiated into, an archaic tribe that, counter to any rational expectation, has somehow or other managed to survive, hidden in plain sight, in contemporary Britain.

Gardner's witches believe in reincarnation. When they die, they hope to be reborn among their own.

It's a compelling vision, and one that reads utterly authentically. This is not the “stop the train, I want to get off” reincarnation of Hinduism or Buddhism, or the “every day, in every way, I just get better and better” reincarnation of Theosophy, but a tribal reincarnation in which the highest concern is not Me, but Us.

No wonder so many of us were drawn to this vision. Who wouldn't want to belong to a tribe?

Besides: who could possibly want to be reborn as a cowan?

Reborn to the People.

 

In Marvin Kaye and Parke Godwin's Masters of Solitude novels, a post-apocalypse America has broken down into its component parts. The East Coast, now one sprawling mega-megalopolis, has literally walled itself off from the rest of the continent, and left the rest of us to stew in our own juices.

Meanwhile, out in the howling wilderness, the witches live, broken down into regional tribes: the Shando, the Wengen, the Karli.

Like witches everywhere, they believe, if not in reincarnation per se, then in rebirth, and when they die, they hope—who wouldn't?—to be reborn to their own.

Reborn to the Karli.

Reborn to the Wengen.

Reborn to the Shando.

 

Witches these days may or may not believe in reincarnation, but we do believe in rebirth. You can't look at the natural world and not see that things go round and round.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Reborn to the People

What do you say when someone dies?

I've been rereading Marvin Kaye and Parke Godwin's monumental The Masters of Solitude, a landmark of 20th century witch fiction. It's set 1000 years in the future, and eastern North America is largely populated by various witch tribes.

Among them, when someone dies, you express the wish—or is it a prayer?—that he (or she) be reborn to the tribe.

Reborn to the Shando. Reborn to the Suffec. Reborn to the Karli.

It's a deep witch longing: if I'm to be reborn, let it be among my own.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
How Do You Say "Karma" in Witch?

Belief in reincarnation came into the modern Craft—probably via Theosophy—with Gerald Gardner.

Interestingly, though, there does seem to have been a word for 'karma' in old Witch vocabulary.

Karma in Sanskrit means simply 'act, deed, work,' from the verb karoti, 'he makes,' 'he does,' but has come to mean by extension the sum total of actions throughout one's various lives, and the effect of these deeds on one's present and future lives.

Similar in meaning is the Old Norse word ørlög, usually translated 'fate' or 'destiny.' Ørlög is the sum total of actions and events: everything that has gone on before which brings to bear on events of the present. To the Northrons of old, as in contemporary heathen thought, in addition to ørlög writ large, individuals, families, and nations all had their own ørlögs.

This seems an eminently pragmatic way in which to view the world. What is done is done, shapes everything that comes after it, and cannot be changed. But likewise, every new deed that is done lays down ørlög of its own. 

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Eggs for Ashtart

If I believed in reincarnation, I'd say that it's probably a Long Memory. Since I don't, I can only say that I don't know.

She's old, and something is wrong, badly wrong. That's why the old country woman has come to the city, and is standing here nervously in the crowded street, looking up to the high temple, golden in the morning sunlight, that crowns the top of the hill. She has come to see the Lady, because she needs a favor, and she needs it badly. On her hip she bears her gift: you don't come empty-handed to the Lady, especially when you have a favor to ask. It's a poor woman's offering, a basket of eggs, but she has lovingly painted each one with the brightest colors she can find, to make them beautiful for the goddess.

That's it: as it were, a snapshot from the past. No before, no after. It's a memory, or rather an image, that I've had in my head since early childhood at least, one still frame from a vanished movie.

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There is a quite different argument against abortion I have heard from several Pagan women.  I am more sympathetic to it than to the usual “fetus is human” claim that I demolished in my previous post.   Even so, I think it ultimately fails, though it does complicate a woman’s decision.

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Posted by on in Paths Blogs

I've gotten a few messages about reincarnation and how--and if--it relates to Hellenism. Time to talk about it. The idea of reincarnation probably dates back to the Iron Age (so around 1200 BC.). It enters the Hellenic stream of thought and philosophy around the 6th century BC, although there is mention of the theoretical subject in pre-Socratic philosophy.

The ancient Hellenes most likely did not use the word 'reincarnation'; 'Metempsychosis' (μετεμψύχωσις) is a better word for the phenomenon they believed in. It is a philosophical term in the Hellenic language which refers to the transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. The notion that the human soul enters another body upon death, though unfamiliar in Hellenic religion, was widespread in Hellenic philosophy. The doctrine of transmigration is first associated with the Pythagoreans and Orphics and was later taught by Plato and Pindar. For the former groups, the soul retained its identity throughout its reincarnations; Plato indicated that souls do not remember their previous experiences. Although Herodotus claims that the Hellenes learned this idea from Egypt, most scholars do not believe it came either from Egypt or from India, but developed independently.

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  • Jamie
    Jamie says #
    Ms. Temperance, Thanks for discussing the topic of reincarnation, et cetera! As a Platonist, I really do believe in the transmigr
Death, Impermanence and Reincarnation

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