i feel that tradition its keep ed alive by not nickle and dime are self's out to every one i mean truly if you want be Wicca great i simply choose OT be Norse traditional but that's my path and it's not for every one
I'm not :-P
I'm sick of people assuming I'm a Wicca too - I'm a witch not a bloody Wicca!
no offense to all of you vicunas out there its just annoying for me :-))
answer: We are? Links please. I haven't seen any Wiccans attempting to convert me from my path of heathenism. There are some stereotypes on both sides of the fence - Fluffy bunny Wiccans is one. Racist heathen jerks is the other.
I didn't realize anyone was........
Most "fluffy" Wiccans I know are absolutely terrified of me. The ones who aren't are very well read and well studying Wiccans who are fully aware that Asatru and Wicca are NOTHING alike.
http://www.webcom.com/~lstead/wicatru.html
I always get a good laugh out of that and my Wiccan friend did as well.
Labgrrrl: We must have the same email. I never get those memos either. Perhaps we should look into that....
We are? I know they're different paths and I don't particularly care if you're Asatru or not, though I do find the religion very interesting. The followers are fine in my book because they long ago learned to keep their religion to themselves.
Edit: Obsidian, that's because there are certain fluff's out there (and people that don't understand anything at all about the religion) that keep trying to claim that witchcraft and Wicca are the same, when they aren't. I try to correct them whenever I can but its not always possible.
Secondly: Wiccan and Witchcraft are exclusive of each other (though not mutually, as some still like to combine the two and that's fine as far as they are concerned.)
Wiccan and Asatru both fall under the umbrella term of "Paganism". You and I (as I am A Witch) are neither Chirstian, Muslim or Jew which puts us both in the cater gory of Pagan. This, to others would seem like enough to mark us as one and the same.
If that's what they want then fine, let them believe what they want to believe. We know the difference and that is what counts.
In the USA anyway, Wicca and Asatru people are so different overall theologically and politically many Asatruar feel that unless we carefully distinguish ourselves from Wicca, people will have a very incorrect (and from the perspective of many of us, a very negative view of Asatru. Also, many Heathens (not myself) think that our Gods, Runes, etc. should be worked with/contacted only within Heathen religion and wish that the Wiccans (who tend to borrow very widely, often in a very haphazard and ill-organized way) would just stay away from "our" Gods, Runes, etc. When many Wiccans say that they believe that all religions teach pretty much the same thing (false and demonstrably so) and that our Gods and Goddesses are "faces" or "aspects" of their generic Lord and Lady, which in turn are polarities of one essentially monotheistic Deity, it sets a lot of Heathens off. We deal with it in various ways. I keep a polite distance from most of the Wiccans and other Neopagans in our area. Jordsvin http://home.earthlink.net/~jordsvin
It's an easy comparison for people outside either group so to have them doing it is no surprise.
For example, both have a reverence of nature (although ?satr? See's nature as one Deity among many and is more accurately described as ancestor worship than nature worship), both celebrate in a similar way at similar times of the year (although that does have a fair bit to do with Wicca appropriating celebrations like Yule), both can be described as polytheism ("hard" polytheism for ?satr? and "soft" polytheism or pantheism for Wicca) both are considered Prue-christian religions (?satr? an actual Prue-christian religion and Wicca a supposed Prue-christian religion), both face persistent assault from Christians accusing us of devil worship and child abuse etc etc.
Through those similarities you can also see the differences. I've known a few Wiccans who've been quite surprised, even upset to learn that I revere my ancestors more than the archetypal mother earth (they had assumed that because the word Earth comes from the old Norse Jord and old English Jeorth that we held mother earth above all others) and I've also found a few of them to be surprised that I do not percieve the Aesir and Vanir to be aspects or the Lord and Lady (we have our own Lord and Lady in the form of Freyr and Freya but they're not the unified sum of all the others but seperate distinct dieties in and of themselves) but none of this has prevented me from having Wiccan friends and from sharing some of their concerns, in fact I regularly attend meetings with a diverse group of pagans to discuss these things.
I was not aware of any open animosity between our faiths, although Heathens have a tendency to distrust Wiccans, because they try not to offend anyone (hence don't say what they think) and are secretive, and Wiccans can find our forthrightness offensive (we say what we mean whether you like it or not).
I think terminology a problem here. Firstly Wiccan, this term is often used incorrectly to refer to all pagan/earth based spirituality, Wicca is a distinct initiatory mystery religion based on the works of Gerald Brosseau Gardner and later Alex Sanders, all Wiccans become witches upon initiation. Many people get very annoyed because I hold that you cannot be Wiccan unless you follow either Gardner or Sanders and are either initiated or neophyte to a coven. The "Eclectic Wiccans" (and Soloists) are the often the fluffy bunny types, they should be termed as "Eclectic Pagans"; however many of them follow the pantheist theology of the Goddess but because they not initiated they are not truly Wiccan, sort of like a Christian never being baptized.
Heathenry (Asatru and other branches) are completely separate from Wicca and Eclectic Paganism, we are truly polytheist (as are Druids who don't like being called Wiccan either). There is no similarity at all between the two faiths.
There is a group known as Saex-Wicca which tries to weld Wicca and Saxon Heathenry together but this is a very strange thing to do as the underlying theologies are opposites, Wiccan pantheism is more akin to Christian monotheism with its triple aspect Father, Son, Ghost.
If there is any confusion I believe this has been caused by such TV shows as Buffy where the term Wiccan has been used so incorrectly that anyone outside the Wiccan faith or a reconstructionist faith would believe that Wicca means pagan. Interestingly the etymology of the word shows that the original Wiccans made a mistake as the Anglo-Saxon word "wica" means "to twist" (hence wicker basket etc) and "wice" (also pronounced wika) means wise, oops!
I didn't know anyone was. Last I checked I was holding some good relations with Wiccans. (some)
A lot of Pagan and Heathen religions have problems with outsiders only seeing the stereotypical new auger.
As Frau said. "Fluffy bunny Wicca" and "Racist Jerk Heathen." Which do sent Reflect anyone who is serious about the respective religion. (with exceptions)
well, welcome to the faith. Glad to see you here. Tell whoever is giving you crap about being apart of Asatru to remember that our Gods dint condone turning the other Cheeck they condone beat hing the other person into pulp or until they pay you three silver pieces.
Sorry you are having cra* ( We have all been there.... but i dont think anyone I have met has been there where a wiccan was the one harassing you....)
For example.
I have this moron who keeps following me around sending me hateful messages. and I quote (with spelling fixed) "You evil pagan son of satan!"
Punctuation! Spelling! Syntax! Speak sense or be silent!!!
Okay . . . now that I've got the English teacher that I am IRL out of my system . . . *G*
The only comparisons that can be made between Asatru and Wicca are ones of *contrast* . . . that can be helpful, but we're really not part of each others "things" or communities, and for the most part don't generally wish to be. As minority religions in an increasingly fingertip country, however, it never hurts to be well-informed about each other.
why are we comparing Asatru with wicca?
