beta portraitBeta's Rants

Why Wicca.Com should change its name.

        When I am bored, I start putting words in my browser bar, and ending them with a .com or a .net, to see what is there. It is a neat hobby, did you know that there is a www.www.com? a www.com.com? And yup, there is a Wicca.com and it is called "The Celtic Connection," and it has been for years.
        Why is it called the Celtic Connection? Seems to me it has no claim to the term Celtic Connection! It is a Wiccan site, does not claim to be a Celtic site,  it claims to be "A complete source for Wiccan, Witchcraft and Pagan
knowledge & supplies. " and "A place where followers of Wicca, Witchcraft, Shamanism, Druidry and Pagan beliefs meet to celebrate the magickal life."  See any Celts yet?  I don't and I am one, born and bred in what is universally considered a "Celtic Country"
        I decided, since it was the fourth of July, and I had nothing to do, to look through "The Celtic Connection" and try to find the connection between the name and the url.
        I began at the index page- nothing celtic there.  I went to the next page- a catalog ad featuring Bunnyzilla (Silver Ravenwolf) and the AA Bunny (Amber K.) were there, and a huge section of Wicca, their metaphysical catalog and much more.  And there, at the end of a list of links on chakras, crystals, Wicca and more, was a section called "CELTIC KNOWLEDGE."
        I, silly Beta that I am, figured that maybe they saved the best for last, so I clicked the link, prepared to have the knowledge of my ancestors poured into my head.
        Instead, I had three choices: Celtic Tree Calendar, Sacred Trees and Moons.  The First page listed names for trees that are also months, okay, I've heard this bit of folklore,  although the statement that "December 23 is not ruled by any tree for it is the traditional day of the proverbial "Year and a Day" in the earliest courts of law." was both new to me and to the world, as it is fictional in more ways than one (The Celtic Calendar is Lunar, not the Roman Calendar, and December 23rd means NOTHING to a Celt, and the earliest courts in the land were the rabbinical courts, the Greek courts and the Roman courts, and NONE OF THEM used "a year and a day."
        The second page was filled with folklore about the trees. Forgetting for a moment that archeologists believe that the most barren parts of Scotland and the Isles north were covered with trees that the indigenous people clear cut, so the idea of Celts holding trees as so sacred is suspect, 3/4 of these trees are special to druids. (Contrary to the idea of living at one with nature, the Celts (and the Norse) practiced clear cutting and strip mining, and got more of their calories from meat than any other culture of the day-Archaeological botany and zooology tells us plants and animals were hunted to extinction by them-the happy Green Celt of modern New Age Celticism is as much a myth as the Lucky charms mascot) Not all Celts were druids, not all Celtic Cultures (who, unlike this site which says they were in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, filled all of Britain, most of France, a chunk of Germany, Italy and Spain and, in fact, looted the city of Rome itself!) had druids, and the knowledge of the Druids, to the best of our knowledge, was NEVER shared amongst all the people. The Druids kept a lot of what they did secret, and their priesthood (although there is postulation of a northern group of "druesses" this has not been demonstrated) lived and died by that secret-if every chief knew the mysteries, the druids would not've existed!!  This page also gives you some simple folk charms to do with these trees.... Awwwww, how cute! But not Wiccan, and NOT Celtic.
        The Celtic moons were similarly unenlightening. First off, there is no such thing as Blue or Black moon in a lunar calendar. The moon cannot appear full twice in a lunar month. A lunar month is from one dark (or full, depending on calendar) moon to the next.  With that in mind, the Calendar is missing a moon. Then, we have these bits of knowledge: "Hare Moon:The sacred animal was associated in Roman legends..." Hello?!?!? When the Celts sacked Rome they left! They didn't take Roman culture, they considered in beneath them, filthy, and weak (according to the Romans) same with: "Dyad Moon
The Latin word for a pair refers to the twin..."  Hello?!?! Were these Ancient Celts speaking Latin? No WONDER they used this Roman calendar! (That the Romans were speaking Italian, not Latin, by the time said calendar came into use is a subject for another rant!)  We leave the Romans alone for a while to continue this list, not mentioning that in most "Celtic Lands" the snows DO NOT fall in October, so calling it the snow moon is silly, or wondering why the Celts would use the Anglo-Saxon word for plant, as the Angles and Saxons were not Celtic (didn't you yanks ever take a moment of British History-this isn't like the details of the War of the Roses-we knew this before we could spell our surnames!), or wondering how on earth the "mead moon" came to be about the meadows, which were mowed then, according to our "celtic" friends. (Probably by John Deere tractors), instead of about the mead, which Romans, Greeks, Germanics and Celts all made in the end of the Spring. (...And as June 21st is the first day of summer....) YES. The Old English did sometimes call a meadow a mede, or a maed, but the Celts were old English, either.
        And that was it. That was all the so-called Celtic content on the "Celtic Connection." That it isn't Celtic doesn't matter.

        So, what the hell, I'd read the Wicca section. I'm a Wiccan, but I can learn.

        Let me tell you, I learned a lot! Contrary to Gardner, Lethbridge and Adler, who all acknowledge Wicca's roots include Hellenic influences, Hiduism, Theosophy, British Spiritualism and Ceremonial Magick (Which mostly comes out of Judaism or Renaissance Germany), The Celtic connection taught me that "Wicca is a belief system and way of life based upon the reconstruction of pre-Christian traditions originating in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales."    I ALSO learned that "recent archaeological discoveries" give us a basis to believe that our religion is based, at least in part, on "Paleolithic peoples who worshipped a Hunter God and a Fertility Goddess" which makes Witchcraft "the oldest religion known in the world toady."  I was amazed! Especially since when I took Archaeology and Anthropology, we discussed Margaret Murray and her complete and utter lack of acceptable methods.  That the Pagan Community's own T.C. Lethbridge, in The Witches (1967), declared such things probable bunk, is refuted by recent discoveries is amazing! These discoveries are, in fact, so recent, that no archaeologist has heard of them, published them or seen them. Sure, there are cave drawings, but stuff that proves  "Paleolithic peoples who worshipped a Hunter God and a Fertility Goddess", NADA!!!  I challenge our good friends at the Celtic connection to provide this information, cite a source, a SINGLE SOURCE for their false statements, or admit to their fraud, apologize, and go away.

Now, here are some REAL definitions from the US government:
Fraud is the misrepresentation of material fact to the detriment of the consumer.
-Like calling what you are doing Celtic When it is not.
False advertising is defined as advertising that is misleading in any material respect, either explicitly or indirectly through representations made in a statement or combination of statements and any failure to reveal material facts.
Misrepresentation is defined as the act of giving a false or misleading representation of  something usually with an intent to deceive or be unfair and/or serving badly or improperly as a representative of.

My opinions matter didly squat. Wicca.com should change its name not because it pisses me off but because by not doing so, it is FRAUD, FALSE ADVERTISING, and MISREPRESENTATION.

Why Wicca is not Celtic
What is Wicca
Celtic Religion - what information do we really have
 

With Much Love,
Beta
A Wiccan of Celtic Heritage who is proud of both and knows they are NOT the same.
 
 



Fair use, a Selection from Condoleezza Rice's Memo to her underlings at Stanford:

The "fair use" doctrine allows limited reproduction of copyrighted works for educational and research purposes. The relevant portion of the copyright statue provides that the "fair use" of a copyrighted work, including reproduction "for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" is not an infringement of copyright. The law lists the following factors as the ones to be evaluated in determining whether a particular use of a copyrighted work is a permitted "fair use," rather than an infringement of the copyright:

• the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

• the nature of the copyrighted work;

• the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and

• the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
 

Definitions of Fraud and False advertising from here