I'd like to begin by thanking everyone who commented on my previous post concerning the Wiccan Rede. All of the comments received on it, save one, have been posted. I hope you've read them and that they've triggered debate and discussion. The one comment that was not posted was far too long to include in the comment section. In fact, it was longer than my original post. This comment came from Rain Dove, the Priestess of The Dragon and The Rose Coven of Georgia. A quick look on The Witches Voice shows that "Rain Dove has been practicing and walking the path of Wicca since 1996, but has been studying since 1994." The Coven practices the Jordanian Tradition of Celtic Wicca. By this she

Modern Paganism embraces a wide variety of spiritual traditions. One of the challenges of these traditions is that in some instances they are not thoroughly considered. An individual tradition may leave out large swathes of concepts and limit themselves to small sections of reality. There is often the worship of deities, the practice of magick, divination, and healing, the celebration of festivals and holidays, but little else. As a result, for many people their spiritual tradition is merely a part-time practice rather than a way of living. (I wouldn't limit this to Pagans, either.) In fact, for many Pagans, when asked how their spirituality flavors their lives, they have little to say,

Are you familiar with Tantra? If you live in a Western culture, you probably know that Tantra is "that sex stuff." It's about "spiritualized sex," the Kama Sutra, weird sex positions, and sex that lasts for hours. Didn't Sting say so? (Okay, now he admits it was a joke.) Even in India, the birthplace of Tantra, most people think of Tantra as either "that sex stuff" or "black magick" or both. Here in the West, the Tantra most people are familiar with is really more accurately called "Neo-Tantra." It has a focus on extended periods of ecstatic sex and, supposedly, leads followers to a more spiritual state. Practitioners will talk about moving energy, breathwork, and visualization—all

On another forum I saw a question about spirits. The poster wanted to know how to do magick to get rid of a spirit that had linked with another person. The poster was worried that he would be working against the Wiccan Rede by forcing the spirit to do something it didn't want to do. You may have seen similar posts or heard questions like this. I have a few problems with it. What is a Spirit? My first question is what does this person think a spirit is? Today, some people (notably members of religious sects) put the blame for all their problems on spirits or demons. Are you an alcoholic? Are you broke? Are you unhealthy? Did you lose your job? Are some of your teeth missing? Did you get