An Open Letter From....Kaatryn MacMorgan

An Open Letter From....Kaatryn MacMorgan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An Open Letter From...

the other side of the debate:



It is our duty and responsibility, as pagans, to dissent publicly when

we believe our religions are being abused. Often, we are quick to jump

on scholars of other faiths who get the smallest thing wrong with our

faith, but should a fellow practitioner of our own do something we feel

diametrically opposed to, we are often hushed up and treated as if our

disagreement, our very real feelings, are somehow less valid than the

feelings of those who we are disagreeing with.

Those who take the path of dissent are told they are "starting Witch

Wars" that their words are "hastily said" and even that they are somehow

being hateful and unjust for personal gain. Sometimes, those that choose

to dissent even have the horrible injustice of being told that they

aren't REALLY Pagan, or that they are somehow less Pagan than those with

whom they dissent.

This type of manipulative attack on anyone who would disagree with a

party line is a very frightening addition to the tableau of modern

Paganism. Imagine, for example, if Gerald Gardner, Starhawk or Margot

Adler had NOT dissented from what "public opinion" of Witches/Pagans was

at the times their greatest works were written. It is feasible that

without dissent from public opinion the Pagan Renaissance would never

have happened, would've been stopped in its tracks, if, indeed, it

started at all.

The attacks upon, inferences about, and treatment of many of the people

who have openly dissented with Silver Ravenwolf's upcoming work by this

community has been shameful. While some people have chosen to dissent

with anger and fury the VAST majority of those expressing concern have

done it from a voice of love and experience. To cast all who have

dissented into a shadow of shame as people who are somehow "bored with

bashing other religions" is nearly unforgivable.

People dissent because they have experience as Pagans, heart-felt

beliefs about their religion and worries about the direction it often

appears to be going. Some of us have seen ill trained young pagans

attack, bash and threaten Christians, all the while claiming that they

do this because they are Wiccan, or Witches, or whatever Pagan path they

lay claim to. Some of us have had our interfaith workings disturbed by

aggressive "Paganism" and it is we who choose the path of peace who are

oathbound to pick up the pieces when such action in the name of paganism

does the damage it invariably does.

For some of us, the issue with the current direction of Paganism is not

about Silver RavenWolf, or any of the things she has done that some of

us have not agreed with. Many Pagans have been worried about the

direction of Paganism since the first "Elder dieoff" in the late

eighties, which was when many East Coast Wiccans and Pagans, myself

included, lost very close friends and clergy members to AIDS.

I remember back in 1992, standing with some 400 other pagans on Gallows

Hill in Salem for a ritual against religious persecution and honoring

those killed by it, that I had this feeling of great responsibility as a

new mother and soon-to-be Priestess and as a Pagan in general. Three

years earlier, I wouldn't have believed so many Pagans existed, let

alone that so many could make it to a ritual on a cloudy, cold,

Massachusetts night.

I felt as if my life had been the first hill of a roller coaster and

now I, and many other Pagans, were poised at the top in that split

second when time seems to stop and you can see everything, horizon to

horizon. We knew then that we were going to be rushing down the hill and

it was going to be the brakes and stabilizers of our surviving elders

that kept us from going out of control.

In the past few months we have lost several elders, several voices

which could add stability and control to this rush towards whatever

Paganism in the 21st century will be. In our grief and within that great

sense of loss to the community, perhaps our concerns come off as harsh.

So, too, does reaction to those concerns.

It is NOT acceptable to turn the emptiness within Modern Paganism left

by the passing of others into an excuse to be insular and

over-protective of our members. By making Pagan leaders "infallible," by

making the mere act of dissenting with their actions a cardinal sin, we

are no better than the faiths many of us have left behind.

It is vital to the continued and dynamic growth of our faith that those

who disagree with what is said and written do it loudly and publicly. In

responsible religion, sources are challenged, ideas are debated and the

interchange of opinions is in no manner blocked.

We must not allow silence to befall those who speak from experience, or

those that speak from the heart in the interest of an appearance of

uniformity.

Our diversity has always been our strength in this community, and to

abridge it, or expect that it should be abridged can lead to nothing but

our own detriment.



Thank you,

Kaatryn MacMorgan

February 8th, 2000

Permission is given for the use of this document by Wiccan, Pagan and pro-pagan sources, provided it

is reprinted intact, with a link to the CUEW website and not used on any website that defames, belittles or

otherwise harms Wicca or Wiccans or promotes intolerance.

www.cuew.org

if you are interested in learning more, I invite you too:

http://pub33.ezboard.com/btheburningtimes

or futher information may be found at:

http://pub24.ezboard.com/bparanormalresearch32456

Intolerance is NOT a healthy behavior.Freedom of Religion means freedom of ALL religions....or the freedom FROM religion. If you are not part of the solution, you are indeed-part of the problem.

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