Hi Francis et al
The LBR is used more widely than you say -
but I agree its hardly the sine qua non of UK paganism,
although i've found it useful common ground with non English speaking
pagans in Europe.
Without wanting to deny Caroline's thesis about a possible disjuncture
between neo- and antique paganism - I
wonder where it originates - is it original to the GD - although based
on older QBL and perhaps classical sources?
I wouldn't have thought it was so out of kilter with antique paganism -
there are heptagramme rites in the Greek Magical Papyri -
and the notion of four quarters and guardians does seem part of the
international
language of magick on the ancient world??
"Love and do what you will"
Mogg
Cameron wrote:
> In my (quite wide) experience of Paganism in the UK, I've only once
> come across the actual use of the Lesser Banishing Ritual and that was
> at the end of a Pagan Federation Conference. Apart from that I've
> found the ritual associated only with the OTO and the suchlike. Are
> things different in your part of the world?
>
> I'll add here, on a different subject : my experience of nearly 30
> years on the Pagan scene in the UK is that we freely use the word
> *Pagan* both among ourselves and in public (at the last National
> Census, for example). I have *never* heard any one of us describe
> themself as a neo-Pagan. I've come across that term only when used by
> outsiders - and sometimes, then, when they are not being complimentary.
>
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 5:56 AM, Caroline Tully <[log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> And what does "Paganism" have to do with "Magic" or the "Academic
> Study of Magic" in case anyone thinks I talk too much about it?
> Well, one of the main characteristics of generic or pop
> Neo-Paganism as I have experienced it is to have a ritual
> structure based on the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.
> Lots of modern Pagans really believe that the act of casting
> circles with pentagrams was the authentic religious ritual format
> of "the ancient Pagans". In a recent discussion I had with a
> newspaper reporter with Pagan sympathies, she was visibly
> disbelieving when I told her that Roman flamines were not
> "performing magic spells" during civic religious ritual but doing
> animal sacrifice in order to maintain their reciprocal
> relationship with the Roman gods. (Yes, I know religious ritual
> has cross-over with magic ritual and one person's 'religion' is
> another's 'magic'), but the flamines *intention* was not to be
> performing 'magic' (which was considered a nefarious activity).
>
> What I'm saying is that modern Paganism embraces magic, so that's
> why it is relavent *to* the subject of magic.
>
>
> ~Caroline Tully.
>
> http://necropolisnow.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
> --
> Francis
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