Is Wicca/Neopaganism ruined?

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Overall I would say none of the above groups I "directly encountered were "nasty" or "unpleasant" if I was asked to testify in a court of law. these people largely kept to themselves. My direct highschool ineteractions with goths and emos was non-existent, but they were popular kids and hung out with my bullies because they were considered cool. they were there in the background joining in laughter when I was picked on. So indirectly (vicariously?) I associated them as bad news even though they largely minded their own business.

For context I went to an exclusive private school in Melbourne so these kids came from upper-middle class families and I didn't fit in to begin with with my working class roots. Hence my comment, my classmates were rich bored and rebellious. Playing dress up was just an excuse to be different and rebellious while comfortably secure they can change clothes when they leave university and go into the corporate world with mummy/daddies trust fund to tide them over.

A few have continued to play dress up into the workplace but that's another story.

You are conflating my observations with my values. Ironically others have leaped to same conclusions when I discuss Arab/Israeli conflicts.

My observing something in a social/demographic group (that I am not part of) does not mean I personally find them "nasty" or I arbitrarily rank one group > other. Much of what I post on forums like this one is kind of like journaling. I am sharing how my brain processes different groups I read about and/or lived experience. I am not by any means an expert nor do I claim to be.

I'll give you an example. I've been accused of being of being anti-muslim, anti-Arab because I can see Israel's perspective in the current conflict in the middle east. At no time did I say I was pro-Israel or pro-Zionism or anti-Arab. I have lived in a muslim country for 3 years and mixed socially with muslims from all over the world. Infact I have had more experieces with muslims than I have had with jews. I did at one time consider converting over a girl and have read the quran. My favourite person on wrong planet is a hijabi muslim woman (Barchan). we may not agree on everything but I like the few interactions I've had with her.

So back to goths/pagans. If you read my interactions with the tattooed pagan working in store room, or pagan female working as a PA or the goth female currently working in my office, my interactions have been polite if a little distant. Having views about how incongruous a lifestyle appears to me does not mean I see these folk as any less of a human being or how I treat them. I accept diversity, that includes "oddball" groups.

But...(and here's the but) aforementioned oddball groups (pagans/wiccans) become entrenched in a fixed mindset, I can see how maybe they might be deluding themselves or going down a dark path. But like I said earlier, if they aren't doing any harm, then I respect their freedom to express themselves however they like.

Well, that was certainly not very nice of them.


I can certainly understand why you would dislike those particular goths, emos, and Pagans. But it seems to me that you may have over-generalized from them to all (or at least most) goths, emos, and Pagans.

It does not make sense to generalize from those particular goths, emos, and Pagans to all goths, emos, and Pagans, any more than it would make sense to generalize from your more culturally mainstream bullies to all culturally mainstream people.


That's an important bit of context. Sounds like you went to school with a bunch of spoiled rich kids.

Also, in a small exclusive private school, it is easy to end up with situations where pretty much the entire class picks on one or two unpopular kids. I was the unpopular kid in a situation like that in elementary and middle school, for which I attended a small Lutheran parochial school.

Luckily I had a much better experience in high school. I attended the Bronx High School of Science, which then was an academically elite (as in, you had to take a test to be admitted) but very large school, with students from all over the city, from a wide variety of economic and cultural backgrounds. Because this school was so big and culturally varied, there was no one clique that you had to be accepted by or else, and no one group of "popular kids" who were in any position to dominate the entire class.


Not all goths, emos, and Pagans are rich. Some are middle-class. Some are working-class. Some are poor. I once knew a few Pagans who were living in homeless shelters.


Seems to me that a workplace which tolerates this would, other factors being equal, likely be a generally better-than-average workplace for marginalized people of all kinds, including disabled people, to work.

I haven't forgotten your other posts on the previous page, about your objections to neo-Paganism as religion. I'll reply to them later.

Did he claim to follow a traditional Māori or Pacific Islander religion? If not, the above objection is irrelevant.

What did he say his practice consisted of, or did you ever bother to ask him?


If you never bothered to ask him and he never told you what his Pagan beliefs and practices entailed, then you don't know what his "interpretation of paganism" was.

Did he ever TELL you WHAT his "interpretation of paganism" WAS? (Not just what it WASN'T, e.g. his body art.)


Yes, much of neo-Paganism, including Wicca, is a synthesis.


Of course it's not an unbroken chain, and no reasonably well-educated Pagan claims that it is.


That is indeed the case.

Nevertheless, many people find it meaningful.

I honestly didn't think he was all that deep about it, when I probed (which I am prone to do) he circled back to "body-art" so I guess he just found it looked cool. He was also not that well read on the subject of paganism (other than "I'm a pagan dude!). Perhaps he was just dating a pagan and wanted to fit in.

Australian lower income working class are colloquially called bogans. Kind of (roughly) like rednecks in the USA. In some bogan suburbs dressing up like an emo or goth will get you beaten up by both male and female bogans.

That's certainly possible.

Just please don't generalize from him to all or most Pagans.

That's probably true in some -- but by no means all -- poor and working class neighborhoods here in the U.S.A. too.

It is unlikely to be true if the neighborhood is highly multicultural, with immigrants from all over the world, like the neighborhood I live in now.

It is more likely to be true in a neighborhood dominated by just one ethnic group, or on a boundary between such neighborhoods.

Speaking for Australian suburbs it's a cultural thing (not ethnic). If you dress up like a goth or emo and go strutting around a bogan neighborhood, you may as well be wearing a tutu. Not saying anything will happen but the reaction will range from curious looks all the way to to mobs with pitchforks.

Even in my neighborhood, a person dressed like a goth or emo would likely get a few curious looks, but nothing worse than that. In a cosmopolitan (though working-class) neighborhood like this one, where there are plenty of Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh women all wearing their traditional clothing, as well as plenty of Christian and nonreligious immigrants too, from various countries and continents, nearly everyone has a strong mind-your-own-business ethic.

Actually new immigrants flock to areas with cheaper land prices which also happen to be bogan suburbs. So bogans are actually cool with hijabs, kaftans and turbans, also immigrants often share financial struggle so there is mutual respect even if each group keeps to themselves). But turn up dressed like a goth then its a different story. In the early 1990s I remember using a mobile phone (brick) in a bogan area would get you beaten up. I think this boils down to not to liking people who look/behave like entitled yuppies.

"Cool" with them from the get-go, or just "cool" with them eventually, after enough immigrants have moved in and the hard-core bigots (the kind of folks who would harass people, or even beat them up, just for looking different) have moved out?

Also, even in my neighborhood, there were some hate crimes against Muslims and Sikhs during the decade after 9/11/2001. (Sikhs were targeted apparently because some folks assumed that turban-wearers must be terrorists, because Osama Bin Laden wore a turban.)


Or perhaps the presence of yuppies was seen as a harbinger of gentrification and rising rents? If so, that would actually be a rational reason to want to scare yuppies out of the neighborhood. If someone's presence in your neighborhood puts you at risk of not being able to afford rent next year, that's an understandable reason to want to chase that person out.

On the other hand, bigotry (especially violent bigotry) against people in subcultures like the goth scene, merely because of their unusual clothing, is NOT rational at all, even if you think they are rich.

Interesting question and probably deserves a separate thread. Aussie culture has what's known as a "larrikan spirit".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrikin
the Australian identity: a bloke who refuses to stand on ceremony and is a bit of a scallywag. When it first emerged around 1870, however, 'larrikin' was a term of abuse, used to describe teenage working-class hell-raisers who populated dance halls and cheap theatres.

In school the wild colonial boys and bushrangers (kind of like outlaws in the wild west) were our cultural role models. So bogans are the modern heirs to what is larrikan culture and see themselves as true aussies.

So yes, in some ways tourism and gentrification is an attack to some working class Aussies. But one thing Aussies generally don't like is pretentiousness and dressing up in costume is seen that way.

Happened here as well on 10/11/2001. But the spike in hate crimes died out. A lot of this is situational and spikes ethen dies down (so 9-11 = arabs and COVID - Chinese)

Violence is really really rare...worst is probably name calling or if it's emo girls cat calling...

Reckon Crocodile Dundee was a good example of a Larriken.
The Dudes in Housos were the ultimate Bogans.