Pop Culture Paganism

What is your opinion on Pop Culture Paganism/Witchcraft?

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It's rubbish!

Well, that escalated quickly. Any reason to back that up, Brysing?

The various "cults" of Pop Culture grow like mushrooms in the night! They are many, varied, and rubbish!

Very influenced by hollywood and new age nonsense, though I would hope that not all new age is nonsense.

Perhaps I should play the devils advocate, while I hate the view of witchcraft/paganism through Hollywood, there is a glimmer of good. While the vast majority would join for the wrong reasons, a small few would use a movie as a starting point and research further to see for themselves if what they witnessed was pure fiction and this could lead to them joining a pagan path with the right reasons in mind. Personally I don't like how pagans are viewed and portrayed in pop culture, but for every Charmed that gets it all wrong there's at least one Practical Magic that at least tries to show we are normal people [but even that can't escape some fictionalization.]

The Pop Cultures I mean are the "cults". For instance, there are now so many different varieties of Wicca that if he was alive today Gardner wouldn't recognise the religion he founded!.And then there are all the Christian cults. Satanic cults. Hundreds of them! And, for the most part, utter rubbish!

Very interesting oppinions! Now, for this question. Whats ypur oppinion when people incorporate fictional chants or words in their practices?

My understanding of pop culture practice/Paganism/Witchcraft is that it incorporates fictional archetypes into a serious esoteric path. Pop culture practitioners often have some form of thought form incorporated into their practice if they decide to worship a fictional archetype.

I personally think it can be a valid practice, though a highly eclectic one, if people understand the basics of how things work (even then, this is debated amongst seasoned practitioners of already existing paths). We often teach people on SoM that you don't need tools or fancy rituals for a spiritual working, or that practitioners don't need to use already existing chants or verses, and ultimately that adaption is a practitioners friend. This would give reason to some people using such fictional archetypes in their practice.

Now in regards to Brysing mentioning the various paths of Wicca that Gardner wouldn't recognize, there is truth in that statement. However, I personally think something like that would be categorized under Neopaganism (though Wicca technically is Neopaganism depending on who you ask, so a popular term I've seen this bunch refered to as is Neowiccan).

While I am fine with pop culture practice so long as people understand the basics of how things work, I also like to make sure people understand and separate a pop culture or Neopagan practice from a traditional practice. There are some folk who want to learn serious traditions and paths and their only exposure is sometimes though Neopaganism, New Age, and pop culture, so they can sometimes mix things up if they don't do serious research into a tradition. One example of this is the use of Karma outside of its Eastern religious contexts and few people understand those original contexts, which can lead to butchering the traditions it comes from. This, to me, is not okay.

Captian America made my whole family jump up and yell at the TV for saying there is only one god! LOL Thor should have slugged him.

I can say that I definitely agree that it has misled but brought more people into the pagan community. I feel that in the world of technology people connect with ideas more when they can see them. Pagans don't have the non-fiction children books, classes, and places of worship everywhere like Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists. Even pagan statuary is rarely respected for what it is. We have nothing other than our gatherings and teachings at home. Public celebration is few and far between. I would have to travel halfway through my state just to attend one. There is nothing big beautiful and awe inspiring besides nature itself, which is constantly downplayed by modern society.

So I think Pagan pop culture allows people to get a taste of the beliefs and realize we aren't devil worshippers or evil.

I'm sure some Christians think they are Bruce Almighty. We all have our pop culture crazies. Not everyone is like that. I think that pagans that got their start through pop culture are less likely to admit it than the crazies, which is why we view it as encouraging fallacy.