Where did all the Joy go?

We have just watched "The Wicker Man", that old, old film. The joyful deeds and dances those actors performed prompted these thoughts. Of course to sell the film back in those days, the story had to have at its climax (ahem) a human sacrifice. The christians were the leading proponents of human sacrifice, having burnt alive maybe as many as 10 million heretics (their own backsliders) and a hundred thousand or so pagans who wouldn't toe the line. People were much to valuable to be burnt; and pagans did not have burning in their catalog of punishments, despite what the christians tried to imply. In the dim dark past when we started Wicca, the Craft was a happy, joyful spiritual path. We simply had a lot of fun. But gradually over the years the attacks by sociopathic members of the Abrahamic religions forced us to become more serious and in some ways almost to resemble them! Most of the attacks centered on such things as nudity and sexual freedom. " I don't believe in it, or I can't do it, so you can't do or have it!" Today many Wiccans feel bound to live within boundaries that were never imposed by Wicca but are the self-imposed result of trying to avoid censure from the uptight hangers-on of joyless religions. To say the least, it's ironic when we realize that originally christianity itself was originally a joyful religion, sexually free, whose adherents were simply having a good time. When christianity was approved as a permitted religion, one of many, by Constantine, Connie's co-Consul Lineus said, "Yes, that's okay, but men and women can't meet in the same building because the religion is too licentious." So we can see that from the early days of christianity it guarded itself against this accusation and became uptight, not to be bested in the inflicted-uptightness sweepstakes until Islam came along. When christian leaders had families, they had a tendency to leave the church property to their relatives, so the church decreed that its leaders could not marry. Now misery loves company; thus the requirement of celibacy meant that those who were forced to be celibate didn't approve of sexual activity for the rest of society. "If I'm not gonna get any, you aren't either--at least not without a lot of furtive guilt." Members of the Craft are doing the same thing to ourselves that the christians did to themselves. A sexual initiation (gasp) is no longer approved. In an attitude that we Frosts can hardly bring ourselves to believe, it is labeled "old-fashioned". People of the Craft, self-styled Witches: We are here to tell you that if you continue down this path, puckering ever more tightly, all the joy will be gone forever. Others may live such a tight-ass, constricted life, but that's not enough. They live to inflict their way on others. If you want to be celibate: be celibate. But don't do it because someone with an ax to grind says you must or you'll go to hell. Can you repeat after me, "If it harm none, do what you will" ? We are not hustling movies; we just want to get the joy back. Don't be so bleeping serious, boys and girls: It's all research, after all. Come dance and drink and ... with us. Blessed be Gavin and Yvonne