[HPforGrownups] Muggle Practices/Religion

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 78993

Deirdre:
> Actually, Christains are following Pagan rituals when they celebrate
> Christmas and Easter.  Christ's historical birth isn't December 25 --
> missionaries hijacked the pagan celebration of winter solstice.  Likewise,
> the spring solstice, occuring as it does so close to Passover, was
hijacked
> for the historically marked crucificition and ascention.  All the
attendant
> imagery -- rebirth, et al -- Pagan!
>
> Pagan = Wiccan = Witch
>
> Christmas and Easter, then, I would think, are acutally wizard holidays
that
> Muggles have reinterpreted at Christian rituals.

Though of course there is as little support in canon for the WW being Pagan
as there is for it being Christian. Dumbledore doesn't invoke the Goddess at
times of celebration, but nor does he sing hymns.

The picture which I get is of a world (the Muggle bit as well as the wizard
bit) which used to have religion but now just has secular celebrations which
have religious roots but no religious content.

Just as a Victorian gentleman in our world might have said "By Jove" or " By
Jiminy" without considering himself a follower of the Roman pantheon, or as
the Scottish legal profession had a "Beltane Term" without by that token
being Celtic Pagans, so too the WW can celebrate Christmas and Samhain
without them being acts of worship.

Cheers

Ffred

O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon
Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion
Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri