Sometimes, we don't do so well.

Some speak ill of the Pagan community, and how quick we are to think, "Well, we're right, and they're wrong". But that's not always true. We're going to start with some real life examples of people encountering the community for the first time, and being given excellent reasons to think very little of it. Once the reader has seen as much of this as he cares to, he can follow the link into our page. It'll give a little context, to the discussion that follows.

Our story begins, with a pair of newcomers, to our global community. One, in Chicago, is interested in Wicca, and generally supportive. The other, on the East Coast, is skeptical. The skeptic will be greeted with fanatical rage, culminating in criminal behavior. The former supporter will hardly be treated any better, especially after he dares to question the extremely questionable behavior that he has seen from the community, both locally, and online. But, if people don't feel free to do this, then what mechanism is left in place, to alert our community when its collective will, begins to create an injustice ?

In the end, our skeptic became a persistant enemy, and a thorn in our side, and a friend no longer wished to be associated with the Pagan community. And the only 'victory' won here, was that a number of people were given a hard time, for no particularly good reason. Let's not try for a repeat performance, unless we enjoy giving ourselves a bad reputation. Let's see what we can learn from our mistakes.

Click here to get to the stories we were telling you about, or here if you'd like to skip the examples, and go straight to a discussion, over on the Almond Jar, of what we are to do about the problems that stories like this reveal.