(no subject)

[rm]

Can someone tell me what the deal is, not just with Wiccans, but also with all sorts of generally not that fluffy Pagans, and the gratuitous rhyming in spells? Why do we think that works? I mean, i get rhythm, specificty, musicality, and making shit easier to remember, but COME ON. Say what you will about Crowley, but among other things, you've got to give him that he's not a gratuitous, or Hallmark-style rhymer.

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[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

If you've got to recite a long screed from memory, possibly while waving your arms, fire, pointy things, or other dangerous objects, rhyme and rhythm help. Since Wicca likes to pretend it's an Old Tyme Religionne instead of something almost entirely invented much more recently, maybe they think rhymes make it sound more authentic.

To badly misquote from memory from one of my Shinto books: it's in the original Japanese, although translations are provided, because the sounds and rhythm have power. Some of it is, in fact, nonsense syllables. It's more about the meditative aspects and the music than the semantic content.

That said, there is no excuse for bad Hallmarkian poetry, religion or magic included. I suspect that the sorts of teenage-mentality people who write bad poetry are drawn to Wicca, but it may just be that I'm even further away from people who write bad Hallmark cards to Jesus - which, now that I think about it, I do occasionally run across when I end up on the wrong side of the Web.