Cav's Place

It is said that the modern Wiccan Wheel of the Year is flawed. This is most obvious if you notice the two most important sabbats, Samhain and Beltane, being paired with two minor ones, Yule and Ostara, respectively, that have very similar meanings. Little research is necessary to determine that the major and minor sabbats come from different cultures and the unlikelihood of all eight of them being celebrated in any one place in pre-Christian times.
Accepting the above statements as true, one could be inclined to say that a mistake has indeed been made. But I don’t think so. Whether Gerald Gardner was describing the sabbats observed by the coven he was initially admitted into (and whether the members of said coven were following what they thought was an ancient tradition or had knowingly put together bits and pieces from different places themselves) or he put together the list himself later on might still be subject for debate, but I don’t think it really matters either way anymore. I think that what he did by perpetuating the current list was just playing the game.

What game? The game religious leaders have likely been playing since well before the advent of recorded history, one important part of which being placing your own holidays over or very close to those of the current majority religion in the chosen area, in hopes of having them take the same place in people’s minds and thus increase the number of willing followers.
Look at the Christian calendar today. Look into the Roman variant of Paganism before that. Go even further and do a little research about ancient Egypt. These are just some of the more notable examples, take a look and you’ll see it happen time and time again, on various levels.
It just proves how powerful a tool religion is and how careful one must be not to let it fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, once you create the structure, even if you intend to use it for good, somebody is bound to step up at some point and use it for their own despicable purposes. And, knowing the manner of wretched creatures humans are, that will happen sooner rather than later. A religion gains followers by promoting peace and acceptance and empowering the common folk, then becomes violent, discriminating and favoring those already in power as soon as it has wide enough appeal for it to become a valid means of manipulation. But that’s a story for another time…

So what did Gardner mean by making Yule, Ostara, Litha and Mabon part of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year? Why, to counter the Christian Wheel of the Year of course!
You didn’t know there was one? Oh, the days are marked with important holidays all right, it’s just less obvious because they may get lost among all other holidays in the Christian calendar. Look up the dates for Annunciation, St. John’s Day, Conception of St. John and Christmas. The fact that they’re on or close to the 25th doesn’t mean that they were not placed there to honor the equinoxes and solstices. The 25th of the month might not be the usual date for those now, but if you check you’ll notice that the date moves slightly earlier over time. This transition was even more pronounced when older versions of the calendar were used. Therefore, you’ll see that those are the pretty accurate usual dates for equinoxes and solstices at the time the holidays were put into the Christian calendar.
Also, the similarities between Yule and Christmas are very obvious. The consensus among scholars is that the end of December is one of the most unlikely dates Jesus could have actually been born on, so the date was quite obviously chosen to combat something. But the similarities are a little weird in themselves, since the date for Christmas was actually chosen to combat either Saturnalia or Sol Invictus, both being Roman holidays. This choice makes sense as the Roman variant of Paganism was what early Christians had to fight against, and what Constantine was busy squashing a few centuries later when he decided to convert the whole empire…
As for Easter, its obvious similarities to Ostara, the fact that the spring equinox is a crucial factor in determining its date and that it tends to fall between Ostara and Beltane, read what I wrote above and decide for yourselves what that means. Just keep in mind that early Christianity was clashing with Roman Paganism, but also that Romans did tend to incorporate the beliefs of those they conquered into their own.

I picked these four because the other four are considered more important, so these are the ones that could have been left out if need be. But you could notice that the cross-quarter days are also marked in Christian calendars, though less obviously (Presentation of Our Lord, St. Joseph / St. Philip / St. James, Proodos of the Holy Cross / start of Fast of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, All Hallows’ Eve).
As for picking Christianity for comparison, being the dominant European religion, it’s what Gardner was facing. But you can certainly see these days marked in other religions as well, just think of how many of them have important holidays around the winter solstice for example.

Naturally I can’t be certain that this is what happened, can’t even know for sure whether Gardner was observing an existing calendar or put it together himself, but I’m quite sure that he knew very well what he was doing when he made this variant of the Wheel of the Year public.
The problem is that usually you overlap important days when you have a position of authority and want to use religion to cement it further, but that certainly was (and is) not the case with Neopaganism. And we are talking about days which we now know have more of an astrological than spiritual significance. So why did he do it?
My take is that the four minor sabbats were kept (or perhaps even added) in it as a way of saying “we know what you did and we can do it too”. Science might have proven long ago that equinoxes and solstices are not unusual in any way and therefore can hold little more than a symbolic religious significance, but reclaiming them using pre-Christian, Nature-based holidays, celebrations which focus more on what really happens to the Earth at these moments than on events that might have happened on these days at some point in history, is a way of revealing what other religions have been using them for at a time when many people were still too ignorant to know the hard facts.

But here may lie the scary part. If you go far enough back into the history of the game, doesn’t it become quite likely that perhaps the idea of religion came to man when one caveman yelled at the Sun to come back right when a solar eclipse was ending, or another cursed the mammoth he was stalking right when a lighting bolt struck it? Isn’t it possible that, if you go back far enough, you will find nothing there but a game?
Isn’t it possible that all any religion worships is, in fact, Nature (after all, many mysteries from the Bible have been proven to be natural phenomena in recent years)? Isn’t it possible that all miraculous events were a mix of natural phenomena, weird coincidences and manifestations of the higher functions of the human brain (which, though still unexplained, are nevertheless perfectly natural)? Isn’t it possible that even the historically accurate events celebrated by some present religions were never meant to have a long-lasting spiritual significance?
But isn’t it equally possible that some religions might actually worship extraterrestrial beings which visited Earth millenia ago and knew of no other way to explain their presence and their technology to the primitive human mind than “we are gods”, therefore meaning that, as we advance technologically, we are becoming our own gods? Isn’t it also possible that mankind created its own gods, concentrating the energy of millions and billions of worshippers over centuries and millenia to a point where it formed independent entities on a higher plane?
Isn’t it equally likely that every religion is based on hard fact, on interaction with actual gods, but that humans started the game and corrupted everything? Or, if gods really do exist, even that the game did not start here on Earth but wherever they come from, and that we’re mere pawns? Or that for the gods it’s not a game, but a titanic struggle, with us being innocent bystanders who were swept into it but couldn’t affect the outcome either way? And isn’t it possible that whatever entities were clearly worthy of worship when they interacted with humans are long gone by now?
But isn’t it equally possible to be real, all of it?

Does all of this really matter?
If an alleged healer can make people believe in him so much that their own faith makes them heal themselves, would the fact that he’s nothing more than a con artist negate his results? Should anybody even try to expose him? If your rituals, tools and prayers allow you to activate areas of your brain that are otherwise inactive and thus achieve miraculous results, would the fact that tools have no power of their own and that you’re the only one listening to your prayers negate the results? If your beliefs give you strength and hope, if they promote love and peace, would the fact that they’re unfounded negate the results? Should anybody even try to prove them false?
But if your beliefs strip you of your rights, subdue, promote intolerance and war, would the fact that they’re real negate the results? Should anybody even try to prove them real? If a god would show up and demand that you do clearly harmful acts in their name, should you accept? Remember, not even gods are truly invincible, a large enough army of Davids will topple any Goliath.

If you believe in something, how can you know it’s true? If you don’t, how do you know it’s not? And you believe in something even if you believe in nothing, you believe that there’s nothing to believe in. We could all be wrong and we could all be right. Most likely, most of us are partly right and mostly wrong.
Keep searching if you want to, stop if you don’t. Do what feels right for you, but when you apply your beliefs to real life, apply them just to your own. Remember that you can be just as right and just as wrong as anybody else, and that by trying to impose your beliefs on others you grant them the right to do the same to you.

As for the game… Sometimes it may be necessary to play a round to defend yourself. At other times it may be simply fun for a while. But if you think you should keep playing it, try this: Take another look at the board, then lift your head and look at your opponent. Now look around carefully at each of the other players. When you’re done, without looking at them again, could you draw an exact picture of your opponent? But can you fail to remember that they were human, just like you and all the rest? Then expand your view to encompass the city the game is taking place in. Can you still see the table you’re playing at? But can you fail to see that without a group of humans with various skills working together, it would only be an empty spot on the ground? Now stretch outwards. Far, far out. Then turn around and look at our galaxy. Forget the city or even the planet, can you even find our solar system anymore? But can you fail to see that without all the stars of all kinds, supporting a nearly infinite number of worlds of all types and sizes, this magnificent creation would be just an empty spot in space? Then go even further out, until you can have a general view of the Universe. Can you even find our galaxy anymore? But can you fail to see that without all the galaxies and nebulas of all shapes and sizes, it would all just be one giant void?
Now ask yourself this: For how long do you still want to play the game? Isn’t it time to reach across the board and shake hands?