lunes, 4 de julio de 2011

Afterlife


Belief in the afterlife varies among Wiccans,[30] although reincarnation is a traditional Wiccan teaching dating back to the New Forest covenin the 1930s. The influential High Priest Raymond Buckland said that a human's soul reincarnates into the same species over many lives in order to learn lessons and advance spiritually,[31] but this belief is not universal, as many Wiccans believe in the reincarnation of the soul through different species. However, a popular saying amongst Wiccans is that "once a witch, always a witch", indicating a belief that Wiccans are the reincarnations of previous witches.[32]
Typically, Wiccans who believe in reincarnation believe that the soul rests between lives in the Otherworld or Summerland, known in Gardner's writings as the "ecstasy of the Goddess".[33] Many Wiccans believe in the ability to contact the spirits of the dead who reside in the Otherworld through spirit mediums and ouija boards, particularly on the Sabbat of Samhain, though some disagree with this practice, such as the High Priest Alex Sanders, who stated that "they are dead; leave them in peace."[34] This belief was likely influenced bySpiritualism, which was very popular at the time of Wicca's emergence, and with which Gardner and other early Wiccans such as Buckland and Sanders had some experience.[35]
Despite some belief therein, Wicca does not place an emphasis on the afterlife, focusing instead on the current one; as the historian Ronald Hutton remarked, "the instinctual position of most [Wiccans], therefore, seems to be that if one makes the most of the present life, in all respects, then the next life is more or less certainly going to benefit from the process, and so one may as well concentrate on the present".[33]

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