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| Manray, "Leave me Alone" |
There is a wonderful blog post over at Summer Thunder on the pros and cons of using the word "Warlock" to describe a male occult practitioner. I encourage you to check it out. The heart of the conversation revolves around two issues. First, that Warlock is a gendered term (a point the blog discusses brilliantly, but which I have little to say about here) and second that although it was originally a negative term it is worth reclaiming. The most likely original meaning of the term Warlock was "oath breaker". As the blog at Summer Thunder states its perspective:
"I like the term “Warlock”. It retains a counter-cultural charge, an unassimilated, deviating quality, some semblance of mystery and outlawhood. And it is a male term, and that is a valuable relief from the femino-centrism of so much neopaganism and Wiccan derived Paganism. It is not a term which speaks of male sacrifice, usable chivalry, soldiery and war service or a reproductive donation of sex or semen. Oath breaking is a good thing, when your oaths are coerced and in service to an oppressor. So I have to ask, if this term is an insult, who is it an insult to? A free man, or a good slave?"
