Sign in or 
Share this
Wiccan For Beginners (A Must Read )
Wicca for Beginners
Wicca is a Neopagan religion and a religious movement found in various countries throughout the world. It was first popularized in 1954 by English civil servant Gerald Gardner after the British Witchcraft Act was repealed.
Gardner claimed that Wicca was a modern survival of an old witchcraft religion, which had existed in secret for hundreds of years, originating in the pre-Christian Paganism of Europe. Wicca is thus sometimes referred to as the Old Religion. The veracity of Gardner's claims cannot be independently proven, and it is thought that written Wiccan theology began to be compiled no earlier than the 1920s.
Various related Wiccan traditions have since evolved, or been adapted from, the form established by Gardner, which came to be called Gardnerian Wicca. These other traditions of Wicca each have distinctive beliefs, rituals, and practices. Many traditions of Wicca remain secretive and require that members be initiated. There is also a movement of Eclectic or Solitary Wiccans who do not believe that any doctrine or traditional initiation is necessary in order to practice Wicca. The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey estimated that at least 134,000 adults identified themselves as Wiccans in the US.
Because there is no centralized organization in Wicca, and no single "orthodoxy", the beliefs and practices of Wiccans can vary substantially, both between individuals and between traditions. Typically, the main religious principles, ethics and ritual structures are shared, since they are key elements of traditional teachings and published works on the subject.
Wiccans worship a goddess and a god; they observe the festivals of the eight Sabbats of the year and the full-moon Esbats; and they have a code of ethics that most live by. Wicca is thus distinct from witchcraft, which may or may not imply any specific religious, ethical or ritual elements, and is practiced in various forms by people of many religions, as well as by some atheists.
Wicca incorporates a specific form of witchcraft, with particular ritual forms, involving the casting of spells, herbalism, divination and other forms of magic. Wiccan ethics require that magical activities be limited to good purposes only.
According to Gerald Gardner, the religion derives from a secret but widespread witch-cult of early modern Europe, which incorporated all of the key religious beliefs and ideals and the distinctive ritual structures found in modern Wicca. However, this historical interpretation is now much criticized.
Wiccan Religion
Wicca as a religion is primarily concerned with the priestess or priest's relationship to the Goddess and God. The Lady and Lord (as they are often called) are seen as primal cosmic beings, the source of limitless power, yet they are also familiar figures who comfort and nurture their children, and often challenge or even reprimand them.
According to Gerald Gardner the gods of Wicca are ancient gods of the British Isles: a Horned God of hunting, death and magic who rules over an after-world paradise (Often referred to as the summerland), and a goddess, the Great Mother (who is simultaneously the Eternal Virgin and the Primordial Enchantress), who gives regeneration and rebirth to souls of the dead and love to the living. Gardner explains that these are the tribal gods of the witches, just as the Egyptians had their tribal gods Isis and Osiris and the Jews had Elohim; he also states that a being higher than any of these tribal gods is recognized by the witches as Prime Mover, but remains unknowable, and is of little concern to them. [Gardner, Gerald [1959] (1988) The Meaning of Witchcraft. Lakemont, GA US: Copple House Books, pp. 260-261. [1959] (1988) The Meaning of Witchcraft. Lakemont, GA US: Copple House Books, pp. 26-27.]
Gardner's explanation aside, individual interpretations of the exact natures of the gods differ significantly, since priests and priestesses develop their own relationships with the gods through intense personal work and revelation. Many have a duotheistic conception of deity as a Goddess (of Moon, Earth and sea) and a God (of forest, hunting and the animal realm). This concept is often extended into a kind of polytheism by the belief that the gods and goddesses of all cultures are aspects of this pair (or of the Goddess alone). Others hold the various gods and goddesses to be separate and distinct.
Some Wiccans, particularly in feminist traditions, have a monotheistic belief in the Goddess as One. Still others do not believe in the gods as real personalities, yet attempt to have a relationship with them as personifications of universal principles or as Jungian archetypes.[Adler, Margot (1979). Drawing Down the Moon. Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 25, 34-35.] A unified supreme godhead (the "Prime Mover") is also acknowledged by some groups, referred to by Scott Cunningham as "The One" [Cunningham, Scott. Wicca: A Guide to the Solitary Practitioner.] Patricia Crowther has called it Dryghten. [Crowther, Patricia (1974). Witch Blood!.]
According to current Gardnerians, the exact names of the Goddess and God of traditional Wicca remain an initiatory secret , and they are not given in Gardner's books about witchcraft. [Heselton, Philip Wiccan Roots] However, the collection of Toronto Papers of Gardner's writings has been investigated by American scholars such as Aidan Kelly, leading to the suggestion that their names are Cernunnos and Aradia.
For most Wiccans, the Lord and Lady are seen as complementary polarities: male and female, force and form, comprehending all in their union; the tension and interplay between them is the basis of all creation. The God and Goddess are sometimes symbolized as the Sun and Moon, and from her lunar associations the Goddess becomes a Triple Goddess with aspects of "Maiden", "Mother" and "Crone" corresponding to the Moon's waxing, full and waning phases.
Some Wiccans hold the Goddess to be pre-eminent, since she contains and conceives all (Gaea or Mother Earth is one of her more commonly revered aspects); the God, commonly described as the Horned God or the Divine Child, is the spark of life and inspiration within her, simultaneously her lover and her child. This is reflected in the traditional structure of the coven, which is led by a High Priestess and High Priest in partnership, with the High Priestess having the final word. In some traditions, notably Feminist branches of Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is seen as complete unto herself, and the God is not worshipped at all.
Since the Goddess is said to conceive and contain all life within her, all beings are held to be divine. This is a key understanding conveyed in the Charge of the Goddess, one of the most important texts of Wicca, and is very similar to the Hermetic understanding that "God" contains all things, and in truth is all things. [Scott, W. (transl.) (1993). Hermetica Libellus IX, p. 185. Boston:Shamballah.] For some Wiccans, this idea also involves elements of animism, and plants, rivers, rocks (and, importantly, ritual tools) are seen as spiritual beings, facets of a single life.
A key belief in Wicca is that the gods are able to manifest in personal form, either through dreams, as physical manifestations, or through the bodies of Priestesses and Priests. The latter kind of manifestation is the purpose of the ritual of Drawing down the Moon (or Drawing down the Sun), whereby the Goddess is called to descend into the body of the Priestess (or the God into the Priest) to effect divine possession.
Wiccan Symbols
The classical elements are a key feature of the Wiccan world-view. Every manifest force or form is seen to express one of the four archetypal elements — Earth, Air, Fire and Water — or several in combination. This scheme is fundamentally identical with that employed in other Western Esoteric and Hermetic traditions, such as Theosophy and the Golden Dawn, which in turn were influenced by the Hindu system of tattvas.
There is no consensus as to the exact nature of these elements. Some hold to the ancient Greek conception of the elements corresponding to matter (earth) and energy (fire), with the mediating elements (water, air) relating to the phases of matter (fire/earth mixtures). Other exponents of the system add a fifth or quintessential element, spirit (aether, akasha). The five points of the frequently worn pentagram symbolize, among other things, the four elements with spirit presiding at the top. [Valiente, Doreen (1973). An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present. Custer, Washington: Phoenix Publishing, Inc, 264.] The pentagram is the symbol most commonly associated with Wicca in modern times. It is often circumscribed — depicted within a circle — and is usually (though not exclusively) shown with a single point upward. The inverse pentagram, with two points up, is a symbol of the second degree initiation rite of traditional Wicca. [Crowey, Vivianne Wicca: The Old Religion in the New World.]
In geometry, the pentagram is an elegant expression of the golden ratio phi which is popularly connected with ideal beauty and was considered by the Pythagoreans to express truths about the hidden nature of existence.
Each of the four cardinal elements (air, fire, water and earth) is typically assigned a direction, a color, and an elemental race. The following list shows a common categorization, but different traditions of Wicca may use different "correspondences": Air: East, Yellow, Sylphs Fire: South, Red, Salamanders Water: West, Blue, Undines Earth: North, Green, Gnomes
Some variations in correspondences can be explained by geography or climate. It is common in the southern hemisphere, for example, to associate the element fire with north (the direction of the equator) and earth with south (the direction of the nearest polar area). Some Wiccan groups also modify the religious calendar to reflect local seasonal changes; for instance, most Southern Hemisphere covens celebrate Samhain on April 30th and Beltane on October 31st, reflecting the southern hemisphere's autumn and spring seasons. [Batten, Juliet. Celebrating the Southern Seasons. Auckland: Tandem Press.]
Wiccan Belief
Wiccan morality can be summarized in the form of a text that is commonly titled The Wiccan Rede. The core maxim of that text states "An it harm none, do what thou wilt." ("An" is an archaic word meaning "if".) The origin of the Wiccan Rede is ambiguous, its earliest mention being at a meeting held by the witchcraft magazine "Pentagram" spoken by Doreen Valiente.[Holzer, Hans "The Truth about Witchcraft Today"] Gerald Gardner suggested [Gardner, Gerald "The Meaning of Witchcraft"] that it was taken by witches from the legendary ethic of the fabled (fictional) King Pausol which was "Do what you like so long as you harm no one". Nevertheless, the similarity of the phrasing of the Rede (and explicit and verbatim phrasing of other texts) suggests that this statement is partly based on the Law of Thelema as stated by occultist Aleister Crowley.[Sutin, Lawrence, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley, p. 410. New York: St. Martin's Press.]
Many traditional Wiccans also follow, or at least consider, a set of 161 laws, commonly called the Ardanes. A common criticism of these rules is that they represent outdated concepts and/or produce counterproductive results in Wiccan contexts.
Many Wiccans also seek to cultivate the Eight Wiccan Virtues as a guideline for their deeds. These are Mirth, Reverence, Honor, Humility, Strength, Beauty, Power, and Compassion, and are found in a phrase from Doreen Valiente's Charge of the Goddess, where they are ordered in pairs of complementary opposites, reflecting a dualism that is common throughout Wiccan philosophy.
A recurrent belief amongst Wiccans is that no magic should be performed on any other person without that person's direct permission (excepting pets, which obviously cannot give explicit permission for such an act). This may stem from the Rede's declaration of "An it harm none, do what thou wilt", in that a person may not wish to have a spell cast upon them, and doing so without first obtaining permission interferes with their free will, which falls under the Rede's conception of "harm". This especially applies to love spells. Most Wiccans do not believe in performing magic on anyone in any circumstance without permission, although some believe that white magic may be performed with or without permission (healing spells, etc).
Within traditional forms of Wicca there are three degrees of initiation. First degree is required to become a witch and gain membership of a coven; those who aspire to teach may eventually undergo second and third degree initiations, conferring the title of "High Priest" or "High Priestess" and allowing them to establish new covens.
Wiccan Ritual Wiccan Spell
In typical rites, the Wiccans assemble inside a magic circle, which is marked using various means, in a ritual manner followed by a cleansing and then blessing of the space. Prayers to the God and Goddess are said, and spells are sometimes worked.
At the start of a ritual of spell or even just a meeting the tradition is to cast a circle, wherein one asks for blessing from the Goddess and God and invokes the Guardians of each direction (the Guardians of the North, South, East and West), to be conveyed through pointing (usually using a wand or Athame). An altar is usually used during a meeting, ritual or spell, on which items that represent the need for circle are placed.
Many Wiccans use a special set of altar tools in their rituals; these can include a broom (besom), cauldron, chalice (goblet), wand, Book of Shadows, altar cloth, athame (used in rituals to channel energy; it can be pronounced as AH-thom-AY, a-THAY-me, etc.), boline (or a knife for cutting things in the physical world), candles, stones, crystals, pentacle and/or incense. Representations of the God/Goddess are often also used; these may be direct, representative, or abstract. The tools themselves are just that — tools — and have no innate powers of their own, though they are usually dedicated or charged with a particular purpose, and used only in that context. For this reason, it is usually considered rude to touch another's tools without permission.
A sensationalized aspect of Wicca, particularly in Gardnerian Wicca, is that some Wiccans practice in the nude, also known as skyclad. Though many Wiccans do engage in rituals while skyclad, others wear normal clothes or whatever they think is appropriate. Robes and even Renaissance-Faire-type clothing are not uncommon. Still others wear robes with stoles which represent their tradition and/or standing within the tradition.
Wiccans typically mark each full moon (and in some cases new moons) with a ritual called an Esbat. They also celebrate eight main holidays called Sabbats. Four of these, the cross-quarter days, are greater festivals, coinciding with old Celtic fire festivals. These are Samhain (pronounced sow-en or sow-ain), May Eve or Beltane (or Beltaine), Imbolc (AKA Imbolg, Oimelc) and Lammas (or Lughnasad, pronounced LOO-nah-sah).
The four lesser festivals are the Summer Solstice (or Litha) and Winter Solstice (or Yule), and the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, sometimes called Ostara (or Eostar or Eostre) and Mabon. See also the Wheel of the Year.
The names of these holidays are often taken from Germanic pagan and Celtic polytheistic holidays. However, the festivals are largely only similar in name, as they are not reconstructive in nature nor do they often resemble their historical counterparts, instead exhibiting a form of universalism. Ritual observations may display cultural influence from the holidays from which they take their name as well as influence from other unrelated cultures.
History of Wicca
The history of Wicca is much debated. Gardner claimed that the religion was a survival of matriarchal Pagan religions of pre-historic Europe, taught to him by a woman known either as "Dafo" or "Old Dorothy". Doreen Valiente identified these as a single person, Dorothy Clutterbuck, [Valiente, Doreen (1984). The Search For Old Dorothy. In Farrar, J. & Farrar, S. The Witches' Way. London: Hale.] however modern researchers such as Philip Heselton have theorized that Dafo and Clutterbuck were two separate individuals. [Heselton, Philip (2003). Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration. Somerset: Capall Bann Publishing.]
It has been posited by authors such as Aidan Kelly and Francis X. King that Gardner himself invented it, following the thesis of Dr. Margaret Murray and sources such as Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches by Charles Godfrey Leland, [Leland, Charles G. [1899] (1998). Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. Blaine, Washington: Phoenix Publishing.] and incorporating practices of ceremonial magic. While Clutterbuck certainly existed, Ronald Hutton concluded that there was no evidence for her involvement in Gardner's Craft activities. [Hutton, Ronald (1999). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. New York: Oxford University Press.]
Philip Heselton, citing more recent evidence, concludes that while Gardner may have been mistaken about the ancient origins of the religion, his statements about it were largely made in good faith. Gardner's account is as follows: After retiring from adventuring around the globe, Gardner encountered Clutterbuck and her New Forest coven in the region, and was initiated into the coven in 1939, where he stayed for years until England's witchcraft laws were repealed. At this point, and later claiming to fear that the Craft would die out, [Gardner, G. (1954), pp.18-19.] he worked on his book Witchcraft Today, releasing it in 1954, followed by The Meaning of Witchcraft in 1960. It is from these books that much of modern Wicca is derived.
While the ritual format of Wicca is undeniably styled after late Victorian era occultism (even co-founder Doreen Valiente admits seeing influence from Crowley), the spiritual content is inspired by older Pagan faiths, with Buddhist and Hindu influences.
Due to historical suspicions, it is seems very likely that Gardner's rites and precepts were taken from other occultists and was not in fact anything new to the world. There is very little in the Wiccan rites that cannot be shown to have come from earlier extant sources. The original material is not cohesive and mostly takes the form of substitutions or expansions within unoriginal material.
Philip Heselton, writing in Wiccan Roots and later in Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration [Heselton, Philip (2003). Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration. Somerset: Capall Bann Publishing.], argues that Gardner was not the author of the Wiccan rituals but received them in good faith from an unknown source. He notes that all the Crowley material that is found in the Wiccan rituals can be found in a single book, The Equinox vol 3 no. 1 or Blue Equinox. Gardner is not known to have owned or had access to a copy of this book, although it is certain that he met Crowley towards the end of the latter’s life. Gardner admitted "the rituals he received from Old Dorothy's coven were very fragmentary, and in order to make them workable, he had to supplement them with other material." [Julia Phillips, "HISTORY OF WICCA IN ENGLAND: 1939 - present day." Lecture at the Wiccan Conference in Canberra, 1991]
Some, such as Isaac Bonewits, have argued that Valiente and Heselton's evidence points to an early 20th century revival predating Gardner, rather than an intact old Pagan religion. The argument points to historical claims of Gardner's that agree with scholarship of a certain time period and contradict later scholarship. Bonewits writes, "Somewhere between 1920 and 1925 in England some folklorists appear to have gotten together with some Golden Dawn Rosicrucians and a few supposed Fam-Trads to produce the first modern covens in England; grabbing eclectically from any source they could find in order to try and reconstruct the shards of their Pagan past." Crowley published the aforementioned Blue Equinox in 1919.
The idea of primitive matriarchal religions, deriving ultimately from studies by Johann Jakob Bachofen, was popular in Gardner's day, both among academics (e.g., Erich Neumann, Margaret Murray) and amateurs such as Robert Graves. Later academics (e.g. Carl Jung and Marija Gimbutas) continued research in this area, and later still Joseph Campbell, Ashley Montagu and others became fans of Gimbutas' theories of matriarchies in Old Europe. Matriarchal interpretations of the archaeological record and the criticism of such work continue to be matters of academic debate. Some academics carry on research in this area (such as the 2003 World Congress on Matriarchal Studies). Critics argue that such matriarchal societies never actually existed and are an invention of researchers such as Margaret Murray. This is disputed by documentaries such as "Blossoms of Fire" (about contemporary Zapotec society).
Wicca has developed in several directions since it was first publicized by Gerald Gardner. Gardnerian Wicca was an initiatory mystery religion, admission to which was limited to those who were initiated into a pre-existing coven. The Book of Shadows, a workbook that contained the Gardnerian rituals, was kept secret and was only obtainable from a coven of proper lineage. Despite the fact that several versions of the Book of Shadows have now been publicly published, many traditions of Wicca still maintain strict secrecy regarding the book and certain other aspects of the religion.
Wicca is a Neopagan religion and a religious movement found in various countries throughout the world. It was first popularized in 1954 by English civil servant Gerald Gardner after the British Witchcraft Act was repealed.
Gardner claimed that Wicca was a modern survival of an old witchcraft religion, which had existed in secret for hundreds of years, originating in the pre-Christian Paganism of Europe. Wicca is thus sometimes referred to as the Old Religion. The veracity of Gardner's claims cannot be independently proven, and it is thought that written Wiccan theology began to be compiled no earlier than the 1920s.
Various related Wiccan traditions have since evolved, or been adapted from, the form established by Gardner, which came to be called Gardnerian Wicca. These other traditions of Wicca each have distinctive beliefs, rituals, and practices. Many traditions of Wicca remain secretive and require that members be initiated. There is also a movement of Eclectic or Solitary Wiccans who do not believe that any doctrine or traditional initiation is necessary in order to practice Wicca. The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey estimated that at least 134,000 adults identified themselves as Wiccans in the US.
Because there is no centralized organization in Wicca, and no single "orthodoxy", the beliefs and practices of Wiccans can vary substantially, both between individuals and between traditions. Typically, the main religious principles, ethics and ritual structures are shared, since they are key elements of traditional teachings and published works on the subject.
Wiccans worship a goddess and a god; they observe the festivals of the eight Sabbats of the year and the full-moon Esbats; and they have a code of ethics that most live by. Wicca is thus distinct from witchcraft, which may or may not imply any specific religious, ethical or ritual elements, and is practiced in various forms by people of many religions, as well as by some atheists.
Wicca incorporates a specific form of witchcraft, with particular ritual forms, involving the casting of spells, herbalism, divination and other forms of magic. Wiccan ethics require that magical activities be limited to good purposes only.
According to Gerald Gardner, the religion derives from a secret but widespread witch-cult of early modern Europe, which incorporated all of the key religious beliefs and ideals and the distinctive ritual structures found in modern Wicca. However, this historical interpretation is now much criticized.
Wiccan Religion
Wicca as a religion is primarily concerned with the priestess or priest's relationship to the Goddess and God. The Lady and Lord (as they are often called) are seen as primal cosmic beings, the source of limitless power, yet they are also familiar figures who comfort and nurture their children, and often challenge or even reprimand them.
According to Gerald Gardner the gods of Wicca are ancient gods of the British Isles: a Horned God of hunting, death and magic who rules over an after-world paradise (Often referred to as the summerland), and a goddess, the Great Mother (who is simultaneously the Eternal Virgin and the Primordial Enchantress), who gives regeneration and rebirth to souls of the dead and love to the living. Gardner explains that these are the tribal gods of the witches, just as the Egyptians had their tribal gods Isis and Osiris and the Jews had Elohim; he also states that a being higher than any of these tribal gods is recognized by the witches as Prime Mover, but remains unknowable, and is of little concern to them. [Gardner, Gerald [1959] (1988) The Meaning of Witchcraft. Lakemont, GA US: Copple House Books, pp. 260-261. [1959] (1988) The Meaning of Witchcraft. Lakemont, GA US: Copple House Books, pp. 26-27.]
Gardner's explanation aside, individual interpretations of the exact natures of the gods differ significantly, since priests and priestesses develop their own relationships with the gods through intense personal work and revelation. Many have a duotheistic conception of deity as a Goddess (of Moon, Earth and sea) and a God (of forest, hunting and the animal realm). This concept is often extended into a kind of polytheism by the belief that the gods and goddesses of all cultures are aspects of this pair (or of the Goddess alone). Others hold the various gods and goddesses to be separate and distinct.
Some Wiccans, particularly in feminist traditions, have a monotheistic belief in the Goddess as One. Still others do not believe in the gods as real personalities, yet attempt to have a relationship with them as personifications of universal principles or as Jungian archetypes.[Adler, Margot (1979). Drawing Down the Moon. Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 25, 34-35.] A unified supreme godhead (the "Prime Mover") is also acknowledged by some groups, referred to by Scott Cunningham as "The One" [Cunningham, Scott. Wicca: A Guide to the Solitary Practitioner.] Patricia Crowther has called it Dryghten. [Crowther, Patricia (1974). Witch Blood!.]
According to current Gardnerians, the exact names of the Goddess and God of traditional Wicca remain an initiatory secret , and they are not given in Gardner's books about witchcraft. [Heselton, Philip Wiccan Roots] However, the collection of Toronto Papers of Gardner's writings has been investigated by American scholars such as Aidan Kelly, leading to the suggestion that their names are Cernunnos and Aradia.
For most Wiccans, the Lord and Lady are seen as complementary polarities: male and female, force and form, comprehending all in their union; the tension and interplay between them is the basis of all creation. The God and Goddess are sometimes symbolized as the Sun and Moon, and from her lunar associations the Goddess becomes a Triple Goddess with aspects of "Maiden", "Mother" and "Crone" corresponding to the Moon's waxing, full and waning phases.
Some Wiccans hold the Goddess to be pre-eminent, since she contains and conceives all (Gaea or Mother Earth is one of her more commonly revered aspects); the God, commonly described as the Horned God or the Divine Child, is the spark of life and inspiration within her, simultaneously her lover and her child. This is reflected in the traditional structure of the coven, which is led by a High Priestess and High Priest in partnership, with the High Priestess having the final word. In some traditions, notably Feminist branches of Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is seen as complete unto herself, and the God is not worshipped at all.
Since the Goddess is said to conceive and contain all life within her, all beings are held to be divine. This is a key understanding conveyed in the Charge of the Goddess, one of the most important texts of Wicca, and is very similar to the Hermetic understanding that "God" contains all things, and in truth is all things. [Scott, W. (transl.) (1993). Hermetica Libellus IX, p. 185. Boston:Shamballah.] For some Wiccans, this idea also involves elements of animism, and plants, rivers, rocks (and, importantly, ritual tools) are seen as spiritual beings, facets of a single life.
A key belief in Wicca is that the gods are able to manifest in personal form, either through dreams, as physical manifestations, or through the bodies of Priestesses and Priests. The latter kind of manifestation is the purpose of the ritual of Drawing down the Moon (or Drawing down the Sun), whereby the Goddess is called to descend into the body of the Priestess (or the God into the Priest) to effect divine possession.
Wiccan Symbols
The classical elements are a key feature of the Wiccan world-view. Every manifest force or form is seen to express one of the four archetypal elements — Earth, Air, Fire and Water — or several in combination. This scheme is fundamentally identical with that employed in other Western Esoteric and Hermetic traditions, such as Theosophy and the Golden Dawn, which in turn were influenced by the Hindu system of tattvas.
There is no consensus as to the exact nature of these elements. Some hold to the ancient Greek conception of the elements corresponding to matter (earth) and energy (fire), with the mediating elements (water, air) relating to the phases of matter (fire/earth mixtures). Other exponents of the system add a fifth or quintessential element, spirit (aether, akasha). The five points of the frequently worn pentagram symbolize, among other things, the four elements with spirit presiding at the top. [Valiente, Doreen (1973). An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present. Custer, Washington: Phoenix Publishing, Inc, 264.] The pentagram is the symbol most commonly associated with Wicca in modern times. It is often circumscribed — depicted within a circle — and is usually (though not exclusively) shown with a single point upward. The inverse pentagram, with two points up, is a symbol of the second degree initiation rite of traditional Wicca. [Crowey, Vivianne Wicca: The Old Religion in the New World.]
In geometry, the pentagram is an elegant expression of the golden ratio phi which is popularly connected with ideal beauty and was considered by the Pythagoreans to express truths about the hidden nature of existence.
Each of the four cardinal elements (air, fire, water and earth) is typically assigned a direction, a color, and an elemental race. The following list shows a common categorization, but different traditions of Wicca may use different "correspondences": Air: East, Yellow, Sylphs Fire: South, Red, Salamanders Water: West, Blue, Undines Earth: North, Green, Gnomes
Some variations in correspondences can be explained by geography or climate. It is common in the southern hemisphere, for example, to associate the element fire with north (the direction of the equator) and earth with south (the direction of the nearest polar area). Some Wiccan groups also modify the religious calendar to reflect local seasonal changes; for instance, most Southern Hemisphere covens celebrate Samhain on April 30th and Beltane on October 31st, reflecting the southern hemisphere's autumn and spring seasons. [Batten, Juliet. Celebrating the Southern Seasons. Auckland: Tandem Press.]
Wiccan Belief
Wiccan morality can be summarized in the form of a text that is commonly titled The Wiccan Rede. The core maxim of that text states "An it harm none, do what thou wilt." ("An" is an archaic word meaning "if".) The origin of the Wiccan Rede is ambiguous, its earliest mention being at a meeting held by the witchcraft magazine "Pentagram" spoken by Doreen Valiente.[Holzer, Hans "The Truth about Witchcraft Today"] Gerald Gardner suggested [Gardner, Gerald "The Meaning of Witchcraft"] that it was taken by witches from the legendary ethic of the fabled (fictional) King Pausol which was "Do what you like so long as you harm no one". Nevertheless, the similarity of the phrasing of the Rede (and explicit and verbatim phrasing of other texts) suggests that this statement is partly based on the Law of Thelema as stated by occultist Aleister Crowley.[Sutin, Lawrence, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley, p. 410. New York: St. Martin's Press.]
Many traditional Wiccans also follow, or at least consider, a set of 161 laws, commonly called the Ardanes. A common criticism of these rules is that they represent outdated concepts and/or produce counterproductive results in Wiccan contexts.
Many Wiccans also seek to cultivate the Eight Wiccan Virtues as a guideline for their deeds. These are Mirth, Reverence, Honor, Humility, Strength, Beauty, Power, and Compassion, and are found in a phrase from Doreen Valiente's Charge of the Goddess, where they are ordered in pairs of complementary opposites, reflecting a dualism that is common throughout Wiccan philosophy.
A recurrent belief amongst Wiccans is that no magic should be performed on any other person without that person's direct permission (excepting pets, which obviously cannot give explicit permission for such an act). This may stem from the Rede's declaration of "An it harm none, do what thou wilt", in that a person may not wish to have a spell cast upon them, and doing so without first obtaining permission interferes with their free will, which falls under the Rede's conception of "harm". This especially applies to love spells. Most Wiccans do not believe in performing magic on anyone in any circumstance without permission, although some believe that white magic may be performed with or without permission (healing spells, etc).
Within traditional forms of Wicca there are three degrees of initiation. First degree is required to become a witch and gain membership of a coven; those who aspire to teach may eventually undergo second and third degree initiations, conferring the title of "High Priest" or "High Priestess" and allowing them to establish new covens.
Wiccan Ritual Wiccan Spell
In typical rites, the Wiccans assemble inside a magic circle, which is marked using various means, in a ritual manner followed by a cleansing and then blessing of the space. Prayers to the God and Goddess are said, and spells are sometimes worked.
At the start of a ritual of spell or even just a meeting the tradition is to cast a circle, wherein one asks for blessing from the Goddess and God and invokes the Guardians of each direction (the Guardians of the North, South, East and West), to be conveyed through pointing (usually using a wand or Athame). An altar is usually used during a meeting, ritual or spell, on which items that represent the need for circle are placed.
Many Wiccans use a special set of altar tools in their rituals; these can include a broom (besom), cauldron, chalice (goblet), wand, Book of Shadows, altar cloth, athame (used in rituals to channel energy; it can be pronounced as AH-thom-AY, a-THAY-me, etc.), boline (or a knife for cutting things in the physical world), candles, stones, crystals, pentacle and/or incense. Representations of the God/Goddess are often also used; these may be direct, representative, or abstract. The tools themselves are just that — tools — and have no innate powers of their own, though they are usually dedicated or charged with a particular purpose, and used only in that context. For this reason, it is usually considered rude to touch another's tools without permission.
A sensationalized aspect of Wicca, particularly in Gardnerian Wicca, is that some Wiccans practice in the nude, also known as skyclad. Though many Wiccans do engage in rituals while skyclad, others wear normal clothes or whatever they think is appropriate. Robes and even Renaissance-Faire-type clothing are not uncommon. Still others wear robes with stoles which represent their tradition and/or standing within the tradition.
Wiccans typically mark each full moon (and in some cases new moons) with a ritual called an Esbat. They also celebrate eight main holidays called Sabbats. Four of these, the cross-quarter days, are greater festivals, coinciding with old Celtic fire festivals. These are Samhain (pronounced sow-en or sow-ain), May Eve or Beltane (or Beltaine), Imbolc (AKA Imbolg, Oimelc) and Lammas (or Lughnasad, pronounced LOO-nah-sah).
The four lesser festivals are the Summer Solstice (or Litha) and Winter Solstice (or Yule), and the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, sometimes called Ostara (or Eostar or Eostre) and Mabon. See also the Wheel of the Year.
The names of these holidays are often taken from Germanic pagan and Celtic polytheistic holidays. However, the festivals are largely only similar in name, as they are not reconstructive in nature nor do they often resemble their historical counterparts, instead exhibiting a form of universalism. Ritual observations may display cultural influence from the holidays from which they take their name as well as influence from other unrelated cultures.
History of Wicca
The history of Wicca is much debated. Gardner claimed that the religion was a survival of matriarchal Pagan religions of pre-historic Europe, taught to him by a woman known either as "Dafo" or "Old Dorothy". Doreen Valiente identified these as a single person, Dorothy Clutterbuck, [Valiente, Doreen (1984). The Search For Old Dorothy. In Farrar, J. & Farrar, S. The Witches' Way. London: Hale.] however modern researchers such as Philip Heselton have theorized that Dafo and Clutterbuck were two separate individuals. [Heselton, Philip (2003). Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration. Somerset: Capall Bann Publishing.]
It has been posited by authors such as Aidan Kelly and Francis X. King that Gardner himself invented it, following the thesis of Dr. Margaret Murray and sources such as Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches by Charles Godfrey Leland, [Leland, Charles G. [1899] (1998). Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. Blaine, Washington: Phoenix Publishing.] and incorporating practices of ceremonial magic. While Clutterbuck certainly existed, Ronald Hutton concluded that there was no evidence for her involvement in Gardner's Craft activities. [Hutton, Ronald (1999). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. New York: Oxford University Press.]
Philip Heselton, citing more recent evidence, concludes that while Gardner may have been mistaken about the ancient origins of the religion, his statements about it were largely made in good faith. Gardner's account is as follows: After retiring from adventuring around the globe, Gardner encountered Clutterbuck and her New Forest coven in the region, and was initiated into the coven in 1939, where he stayed for years until England's witchcraft laws were repealed. At this point, and later claiming to fear that the Craft would die out, [Gardner, G. (1954), pp.18-19.] he worked on his book Witchcraft Today, releasing it in 1954, followed by The Meaning of Witchcraft in 1960. It is from these books that much of modern Wicca is derived.
While the ritual format of Wicca is undeniably styled after late Victorian era occultism (even co-founder Doreen Valiente admits seeing influence from Crowley), the spiritual content is inspired by older Pagan faiths, with Buddhist and Hindu influences.
Due to historical suspicions, it is seems very likely that Gardner's rites and precepts were taken from other occultists and was not in fact anything new to the world. There is very little in the Wiccan rites that cannot be shown to have come from earlier extant sources. The original material is not cohesive and mostly takes the form of substitutions or expansions within unoriginal material.
Philip Heselton, writing in Wiccan Roots and later in Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration [Heselton, Philip (2003). Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration. Somerset: Capall Bann Publishing.], argues that Gardner was not the author of the Wiccan rituals but received them in good faith from an unknown source. He notes that all the Crowley material that is found in the Wiccan rituals can be found in a single book, The Equinox vol 3 no. 1 or Blue Equinox. Gardner is not known to have owned or had access to a copy of this book, although it is certain that he met Crowley towards the end of the latter’s life. Gardner admitted "the rituals he received from Old Dorothy's coven were very fragmentary, and in order to make them workable, he had to supplement them with other material." [Julia Phillips, "HISTORY OF WICCA IN ENGLAND: 1939 - present day." Lecture at the Wiccan Conference in Canberra, 1991]
Some, such as Isaac Bonewits, have argued that Valiente and Heselton's evidence points to an early 20th century revival predating Gardner, rather than an intact old Pagan religion. The argument points to historical claims of Gardner's that agree with scholarship of a certain time period and contradict later scholarship. Bonewits writes, "Somewhere between 1920 and 1925 in England some folklorists appear to have gotten together with some Golden Dawn Rosicrucians and a few supposed Fam-Trads to produce the first modern covens in England; grabbing eclectically from any source they could find in order to try and reconstruct the shards of their Pagan past." Crowley published the aforementioned Blue Equinox in 1919.
The idea of primitive matriarchal religions, deriving ultimately from studies by Johann Jakob Bachofen, was popular in Gardner's day, both among academics (e.g., Erich Neumann, Margaret Murray) and amateurs such as Robert Graves. Later academics (e.g. Carl Jung and Marija Gimbutas) continued research in this area, and later still Joseph Campbell, Ashley Montagu and others became fans of Gimbutas' theories of matriarchies in Old Europe. Matriarchal interpretations of the archaeological record and the criticism of such work continue to be matters of academic debate. Some academics carry on research in this area (such as the 2003 World Congress on Matriarchal Studies). Critics argue that such matriarchal societies never actually existed and are an invention of researchers such as Margaret Murray. This is disputed by documentaries such as "Blossoms of Fire" (about contemporary Zapotec society).
Wicca has developed in several directions since it was first publicized by Gerald Gardner. Gardnerian Wicca was an initiatory mystery religion, admission to which was limited to those who were initiated into a pre-existing coven. The Book of Shadows, a workbook that contained the Gardnerian rituals, was kept secret and was only obtainable from a coven of proper lineage. Despite the fact that several versions of the Book of Shadows have now been publicly published, many traditions of Wicca still maintain strict secrecy regarding the book and certain other aspects of the religion.
sexywiccangoddess |
Latest page update: made by sexywiccangoddess
, Apr 5 2008, 4:30 AM EDT
(about this update
About This Update
changed the color of the text
- sexywiccangoddess
view changes - complete history) |
|
Keyword tags:
None
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
