What is Wicca?

Author: Rhaevyn Sunrise

Many people do a double-take when I tell them I'm Wiccan. They are often expecting a person who dresses in black clothes, has a feline familiar, lives in the big, cob-webby Victorian-style house at the end of the road, and who makes various bubbling potions out of eye of newt and toe of frog. Actually, the media has something to do with that kind of image. The media likes to portray Wiccans and Witches as either gothic, black-clad, vengeful Christian-haters or else as flakey, Val-speaking ("Like oohmmmm....or some junk"), nose-twitching, New Age Psychic Hotline operators. While the above may be based in some fact (from the shallow end of the pool of information out there), there is much more to Wicca than crystal-ball gazing and pentagrams.

Wicca is legally recognized by the United States of America as a full religion (since 1985) and is granted the same benefits as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hindu, etc. Like any other religion, Wicca identifies the supernatural in the form of a deity and has set holidays with rituals for each.

Wicca is also a part of the broader Neo-Pagan movement. (Pagan, in this sense coming from the late Latin meaning "country dweller"...one who did not follow the main belief system found in the cities because city dwellers did not have to rely on the seasonal cycles to grow their own food.) Neo-Pagans attempt to follow the Old Ways...traditions held in Pre-Christian Europe, Egypt, and America. The Old Ways are nature-based, centering mostly on the old harvest and fertility cycles. Wiccans find this important because they feel these cycles of life, the Moon, the Sun, and The Earth bring pagan followers closer to nature. Many pagans also feel it is important to bring nature back into the forefront of life, fixing the drift from nature that came about with mono-theistic religions and science.

The words "Wicca" and "Witch" has the same root ("wicca"-masculine form and "wicce"-feminine form) meaning either "wise one" or "to bend." People who fit into the "wise one" category in history were often the healers, scholars, and early astronomers. The more likely meaning, however, is "to bend," meaning that Witches bend particular forces in order to have the desired results. In what is known to Craft circles as "The Burning Times" the meaning became distorted. Since the healers were the only ones who knew the medicines and herbs, they were accused of witchcraft while faith-healing of the Roman Catholic Church became the accepted cure. From there, the image of a witch became the green-skinned, wart-nosed hag to promote fear.

Today more and more Wiccans are "coming out of the broom closet" as more people urge the protection of religious freedom. Wiccans are very active in this part of the US Constitution, not only to protect their own rights to practice their beliefs, but also to protect the rights of all: Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and all others. Wiccans do not believe their way is the "Only" way, but merely a path to reach the same goal.

The Wiccan way includes the understanding of nature and the divine. The divine being the One spirit, manifested in the Goddess and the God, and present in all things. Wiccans celebrate all cycles of life and learn through correspondence with the divine and nature, discussion with others of all beliefs systems, and through personal introspection. Wicca is not a quick fix! While Wiccans may do spells, these are based on healing, love, harmony, and protection. The main law of Wicca is "An' it harm none, do what ye will," meaning that one should live life, but mind to NEVER harm anything or anyone (including one's self). The rewards/consequences of one's actions are found in the Three-Fold Law in which "What energy is given out is returned threefold." In other words, if you do well, good energy returns, multiplied by three. If you do wrong, you will have the negative energy returned to you.

Source: www.thepagancampus.net

A VERY Basic History of Wicca

Author: Jon "Athrawon"

Wicca is a religion.

There ya go, you were wondering what Wicca was and what is all about… Oh, I forgot that one…

Wicca is a religion… that worships the divine in all things with a particular focus on nature…

So there ya go again… So the only question is…

Did ya hear about the Zen Wiccan?

They worship the tree that is not there.

Wicca is a modern religion, began by Gerald Gardner in the mid last-century, and is loosely based upon the practices of the old Pagan beliefs and religions of antiquity.

There is plenty to read about Gerald Gardner (http://www.geraldgardner.com/index/main.shtml) and much speculation behind whether he actually was a member of the New Forest Coven and an associate of “Old Dorothy” Clutterbuck. In her book, The Rebirth of Witchcraft, Doreen Valiente investigates Gerald Gardner, his claims and his history.

Now you may ask, who is this Doreen Valiente? Go ahead, ask it…

Doreen Valiente was Gerald Gardner’s first high priestess of this new religion he began. She affirms much of the information that is attributed to Gardner, including the existence of “Old Dorothy.” She also goes on to state she recognized much of the things Gardner used in his rituals, such as “The Charge,” which she recognized as being partly from Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law as well as Leland’s Aradia. She also disproves many things Gardner claimed and even pointed out that his original Book of Shadows was written, in a large part, in the hand of Aleister Crowley.

With all of the disproving she did, she also confirmed many things and even states, referring to Gardner’s alleged educational background for which she disproved, “Gerald was certainly a merry old devil; but if the ‘MA’ stood for ‘Magical Adept’, he had more right to that title than anyone else I have ever met.”

Gerald Gardner had many students and these students went out and started new covens and groups. One of the most closely related traditions is Alexandrian Wicca, formed by Alex and Maxine Sanders in the 1960s. Other traditions include Dianic (two branches), Seax, Georgian, British Traditionist, and many others. The most common tradition is known as Eclectic, which borrows from whatever tradition it wants or other religious practice and incorporates it into their own practice. Many times these ‘eclectic” traditions end up being a regular one that many may recognize.

Read through the resources provided and fill that brain of your up. Take all information that says it is gospel and judge by the information it provides. Folks that link to other resources as justifying their argument, check out those resources before believing everything. You will find that there is a lot of stuff, especially in Paganism, that is simply a repeat of someone else who does not know anything either.

Source: www.thepagancampus.net

What Wiccans Do and Do Not Believe

Before I continue I would like to state that the following is a generalization of what MANY (read: NOT ALL) Wiccans believe. Some have different views in their practice, and these are their personal views that they are entitled to have. Again, this a general view on what the MAJORITY believe in. -Real Wiccans (from my personal practice and experience) do not hurt people physically, mentally, spiritually, or magically. We have taken an oath to help people. We follow the Wiccan Rede which is "An it harm none, do what ye will." Which I like to say as "Do whatever the hell you want, as long as you don't hurt anyone."

-Most wiccans, (not all, b/c [in my opinion] they're dumb) do not do illegal drugs. We take medicines, yes, but if it's breaking the law, well, you know the drill. Our bodies are a source of power, so hurting it is hurting that power. For example, I do not smoke pot, but I take antidepressants to help me stay sane. If you're saving your energy for crack cocaine, then we have a problem. ;)

-We believe in karma, so we do not practice any "dark" magic. Now, truthfully, there is no real "black" or "white" magic. It is what we create with our negativity or positivity. Again, this falls under the "harm none" rule. We have the little poem that says "What you give out comes back to thee, so ever mind the rule of three."

-We do not eat or boil babies. We love babies. I am a mother of two. I love my babies very much. I would not like them harmed or any other children harmed. -We do not kill animals, people, or anything else. We love and honor animals and have pets of our own.

-We don't get together and have massive orgies and force people to have sex with strangers or do strange initiations where you have to do it with someone, or walk on burning coals or anything like that.

-We do not use or drink blood from people or animals in rituals.

-We can't make things fly, change shape or color, or have any type of spiffy power that is shown in Hollywood movies.

-We do not worship the Christian Devil, or Satan. We don't believe in Satan or anything similar. We understand that there are negative forces out there, but to give it a name, just gives it more power against you.

-We do not believe in Hell. We believe that we are responsible for our own actions and that we will pay for it. If the lessons of this life have not been learned by the time we pass on, we have the choice to reincarnate and try again. if we dont reincarnate, I believe that we either stay behind as spirits if we're stubborn, or pass on and become a part of the Universal energy.

-We do not brainwash people or try and force them to join us. We do not try and "convert." We are not a cult. Now, just like in every religion, there are crazies. Unfortunately, those crazy people are the ones who get put on TV and give us a bad name.

-We do not always work magic. Some pray, or are just too busy, or do something to help the environment, etc.

-We do not cast spells that control someone. It is against the "harm none rule."

-We do believe in God. Our view is that God is a universal force of energy and we split that into the Lord and Lady as aspects of that energy. We give it a masculine, feminine quality to help in connecting to it.

-We try and respect all other religions. (This sometimes gets a little hard to do when people disrespect us.) But in time, it gets a little easier to just ignore and move on.

-We believe that we are all one with the world and are all just trying to connect to the Divine (God).