The modern religion of Wicca emerged in England in the 1940s through the writings of Gerald Gardner (Fisher, 2005), who is credited only with creating its name. The rituals and traditions he presented (as witchcraft) were based on the practices of what was believed to be a last surviving coven of witches. The controversy that surrounds the practice of witchcraft overshadows suspicions that the rituals and traditions he reintroduced as Wicca were made up. The basis for the religious persecution of witches, based upon interpretations of a mistranslation in the Bible, is obscured by further misunderstandings that provoke fear and hostility between Wiccans and Christians to this day. In spite of the lingering distrust and misrepresentation of witches, Wicca is a surprisingly benign and enlightened religion grounded in strong ethics and environmental consciousness.
It is not uncommon for Wicca to be associated with the New Age movement, and many people find their way to Wicca through it. Prior to the establishment of the Internet, the most common way for an individual to begin investigating Wicca was to visit a New Age bookstore. On the whole, Wiccans choose the great outdoors for their places of worship, making bookstores or gift shops the closest thing to a church or temple for an outsider to visit. Informal gatherings of Wiccans might held at the private residence of a priest or priestess. More formal gatherings, on the other hand, are more likely to occur outside, sometimes on private land or in remote parts of public parks.
The natural splendor of the type of forest clearing preferred by Wiccans, however, may have inspired the artificial splendor of Christian churches and cathedrals and each tradition includes worship before an altar.Different groups maintain different levels of secrecy, and the remoteness of their places of worship tends to exclude the uninitiated. As a modern religion, Wicca seems to lay claim to the ancient traditions in the spirit of the Old Religion, the common indigenous beliefs of ancient Europe. Other traditions, such as "handfasting" or "wiccaning" seem like direct parallels to Christian traditions of Matrimony and Christening. Of course the concept of a trial marriage of "a year and a day" would seem scandalous to some Christians, and a child presented to the God and Goddess for protection is under no obligation to practice Wicca (Wiki, 2007).
A Protestant Christian, encountering a Wiccan for the first time, is in for an unsettling shock. A Wiccan is not a "witch" like the characters in books, on television shows or in movies. There may have, at one point, been individuals who could properly be called witches, in the original meaning of the word before it changed as a consequence of its use in a translation of the bible. A word that would better fit where the word "witch" was incorporated into the bible is "terrorist". According to a few, specific interpretations of scripture, anyone who is not a devout Christian can be defined as a witch (Robinson, 2002). Many women identified as witches were herbalists, midwives or - at worst - freethinking women.
Combined with the Wiccan belief in a God and Goddess, worshipped in many different aspects, and the pagan heritage of many of their traditions, Wicca does challenge several Christian beliefs and teachings. Wiccans base their religion in nature and having no concept of sin, nor taboos against nudity many choose to worship in the nude, or "skyclad" (Wiki, 2007). As part of their religion and worship, Wiccans also practice magic, something that is explicitly forbidden in the Bible.
In typical rites, the coven assembles inside a ritually cast and purified magic circle. Prayers to the God and Goddess are said, the "Guardians" of the North, South, East and West are welcomed, and spells are sometimes worked. An altar is usually present in the circle, on which ritual tools are placed. Before entering the circle, some traditions fast for the day, and/or ritually bathe. After a ritual has finished, the God, Goddess and Guardians are thanked and the circle is closed. (Wiki, 2007)
Wiccans have no doubts about the efficacy of magic, and they are wary of the power it has to cause things to happen. "Be careful what you wish for," is the ethical principle of magic. In working magic, interfering with free will intentionally or unintentionally is dangerous. Trying to dictate the outcome of events can have disastrous consequences. Even coaxing things toward a desired result can have unexpected consequences. The wisdom that is required to practice the Craft is what makes it Witchcraft, the Craft of the Wise. It has to be cultivated carefully, developed through relationships with the spiritual forces of the natural world (Jane, 2007).
Wiccans see practicing the Craft as akin to prayer and belief in miracles, but in addition to addressing their needs to the Creator, they address it to the elements of Creation as well (Jane, 2007). Being a religion based upon traditions that many believe to have been completely lost, Wicca has no bible or continuous oral tradition. Wiccans have claimed what scraps they can from history, adapting elements of different Pagan religions and even borrowing from literature to reconstruct what they call the Old Religion (Jane, 2007). Based upon archeological findings in Europe, such as cave paintings suggestive of the Horned God and the Goddess, some Wiccans believe that the roots of their tradition might be as much as 30,000 years old (Herne, 1997). The written traditions of Wicca are being created now; in the personal Book of Shadows that is each Witch's own compendium of lore and in the many books on Witchcraft published each year.
Ironically, the most damning aspect of the Christian definition of a witch is an expressed belief in and service to an entity that only exists in Christian theology. A witch, ancient or modern, neither believes in nor worships the Devil. Nor does a modern witch use magic or other means to poison or curse people, for that is forbidden by the Wiccan Rede (Jane, 2007). It is suggested that the Horned God, an ancient fertility god, was deliberately associated with the Devil during the spread of Christianity to demonize the Old Religion (Herne, 1997). As soon as one religion decries or persecutes another, it ceases to be fair and unbiased in how it perceives or describes that religion.
As it is, theological teachings - especially based upon the King James and following versions - of the Bible have no direct influence upon Wicca because Wicca did not exist when the scripture was written or when it was translated into English. Also, because there is no written tradition of witchcraft, there is no direct association between ancient or medieval practices described as witchcraft and modern witchcraft. Biblical views of witchcraft are hard to understand because there is no understanding of witchcraft in the Bible. That is, the Bible presents an explicit and exclusive interpretation of divinity that is incompatible with the beliefs and practices of any other religion. The best an understanding Bible scholar can do is to understand the difference between witchcraft, as it is practiced, and witchcraft as it appears in the Bible, and to see that they are not the same thing.
According to "Jane" (Interviewed under pseudonym by the author, June 28, 2007), a Wiccan priestess raised on a farm by Mennonite parents in a conservative Baptist community, Wicca is a religion centered in human experience in the natural world. Stifled in her native religion and restricted by the role allowed to her as a woman, Jane felt unable to live up to the religious expectations of the community she grew up in. Introduced to Wicca by her daughter, she discovered that the Wiccan belief in a female deity and its sacred view of nature offered a far more meaningful and fulfilling role for her in life. As a Wiccan, she gained a clearer understanding of the purpose of religion and her relationship with the divine.
Jane, who describes herself as "very earth-centered," felt that Wicca affirmed her connection to nature and deepened her understanding of herself. Wicca emphasizes the importance of understanding the light and dark aspects of human nature, in difference to the classic good and evil of other religions. One way to explain it is as the capacity to harm or heal, but more plainly "there are two sides to every coin" (Jane, 2007). Becoming a better person calls for getting in touch with the darker side of one's self and finding ways to put it into perspective and achieve balance. That was something Jane felt was missing from her previous experiences with religion, a sense of ethics rooted in personal integrity.
Out of this core of individual responsibility, a more egalitarian and supportive community emerges. Wicca is a vital religion that continues to evolve to meet the needs of its members. Individuals are encouraged to participate as best suits them. They are welcome to simply observe, and they are encouraged if they seek more active participation. At one point, Wicca was more secretive and guarded; more initiatory testing was involved and most members were single adults. Now, membership has grown to include family participation, with greater outreach to and involvement in the community.
Although responsive to respectful interest and inquiries from outsiders, Wiccans do not openly recruit people to their religion. Discretion is also important; Wiccans do not "out" each other in public (Jane, 2007). There remains an element of risk to being a "witch" and some groups remain underground. This need for caution, and the isolation that can result, has caused Wiccan groups to become diverse in their standards of worship. This kind of diversity provides Wiccans with a wide range of opportunities to explore their faith and to refine it as they themselves become more refined. It has also been a source of conflict between Wiccans. Some Wiccans are more literal in the interpretation and practice of their religion, while others place less emphasis on the importance of symbols and rituals.
These differences of opinion do not include core teachings, such as the Wiccan Rede. "An it harm none, do what thou wilt" has been compared, as an ethical principle, to the Golden Rule, though criticized as being more of a guideline than a commandment (Wiki, 2007). This is one of the aspects of Wiccan ethics that is difficult for outsiders to grasp. The ethics of Wiccan belief are not enforced by the threat of judgment, but by the natural law of consequence. The true enforcement of Wiccan ethics is the Three-fold Law (Jane, 2007), that whatever an individual sends out into the world will revisit the sender three-fold.
Originally initiated into the Gardnerian Lineage, Jane now identifies herself as a Common Sense Wiccan. Rather than struggle to defend the legitimacy of her faith through Lineage, she finds legitimacy in the practice of her religion itself. Other aspects of Wiccan tradition have been questioned and dispensed with by other Wiccans. While some worship a God and Goddess the Lord and Lady others worship only the Goddess. For some, a personified deity is simply an aspect of a greater creative source likened to the Great Spirit or the Dao. This interpretation of divinity allows some Wiccans to borrow gods from all religions to represent other specific aspects of the Divine (Jane, 2007).
Many Wiccans use a special set of magical tools in their rituals. These can include a broom (besom), cauldron, chalice, wand, Book of Shadows, altar cloth, athame (a knife used in rituals to channel energy), boline (a knife for cutting things in the physical world), candles, crystals, pentacle and/or incense. Representations of the God/Goddess are often displayed. 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 considered rude to touch another's tools without permission. (Wiki, 2007)
The simple tools and rituals of the Craft have parallels in the elaborate trappings and rituals of Catholicism. These embellishments, rejected by Protestants during the Reformation, might have been adapted from the traditions of pagans converted to Christianity. Christian churches were often been built on the foundations of older temples or upon previously sacred ground during the expansion of the New Religion. There are many ancient beliefs and traditions that are known to have been absorbed into and altered by Christianity.
Traditions for the celebration of Yule became integrated into the Christian Christmas. Easter, when Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ, overshadowed the fertility rites of Oestara (Herne, 1997). Other Sabats became displaced by saints' days or secular holidays like the Feast of St. John the Baptist on Litha, the summer solstice, or Halloween and Groundhog Day, displacing Samhain and Imbolc (Herne, 1997). The Sabats can not be traced directly back to the original Celtic and Germanic cultures or traditions they take their names from, nor are they accurate reconstructions of the ancient holidays, of course (Wiki, 2007).
"Wiccans typically mark each full moon (and in some cases new moons) with a ritual called an Esbat" (Wiki, 2007). Esbats are tied to the cycles of the Moon associated with the Goddess, the phases related with the aspects, maiden, matron, crone (Jane, 2007). "They also celebrate eight main holidays called Sabbats" (Wiki, 2007). Sabbats are tied to the cycle of the Sun, associated with the God and related to planting and harvest, the cycles of life (Jane, 2007).
Wheel of the Year (Sabbats)
Oct 31st through Oct 30th
Samhain - Oct.31
Yule - Dec.21
Imbolc - Feb.2
Ostara - Mar.21
Beltane - Apr.30
Litha - Jun.21
Lughnasadh - Jul.31
Mabon - Sep.21
Four of these, the cross-quarter days, are greater festivals, coinciding with old Celtic fire festivals. These are Samhain, Beltane or May Eve, Imbolc and Lammas (or Lughnasadh). The four lesser festivals are the Summer Solstice (or Litha) and Winter Solstice (or Yule), and the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, sometimes called Ostara and Mabon. (Wiki, 2007)
Of the many religious traditions in the world today, Wicca stands out as one of the few to emphasize the importance of free will. It asks its followers to confront their own demons and take charge of them. It acknowledges the existence of evil as the consequence of human actions, but does not personify it as separate from any entity or as a separate entity. It is simply a manifestation of the balance.
"There is no hell," according to Jane (2007), "but what you create for yourself." The spiritual forces of the natural world and the spirit of the Divine are not the only aspects of spiritual existence that are addressed in Wicca. Wiccans do believe in the continuation of life after deaththrough reincarnation. Wicca does not promise salvation because it does not threaten damnation. Life is a lesson, and until the lesson is learned, the journey continues. Upon death, the souls of the dead pass on to a place of rest called the Summerland to await rebirth.
For Wiccans, Paradise exists here and now, in Nature. They need no churches, because the entire natural world is their temple. They respect the Divine without fearing it, knowing that it is greater than human understanding, but knowing that it is natural to address themselves to the human aspects within it. Instead of looking to a changeless scripture for wisdom, they collect and share their own wisdom, and instead of praying for miracles, they work in partnership with the Divine to do magic. Wicca is an apprehension of ancient traditions that promotes a return to nature. It is a far cry from what the Bible views as witchcraft, and that is what truly needs to be understood.
Interview
Jane. (June 28, 2007) Wiccan priestess. Sacramento. Interviewed by the Author.
References
Fisher, Mary P. (2005) Chapter 12: New religious movements. Living Religions, Sixth Edition. Prentice-Hall. Pearson Education, Inc.
Herne. (1997) What Is Wicca. The Celtic Connection. Retrieved online on July 15, 2007 from: http://www.wicca.com/celtic/wicca/wicca.htm
Robinson, B. A. (2003) Bible and Wicca (a.k.a. Witchcraft). Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. Retrieved online on July 15, 2007 from: http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_bibl.htm
Wiki. (July 13, 2007) Wicca. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved online on July 13, 2007 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca