Wicca Or Wica

Wicca is the largest of the Neopagan religions. Wiccans have
great reverence for the Earth and for their Goddess and her

legends, but very little archeological evidence to support
our theories. We have no written records of their actual

consort, the horned God. Their main rule of behavior is the
Wiccan Rede which forbids them from harming people,

forms of worship, and the accounts of their culture and
beliefs written by their contemporaries are often highly

including themselves, except in some cases of self-defense.

biased and of questionable historical worth." 1

During the 20th century interest in witchcraft in
English-speaking and European countries began to increase,

Ms. Hautin-Mayer is particularly critical of recent Neopagan
books which she demonstrates to be largely fictional

inspired particularly by Margaret Murray's theory of a
pan-European witch-cult originally published in 1921, since

accounts of the history of Witta 3 (presented as an Irish
Pagan tradition), Faery Wicca 4 (presented as an ancient

tradition), and 21 Lessons of Merlyn 5 (a somewhat racist
and sexist account of Druidism).

in Witchcraft Today that a form of witchcraft still existed
in England. The truth of Gardner's claim is now disputed

too, with different historians offering evidence for or
against the religion's existence prior to Gardner.

"Wicca, as you practice the religion today, is a new

The Wicca that Gardner initially taught was a witchcraft

religion, barely fifty years old. The techniques you use at
present are not entirely what your elders practiced even

religion having a lot in common with Margaret Murray's
hypothetically posited cult of the 1920s. Indeed Murray

thirty years ago. Of course, threads of 'what was' weave
through the tapestry of 'what is now.'...in no way can we

wrote an introduction to Gardner's Witchcraft Today, in
effect putting her stamp of approval on it. Wicca is now

replicate to perfection the precise circumstances of
environment, society, culture, religion and magick a hundred

practised as a religion of an initiatory secret society
nature with positive ethical principles, organised into

years ago, or a thousand. Why would we want to ? The idea
is to go forward with the knowledge of the past, tempered by

autonomous covens and led by a High Priesthood. There is
also a large "Eclectic Wiccan" movement of individuals and

the tools of our own age."

groups who share key Wiccan beliefs but have no initiatory
connection or affiliation with traditional Wicca. Wiccan

writings and ritual show borrowings from a number of sources
including 19th and 20th-century ceremonial magic, the

- According to Gardner, Wicca:
- began in prehistory, as ritual associated with fire, the

medieval grimoire known as the Key of Solomon, Aleister
Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis and pre-Christian religions.

hunt, animal fertility, plant propagation, tribal fertility
and the curing of disease.

Both men and women are equally termed "witches." They
practice a form of duotheistic universalism.

- developed into a religion which recognized a Supreme
Deity, but realized that at their state of evolution, they

Since Gardner's death in 1964 the Wicca that he claimed he

"were incapable of understanding It". Instead, they
worshipped what might be termed "under-Gods": the Goddess of

was initiated into has attracted many initiates, becoming
the largest of the various witchcraft traditions in the

fertility and her horned consort, the God of the hunt.
- continued their predominately Moon based worship, even as

Western world, and has influenced other Neopagan and occult
movements.

a mainly Sun-based faith of priests, the Druids, developed
and evolved into the dominant religion of the Celts. By this

Many, perhaps most, are solitary practitioners. Others form

time, Celtic society had gradually spread across Northern
Europe into what is now England, France, Germany, Ireland,

small groups of believers, called covens, groves, etc.
Because of centuries of religious propaganda and

Netherlands, Scotland etc. They never formed a single
political entity, but remained as many tribes who shared a

misinformation, many conservative Christians, and others,
associate Wiccans with Satanists even though the two belief

common culture and religions.
- survived the Roman, Saxon, and Norman invasions by going

systems are as different as Christianity and Atheism.

underground
- suffered major loss in numbers during the active

Our essays on Wicca are very different from those on
Christianity.

Christian genocides, which continued into the 18th Century
- reached a low ebb by the middle of the 20th century. Much

- Wicca is a very decentralized religion; many Wiccans
develop their own beliefs, rituals, and other practices. The

of the theology and ritual had been lost; Wiccan covens had
become so isolated that they had lost contact with each

latter are often not known outside the solitary practitioner
or Wiccan coven. So we describe the beliefs and practices

other.
- was revived in the UK by himself, his High Priestess

that most Wiccans hold in common.

Doreen Valiente, (1922 - 1999) and others, who took the
surviving beliefs and practices, and fleshed them out with

- Most of Christianity is highly centralized within
denominations whose beliefs, rituals, and other practices

material from other religious, spiritual and ceremonial
magick sources.

are well documented and available to us. So we describe the
diversity of Christian beliefs in great detail.

Gardner has claimed that after he wrote his books, he

Wicca is a religion based, in part, on ancient, northern

received many letters from members of isolated covens who
had believed that their groups had been in continuous

European Pagan beliefs in a fertility Goddess and her
consort, a horned God. Although the religion is a modern

existence for generations or centuries.

creation, some of its sources pre-date the Christian era by
many centuries. Most Wiccans do not believe that their

- Other individuals discount this belief system and
maintain that there was no continuous Wiccan presence from

religion is a direct, continuous descendent of this earlier
religion. They see it as a modern reconstruction.

Celtic times to the 20th century. They maintain that
present-day Wicca was created by merging a few ancient

Celtic beliefs, deity structure, and seasonal days of
celebration with modern material from ceremonial magick, the

"We know tragically little about the actual religious

Masonic Order, etc.
- Still others trace Wicca back to a little known faith