Wicca: Difference between revisions
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{{Useful Notes}}
[[File:GODDESS_triple_goddess2_9252.jpg|frame| [[The Hecate Sisters|The Triple Goddess. From left to right: Maiden, Mother, and Crone.]]]]
{{quote|''"...let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honour and humility, mirth and reverence within you."''
|'''An excerpt from''' [http://doreenvaliente.com/?page_id{{=}}625 The Charge of The Goddess] }}
{{quote|''"An' it harm none, do what ye will."'''
|'''The Wiccan Rede.''' }}
[[Wicca]] is a fertility-based religion founded in the 1950s by Gerald Gardner, supposedly based as much as possible on pre-Christian British traditions and ceremonial magic societies/orders. Exactly what defines a Wiccan depends on who you ask, but at least one rule is consistent: "Wiccan" is ''not'' a fancy word for "witch," and "Wicca" is not a catch-all term for any neo-pagan religion. Neither is it term for someone who practices "whatever feels right," even if they take some of their practices and beliefs from Wicca. (That's called eclectic paganism - not that there's anything wrong with it; it's just not Wicca.) Note that the number of people who term themselves Wiccan but do not meet this definition (often because they do not belong to an initiatory tradition or do not follow all these beliefs) is much greater than those who do.
In general, there are two main types of Wicca. The first type is coven-based, where adherents gather together to pratise their religion. The oldest form of Wicca, established by Gardner himself (hence known as Gardnerian Wicca) is coven-based and is an orthopraxic mystery religion. Orthopraxic means that correct practice is more important than correct belief (orthodoxy). Like all coven-based forms, its core practices are oath-bound and are not taught to cowans, or outsiders. This means that you can't actually practice Gardnerian Wicca as you'll have no way of actually knowing what a good chunk of the vital practices and rituals actually are. While there are many books ''about'' Gardenarian Wicca, there are no books that actually contain these core practices or Mysteries; at best, the books contain "outer court" information comprising of some history and generic neo-pagan beliefs and practices([[Your Mileage May Vary]] on this claim, however, since the original "Gardnerian" Book of Shadows has been printed multiple times, including what were (formerly) the secret names of the Goddess and God. Most Gardnerian and Alexandrian covens have since augmented the original material with additional, actually still secret stuff). Also, it should be noted that because some of the rituals are sexual in nature (although a far cry from orgies), no-one under the age of 18 is allowed to be initiated for legal and moral reasons.
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The other type is solitary, which is almost the exact opposite of coven-based forms. Firstly, practitioners are given more leniency in their beliefs and practice. Whilst the core tenets of Wicca are there (e.g. belief in the God and Goddess, the Wheel of the Year, the 3-fold law & Rede, etc.), solitaries may also hold different opinions regarding various topics, such as with adherence to different theories of magic. Solitaries also differ from coven-based wiccans in that they freely share religious information, their primary sources being: the wide variety of books published regarding Wicca and similar metaphysical subjects, such as Buckland's complete guide to witchcraft; ideas inspired by their own personal meditations, known as Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG). Because of the accessibility of materials and and greater number of outlets for solitaries, it is this face of Wicca is the most familiar to non-Wiccans.
Exactly who has the right to call themselves a Wiccan has been debated. [http://livingpagan.blogspot.com/2009/08/keep-wicca-traditional-keep-wicca-coven.html Some argue]{{Dead link}} that Wicca without the Mysteries isn't truly Wicca, the same as Catholicism without baptism and communion wouldn't be Catholicism. This isn't to say that the path isn't valid and that the person doesn't have the right to practice and believe what they feel is right, but simply that calling their practice and beliefs "Wicca" would be superficial and meaningless. Others argue that the term can be applied to any path derived from Gardnerian Wicca, Mysteries or no. However, most Wiccans and Pagans (Druids and such) separate Gardenarian\Alexandrian Wicca from other types, and consider them all valid.
Aside from this, Wicca is often misunderstood by other religions and Hollywood, and there are many unfortunate misconceptions. Wiccans do not worship the devil (the character simply doesn't exist in their theology), nor does their [[Older Than They Think|pentacle]] symbolize the devil. And before you ask, they typically consider spells to make specific people fall in love with you unethical, as it interferes with free will. Most do not go around cursing people, as they believe in the "three-fold law," which states that any action you do, good or bad, will return to you thrice over.
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Males who practice magic are simply called witches. The term "warlock" is said to refer to those who break the sacred oaths taken during initiation and divulge the Mysteries to non-Wiccans, though the etymology of the term 'warlock' leads in a different direction. It is also quite offensive to call one such. The terms "wizard" and sorcerer/sorceress (and similar) are almost never used.
Wicca became "mainstream" to an extent during [[The Nineties]]. The polemic writings of the Silver Ravenwolf became popular, movies such as ''[[The Craft]]'' were released during this period, TV shows such as ''[[Charmed]]'' and ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' featured Wiccan characters, and the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' books, while not about real-life witchcraft
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140126051005/http://www.dynionmwyn.net/wicca.html This page] has some more in-depth information on the beliefs and origins of Wicca. Also, there are many, ''many'' myths and misconceptions about Wicca that would take forever to put up here, but are dealt with [https://web.archive.org/web/20120427071812/http://www.mdpagans.com/wiccaisnot.html here], [https://web.archive.org/web/20131020101355/http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/wiccaandpaganismbasics/a/MythsMisconcept.htm here], [https://web.archive.org/web/20101103025347/http://www.virtualavalon.com/wakingdragon/Wdispell.htm here], [
{{tropelist|Tropes associated with Wicca include:}}
* [[Above Good and Evil]]: Related below, the God and Goddess embody ''all'' of nature which includes disease, pain, and sorrow. Acknowledging their "dark" aspects is crucial in understanding the Divine.
* [[A Form You Are Comfortable With]]: A school of thought on the nature of the Divine says that the forms humanity has given it, such as the various deities (including the Triple Goddess), are merely attempts to understand a being [[You Cannot Grasp the True Form|ultimately beyond human comprehension]] if viewed in its entirety.▼
* [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]: The God and Goddess represent various aspects of nature and life.
* [[Anti-Magic]]: Salt is commonly used for ritual purification. However, if you leave it around your ritual space it may simply stop magic from working.
* [[Author Appeal]]: Anthropologists who've studied the origins of the Gardnerian tradition have noted that its rituals and practices seem to have quite a number of elements -- such as [[Nudism|skyclad ceremonies]] and [[BDSM|symbolic bondage]] -- which correspond with some of Gardner's pre-existing interests.
* [[Brand Name Takeover]]: Some people mistakenly refer to ''any'' neo-pagan or witch as a Wiccan, or use the word "Wicca" to refer to any generic brand of neo-paganism. Actually, many religions practice witchcraft, including [[Voudoun]]. It gets ''especially'' frustrating when it's a person insisting on calling their personal brand of neo-paganism "Wicca" when, at best, their path bears only a superficial resemblance to Wicca.
* [[Broken Base]]: Over the issue of whether or not those who aren't in lineaged covens (and therefore, do not know the Mysteries) have the right to [[Call a Smeerp a Rabbit|apply the name]] "Wiccan" to what they practice.
** Notice how schizo this very page is; part of it insists Wicca is a mystery religion that only those initiated can truely follow, while other sections mention the information is available to anyone willing to look for it.
*** Both of those statements are largely true, on one hand most of the important information (even the mysteries) is pretty easy to find if you know where to look, on the other, Wicca, like all mystical religions really, is highly experiential, and you probably won't experience the mysteries as intended without being in a proper coven.
* [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin']]: The three-fold law states that whatever you do will come back to you three-fold. So if you do evil...
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* [[Cool Old Lady]]: The Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess alternates between this and [[Granny Classic]].
* [[Crossover Cosmology]]: You will meet Wiccan devotees of gods and goddesses across several different pantheons. This is very confusing to non-Wiccans. The broadest answer to this is that a Wiccan invokes their gods in a Wiccan context (i.e. rituals, prayers, spells, etc.) and ascribes to the Wiccan worldview. However, it is respectful to the deity in question to not invoke said deity without developing a good understanding of who they are and what role they play in the original myths. In other words, do not invoke Aphrodite if the only thing you know about her is that she's a "love goddess".
* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: The ''Book of Shadows'' wouldn't get such a name if it were an evil artifact. For that matter, while not an opinion shared by some wiccans, there is a certain motif of balance (which could be translated as a natural equilibrium, which would naturally include darkness and light), and the male god is occasionally
** Can be interesting when you run into someone who uses dark symbols nearly exclusively. It can be startling if you're not used to it.
** [[The Sacred Darkness]]
* [[Demonization]]: It gets a lot of this. You'd think from listening to some people that Wiccans are Satan-worshiping baby-eaters or manic nature worshipers/environmentalists/hippies. It also has a reputation as a religion for women and gay men. Fact is, there are plenty of straight men who are Wiccans. Wiccans care about nature, but they aren't necessarily radical hippies, and they certainly don't eat babies (they'd be as horrified as anyone else at the prospect) or worship Satan.
** This is actually quite often a case of [[Did Not Do the Research]]; because the people who tend to demonize are the ones who are fundie Christians, they tend to think they should refuse to question 'The Bible', even if what they're not questioning is a potential translation error
* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: Some books (especially ones written before Margaret Murray was discredited) about Wicca are a little dodgy on history. (This isn't an issue for many practitioners, who don't really care how the religion got here so long as it works.) Silver Ravenwolf's are famously dodgy about history ''and'' the religion itself.
**
* [[Esoteric Motifs]]
* [[Everyone Is Satan in Hell]]: Wicca gets a ''lot'' of this, mainly from people who [[Did Not Do the Research]]. (Or in some cases, sucked it out of their thumbs so they'd have ''something'' to put in their anti-pagan tracts.) One common belief is that Wiccans must be Satanists because they use the "Satanic" pentagram. In reality, the pentagram is an ancient symbol that has been used by many religions to represent many different things, including the five knightly virtues, the five wounds of Christ, and the five books of the Pentateuch. More on its different uses [https://web.archive.org/web/20211110210003/http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_pent.htm here].
* [[Fan Dumb]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20090819120051/http://wicca.timerift.net/fluffy.shtml Fluffy bunnies], or people who are attracted to Wicca because it looks shiny, makes them feel Speshul, or gives them something to rebel against their parents with. Symptoms include going on about the [[You Fail History Forever|nine million witches burned to death in the "Burning Times"]] and refusing to accept criticism and correction from people who actually did the research. Their type is called out and deservedly mocked [https://web.archive.org/web/20140101024142/http://somethingpositive.net/sp04242002.shtml here.]
** Even other Wiccans poke gentle fun at those cute, misguided kids.
** Let's not forget the Anti-Fluff Wiccans who look down on any Wiccans who do not practice their branch of Wicca or practice in a coven.
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** Being a relatively new religion with a lot of disagreement over what it's supposed to be like, Wicca often takes on the traits of a fandom, which includes the [[Fan Dumb]].
* [[Fan Hater]]: Some evangelicals get pretty obnoxious about it.
▲* [[A Form You Are Comfortable With]]: A school of thought on the nature of the Divine says that the forms humanity has given it, such as the various deities (including the Triple Goddess), are merely attempts to understand a being [[You Cannot Grasp the True Form|ultimately beyond human comprehension]] if viewed in its entirety.
* [[Great Big Book of Everything]]: The ''Book of Shadows''. The Wiccan/neo-pagan [[Great Big Book of Everything]] tends to be a bit more like a journal or personal archive of spells, rituals, notes, and other things. Three-ring binders are commonly used, but some Book of Shadows might be a folder on the computer.
* [[Guide Dang It]]: Traditionally, coven-based Gardnerian/Alexandrian Wicca's core practices are kept secret from non-initiates, which makes it difficult to actually practice Wicca without being initiated. In the digital age, most Gardnerian-based practices have been available to non-initiates via the Internet and various books that have published the rituals. The real issue is whether or not a person can learn the core practices purely through books and experimentation versus through training by an initiated Wiccan. But, given that the religion was constructed in the 1950s and has had constant and frequent innovations since the 1950s, the matter of what is a core practice, what isn't, and what any particular initiate may or may not know, practice, or believe is quite a can of worms.
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* [[Robe and Wizard Hat]]: Some Wiccans like to dress in medieval style, especially for special occasions, but it's not a requirement.
* [[Running the Asylum]]: Many Wiccans study the religion by reading the works of other Wiccan writers. The equivalent would be fans getting their [[Canon]] from fanfiction.
* [[Science Marches On]]: Some of the anthropological data relied upon by early Wiccan writers -- such as the universality of Mother Goddess worship in prehistoric times and the estimate of some eight million killed during the European crusade against witches -- have as of the early 21st century either been brought into doubt or disproved entirely.
* [[Simple Staff]]: May be used by some in place of a wand.
* [[Spirited Young Lady]]: There are many variations to the Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess, ranging from [[The Ingenue|sweet and innocent flower]] to [[The Ladette|independent and fearsome lioness.]]
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Wicca]]
[[Category:Useful Notes/Religion]]
[[Category:Neo-Paganism]]
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