What is Wicca

What is Wicca

Wicca (English pronunciation: /ˈwɪkə/) is a modern pagan, witchcraft religion. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and it was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. It draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practice.
Wicca is a diverse religion with no central authority or figure defining it. It is divided into various lineages and denominations, referred to as "traditions", each with its own organisational structure and level of centralisation. Due to its decentralized nature, there is some disagreement over what actually constitutes Wicca. Some traditions, collectively referred to as British Traditional Wicca, strictly follow the initiatory lineage of Gardner and consider the term "Wicca" to apply only to such lineaged traditions, while other eclectic traditions do not.
Wicca is typically duotheistic, worshipping a god and goddess traditionally viewed as a mother goddess and horned god. These two deities are often viewed as facets of a greater pantheistic godhead. However, beliefs range from "hard" polytheism to even monotheism. Wiccan celebration follows approximately eight seasonally based festivals known as Sabbats. An unattributed statement known as the Wiccan Rede is the traditional basis of Wiccan morality. Wicca involves the ritual practice of magic.

Terminology
The term "Wicca" first achieved widespread acceptance when referring to the religion in the 1960s and 70s. Prior to that, the term "Witchcraft" had been more widely used. Whilst being based upon the Old English word wicca, a masculine term for sorcerers, the actual individual who coined the capitalised term "Wicca" is unknown, though it has been speculated that it was Charles Cardell, who certainly used the term "Wiccen" during the 1950s.

Application of the word Wicca has given rise to "a great deal of disagreement and infighting". Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca are often collectively termed British Traditional Wicca, and many of their practitioners consider the term Wicca to apply only to these lineaged traditions. Others do not use the word "Wicca" at all, instead preferring to be referred to only as "Witchcraft," while others believe that all modern witchcraft traditions can be considered "Wiccan." 
Popular culture, as seen in TV programmes like Buffy the Vampire Slayer tends to use the terms “Wiccan” and "Wicca" as completely synonymous with the terms “Witch” and “Witchcraft” respectively

Beliefs
Beliefs vary markedly between different traditions and individual practitioners. However, various commonalities exist between these disparate groups, which usually include views on theology, the afterlife, magic and morality.

Theology
Wiccan views on theology are numerous and varied and there is no universally agreed-upon religious canon, but Wicca is traditionally a duotheistic religion that venerates both a "Triple Goddess" associated with the Moon and stars and fate, and aHorned God associated with forests and animals and the realm beyond death. These two deities are variously understood through the frameworks of pantheism (as being dual aspects of a single godhead), duotheism (as being two polar opposites),hard polytheism (being two distinct deities in a larger pantheon which includes other pagan gods) or soft polytheism (being composed of many lesser deities). In some pantheistic and duotheistic conceptions, deities from diverse cultures may be seen as aspects of the Goddess or God. However, there are also other theological viewpoints to be found within the Craft, including monotheism, the concept that there is just one deity, which is seen by some, such as Dianic Wiccans, as being the Goddess, whilst by others, like the Church and School of Wicca, as instead being genderless. There are other Wiccans who are atheists or agnostics, not believing in any actual deity, but instead viewing the gods as psychological archetypes of the human mind which can be evoked and interacted with.
According to the Witches Janet and Stewart Farrar, who held a pantheistic, duotheistic and animistic view of theology, Wiccans "regard the whole cosmos as alive, both as a whole and in all of its parts", but that "such an organic view of the cosmos cannot be fully expressed, and lived, without the concept of the God and Goddess. There is no manifestation without polarisation; so at the highest creative level, that of Divinity, the polarisation must be the clearest and most powerful of all, reflecting and spreading itself through all the microcosmic levels as well"

Duotheism
Wicca is traditionally and primarily a religion centred upon the idea of gender polarity and the worship of a Moon Goddess and a Horned God. (This core theology was originally described by Gerald Gardner, the founder of the religion; and Doreen Valiente, who wrote much of the original liturgical materials.) The Goddess and the God may be regarded as the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine. They are complementary opposites or dualities, bearing similarities to the concept of yin and yang in Taoism. The God and Goddess are generally seen as lovers and equals, the Divine Couple who together co-create the cosmos.

The God and the Goddess
For most Wiccans, the God and Goddess are seen as complementary polarities in the universe that balance one another out, and in this manner they have been compared to the concept of yin and yang found in Taoism.[5] As such they are often interpreted as being "embodiments of a life-force manifest in nature"[6] with some Wiccans believing that they are simply symbolic of these polarities, whilst others believing that the God and the Goddess are genuine beings that exist independently. The two divinities are often given symbolic associations, with the Goddess commonly being symbolised as the Earth (i.e. Mother Earth), but also sometimes as the Moon, which complements the God being viewed as the Sun. 
Traditionally the God is viewed as a Horned God, associated with nature, wilderness, sexuality, hunting and the life cycle. The Horned God is given various names according to the tradition, and these include Cernunnos, Pan, Atho and Karnayna.
At other times the God is viewed as the Green Man,[10] a traditional figure in European art and architecture, and they often interpret him as being associated with the natural world. The God is also often depicted as a Sun God, particularly at the festival of Litha, or the summer solstice. Another expression of the God is that of the Oak King and the Holly King, one who rules over winter and spring, the other who rules over summer and autumn. He has also been seen in the roles of the Leader of the Wild Hunt and the Lord of Death. 
The Goddess is usually portrayed as a Triple Goddess, thereby being a triadic deity comprising a Maiden goddess, a Mother goddess, and a Crone goddess, each of whom has different associations, namely virginity, fertility and wisdom. She is also commonly depicted as a Moon Goddess, and is often given the name of Diana after the ancient Roman deity. Some Wiccans, particularly from the 1970s onwards, have viewed the Goddess as the more important of the two deities, who is pre-eminent in that she contains and conceives all. In this respect, the God is viewed as the spark of life and inspiration within her, simultaneously her lover and her child. This is reflected in the traditional structure of thecoven. In one monotheistic form of the Craft, Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is the sole deity, a concept that has been criticised by members of other more egalitarian traditions.
According to Gerald Gardner, "the Goddess" is a deity of prime importance, along with her consort the Horned God. In the earliest Wiccan publications, she is described as a tribal goddess of the witch community, neither omnipotent nor universal, and it was recognised that there was a greater "Prime Mover", although the witches did not concern themselves much with this being. 
The concept of having a religion venerating a Horned God accompanying a goddess had been devised by the Egyptologist Margaret Murray during the 1920s. She believed, based upon her own theories about the early modern witch trials in Europe, that those two deities, though primarily the Horned God, had been worshipped by a Witch-Cult ever since western Europe had succumbed to Christianity. Whilst now widely discredited, Gerald Gardner was a supporter of her theory, and believed that Wicca was a continuation of that historical Witch-Cult, and that the Horned God and Goddess were therefore ancient deities of the British Isles. Modern scholarship has disproved his claims, however various horned gods and mother goddesses were indeed worshipped in the British Isles during the ancient and early medieval periods. 

Pantheism, Polytheism and Animism
Many Wiccans believe that the God and Goddess are merely two aspects of the same godhead, often viewed as a pantheistic deity, thereby encompassing everything in the universe within its divinity. In his public writings, Gardner referred to this being as the Prime Mover, and claimed that it remained unknowable, although in the rituals of his tradition, Gardnerianism, it is referred to as Dryghten, which had originally been an Old English term meaning The Lord. Since then it has been given other names by different Wiccans, for instance Scott Cunningham called it by its name in neoplatonism, The One. Other Wiccans such as Starhawk use the term Star Goddess to describe the universal pantheistic deity that created the cosmos, and regard her as a knowable deity that can and should be worshipped. 
As well as pantheism and duotheism, many Wiccans accept the concept of polytheism, thereby believing that there are many different deities. Some accept the view espoused by the occultist Dion Fortune that "all gods are one god, and all goddesses are one goddess" —that is that the gods and goddesses of all cultures are, respectively, aspects of one supernal God and Goddess. With this mindset, a Wiccan may regard the Germanic Ēostre, Hindu Kali, and Christian Virgin Mary each as manifestations of one supreme Goddess and likewise, the Celtic Cernunnos, the ancient Greek Dionysus and the Judeo-Christian Yahweh as aspects of a single, archetypal god. A more strictly polytheistic approach holds the various goddesses and gods to be separate and distinct entities in their own right. The Wiccan writers Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone have postulated that Wicca is becoming more polytheistic as it matures, tending to embrace a more traditionally pagan worldview. Some Wiccans conceive of deities not as literal personalities but as metaphorical archetypes or thoughtforms, thereby technically allowing them to be atheists. Such a view was purported by the High Priestess Vivianne Crowley, herself a psychologist, who considered the Wiccan deities to beJungian archetypes that existed within the subconscious that could be evoked in ritual. It was for this reason that she said that "The Goddess and God manifest to us in dream and vision." 
Wicca is essentially an immanent religion, and for some Wiccans, this idea also involves elements of animism. A belief central to Wicca is that the Goddess and the God (or the goddesses and gods) are able to manifest in personal form, most importantly through the bodies of Priestesses and Priests via the rituals of Drawing down the Moon or Drawing down the Sun.

Afterlife
Belief in the afterlife varies among Wiccans, although reincarnation is a traditional Wiccan teaching dating back to the New Forest coven in the 1930s. The influential High Priest Raymond Buckland said that a human's soul reincarnates into the same species over many lives in order to learn lessons and advance spiritually, but this belief is not universal, as many Wiccans believe in the reincarnation of the soul through different species. However, a popular saying amongst Wiccans is that "once a witch, always a witch", indicating a belief that Wiccans are the reincarnations of previous witches. 
Typically, Wiccans who believe in reincarnation believe that the soul rests between lives in the Otherworld or Summerland, known in Gardner's writings as the "ecstasy of the Goddess". Many Wiccans believe in the ability to contact the spirits of the dead who reside in the Otherworld through spirit mediums and Ouija boards, particularly on the Sabbat of Samhain, though some disagree with this practice, such as the late Alexandrian High Priest Alex Sanders, who stated that "they are dead; leave them in peace." This belief was likely influenced by Spiritualism, which was very popular at the time of Wicca's emergence, and with which Gardner and other early Wiccans such as Buckland and Sanders had some experience.[ 
Despite some belief therein, Wicca does not place an emphasis on the afterlife, focusing instead on the current one; as the historian Ronald Hutton remarked, "the instinctual position of most [Wiccans], therefore, seems to be that if one makes the most of the present life, in all respects, then the next life is more or less certainly going to benefit from the process, and so one may as well concentrate on the present".

Magic
Many Wiccans believe in magic, a force they see as being capable of manipulation through the practice of witchcraft or sorcery. Some spell it "magick", a variation coined by the influential occultist Aleister Crowley, though this spelling is more commonly associated with Crowley's religion of Thelema than with Wicca. Indeed, many Wiccans agree with the definition of magic offered by ceremonial magicians, such as Aleister Crowley, who declared that magic was "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will", while another prominent ceremonial magician, MacGregor Mathers stated that it was "the science of the control of the secret forces of nature". Many Wiccans believe magic to be a law of nature, as yet misunderstood or disregarded by contemporary science, and as such they do not view it as being supernatural, but being a part of the "super powers that reside in the natural" according to Leo Martello. Some Wiccans believe that magic is simply making full use of the five senses that achieve surprising results, whilst other Wiccans do not claim to know how magic works, merely believing that it does because they have observed it to be so. 
Wiccans cast spells or workings during ritual practices, often held inside a sacred circle, in an attempt to bring about real changes in the physical world (these rituals are further explained in the "Ritual practices" section below). Common Wiccan spells include those used for healing, for protection, fertility, or to banish negative influences. Many early Wiccans, such as Alex Sanders, Sybil Leek and Doreen Valiente, referred to their own magic as "white magic", which contrasted with "black magic", which they associated with evil and Satanism. Sanders also used the similar terminology of "left hand path" to describe malevolent magic, and "right hand path" to describe magic performed with good intentions; terminology that had originated with the occultist Helena Blavatsky in the 19th century. Some modern Wiccans however have stopped using the white-black magic and left-right hand path dichotomies, arguing for instance that the colour black should not necessarily have any associations with evil. 
The scholars of religion, Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, claimed, in 1985, that Wicca had "reacted to secularisation by a headlong plunge back into magic" and that it was a reactionary religion which would soon die out. This view was heavily criticised in 1999 by the historian Ronald Hutton, who claimed that the evidence displayed the very opposite, that "a large number [of Wiccans] were in jobs at the cutting edge [of scientific culture], such as computer technology." 

Morality
There exists no dogmatic moral or ethical code followed universally by Wiccans of all traditions, however a majority follow a code known as the Wiccan Rede, which states "an it harm none, do what ye will" (a variation of the Thelemic abjuration put forward by Aleister Crowley:"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law; Love is the Law, Love under Will"). This is usually interpreted as a declaration of the freedom to act, along with the necessity of taking responsibility for what follows from one's actions and minimising harm to oneself and others. Another common element of Wiccan morality is the Law of Threefold Return which holds that whatever benevolent or malevolent actions a person performs will return to that person with triple force, or with equal force on each of the three levels of body, mind and spirit, similar to the eastern idea of karma. The Wiccan Rede was introduced into Wicca by Gerald Gardner and formalised publicly by Doreen Valiente, one of his High Priestesses. The Threefold Law was an interpretation of Wiccan ideas and ritual, made by Monique Wilson and further popularised by Raymond Buckland, in his books on Wicca.
Many Wiccans also seek to cultivate a set of eight virtues mentioned in Doreen Valiente's Charge of the Goddess, these being mirth, reverence, honour, humility, strength, beauty, power, and compassion. In Valiente's poem, they are ordered in pairs of complementary opposites, reflecting a dualism that is common throughout Wiccan philosophy. Some lineaged Wiccans also observe a set of Wiccan Laws, commonly called the Craft Laws or Ardanes, 30 of which exist in the Gardnerian tradition and 161 of which are in the Alexandrian tradition. Valiente, one of Gardner's original High Priestesses, argued that the first thirty of these rules were most likely invented by Gerald Gardner himself in mock-archaic language as the by-product of inner conflict within his Bricket Wood coven - the others were later additions made by Alex Sanders during the 1960s.
Although Gerald Gardner initially demonstrated an aversion to homosexuality, claiming that it brought down "the curse of the goddess",it is now generally accepted in all traditions of Wicca, with certain groups like the Minoan Brotherhood openly crafting their philosophy around it, and various important figures in the Craft, such as Alex Sanders and Eddie Buczynski, being openly homosexual or bisexual.

Five elements
Many traditions hold a belief in the five classical elements, although they are seen as symbolic as representations of the phases of matter. These five elements are invoked during many magical rituals, notably when consecrating a magic circle. The five elements are air, fire, water and earth, plus aether (or spirit), which unites the other four. Various analogies have been devised to explain the concept of the five elements; for instance, the Wiccan Ann-Marie Gallagher used that of a tree, which is composed of earth (with the soil and plant matter), water (sap and moisture), fire (through photosynthesis) and air (the creation of oxygen from carbon dioxide), all of which are believed to be united through spirit. 
Traditionally in the Gardnerian Craft, each element has been associated with a cardinal point of the compass; air with east, fire with south, water with west, earth with north and the spirit with centre. However, some Wiccans, such as Frederic Lamond, have claimed that the set cardinal points are only those applicable to the geography of southern England, where Wicca evolved, and that Wiccans should determine which directions best suit each element in their region, for instance, those living on the east coast of North America should invoke water in the east and not the west because the colossal body of water, theAtlantic ocean, is to their east. Other Craft groups have associated the elements with different cardinal points, for instance Robert Cochrane's Clan of Tubal Cain associated earth with south, fire with east, water with west and air with north, and each of which were controlled over by a different deity who were seen as children of the primary Horned God and Goddess. The five elements are symbolised by the five points of the pentagram, the most prominently used symbol of Wicca. 
Natural cycles
The natural cycles are significant in Wicca. The lunar and solar cycles are most often the basis around which Wiccans place ritual celebrations. While both the God and the Goddess are usually honoured at both kinds of rituals, the Goddess is mainly associated with the Moon, and the God is mainly associated with the Sun.

Practices
The Neopagan researcher and High Priestess Margot Adler, who defined ritual as being "one method of reintegrating individuals and groups into the cosmos, and to tie in the activities of daily life with their ever present, often forgotten, significance" noted that rituals, celebrations and rites of passage in Wicca are not "dry, formalised, repetitive experiences", but are performed with the purpose of inducing a religious experience in the participants, thereby altering their consciousness. She noted that many Wiccans remain sceptical about the existence of the gods, afterlife etc but remain involved in the Craft because of its ritual experiences, with one, Glenna Turner, saying that "I love myth, dream, visionary art. The Craft is a place where all of these things fit together - beauty, pageantry, music, dance, song, dream." 
The High Priest and Craft historian Aidan Kelly claimed that the practices and experiences within Wicca were actually far more important than the beliefs, stating that "it's a religion of ritual rather than theology. The ritual is first; the myth is second. And taking an attitude that the myths of the Craft are 'true history' in the way a fundamentalist looks at the legends of Genesis really seems crazy. It's an alien head-space." Similarly, Adler stated that "ironically, considering the many pronouncements against Witchcraft as a threat to reason, the Craft is one of the few religious viewpoints totally compatible with modern science, allowing total scepticism about even its own methods, myths and rituals"[

Ritual practices
The practice of Wicca often involves the ritual practice of magic, ranging from the "low magic" or "folk magic" of shamanism and witchcraft to more elaborate and complex rites influenced by the ceremonial magic of the Western Hermetic Tradition.
There are many rituals within Wicca that are used when celebrating the Sabbats, worshipping the deities and working magic. Often these take place on a full moon, or in some cases a new moon, which is known as an Esbat. In typical rites, the coven or solitary assembles inside a ritually cast and purified magic circle. Casting the circle may involve the invocation of the "Guardians" of the cardinal points, alongside their respective classical elements; air, fire, water and earth. Once the circle is cast, a seasonal ritual may be performed, prayers to the God and Goddess are said, and spells are sometimes worked; these may include various forms of 'raising energy', including raising a cone of power for the purposes of sending healing or other magic to persons outside of the sacred space. These rites often include a special set of magical tools. These usually include a knife called an athame, a wand, a pentacle and a chalice, but other tools include a broomstick known as a besom, a cauldron, candles, incense and a curved blade known as a boline. An altar is usually present in the circle, on which ritual tools are placed and representations of the God and the Goddess may be displayed. 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, the directions are dismissed and the circle is closed.
A central aspect of Wicca (particularly in Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca), often sensationalised by the media is the traditional practice of working in the nude, also known as skyclad. This practice seemingly derives from a line in Aradia, Charles Leland's supposed record of Italian witchcraft. Other traditions wear robes with cords tied around the waist or even normal street clothes. In certain traditions, ritualised sex magic is performed in the form of the Great Rite, whereby a High Priest and High Priestess invoke the God and Goddess to possess them before performing sexual intercourse to raise magical energy for use in spellwork. In nearly all cases it is instead performed "in token", thereby merely symbolically, using the athame to symbolise the penis and the chalice to symbolise the womb. 
One of Wicca's best known liturgical texts is "The Charge of the Goddess".The most commonly used version used by Wiccans today is the rescension of Doreen Valiente, who developed it from Gardner's version. Gardner's wording of the original "Charge" added extracts from the works of Aleister Crowley's work, including The Book of the Law, (especially from Ch 1, spoken by Nuit, the Star Goddess) thus linking modern Wicca irrevocably to the revelations of Thelema. Valiente rewrote Gardner's version in verse, keeping the material derived from Aradia, but removing the material from Crowley. 

Wheel of the Year
Wiccans celebrate several seasonal festivals of the year, commonly known as Sabbats. Collectively, these occasions are termed the Wheel of the Year. Most Wiccans celebrate a set of eight of these Sabbats; however, other groups such as those associated with the Clan of Tubal Cain only follow four. In the rare case of the Ros an Bucca group from Cornwall, only six are adhered to. The four Sabbats that are common to all British derived groups are the cross-quarter days, sometimes referred to as Greater Sabbats. They originated as festivals celebrated by the ancient Celtic peoples of Ireland, and possibly other Celts of mainland Europe. In the Egyptologist Margaret Murray's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) and The God of the Witches (1933), in which she dealt with what she believed to be a historical Witch-Cult, she stated that these four festivals had survived Christianisation and had been celebrated in the pagan Witchcraft religion. Subsequently, when Wicca was first developing in the 1930s through to the 1960s, many of the early groups, such as Robert Cochrane's Clan of Tubal Cain and Gerald Gardner's Bricket Wood coven adopted the commemoration of these four Sabbats as described by Murray. Gardner himself made use of the English names of these holidays, stating that "the four great Sabbats are Candlemass, May Eve, Lammas, and Halloween; the equinoxes and solstices are celebrated also." 
The other four festivals commemorated by many Wiccans are known as Lesser Sabbats, and comprise the solstices and the equinoxes, and were only adopted in 1958 by members of the Bricket Wood coven, before subsequently being adopted by other followers of the Gardnerian tradition, and eventually other traditions like Alexandrian Wicca and the Dianic tradition. The names of these holidays that are commonly used today are often taken from Germanic pagan and Celtic polytheistic holidays. However, the festivals 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. 

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