A nature religion based upon what are believed to be the practices of ancient religions, especially the Celtic tradition, thought to be more in tune with natural forces than Christianity and other modern religions of the West. However, rather than see wiccans as members of a religion, it might be more accurate to see them as sharing a spiritual basis in nature and natural phenomena. For wiccans have no written creed which the orthodox must adhere to, nor stone temples or churches to worship in. They practice their rituals in parks,gardens and forests, yards or hillsides, in the great outdoors. According to a Wicca FAQ page
"Wicca" is the name of a contemporary Neo-Pagan religion, largely promulgated and popularized by the efforts of a retired British civil servant named Gerald Gardner [late 1940's]. In the last few decades, Wicca has spread in part due to its popularity among feminists and others seeking a more woman-positive, earth-based religion. Like most Neo-Pagan spiritualities, Wicca worships the sacred as immanent in nature, drawing much of its inspiration from the non-Christian and pre-Christian religions of Europe. "Neo-Pagan" simply means "new pagan" (derived from the Latin paganus , "country-dweller") and hearkens back to times before the spread of today's major monotheistic (one god) religions. A good general rule is that most Wiccans are Neo-Pagans but not all Pagans are Wiccans. [ Wicca FAQ]
A good general rule seems to be that there is no single set of beliefs or practices which constitutes Wicca, though one belief seems to recur: An' it harm none, do what you will. Also, some rituals seem to recur. Wiccans practice a number of rituals associated with such natural phenomena as the four seasons, the solstices and the equinoxes. For example, they celebrate summer in a fertility rite known as Beltane. Rather than pray to some unnatural god beyond all experience, wiccans seem more concerned with self-awakening, with arousing their connectedness to nature and nature gods, female as well as male. Their rituals seem to be metaphors for psychological processes. They sing, they dance, they chant. They burn candles and incense. They use herbs and charms and may favor herbs to traditional medicines. In group rituals they express their desires to the community. They don't cast spells. They ask for blessings from north, south, east and west. They meditate. They don't cook weird poisonous stews in cauldrons. They don't fly off on brooms. They don't pray for harm to their enemies. Because wiccans seem to worship nature and nature goddesses and gods, they can be called pantheists.
Wiccans think of themselves as a Nature religion. Their rituals are based on the four seasons; their symbols on the connectedness of human life to Nature. Yet, I doubt if any barefoot wiccans, holding hands in their circles, worship with the mother of Dionysus, singed to the soul by the lightning bolt. The true nature worshippers are the pumice statues at Pompei. They are the ones watching their children being swept away by the flash flood. They are the ones who are sucked out of their homes by the tornado and thrown into the Guinness sky of the volcano. The true nature worshippers bake in awe under an uncaring sun which has brought seven years of drought. They are the ones buried in the great cracks of the earth, devoured by an indifferent landscape. The wiccans chant incantations to wind, air, fire and earth but do they fall to their knees at the hurricane's call? Do they stand in awe before the terrorist killer they call their mother, the one who kills us senselessly and indiscrimately? I wonder how many wiccans worship in tornado alley? If they are going to try to connect to Nature's creative forces, such as fertility, wiccans should not ignore Nature's destructive forces, for they are as natural as the solstices, as essential as the equinox, as blessed as the full moon.
No wiccan magick has ever stopped the flood, ignited the lighting bolt, nor stilled the whirlwinds of tornado and hurricane, nor awakened the quaking earth, nor put to sleep the tsunami. The attractiveness of wicca may be due to its friendliness towards women, its naturalistic view of sex and its promise of power through magick. It is very popular among women, and it is tempting to say that wicca is women's revenge for the centuries of misogyny and "femicide" or "gynicide" practiced by established religions such as Christianity. Wicca, like the Celtic religion, allows women full participation in the practice. Women are equals, if not superiors, of men. Wome in Celtic mythology are unusual, to say the least. They are intelligent, powerful warriors, ruthless, sexually aggressive, and leaders of nations.
Finally, it should be noted that wicca is not related to satan worship. That practice is related to the persecution of "witches" by Christians, especially during the Inquisition. The spirit of the Inquisition, however, lives on in the hearts of many devout Christians who continue to persecute wiccans, among others, as devil worshippers. The modern inquisitors do not burn people to death. Rather, they try to abolish Halloween, school nicknames (such as Blue Devils, the mascot of our local high school which has provided many good Christians around here with a zealous cause), children books which mention witches, and any sign, symbol or number the Christians associate with Satan. One local pizza house was even hounded for some markings it had on its delivery boxes. Local witchhunters claimed the markings were satanic signs. The pizza house courageously changed it boxes rather than deal with adverse publicity. On the first day of spring this year [1996], our local newspaper ran an article about some local coven of witches. The story portrayed the all-female group as harmless nature worshippers who dance in circles and ask for blessings from the north, south, east, west, etc. The article prompted a long letter to the editor decrying the naivete and ignorance of the author of the story on the local coven. The history of witches as in cahoots with satan was outlined and the letter was signed by "a survivor of satanic ritual abuse." The sincerity of the letter writer was as genuine as the sincerity of the women of Salem who confessed to being witches. Are the modern day victims of satanic ritual abuse as deluded as the witches hunted down by pious Christians through the centuries who truly believed that they were as evil as their persecutors said they were? Are the wiccans of today part of a satanic conspiracy? I doubt it. If there are Christians who are being systematically abused by satan worshippers, their abusers are not part of an international conspiracy religion known as Wicca.
See related entries on magick, pagans, Satan, and witches.
further reading
Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization (New York: Nan A. Talese Publishing, 1995), ch. 3 "A Shifting World of Darkness".
Carus, Paul. The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1974), unabridged reproduction of the original 1900 edition.
Hicks, Robert D. In Pursuit of Satan : the Police and the Occult (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1991).
Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark, ch. 7 "The Demon-Haunted World," (New York: Random House, 1995).
reader comments
20 Aug 1996
I've enjoyed browsing through your Dictionary. I especially appreciate your article on
Wicca. Several of my friends are Wiccans and you've exactly described their religion.
(Well, exactly as possible for what I call a dis-organized religion.) Thanks for
dispelling a few nasty myths. Hopefully the end result will be a few more people who
don't automatically lump Wiccans in with Devil Worshippers.
Maria Bartz
19 Sep 1996
I stopped by to check out your excellent info on Landmark Forum -- a
friend has been trying to get me involved, and I decided to learn more
about it (now that I know Erhard is behind it, I'm staying away!) but as
a Wiccan I thought I'd look over your piece on Wicca. You are dead-on
with one exception -- I am at least one "barefoot Wiccan" who stands in
awe before the lashing wind of the tornado, the baking drought Sun.
Most sincere and knowledgable Wiccans are well aware of the balance between
creation and destruction. The Triple Goddess symbol, acknowledged by
most of my co-religionists, is a representation of that very dichotomy.
The Maiden is all that is new. The Mother is the Creator of Life. The
Crone is endings, Death and Destruction. We see this in a cycle, a
great circle. It is not "birth, life, death, full stop." but rather,
"birth, life, death, rebirth, etc."
The awesome, powerful and destructive elements of the Earth, from volcanoes to tornadoes to wildfires to floods, are the natural processes of the planet, and we seek to find our place is that process. It is not all chanting and butterflies. There is also a dark half in the Yin-Yang symbol -- that balance is necessary. To ignore the shadow of a thing is to ignore half the thing itself. Isn't that why you do this page? To explore the shadow?
For whatever reason, I am glad you do it. Thanks for creating such a
wonderful resource!
Laurie Atwater
reply: Some say I always find the cloud in the silver lining. But I sometimes think that the cloud's more interesting, if not more real.
25 Oct 1996
I found your dictionary via a link of criticism of the Celestine
Prophecy - well done indeed - and I wanted to thank you for your
balanced portrayal of Wicca. As a Wiccan myself, I must say that it is
refreshing not to be called a "satanist" or to be accused of sacrificing
small animals to dark forces (of course, as a vegetarian and animal
rights supporter, I guess I'd have to sacrifice a *rubber* chicken,
which would actually be pretty funny).
One bit of information you've gotten slightly wrong is that Wiccans are not all about light, sunshine, and joy. Our "religion" (although I hesitate to call it so) is about balance and cycles. Thus we honor the archetypes of the triple Goddess of Maiden (beginnings), Mother (fruition), and Crone (death and rebirth), and the God as divine sun child, lover/hunter/protector, and then king who dies that life may continue. The idea that life feeds on life is fundamental to many of our celebrations, and at each holiday there is the acknowledgement of the "opposite" holiday (for instance, at Beltane, the holiday at which we honor the fertility of the earth and her creatures, we remember Samhain, the holiday at which we remember and honor those who have passed over). The wheel of the year is about the cycle of light and darkness, of birth, life, death, and rebirth, of extroversion and action as well as introversion and contemplation.
My point is that we're not all a bunch of airy-fairy, white light optimists - we acknowledge and revere the dark side of life, nature, and the universe equally.
Blessings to you,
Elizabeth Weaver Engel
17 Dec 1996
I read your entry on "wicca" and can say that you have accurately
portrayed our "religion" as it is. This, to say the least, is a great
comfort, for many people not directly connected with the beliefs of wicca (whatever religion they themselves follow)
many times take with them the
ideas that society has presented to them since they were children. I mean,
who wouldn't hear the word witch and see an old green-skinned lady with a
black pointy hat and a broom. ( oh goddess, did i forget the black cat??)
However ( ah yes, there always is a however...) I *am* a person that worships all forces of nature, whether they be destructive or no. Every part of nature works together, and although they may not bring desirable consequences to humanity, they do shape the earth and keep it alive and well. That is, if one sees the earth as a living organism...it *is* a big rock..
If you could add one thing though about the "satan worshiping". It seems a suprise to many people that after we deny worshiping satan that we tell them wiccan's don't even *believe* in satan. But this is true. Satan, in my opinion ( needless to say there are countless others) is a creation of Christianity. God, being the all powerful, all *good* entity, needed a counterpart. So there is the Devil, all powerful, all *bad*. You can't have one without the other it seems.
When Wiccans worship, we don't usually have a very specific god or goddess we speak or pray to. There are, in many traditions, "deities for every occasion". These inlclude all things that are "good and bad" ( put in quotations because that black and white saying is rather open for speculation itself. What *is* good and what *is* bad?)
Yes, there *are* Satan worshipers in this world, and they do perform terrible things. These many times are also people just looking for an excuse to commit crimes and say "oh hey, lets start a satanic cult so we can kill cats and stuff." The majority of "satanists" around today are adolecent boys. That ought to say something in itself.
I look forward to the day when the word "witch" doesn't bring up the picture of that old green woman again.
Caillean Grey
reply: As I was reading your note, I couldn't help but see the parallel between satanists and modern politicians. Of course, I just saw Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! and will have jaded perception for a week or so before I pretend again to see our political leaders as important players in the quest for world peace and good will toward humanity. Say, when are wiccans going to get their own TV show?!!