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What is Wicca, anyway?
Version Two
Kaatryn MacMorgan, President, AUEWC.
Words that appear in blue are defined in the glossary that follows
Wicca is a religion. Like all religions, Wicca is a lifestyle, a relationship with the divine and a set of mores. Practioners of... or adherants to... Wicca are called Wiccans. Some Wiccans are also called Witches, although practioners of Universal Eclectic Wicca (UEW), the branch of Wicca to which I belong, use the term sparingly.
Wicca is a modern religion based on the indigenous beliefs of the ancient peoples of Europe. It did not develop in a straight line from indigenous beliefs, but rather has a long, tangled history with roots in the British spiritualist movements of the late nineteenth century. Wicca is not the modern practice of the ancient religion of one group of people, instead, it combines portions of many different religious beliefs from many different European tribes with many of the rational ideas that have evolved in the past two hundred years.
Wicca is more properly called "Modern Wicca" because the term "wicca" may've originally been used as a label on people who bore little resemblance in their faith or beliefs to Modern Wiccans. These people, if accounts of their existance are to be believed, were known as The Wicca and their religion/lifestyle was called "Witchcraft." The "Witchcraft" they practiced was neither "white" nor "black" but was based primarily on protecting, healing and strengthening their extended family. These Wicca did not refer to their religion as Wicca, nor did they call themselves Wiccans, so the use of the terms in the modern way should not be misconstrued as the belief that the modern way and the ancient way are the same. It should be noted that no evidence of these alleged Pre-Modern Wicca has yet come into existance. We maintain the term "Modern," nonetheless, out of respect for the fact that our spiritual ancestors believed that there were an ancient Wicca People, or an ancient Witchcraft Religion.1
One of the questions Wiccans are often asked is "What do Wiccans believe?" this question is often a loaded question, and the best answer to "What do Wiccans believe" is ALWAYS "what do Wiccans believe about WHAT?"
In general, Wiccans have five beliefs, which the branch of Wicca I belong to labels as The Five Points of Wiccan Belief. These five points represent the moral core that Wiccans base their individual practices upon. While the religion is dynamic, fluid, always changing, as are humans, the moral core is firm. The Moral core of Wicca is mirrored in nearly every faith in the world, regardless of our vast differences in culture.
The First of The Five Points of Wiccan Belief is called The Wiccan Rede. The Wiccan Rede states "An it harm none, do as you Will," although occasionally it reads "and ye harm none, do as ye will." The Wiccan Rede DOES NOT mean that one must tiptoe through life afraid to accidentally cause harm. The use of "an" is very deliberate, and in modern English is closer to "as long as." An expanded reading of the Rede, using both its implicit and inferred meaning, could read: "An it harm none, do as you Will, An it harm SOME, do as you ought." This "ought" is defined by the remainder of the ethics of Wicca and the life experiences of the individual. Put in modern words and form, the Rede says "If an action will cause no harm, do it freely, but if it has the capacity to cause harm, use your religious and other experiences to decide the best course of action that causes the least amount of harm to yourself and others." It should be here noted that most Wiccans also believe in the StarTrek maxim "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
One of the religious beliefs and experiences that Wiccans use to decide their "best course of action" is the second of The Five Points of Wiccan Belief, The Law of Return. Like the Wiccan Rede, the concept of the Law of Return is explicitly mentioned in every Wiccan tradition, although it has many names. The Law of Return is known as The Rule of Three or Threefold Law, The Karmic Law, the Law of Balance and Issac Newton's Law of Action from the Laws of Motion. Put simply, "Every Action creates a re-action." Wiccans believe that the nature of their actions upon their environment affects the reactions of their environment to them. We believe that those who give good to their environment recieve good from their environment, and those that do harm to their environment recieve harm from it. By "environment" I am not speaking of "nature," but of a person's microcosm of family, friends and associates and a person's macrocosm of the universe. Like many religions, Wiccans believe that good people are rewarded and bad people are punished, but unlike the delayed punishments of the afterlife, most wiccans believe that actions that are good bring good reactions in this life and actions that are evil bring evil reactions in this life. In otherwords, a criminal goes to jail, a person who studies hard and becomes educated gets a good job.
Wiccans affirm a certain innate level of chaos in the way the universe works. Just as chaos mathmatics shows that the slightest variance in the initial state of a system can bring about dramatically different results, Wiccans believe that the very nature of the universe is to present us with the challenges that allow us to grow into dramatically different individuals. The universe is not "nice"! Tornados wipe out towns, lightning strikes children at ball games, floods ruin the homes of millions. Wiccans believe that the nature of the Law of Return is that one's actions primarily affect one's immediate environment, and that good deeds alone do not cancel out the natural "bad side" of the universe. To prevent being hit by lightning, the Wiccan leaves the golf course, to prevent the tornado from wiping out their town, the Wiccan doesn't live in tornado alley, and to prevent their home from being destroyed in a flood, the Wiccan does not build on a flood plain. The Wiccan prevents what can be prevented, sees what cannot be prevented as a challenge to grow and accepts the results of their decision. The Wiccan that chooses to live in Kansas deals with tornadoes as a factor of their life and does not see their occurrence as evil or unpredicted, but as a result of living in an area where the tornadoes were there first.
This idea that one is responsible for all of their actions results in the belief that life must be used as a learning experience. For some Wiccans, this life is considered a step on the ladder of reincarnation, and a chance to learn that must not be wasted. To other Wiccans, who do not believe in reincarnation, this life is seen as a precious gift that should not be squandered. Both of these groups believe in the fourth of The Five Points of Wiccan Belief, The Ethic of Constant Improvement. At its heart, constant improvement is growth, the bettering of one's self and one's environment by whatever means causes the least harm. It is because of this ethic that many Wiccans are active in the protection of the environment. For some, environmentalism is seen as a direct mandate from the creator/ix/s, for others it is seen as the logical step to a reincarnated life in the future (who wants to live in a destroyed environment?) and for still others, acting to protect the environment is the logical outgrowth of the Wiccan Rede. As with other things, many Wiccans see environment on two levels, the immediate microcosmic level and the global level. These Wiccans believe that fixing things often begins at home by trying to raise families in healthy homes that enrich their lives and challenge their soul. Many Wiccans do not teach their children of their religion until they are old enough to take responsibility for their every action, instead choosing to show their child the similarities between the many faiths of the world and what they do to improve their follower's lives. Even without anything resembling the religious indoctrination provided children by other faiths, many of these children choose Wicca nonetheless. Those that don't are loved no less than those that do, and their parents often affirm their right to believe otherwise.
All of these beliefs tie together in The Ethic of Attunement, last of the Five Points and the basis for all of the ritual that many Wiccans perform. the Ethic of Attunement is the belief that the Wiccan should attempt to become "in tune" with his surroundings and himself. How this is done provides the variation from practice to practice. To some it is the belief that prayer, meditation, and magick need be done to bring one's will closer to that of the divine. For others, it is merely the act of sitting and observing how the world works. To others, the recognition of moon phases, or ancestral holy days or the turning of the seasons. The way this "attunement" occurs is often seen as unimportant. It is more important that it, or the attempt toward it, occur.
Beyond this moral code, what Wicca is becomes something primarily speculative. It is known that the use of the term "Wicca" in its modern usage evolved around the time of Gerald Gardner, and, in fact, the current usage of the terms "Wiccan" and "wicca" would probably seem strange to Gardner were he alive today. In truth, the actual roots of Modern Wicca will never be known beyond that it, did, indeed, evolve from the indigenous beliefs of Europeans, especially the beliefs of those in the British Isles and Greece. While it is often kitsch to say that Wicca is "the Old Religion," in fact, Wicca is the New Religion of the Old Gods, an important distinction.
Likewise, the individual beliefs of the traditions and septs of Wicca have evolved in such a way that many of the "big questions" that Wiccans are asked about what they believe can only come down to what the individual believes. Magick, Tarot, Reincarnation, The Summerland, Elysia, and indeed even the concept of what or who the Gods are, are dynamic concepts in Wicca that are not shared by all. Contrary to popular misbelief, Wicca has its share of agnostics, scientists and those that do not believe in the common definition of Magick. Many Wiccans couldn't care less for tarot or runes, don't know a mandrake from a melon and think that astrology is a joke, but they are still Wiccan, even without the commonly believed trappings. Provided the individual follows the basic moral code of Wicca and percieves the divine as either lacking in gender, bearing both or being divided between a "Lord and a Lady," the person is Wiccan if they choose to be so called.
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Glossary
Because many of my students have English as their second or third language, I am including some definitions here for clarity. In addition, I have defined some words common to Wicca or that are used in slightly altered ways in Wicca.
divine: The Divine is defined in Wicca in many varying ways. For some, the divine are gods, or the universe, or the power within themselves. In one way the divine can be seen as the "greater power," but it is not a "greater power" that we are separated from. It is a part of our being, in some way or another.
mores: Webster's New World defines mores, in part, as "folkways that are considered conductive to the welfare of the society." folkway is a term developed by sociologist William G. Sumnner to indicate those ways of thinking, feeling, behaving, etc, that members of a social group have in common.
indigenous beliefs: indigenous beliefs are those beliefs that develop amongst a people, often with little outside influence. In general, there are two types of Modern religions, indigeous based religions, based in some way upon the native beliefs developed by a people, and "revealed religions" based on the work of a prophet or series of prophets and seen as dictated by gods or the wisdom of a leader.
Rede: Rede means "to advise" or "to interpret." A religious Rede is a sort of filter through which a religion is interpreted.
magick: Magick is defined by both Gardner and Adler as "the Art of Getting results" contray to the belief that magick involves otherworldly power or placing demands upon the gods, the majority of magick is what would commonly be referred to as prayer and/or religious rite.
tradition: In the theological usuage, a tradition is a sub-group of beliefs within a broader faith. In Christianity, for instance, things are sometimes said to be in the "Baptist tradition" and similar things. A tradition is not a mere denomination, but the rites and folkways that separate the members of a denomination from other groups. "tradition" is often a misnomer, however, as there are no less than seven groups, probably more that are referred to as "THE Gardnerian Tradition."
sept: Sept is a Scottish word, similar in etymology to sect, and is often used in common speech to indicate those Scottish clans that descended from other Scottish Clans. they are said to be "septs" of the larger clan. Sept was often a term used for a group within a clan that was lead by a specific person or group of people, in Wicca, a sept is a group that follows a tradition but has very specific beliefs that lay outside the tradition. For example, in UEW, the Gods are seen as a powers that are unnamed, but there are septs of UEW that focus on the gods as Apollo and/or Artemis, and Thor, and more. In one way a sept is a "tradition within a bigger tradition."
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Footnotes
1.UEW, specifically, is a MODERNIST tradition, which means that we believe that Wicca is a MODERN faith, and NOT a reconstruction or ressurection of an ancient one.
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This document may be freely published on any website that is not defamatory toward Wicca or its author provided the content is not altered and this notice remains.
Copyright 2000 Kaatryn MacMorgan, this version Copyright 2003
http://www.cuew.org/whatiswicca.html
This is from the Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca, which can be considered slightly different from Wicca.
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