Wicca is a Neopagan religion and a religious movement found in various countries throughout the world.
It was first popularised in 1954 by a British civil servant named Gerald Gardner after the British Witchcraft Act was repealed.
He claimed that the religion, of which he was an initiate, was a modern survival of an old witchcraft religion, which had
existed in secret for hundreds of years, originating in the pre-Christian Paganism of Europe.
Wicca is thus sometimes referred to as the Old Religion. The veracity of Gardner's claims cannot be independently proven,
and it is thought that written Wiccan theology began to be compiled no earlier than the 1920s.
Various related Wiccan traditions have since evolved or been adapted from the form established by Gardner, which came to be
called Gardnerian Wicca.
These other traditions of Wicca each have distinctive beliefs, rituals, and practices.
Many traditions of Wicca remain secretive and require that members be initiated.
There is also a movement of Eclectic or Solitary Wiccans who do not believe that any doctrine or traditional initiation is
necessary in order to practice Wicca.
The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey estimated that at least 134,000 adults identified themselves as Wiccans
in the US.
As practiced by initiates, Wicca is a variety of witchcraft founded on religious and magical concepts, and most of its adherents
identify as witches. As such it is distinguished not only by its religious beliefs, but by its initiatory system, organisational
structure, secrecy, and practice of magic. Initiatory Wiccans generally will not proselytise, and may even deny membership
to some individuals, since once initiated a person is considered to be a priest or priestess and is expected to develop the
skills and responsibility that that entails.
Wicca is only one variety of witchcraft, with specific beliefs and practices. Initiates worship a goddess and a god; they
observe the festivals of the eight Sabbats of the year and the full-moon Esbats, using distinctive ritual forms; and they
attempt to live by a code of ethics. This distinguishes the religion from other forms of witchcraft which may or may not have
specific religious, ethical or ritual elements, and which are practiced by people of many religions, as well as by some atheists.
There is also a strong "Eclectic", or non-initiatory Wiccan movement, involving much more variation in religious beliefs,
and in which secrecy and organisational structure play a less important role. Generally, Eclectic Wiccans will adopt similar
ritual structures and ethical principles to initiates. A few Eclectic Wiccans neither consider themselves witches nor practice
magic.
Many Wiccans, though not all, call themselves Pagans, though the umbrella term Paganism encompasses many faiths that have
nothing to do with Wicca or witchcraft.
Wiccan Views On Divinity
Wicca as a religion is primarily concerned with the priestess or priest's relationship to the Goddess and God. The Lady and
Lord (as they are often called) are seen as primal cosmic beings, the source of limitless power, yet they are also familiar
figures who comfort and nurture their children, and often challenge or even reprimand them.
According to Gerald Gardner the gods of Wicca are ancient gods of the British Isles: a Horned God of hunting, death and magic
who rules over an after-world paradise (Often referred to as The Summerland), and a goddess, the Great Mother (who is simultaneously
the Eternal Virgin and the Primordial Enchantress), who gives regeneration and rebirth to souls of the dead and love to the
living. Gardner explains that these are the tribal gods of the witches, just as the Egyptians had their tribal gods Isis and
Osiris and the Jews had Elohim; he also states that a being higher than any of these tribal gods is recognised by the witches
as Prime Mover, but remains unknowable, and is of little concern to them.
Gardner's explanation aside, individual interpretations of the exact natures of the gods differ significantly, since priests
and priestesses develop their own relationships with the gods through intense personal work and revelation. Many have a duotheistic
conception of deity as a Goddess (of Moon, Earth and sea) and a God (of forest, hunting and the animal realm). This concept
is often extended into a kind of polytheism by the belief that the gods and goddesses of all cultures are aspects of this
pair (or of the Goddess alone). Others hold the various gods and goddesses to be separate and distinct. Janet Farrar and Gavin
Bone have observed that Wicca is becoming more polytheistic as it matures, and embracing a more traditional pagan worldview.
Many groups and individuals are drawn to particular deities from a variety of pantheons (often Celtic, Greek, or from elsewhere
in Europe), whom they honour specifically. Some examples are Cernunnos and Brigit from Celtic mythology, Hecate, Lugh, and
Diana.
According to current Gardnerians, the exact names of the Goddess and God of traditional Wicca remain an initiatory secret,
and they are not given in Gardner's books about witchcraft. However, the collection of Toronto Papers of Gardner's writings
has been investigated by American scholars such as Aidan Kelly, leading to the suggestion that their names are Cernunnos and
Aradia. These are the names used in the prototype Book of Shadows known as Ye Bok of Ye Arte Magical.
For most Wiccans, the Lord and Lady are seen as complementary polarities: male and female, force and form, comprehending all
in their union; the tension and interplay between them is the basis of all creation. The God and Goddess are sometimes symbolised
as the Sun and Moon, and from her lunar associations the Goddess becomes a Triple Goddess with aspects of "Maiden", "Mother"
and "Crone" corresponding to the Moon's waxing, full and waning phases.
Some Wiccans hold the Goddess to be pre-eminent, since she contains and conceives all (Gaea or Mother Earth is one of her
more commonly revered aspects); the God, commonly described as the Horned God or the Divine Child, is the spark of life and
inspiration within her, simultaneously her lover and her child. This is reflected in the traditional structure of the coven,
which is led by a High Priestess and High Priest in partnership, with the High Priestess having the final word. In some traditions,
notably Feminist branches of Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is seen as complete unto herself, and the God is not worshipped at
all.
Since the Goddess is said to conceive and contain all life within her, all beings are held to be divine. This is a key understanding
conveyed in the Charge of the Goddess, one of the most important texts of Wicca, and is very similar to the Hermetic understanding
that "God" contains all things, and in truth is all things. For some Wiccans, this idea also involves elements of animism,
and plants, rivers, rocks (and, importantly, ritual tools) are seen as spiritual beings, facets of a single life.
A key belief in Wicca is that the gods are able to manifest in personal form, either through dreams, as physical manifestations,
or through the bodies of Priestesses and Priests. The latter kind of manifestation is the purpose of the ritual of Drawing
down the Moon (or Drawing down the Sun), whereby the Goddess is called to descend into the body of the Priestess (or the God
into the Priest) to effect divine possession.
The Elements
The classical elements are a key feature of the Wiccan world-view. Every manifest force or form is seen to express one of
the four archetypal elements — Earth, Air, Fire and Water — or several in combination. This scheme is fundamentally
identical with that employed in other Western Esoteric and Hermetic traditions, such as Theosophy and the Golden Dawn, which
in turn were influenced by the Hindu system of tattvas.
There is no consensus as to the exact nature of these elements. Some hold to the ancient Greek conception of the elements
corresponding to matter (earth) and energy (fire), with the mediating elements (water, air) relating to the phases of matter
(fire/earth mixtures). Other exponents of the system add a fifth or quintessential element, spirit (aether, akasha).
The five points of the frequently worn pentagram symbolise, among other things, the four elements with spirit presiding at
the top.
The pentagram is the symbol most commonly associated with Wicca in modern times. It is often circumscribed — depicted
within a circle — and is usually (though not exclusively) shown with a single point upward. The inverse pentagram, with
two points up, is a symbol of the second degree initiation rite of traditional Wicca, some Wiccans have also been known to
associate the inverted pentagram with evil.
In geometry, the pentagram is an elegant expression of the golden ratio phi which is popularly connected with ideal beauty
and was considered by the Pythagoreans to express truths about the hidden nature of existence.
Each of the four cardinal elements (air, fire, water and earth) is typically assigned a direction, a color, and an elemental
race. The following list shows a common categorisation, but different traditions of Wicca may use different "correspondences":
Some variations in correspondences can be explained by geography or climate. It is common in the southern hemisphere, for
example, to associate the element fire with north (the direction of the equator) and earth with south (the direction of the
nearest polar area).
Some Wiccan groups also modify the religious calendar to reflect local seasonal changes; for instance, most Southern Hemisphere
covens celebrate Samhain on April 30th and Beltane on October 31st, reflecting the southern hemisphere's autumn and spring
seasons.
Some of the web graphics and backgrounds:
hindu_web_graphics.tripod.com/
http://cf.myspace.com/
Some of the Written information from:
http://thespiritualsanctuary.org/index1.html
http://www.friesian.com/confuci.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
