Wicca And Witchcraft

Wicca and witchcraft are part of a larger contemporary religious movement called paganism (or sometimes neo-paganism). There can be some confusion when using the terms witchcraft or Wicca because not all practitioners agree about what these mean. For some, the terms are synonymous. For others, Wicca is but one version of witchcraft referring to those structured traditions that are directly associated with the British traditions begun by Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders.

Witchcraft and Wicca, as pagan religions, draw on myths and traditions attributed to pre-Christian Europe. Of particular influence are nature-based practices (cyclical festivals based on agriculture, moon cycles, herbal healing), occult practices (divination and magic), and mythology about ancient deities with a focus on the goddess (or goddesses) as primary in a pairing with a less emphasized god (or gods). Deity is also immanent, rather than transcendent. This means that the goddess is right here within the natural world. In fact, the earth is said to be the body of the goddess. What is meant by the natural world is everything on and in the earth—including humanity. The goddess is not understood as some otherworldly being, inaccessible and distant. She is believed to be within each and every one of us—as is the god—in our very physical bodies. This idea implies that all of the natural world—including humanity—is sacred and needs to be treated as such. Thus, many witches tend to be involved in ecological movements and political action against racism, homophobia, sexism, and such.

The largest pagan group today is Wicca, which began in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s when civil servant Gerald Gardner began reviving what he believed to be an ancient religious system maintained in secret from the Stone Age until the present. As part of the modern pagan movement, Wicca was influenced and shaped by a Western magical or mystery tradition that has spanned Western history.

One of the highly significant influences on modern paganism in general, and the development of Wicca in particular, is the Romantic Movement of the 1800s. It was during this time that many Europeans and Americans turned to exalting nature, the irrational, and the feminine as understood and admired in ancient Greece. It was during the Romantic period that the classical goddesses of Greece and Rome were transformed from goddesses of civilization (the city, learning, justice, etc.) to aspects of one great goddess of nature.

Along with the romanticizing of nature and the goddess, came a popularization of occultism, which was due largely to the French scholar Eliphas Levi's work beginning in the 1850s. Levi blended mystical traditions such as the Kabbala, Tarot, and ancient Egyptian systems of magic, along with the traditions of the Knights Templar and the mysteries of the Holy Grail.

Gardner's construction of Wicca in the 1940s and 1950s brought together these existing traditions and practices to create a new religion. This new religion has new members go through various initiation rituals through which they gain secret knowledge at each of three levels. Those at the top levels, high priestesses and high priests, have authority over those below them and are charged with the spiritual guidance of those in their coven (ritual group). With the help of Doreen Valiente, one of Gardner's high priestesses, Gardner's new religion became increasingly popular in Britain as a revived “indigenous” magical tradition.

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