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1.: What Is Wicca - (long article) From: gaia_d

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1.: What Is Wicca - (long article)

Posted by: "gaia_d" Gaia_D@yahoo.com gaia_d

Thu Oct 28, 2010 2:53 pm (PDT)

Hi Everyone --

I wrote this in repy to questions in another Group, but thought (hoped!)
perhaps some here might appreciate it, too --

What Is Wicca? - (c) 2010 By Gaia; please do not reproduce without
permission.)

I know it can be somewhat disconcerting to hear someone disagreeing with
a notion that is very popular, and has been shared and spread by many
beginners (and others) -- and i'm sorry to have to do so, but it's
important to note the differences between error and truth. Wicca is a
*particular* path, with *particular* principles and practices. It
cannot be "whatever anybody wants it to be" or "whatever you make of it"
("you" meaning in general, not "you" in particular) -- or it would then
become everything in general, and nothing at all in particular.

And yes, you could certainly learn Wiccan principles, or read certain
Wiccan books.

However, one does not *become* Wiccan by reading, or just "claiming" to
be Wiccan -- That's a common misunderstanding and error among many
beginners.

Let me once again quote from some excellent resources that i hope will
help explain:

pLEASE NOTE: I realize these are long and make for a very long Message,
and i apologize -- but i hope and believe that the potential benefit of
clarity and precision that they can help provide on the meaning of
Wicca, will be worth the effort of those who invest the time and effort
to read and consider --

First, this is from the Yahoo Group, "Beginning_Wicca", here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BeginningWicca/files/
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BeginningWicca/files/> - "BW Trad
Wicca", "BW Rules":

"Wicca is a lineaged, training required, initiatory mystery tradition,
with its inner craft work always being oath bound. Wicca traces its
roots back to Gardner and the New Forest coven. Wicca IS a polytheistic
religion with a belief in a God and a Goddess. While our God and Goddess
may show us different faces, most of us believe that they are uniquely
individual, not a "face of the one" but in fact are individual gods and
goddesses.

Please note Jesus Christ is NOT found within any Wiccan pantheon. There
is no such thing as Christian Wicca.

Neo-Wicca is a mis-mash of a variety of traditions [and i would add,
*some* Wiccan principles]. Sadly, too often Neo-Wiccans believe they can
simply appropriate pieces of other practices, rarely understanding
completely how those practices truly work.

It is not, nor should it ever be, "whatever feels good/right" or "all
paths are valid." There are or at least should be some order or
structure to it, along with some kind of accountability for its elders,
priests, priestesses, and teachers.

And it is STILL an initiatory, training required, mystery tradition,
just not lineaged all the time. Initiation, from some tradition's
viewpoint, can either be via coven or by the Gods, themselves, and the
mysteries are there when the Lord and Lady feel we are ready for them."

Here's an excerpt from another article, "Wiccan Theology & Practice" -
© Samuel Wagar, 2008 All rights Reserved;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BeginningWicca/message/31751
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BeginningWicca/message/31751>

"Beginning with a definition of Wicca and working outward from there:
Wicca is an Initiatory Mystery Religion of clergy that was founded in
the United Kingdom in the late 1940s by a group of occultists led by
Gerald Gardner and his Priestesses, most notably Dafo (Edith
Grimes-Stafford) and Ameth (Doreen Valiente).....

.....It is not a question of belief but of experience – Wiccans do
not,
and should not, have a credo.....

Our intention is to produce a religion of prophets,
with direct access to the Gods, using symbols, including images and
including our beliefs, as tools. We assume the capacity to connect,
the possibility of meaning, and that our experiences are the
foundation of everything, not our ideas. .....

So, Wicca is an elite religion, which most people are not suited to.
Belief is not enough, it takes Talent and the capacity to experience
certain things and to go through a process of personal transformation,
Initiation, before one can practice it. It also is not a solo path,
but one where the most profound experiences are the result of group
efforts. The capacity of a group of trained people to focus their
energy magickally, the development and nurturance of an egregore, the
strength of trance induction done by experienced people, the
sophistication of an informed discussion of the Gods and the direct
revelation from the Gods through possession and inspiration trance,
the aesthetic pleasures of well-constructed and performed ritual, for
these and other reasons the coven form is highly preferable. However,
implicit in this is that the coven is not able to tolerate free-riders
and uncommitted dabblers – it is for participants, not spectators, a
leaderful group rather than a simple hierarchy.

People who are unwilling or unable to do the work are not clergy
people and therefore are not candidates for Wicca. They may believe
what Wiccans do, but Wicca is not principally about belief. These
people are Pagans, and they might, some of them, be leaders in Pagan
groups and activities. They are not, however, Wiccan clergy. This
leads me to briefly discuss public roles for Wiccans. We are, by the
definition offered above, clergy, which means that our ability to
realize ourselves individually and spiritually is tied into religious
service to the broader Pagan community and to the broader human
community.

Wiccans are clergy, servants of the divine as we understand it, which
is expressed in and through other people, through social institutions
like the government, families and universities, as much as through the
natural world, through the joys and pleasures of life like sex,
dancing and singing, marriage as much as through loss and
disappointment. We must, it seems to me, make ourselves available to
Pagans for the performance of rites of passage, to teach and to
celebrate and mourn together in the presence of the Gods. But we must
also participate as citizens in the larger social and political
discourse."

And here's another excerpt, from (High priestess) Ellen Cannon Reed's
wonderful little booklet, "The Heart of Wicca":

"I am not going to try to give a hard and fast definition of Wicca other
than it is an initiatory, Mystery religion. The Wicca I love and
practice contains a great deal that the best known types of Wicca don't
practice. It contains a great deal that isn't found in all the Wicca
books that are so popular today.

While the majority of these books are written by sincere people who are
sharing what they've learned, for me they seem only to scratch the
surface of the path. I'm not going to say my Wicca is right and theirs
is wrong. I'm going to discuss the various aspects of the traditions I
consider important in the Wicca I practice, things I don't usually see
in many Wiccan groups or books.

These aspects include:
covens and coven leadership, tradition, initiation, training, the
sabbats and my approach to, and view of, the Deities, as well as , the
importance of symbology and mythology.....

Reed then quotes another author and article, - "Paganism at the
Crossroads" by Sky toucher, as saying:

"A defense often used against fundamentalist Christians and others who
attack paganism on a religious basis is to say, "We are not like you,
only different in a few not-so-important ways. We are a religion, like
you, another belief system, harmless, ordinary. We worship the Earth,
the Goddess, the same way you worship your abstract God. You should
extend tolerance to us for the same reason you extend it to Muslims or
Buddhists or Catholics or Jews. When you single us out as something
weird, you are exhibiting hysterical paranoia." It's an effective
defense, but somewhat disingenuous.

We are different. We aren't just a religion. We are at present, and in
my view should try to remain, a path of initiation. .....

What is an initiatory path? And what, then, is initiation? We touch here
upon a word badly misunderstood by many Pagans. Initiation is one thing;
an initiation ritual is another. A person is not an initiate, in the
sense I mean here, just because he or she has passed through an
initiation ritual. Initiation is a personal experience in which one
becomes aware of mysteries-realities that were previously hidden, that
cannot be communicated by one person to another in words or symbols,
that must be experienced directly, firsthand. This last point is
crucial. .....A body of teaching, practice, and ritual that facilitates
initiation is an initiatory path. Most religions start out as paths of
initiation.

Religion tends to be conservative. Initiation, however, is always
revolutionary.

Initiation transforms a person's life, bringing inner peace, greater
insight into the workings of fate, and awareness of the connections
linking all things, as well as magical power. If it were a common-place
event, if people went through initiation as surely as they go through
puberty, we would have a far different and better world.

Initiates can be found in the context of any religion, including those
least similar to Neopaganism. St. Francis of Assisi was an initiate, and
many a Sufi and Qabalist, Buddhist and Yogi, Taoist and shaman. A modern
Neopagan initiate has far more in common with them than with an
illiterate, superstitious pagan of the Roman Empire, gobbling the flesh
of sacrificed animals while contemplating how to backstab his
competitors. All initiates of all paths have a common heart; it is
religions that circle the periphery of the sacred, that differ."

I hope all of that is helpful in defining what in fact Wicca is, and how
it differs from paganism in general, or other pagan paths, in
particular.

please feel free to ask any questions.

Blessed Be -

~GAia

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