Pop quiz: Who are Wiccans?
If you answered Satan-worshiping, spell-casting, demon possessed, drooling hags dancing naked around a bonfire while they raise the spirits of the dead by chanting ancient rhymes from the bouts of hell, you’d be wrong on every count.
Wiccans (or Pagans, as they are sometimes called) do not believe in the Christian figure of Satan, nor do they worship him. Very few of them believe in literal magic, spell-casting, or hexing. And they are certainly not demon-possessed spawn of the devil. The popular image of Wicca is largely due to portrayal in books and movies and age old prejudices that have stuck for centuries.
So what do Wiccans really believe and practice?
I sent an email to one of the leaders of a local Wiccan coven called the Order of the Red Grail. I told her about my interest in different religions, asking her what Wicca was all about. Here is her response:
In general, Wiccans believe in the sacredness of Nature in the form of the Divine Feminine and Masculine. We tend to believe in balance. Our concept of deity is both masculine and feminine. We honor the cycles of life and the turning of the wheel of the seasons. All beings are equally sacred. Humans are not ‘above’ animals in terms of importance in our ecosphere. They say that it’s really easy to get a gift for a pagan. A rock, stick, herb, bit of incense…little things of Nature are a delight. Details of individual beliefs vary according to the pantheon they relate to. For example, some connect with the God of the Forest or any of the Mother Goddesses. Some relate to Irish culture, others to Egyptian. Wicca is basically a Western European shamanistic religion with plenty of variety.
Wiccans are bound by only one law: the Wiccan Rede. It’s part of a longer poem but the words that people remember are “’an it harm none, do what thou wilt.” In essence, we can do anything we want as long as we do not cause harm to anyone or anything, even ourselves. This law sets a high standard, and when we dedicate ourselves to the God and Goddess we dedicate ourselves to being Stewards to the land and to each other. That’s a tall order and requires considerable thought.
There’s a lot of information in books and online that will answer your questions. The Grand Central Station of pagan websites is Witchvox.com. There are thousands of pages but the search engine is friendly. Resources like Witchvox are valuable because Wicca does not have a central book or central set of laws that everyone has to adopt.
Every Grail circle is different, but the underlying framework or focus is on transformation—personal growth. Like other Wiccans, we get together in sacred space quite often. Our liturgical year includes eight Sabbats, 12 or 13 full moons, 12 or 13 new moons. We also do rites of passage and special rituals for personal needs. In Transformational Wicca, our intent with ritual is to create an environment in which people can re-create themselves. We’re fairly orderly, try not to be chaotic, and tend to think things through. Pagans tend to share a code of circle etiquette which is based in respect and good behavior, and this is considered whenever we design a ritual.
During your exploration into different religions you will find many former Christians. In the Grail, only a couple of members were not raised some sort of Christian. My husband’s father was an evangelical minister. You could have quite a conversation with him and why he moved on. I’ve found that people come to Wicca in one of two ways. They are either moving/running *away* from the god-centered way of being, or they are moving *toward* spiritual duality, the balance of the Sacred Feminine and Masculine. The first generally involves a great hurt while the second is like a developmental step forward. Every person who has talked with me early in their journey has said that finding Wicca was like *coming home,* that they didn’t know there was a religion that matched what they believed.
My sister and I went to one of the Order of the Red Grail’s full moon circles, which I’ll cover in my next post. The website for the Order of the Red Grail is http://www.redgrail.com/
-Carmen
Forgive a pertinent question, but why are you accepting the self-portrayal of this religion? Why are you doing this for Wiccans when you gave your own account of the Pentecostals? Is this not rather biased of you? What happened to being "PC"?
ReplyDeleteI didn't just accept self-portrayal of this religion based on her description alone. I read a book about it, researched on the internet, and went to a couple of their meetings. (In fact, I didn't even revieve that email until after I had researched it and attended meetings.) I did the same for the Pentacostal church- I researched, went to a service, and had quite a long discussion with one of the members there. I'm going to give an account of my experiences at the full moon circle in my next post. The reason I did a post on this specifically was because people have so many misconceptions about the religion. I do like some aspects of Wicca as a belief system better than Pentacostalism- but how does that make me biased? If being PC means giving everyone a pat on the back and making them feel good by saying that everybody's viewpoint is equally valid, I'd rather be "biased" and actually have an opinion.
ReplyDeleteI guess I should have worded that better. My point is that you gave an explaination of Wicca by a Wiccan when you failed to grant the same privilege to the Pentacostals. Have you considered that a Pentacostal preacher might give you a different view of Pentacostals than the one you presented? Maybe the Pentacostals are misunderstood by your readers as well. How do you know?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear you say that. :-) Being "PC" is a rather passive philosophy - it seems to mean rejecting the faculty of the will.
Well, I wasn't really planning on giving a full explanation about every religion I discuss on here. When Monica and I write posts we don't sit down and delegate certain requirements to each post. Our blog posts aren't exactly formal essays about religion, they are just basically our thoughts and experiences. I actually was originally just going to post an account of our experience at the Wiccan group, but at the last minute I thought I'd go ahead and put an explanation up first specifically because so many people think Wicca is of the devil.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Pentecostals go, I tried to make it clear in my blog post that I don't believe all Pentecostals are that insane. The church I went to was really radical, most Pentecostal churches just use a little tongue-speaking and the like as an alternate form of worship; they don't base their entire system of beliefs around it.
Ah. Maybe you should specify that somewhere (or did you already? If you wrote it as text in the sidebar, it might be more efficient).
ReplyDeleteYou have to specify what you mean by "of the devil". If you mean "inspired by the Devil", than I would have to say that I believe it is of the Devil as well. If by it you mean "Devil worship", than no, I would say it is not, or at least not willfully so, since they do not believe it is the Devil.
Well, I guess I didn't pick up that.
So if you accuse Wicca/neo-paganism as inspired by the devil, then do you accuse Hinduism, the religions of the ancient Greeks, Etruscans, Scandinavians, Native Americans...etc. as being inspired by the devil? All Wicca is, is the re-creation and combination of various ancient tribal religions...
ReplyDeleteEh, to a degree. I haven't studied Wicca in-depth, but the aspects of it may be even more so inspired by the Devil than other pagan religions (although pagans certainly have the aspect of being religious down - probably better than most modern Christians do).
ReplyDelete"but the aspects of it may be even more so inspired by the Devil than other pagan religions."
ReplyDeleteWhy do you say that? Wiccans don't even believe in magic, cast spells, attempt to converse with the dead, or anything of the sort. They are just nature-loving people who think ancient mythologies and religious practices are really interesting.
I suggest you do some reading up on Wicca (Not misinformed rants by evangelicals, mind you, but unbiased accounts of what Wicca really is) It really has nothing more to do with demons than any other pagan religion out there.
I never said that they do believe in magic. However, a philosophy that puts humans - and the rest of nature - on the level of animals could easily be demonically inspired. Now, this is not to say that nature is bad - drawing this conclusion from the previous statement would imply two-dimensional thinking. However, it is to say that nature is not as important as man.
ReplyDeleteBesides, don't Wiccans in fact do believe in magic? I recall hearing some of them protest on a newscast awhile ago that they used "good" magic as opposed to "bad" magic. Was I hearing things?
I have heared very little about Wicca. In fact, I have probably heard more about Wicca from the media or Wiccans themselves than I have from Evangelical Christians. Don't assume that all negative opinions of it are formed by Evangelical rants, or even just by Christians as a whole.
Why do you think that means it's demoniacally inspired? Plus, such reverence for nature is a common aspect in many shamanic religions... so again, how is Wicca any worse than any of the others?
ReplyDeleteHonestly the phrase "Wiccans believe..." is kind of a joke. What I mean is, Wicca is a religion with a TON of variation is belief, so there will always be exceptions to the rule. I don't know what you heard of not, but I do know that there are a few Wiccans out there who believe in magic. But for the majority of Wiccans, if they ever use the term "magic" at all, they use it to mean... something like "mystery" or "unknown." I guess. One woman in the group explained it like this: "Magic" is just undiscovered science. So way back when, when people knew nothing about science, they attributed all sort of natural events to "magic." Healing remedies, weather events, you name it. Now we know all that stuff is science. Events like these, even today, are sometimes still described as "magical" or "miraculous" even thought we know they have natural causes. So even if Wiccans use the word "magic" it might not mean "magic" in the stereotypical sense.
And I wasn't trying to say you have heard everything from biased sources... I was just warning you not to. : )
*Variation IN belief
ReplyDeleteIt's perfectly fine to respect nature, because it is good. It is not fine to place nature on a level or deity, or above humans because those are greater goods. Upseting the level of goods is demonic in nature. If other pagans do this, then that would naturally be demonically inspired or influenced. Demonic influence isn't "black and white", you know, there are different degrees of it; it isn't on and off.
ReplyDeleteSo, it's just a term? Or is it something that kinda describes a force embedded in these discoveries? It sounds like the latter to me. One thing you have to hand them, though, is that this kind of thinking ought to prompt awe at the world around us. But is it the proper kind of awe? Undoubtedly you're getting bored with the word "proper" and its synonyms.
Pagans don't believe that nature or animals are above humans; they believe that we are equal, all connected in the "circle of life" if you will. How exactly is that demonic?
ReplyDeleteWho or what defines what is proper? Why is it "proper" for humans to see themselves as rulers of the earth, instead of seeing themselves as simply a part of nature?
Oh, right. Thanks for correcting me. So, I guess it isn't quite as bad. Still, though, it is demonic in the sense that Satan would love to see humanity in the dust, because that's how he gets back at God. But, you don't believe the Devil exists, so this isn't very relevant.
ReplyDeleteNo one defines what is proper. Proper is something that is evident in nature itself, and no human being can dictate it. Human beings do not "rule" the earth, but rather use it to further humanity. This does not, however, mean that we should carelessly destroy nature. If there is a better way of extracting nature's goods, then go for it. However, if humanity must be sacrificed in order to prevent nature (like, for example, killing an animal to extract the food from it), then it says that man is no better than the animals. And this would fit perfectly with the philosophy of the modern world, which, as I have now learned from your post, has Wiccan or at least pagan influences. If you believe animals are equal to humans, then become a vegetarian. Oh, and don't wear leather. And if you think plants are equal to humans, then starve. Sound harsh? Nature worship to this extreme means the destruction of humans, and this is exactly what Satan wants - Death.
No, that's not what I meant by equal. The philosophy of equality in nature does not mean that we should stop harvesting or eating anything in nature. Equality means balance; it doesn't mean that all species in nature have equal roles. Obviously, if there were no carnivores, the lower species of the food chain would multiply too quickly. So by eating meat, we actually are helping the balance of nature. The object of nature-worship isn't about turning nature into and untouchable shrine, but about living in harmony with nature and maintaining a healthy balance. And yes, I think there are times when we may need to make sacrifices to protect nature. For example, if it causes an inconvenience to fur-trappers to stop killing endangered species for their pelts, they should nevertheless make that sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteNow, I can't really speak for all Wiccans, since I'm not one. What I stated above was basically just my personal philosophy about equality in nature. But from what I've gathered from the Wiccans I've talked to, they seem to have similar ideas about nature. There are many different types of Pagans. Some are vegetarians and some are not. But I don't think that any of them would say that we should sacrifice the whole of humanity for nature's sake. In fact, I think they'd say that by respecting nature, we're helping humanity too, because we're making our world a better place for all species, including humans.
I still don't understand how this is demonic to you (or at least more demonic to you than other nature-based religions.)
So if humans had to stop eating meat or plants, then every other animal on the planet would have to stop as well. Then every other animal would die, completely throwing off the ecosystem and destroying earth as we know it. So essentially, our eating of plants and animals is actually keeping the earth alive.
ReplyDeleteI'll also second what Carmen says and say---how is neo-paganism any different than indigenous paganism?
Well, I misunderstood as a result your use of the term "equality". Naturally, nature is balanced.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. Maybe because I'm listening to the Darth Vader theme right now. :-D
And no, equality does not mean balanced. Equality means equal.
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference between equality in value and equality in roles. A piece of gold jewelry and a piece of machinery can be equal in cash value, but have different purposes.
ReplyDeleteAh, but is cash what really determines value? ;)
ReplyDeleteSo, are you saying that everything in nature has the same role? What is this role? To just "live life"?
No, that's exactly the opposite of what I said. I said that things in nature can have equality in value but have different roles.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're going really off-topic here.
ReplyDeleteOkay. That really clarifies something. And it sounds very Wiccan, too (remember, you're the one who told me about Wicca!).
ReplyDeleteHow am I getting off-topic? Does this not relate to Wicca and equality?
Sort of, but we weren't talking about what the roles are, we were talking about what equality in nature means.
ReplyDelete